418. Accidentally
Translator: Storm in a Teacup
Although Liu Suifeng felt embarra.s.sed, he collected himself when he got to the bathing pool.
The moment he got in, he smelled something was wrong.
Long Xiaoyuan and s.h.i.+ Qingzhou arrived at this point.
Long Xiaoyuan asked, “How is it?”
Liu Suifeng said seriously, “The smell is not right. Although the bathing water last night has been drained away, the traces could be detected here. I will go back for a while. You stay here and don’t let anyone in.”
Long Xiaoyuan nodded. “Okay, I got it.”
Liu Suifeng hastily left without delay.
Long Xiaoyuan joked, “Qingzhou, if we could eliminate the venomous insects in your body by doing it, wouldn’t we have to do it all the time?”
Long Xiaoyuan sounded upset, but there was undisguised antic.i.p.ation in his eyes.
s.h.i.+ Qingzhou was helpless, lost for words. He rolled his eyes at Long Xiaoyuan and sat down on the chair.
“Are you tired?” Long Xiaoyuan immediately leaned over with concern. “Qingzhou, are you tired?”
s.h.i.+ Qingzhou looked at him. “No.”
“Qingzhou, you have to tell me when you’re tired.” After he spoke, Long Xiaoyuan went behind s.h.i.+ Qingzhou and eagerly ma.s.saged his shoulders.
s.h.i.+ Qingzhou did not bother to stop him. After all, it felt nice when someone gave him a ma.s.sage.
As a result, Long Xiaoyuan worked harder.
When Liu Suifeng came back, he saw the emperor serving the empress.
The corner of Liu Suifeng’s mouth twitched. For some reason, he felt that the scene seemed too harmonious!
Long Xiaoyuan waved when he saw Liu Suifeng coming over. “Hurry up. We are going out!”
The corner of Liu Suifeng’s mouth twitched again. ‘He likes to boss around.’
‘Even though he is willing to serve someone, it has to be s.h.i.+ Qingzhou only. I should have realized this long ago.’
Thus, Liu Suifeng ignored Long Xiaoyuan and went straight into the bathing pool.
While Liu Suifeng got down to work, s.h.i.+ Qingzhou stood up.
As a result, Long Xiaoyuan stood up as well, watching Liu Suifeng search around the pool with silver needles and some strange liquid.
After a while, Liu Suifeng picked a small venomous insect with a very long silver needle from a crevice on the side of the bathing pool!
Long Xiaoyuan was shocked. “Are there more than one venomous insect in Qingzhou’s body?”
Liu Suifeng nodded. “Do you still remember the eggs I showed you? Some of those eggs might have turned into larvae. Normally, it’s difficult to take out the larvae, but somehow one larva came out, which means if we can find the way, we can take them all out.”
Long Xiaoyuan said hastily, “we don’t know why the larva came out.”
Liu Suifeng thought about it and said, “What did you guys do and what did you eat yesterday? You have to think about it carefully. Don’t leave out the smallest details.”
s.h.i.+ Qingzhou thought about it and said, “Could it have something to do with my visit to the general’s mansion yesterday?”
Long Xiaoyuan nodded. “Yeah. The only unusual thing that happened yesterday was the visit to the general’s mansion.”
“I was in the general’s mansion as well, but I didn’t find anything special.” Liu Suifeng thought that if it was not because of the visit to the general’s mansion, then it should be the food. Long Xiaoyuan thought about it and said, “Today we had the same breakfast and dinner as last night.”
As for lunch, they had it at the general’s mansion.
Long Xiaoyuan paused. “Could it be the lunch at the general’s mansion?”
s.h.i.+ Qingzhou paused as well. He said slowly, “I ate some desert yesterday and it tasted good.”
They exchanged glances. Long Xiaoyuan said, “Hurry up. Let’s see if there’s anything left.”
s.h.i.+ Qingzhou nodded.
They rushed to the general’s mansion without breakfast.
What had happened in the general’s mansion on the previous day was sensational. After s.h.i.+ Qingzhou left, Madam s.h.i.+ immediately purged the general’s mansion overnight. There weren’t many people left in the general’s mansion.
As a result, the kitchen was greatly affected. Very few people had dinner yesterday.
s.h.i.+ Qingzhou and the others went there early today, so some of the deserts that s.h.i.+ Qingzhou ate yesterday were left in the small kitchen.
Liu Suifeng first had the deserts collected, and then he looked around in the kitchen.
He checked a lot of places yesterday, but he didn’t look at the kitchen. Liu Suifeng felt that he had made a mistake.
After checking the kitchen carefully, s.h.i.+ Qingzhou didn’t find any problems or anything unusual.
Therefore, the deserts were their last hope.
The cook who made the deserts died the day before, so it was impossible to ask for any information.
As for those who were taken away yesterday, they were afraid to die, so it was unlikely to get any useful information from them.
People who were afraid of death wouldn’t be trusted with secrets.
Therefore, they knew very little.
While Liu Suifeng was studying the deserts, Long Xiaoyuan and s.h.i.+ Qingzhou did not wander around. Instead, they had breakfast in the general’s mansion.
Madam s.h.i.+ kept them company during the breakfast.
However, different from yesterday when she was alone with s.h.i.+ Qingzhou, she didn’t feel at ease with Long Xiaoyuan around.
Even though Long Xiaoyuan had an una.s.suming manner, she couldn’t take him lightly considering his ident.i.ty.
Madam s.h.i.+ was a woman after all.
Therefore, she left after breakfast.
Long Xiaoyuan visited the yard where s.h.i.+ Qingzhou grew up. This was not the first time he came, when he looked at it carefully, but his mood was very different now.
Therefore, this time Long Xiaoyuan looked even more attentively.
When he was almost through, the results of Liu Suifeng’s research came out.
“How about the deserts?”
Long Xiaoyuan immediately asked.
“There is something inside,” Liu Suifeng said.
s.h.i.+ Qingzhou’s expression changed slightly. “My mother ate the deserts as well yesterday.”
Liu Suifeng shook his head. “It doesn’t have much effect on women, but it hurts men a lot. Unexpectedly, it happens to disgust the venomous insect, which came out of your body to avoid the smell.”
“What is it?” asked Long Xiaoyuan.
“Heart-protecting Herb.”
Long Xiaoyuan blinked and said, “Does it protect the heart?”
Liu Suifeng glanced at him helplessly. “You’re thinking too much. It’s an ingredient, but it is rarely used for its vicious effect. Wealthy families have dark secrets. Some women secretly feed it to their men to make them infertile and unable to make other women pregnant.”
Long Xiaoyuan turned gloomy. “The cook attempted to destroy Qingzhou.”
“Yes. He put a lot of Heart-Protecting Herbs in the deserts, which masked the smell. Besides, it is regarded as an ingredient, so no one could see anything wrong when he used the juice of this herb. It is not poison, so it pa.s.sed the poison test, “Liu Suifeng explained, “I didn’t expect that we accidentally found what disgusts the venomous insects.”
Long Xiaoyuan didn’t feel too happy when he heard this. Instead, he frowned seriously.
“But you said that the Heart-protecting Herb has a vicious effect.”
Liu Suifeng smiled. “That’s true, but he can take it with other medicine, so the harm will be reduced to the minimum. Anyway, this is good news, but the detailed healing plan has to be discussed.”
“Okay.” Long Xiaoyuan nodded reluctantly. “In any case, Qingzhou’s health has to be considered. The premise is not to harm his health.”
Liu Suifeng nodded. “Okay, I know.”
“You haven’t had breakfast yet. Have breakfast first,” s.h.i.+ Qingzhou said.
Long Xiaoyuan remembered that they had had breakfast, but Liu Suifeng had not eaten yet.
Long Xiaoyuan hurriedly asked. “I’ll have the breakfast served. You have breakfast first, and then we’ll go outside to take a look.”
Liu Suifeng nodded. “Okay.”
Long Xiaoyuan and s.h.i.+ Qingzhou stayed with Liu Suifeng when he had the late breakfast.
They each ate a small piece of cake as well.
Suddenly, Long Xiaoyuan thought of a question.
“Qingzhou, we thought that the person who tries to influence you and control you must think you are his best p.a.w.n. However, there are quite some people trying to kill you…I think my guess is correct. There are two different groups of people who might not know each other’s existence, but they have good knowledge of poison and venomous insects. Their purposes are different: one is attempts to control you, while the other wants to kill you.”
s.h.i.+ Qingzhou nodded. “Yes.”
Liu Suifeng looked up. “I agree that there are two groups of people.”
Another question came up.
Which group are those people that they had caught in the general’s mansion?
Or were they from both groups?
It was hard to say, so Long Xiaoyuan decided to stop thinking about it for the time being and sort out his thoughts when he went back.
Anyway, his people were making investigations on it.