flstandardbreds Chapter 164: No Evidence, No Frame-up
Chapter 164: No Evidence, No Frame-up
"Your Majesty, Your Majesty, there is no record of other concubines getting medicine in the booklet. However, I did see the record of Imperial Physician Lin going to the pharmacy to get medicine, and the pharmacy was also recorded there." Zhu Xi said as he handed the booklet to Gu Jianchu.
Gu Jianchu took it and took a look at it.
There is also no record of Doctor Zhang going to the pharmacy to get medicine.
Lao Deng must have bribed the eunuch at the pharmacy and deliberately omitted his name from the register, so he could be removed if anything went wrong.
[Ha, I really underestimated this Lao Deng. To avoid arousing suspicion, Lao Deng actually brought in herbs from outside the palace, bribed the eunuchs in the pharmacy, and secretly mixed them into the medicine that Imperial Physician Lin prescribed for Consort Wen.]
"Since no one came to get the medicine, it can only be that Doctor Lin accidentally mixed the red beads into Concubine Wen's medicine when he was dispensing it. Your Majesty, Empress, I am also responsible for such an incident in the Imperial Hospital. I am not strict in my administration. I hope Your Majesty will punish me." Doctor Zhang knelt down in front of Gu Jianchu and Xie Ci'an as he spoke.
[Haha, in a nice way, this is called taking responsibility, but in a bad way, it seems like they want to directly condemn Doctor Lin for his crime.]
Now, as long as we send someone out of the palace to investigate, we should be able to find evidence that Doctor Zhang bought the red beads.
She couldn't just send people out to search for no reason.
While she was thinking, Imperial Physician Lin said coldly, "Imperial Physician Zhang, there is no need to rush to take the blame for yourself, nor to rush to convict me. Your Majesty, Empress, I have evidence to prove my innocence."
[Oh no, you've let me down again, you bastard system.]
Doctor Lin knew Doctor Zhang's character all too well, especially after I promoted him. Doctor Lin knew that given Doctor Zhang's temperament, he would definitely take action against him, so he had been on guard against him for a long time and had a backup plan for today's incident.
Doctor Zhang looked at Doctor Lin in horror, and his heart began to feel very weak.
When he did this, no one saw him and he didn't leave any evidence. Doctor Lin must have been desperate.
He wanted to see what evidence Doctor Lin could produce.
Thinking of this, Doctor Zhang felt a little better. "What evidence do you have?"
"Every time I dispense medicine, I will set aside a portion of the residue to avoid being framed. This is also a lesson I learned from my father." As he said this, Doctor Lin sent someone to the Imperial Hospital to fetch the residue left over from yesterday's decoction.
Doctor Lin's father was framed by Doctor Zhang in this way for killing a beggar, and was reported to the government. This left Doctor Lin with no recourse and his father died unjustly in prison. From then on, Doctor Lin developed the habit of saving a portion of his medicine residue.
The young guard quickly retrieved the medicine residue. Gu Jianchu and Xie Ci'an had no ability to identify the medicine, so they could only hand the medicine to Imperial Physician Zhang. "Your Majesty, there is indeed no red pearl in this medicine, but this does not mean that the red pearl in the medicine that Concubine Wen drank has nothing to do with Imperial Physician Lin. Perhaps Imperial Physician Lin was afraid and picked up the red pearl medicine in advance."
"Yesterday, Consort Wen drank my medicine without incident. I was not on duty today. When Eunuch Yunhe found me, I was drying the medicine at home. I then followed Eunuch Yunhe into the palace. I had no time to return to the Imperial Hospital to retrieve the red beads. Eunuch Yunhe can vouch for me on all this."
"That's true." Yunhe nodded in agreement.
"This doesn't mean that this matter has nothing to do with you." Doctor Zhang's old-fashioned face was full of hostility, and there was a hint of anxiety in his eyes.
Imperial Physician Lin didn't rush to refute, but smiled and said, "Of course, this cannot prove that this matter has nothing to do with me. However, Imperial Physician Zhang probably doesn't know that there are no red beads in the Imperial Hospital. Even if I were careless, I couldn't have mixed red beads into Empress Zhaoyi's medicine."
"What did you say?" Doctor Zhang looked at Doctor Lin questioningly, "There's clearly a batch of red beads stored in the Imperial Hospital's pharmacy."
Doctor Lin looked at Doctor Zhang with a sneer in his eyes. "We did have a batch in the past, but there were two heavy rains a while ago. The tiles in the pharmacy were leaking due to disrepair, and all the herbs in the highest cabinets were soaked. The red beads were placed there because they were useless. They were among them. When we doctors were cleaning up, we saw that the red beads were moldy, so we just threw them away. Later, we made a list for Doctor Zhang to review. Did Doctor Zhang miss it, or did he forget?"
He just took a quick look at it at the time, so how could he remember so much?
A bad premonition suddenly lingered in my heart.
"But this medicine was prescribed by you and was made by you. It wasn't you and it wouldn't be made by anyone else."
[Now they are framing someone without any evidence.]
"It's true that I prescribed the medicine, but I was not the only one who had access to it. The people who prepared the medicine in the pharmacy and the eunuchs who came to deliver the medicine all had the opportunity to come into contact with Concubine Wen's medicine. I have no grudges against Concubine Zhaoyi, so there is really no need to harm her. Imperial Physician Zhang has been accusing me of harming Concubine Zhaoyi. I wonder if Imperial Physician Zhang can produce conclusive evidence." Imperial Physician Lin looked at Imperial Physician Zhang aggressively.
[If you are beautiful, don’t keep proving yourself, otherwise you will fall into a vicious circle of self-proving.]
Doctor Zhang panicked instantly, as he had no solid evidence.
He originally wanted to use the batch of red beads from the pharmacy to crush Doctor Lin to death, but he didn't expect that they were soaked in water.
What he didn't expect was that Doctor Lin was much more difficult to deal with than those people before. He was careless this time.
Gu Jianchu smiled. "Doctor Zhang has been saying that this matter might be related to Doctor Lin. Does Doctor Zhang have any solid evidence?"
"No, your humble servant did not. You just thought that the medicine was prescribed by Imperial Physician Lin, and you were afraid that Imperial Physician Lin might have accidentally mixed it in. You were also worried that he would go astray at such a young age." Imperial Physician Zhang sighed earnestly.
Doctor Zhang knew that he would not be able to defeat Doctor Lin today, and it would be of no benefit to him to continue to pester him.
Doctor Lin is really lucky.
Doctor Lin glanced at Doctor Zhang with a forced smile, "Thank you for your concern, Doctor Zhang."
"Your Majesty, Empress Dowager, although this red bead is not commonly used, it is not a difficult medicine to buy on the market. Your Majesty only needs to send people out of the palace to ask the major pharmacies if anyone in the palace has bought this medicine in the past two days. Then we will know who harmed Empress Zhaoyi."
While Doctor Lin was speaking, Gu Jianchu turned his gaze to Doctor Zhang, only to see Doctor Zhang standing aside with a calm expression on his face.
[Damn, I underestimated how shameless Old Deng was. He actually let a little beggar buy red beads for him. Even if we investigate, it would be difficult to trace him back.]
[No wonder Lao Deng dared to frame someone so brazenly; it turns out he had planned everything in advance.]
[No wonder those he had previously framed were unable to accuse him. This man is truly clever, and he didn't get involved at all.]