Xiao Shi immediately lost his face, knelt on the ground, His Majesty lowered his eyes, and after a moment, he said, "Come on, Xiao Shi is abolished as a concubine, and he is imprisoned in the pavilion, and he can't come out unless he dies." As he spoke, a guard stepped forward immediately, but I stopped him "Slow"

"What's wrong?" His Majesty saw me stop abruptly and asked me if I had anything else to say.

"Wait a minute," I whispered to His Majesty, and then said to Si'er on the side, "Go and call Xi'er from the imperial dining room and Yuan'er from the flower room." ”

"Yes" As soon as Si'er left, I glanced at the two pairs of masters and servants kneeling on the ground, and finally looked at Xiao Shi, and said, "Xiao Shi, what else do you have to say?" ”

"The concubine is wronged, and I hope Your Majesty and Niangniang will see it. The concubine is also a person who gave birth to a prince, but he was fostered outside and couldn't come back, and there is His Royal Highness the Crown Prince inside, why are the concubines harming other princes, and Qi Cairen is only pregnant, both men and women don't know, why did the concubine harm her so early. "Shaw was crying hoarsely, and I watched from the side, if she wasn't very good at acting, then she was really innocent.

After I listened, I was unmoved, and took out the bead flower from my sleeve and showed it to Xiao and Cao, I noticed that as soon as Cao saw this bead flower, her expression changed, and then looked at Scarlet on the side, Scarlet lowered her head and said nothing.

There must be something greasy in this, and Xiao asked, "This, what is this?" ”

I told the two people about Yuelan's murder one by one, and then glanced back at Your Majesty, Your Majesty frowned, he didn't know that there was this section.

"So, there is also the matter of Yuelan, the person who wears this hairpin is the murderer of Yuelan, and the whole thing, I am already very eyebrow-raising. This hairpin, from the Shaohua Pavilion in the city, Shaohua Pavilion is a very careful shop, who has bought what, they have a fixed number of pens, so, the palace now give the owner of this pearl flower a chance, let her admit it, then the palace will give her a chance, if no one admits it, then the palace will look at her head. ”

As soon as the words fell, the scarlet who was kneeling on the side suddenly leaned over, "Niangniang, Niangniang, this hairpin is a slave's, the slave is our mother's wedding maid, when entering the palace, Niangniang sorted out some jewelry that is not usually worn, and rewarded it to the slave, this hairpin is one of them, and later a palace banquet, the slave maid took this hairpin, from that palace banquet, this hairpin can not be found, the slave maid is still looking for a long time, the people around the slave and the maid know, you can ask around. ”

"Cao's, what Fei'er said is true?" I raise my voice.

Cao Shi lowered his head, and his voice was also very weak, as if he had no spirit and said, "Yes, this pearl flower was indeed given to her by the concubine, and she did lose it, and she also told the concubine." ”

"Niangniang, Xi'er and Yuan'er have brought it."

"You two, tell me what the people you saw that day were like?" I pointed to the two maids at the bottom of the stairs, and Xi'er and Yuan'er identified Scarlet Er in unison, "The woman in dark clothes and cloak that the slave saw that day is the girl in front of her." ”

"Scarlet, since I came in, I've seen that something is wrong with you. All your tone and actions have the appearance of imperativeness, and in this way, something will be exposed. Okay, this palace will give you another chance, you can explain well, Yuelan, the master and servant of Qi Cairen, and some people who haven't been found out, have nothing to do with you? ”

"Slave maid..."Scarlet still wanted to harden her mouth, but His Majesty angrily reprimanded, "If you hide it any more, I will destroy your nine clans." ”

"The slave doesn't dare to deceive Your Majesty, everything is the slave's fault. The slave maid and Lan'er are sisters who grew up together, and later served different masters, I thought that they might not see each other often, but the two masters married into the palace, and the two of us were able to be together as often as we were children. Later, both of our masters gave birth to children. But our mother's child died in an accident soon after, and Xiao Niangniang's child was also sent outside to raise. The two of us saw a master who was very good to us, and we were always depressed. So there was resentment in my heart, and at first, I began to harm the concubines who had children in the palace. ”

"What else do you haven't explained?"

"Niangniang, the fifth prince of the Xuecai people, was harmed by slaves." Lan Er leaned over and began to confess, "All the people were in front that day. Around Xuecairen, there were not many people serving the five princes, so the slave maid found a loophole, opened the window at the back, lured the fierce wild cat in, and killed the five princes so simply. ”

Naturally, they also said something else, but no matter how I look at it, I think that they are some of the procedural confessions, taking all the things that the mastermind behind the scenes has done on their heads, so as to become the ones who bear the blame.

"So, you two, don't you have the mastermind behind it?" His Majesty is naturally not stupid, he also feels that everything is too strange, this hatred comes too suddenly, and even a little inexplicable.

"You hurt the pregnant concubines and the prince, what is Yuelan hindering you?" Si'er and Yuelan also grew up together since childhood, so she was very angry.

"That day, our mother couldn't sleep and wanted to worship the Buddha, but the sesame oil in the hall ran out. I came in from outside the treasury of the West Gate, and brought in the sesame oil for our mother, and I happened to meet Yuelan who came out of the queen's palace, and I saw that she was not dressed properly, but her face was smiling, and I knew when I asked that it was His Majesty who favored her. I was so angry that I quietly followed her, first fainting her with a roll of my hand, and then dragging her into the pool of liquid, which the slave maid did. ”

I nodded, it seems that there is no problem with Yuelan being killed by Scarlet, and the five princes are indeed harmed by Lan'er, but I don't understand, "Since you are accomplices, you should cover each other, why did you poke things out by yourself today?" Still here dog-eat-dog? ”

"Niangniang Rong, slave maid, slave maid after doing these things, my heart has been uneasy, especially this time I hurt the master and servant of Qi Cairen, Qi and slave maid, originally slave maid, she is still pregnant, when entering the water, she did not forget to protect her belly, slave maid is really uneasy conscience, so the slave maid found Scarlet Child, wanted to persuade her to stop, Scarlet refused, the two of us had a conflict, when people pulled the movement was too big, alarmed the guards who were patrolling, so the two of us discussed, put everything together, all pushed to... Xiao Zhaoyi, the slave maid had a brain fever for a while, and she couldn't think of any other way, so she admitted this matter, but after all, these things couldn't hide it from the mother's eyes, so today the two of us simply didn't do it, and we didn't repair it, so we just recognized this matter. Everything was done by the two of us, and it had nothing to do with anyone else. ”

"In vain, the palace is not thin on you on weekdays, but you are so kind to the palace, and you planted such a big thing on the head of the palace." Xiao Shi had already cried and collapsed at this moment, and fell to the ground, very pitiful.

On the other hand, the Cao family still looked enlightened, there was no flickering in her eyes, she was holding a string of shining Buddha beads in her hand, and she was still reading scriptures in her mouth at this time, as if she was overdoing the people they had killed.

"Behind you, there really isn't anyone to command?" When I got to them, I had the feeling that I hadn't dug up the roots yet, so I raised my voice and looked majestic.

"Slave and maid, willing to be punished." The two of them spoke in unison, and both knelt on the ground.

"If you don't say it now, then don't blame this palace for not giving you a good time. This palace will send you to the penal division, so that you can taste all the punishments in the penal division, until you really vomit something, and if you really have nothing to vomit, then these punishments are the punishment for you before you die. This palace will not sit together, but your family, if you want to come to the families of those who were killed by you, they will not be spared. ”

"The slave has no father or mother, and it is all up to the mother to take care of her, so that she can live to this day. The slave and maid are not afraid of your threat, and the slave and maid are not like this Lan'er, who is timid and afraid of things, and is unfaithful to the slave. "Saying that, I'm going to pull them down, as soon as I heard this, I felt that it was wrong, this scarlet seemed to be shouting to someone, and the annoying thing was that the Cao family was still chanting with her eyes closed, and the irritability around her, she didn't seem to hear a word.

"Wait," I stopped the guards again, and asked Cao Shi instead, "What were you chanting just now?" ”

"Hui Niangniang's words are the Heart Sutra, the Dharma Sutra that calms people's minds and accumulates merits." Cao's family has seen through the red dust, and the whole person is inexplicably calm.

"So you think this really has nothing to do with you?" The suspicion in my heart is still there, so I want to ask a few more questions.

"Niangniang, the so-called clear ones are self-purifying, and the turbid ones are self-turbid. The concubine felt that this matter really had nothing to do with the concubine, so the concubine could be as comfortable as she is now. ”

"Are you at ease? The palace maid who knelt beside you is not from your palace? Isn't she at your behest to do the harm, are these people harming herself? You didn't listen to her just now, because I saw that you were depressed every day and wanted to vent for you, so there was this series of revenge. So it's your fault that even if you're not involved in these things. Shaw, you too. The two of you are not able to restrain others, and you are not angry in your hearts. When this matter is clarified, this palace will definitely punish you again. Saying that, I glanced at Scarlet Er and found that Lan'er didn't care about her master, but was immersed in her own fear, thinking that she did betray the Xiao family, but the Scarlet on the side was different, she was really thinking about her master, "Slave maid, I'm not for our mother, I'm just not angry, not angry that they are favored, and I also want to be favored by His Majesty, and I will be confused for a while." It has nothing to do with our mother. ”

"Mother, you hear me. This girl has evil thoughts in her heart. If the mother has to blame the concubine, the concubine is willing to be punished. As he spoke, Cao knelt on the ground, "But please also ask the mother to give Scarlet a good time." She was a miserable person, her mother died young, her father was an alcoholic, and before she was sold to a concubine, she was tortured almost unhumanly. So she took the concubine body as her savior. After the concubine lost her child, she has been depressed, and she is anxious in her eyes, so she has today's crazy behavior. If the concubine can be punished more, I don't know how to save the girl's life? ”

"You're still here to discuss with Hongu? The two of them let go of the monstrous disaster, you are the master and say I don't know, I am still suspicious, you talked to me about the conditions here then? Someone came, locked up the Cao family, put her in the inner prison of the Criminal Division, and let her stay there for a few days, sober up. ”

"Our mother didn't do anything wrong, she didn't do anything wrong." Fei'er naturally didn't comply, and the two guards suppressed her, and I looked at Xiao and Lan'er on the side, so I sent someone to press the two of them down first, and decided to interrogate them separately.

Once a person has suspicion, he has to do everything possible to prove it, and his suspicion must have very accurate evidence to dispel this suspicion, but now, I feel that no evidence has surfaced, so my suspicion is getting bigger and bigger, so I have to continue to investigate.

In the evening, I interrogated Lan'er, asked Mama, who was more experienced in torture, to question her, and tortured her in a series of ways. first asked her what she had done, how did these things happen, asked again and again, to see if there were any discrepancies in her many answers, after a night of interrogation, sure enough, at dawn, Lan Er, who had been beaten and tortured, seemed to have broken the line of defense in her heart, she began to say something incompatible, and one by one the lies began to be unfulfilled, and finally she said what she was doing behind the scenes.

When I tried Scarlet in the same way, Xue Cui next to the Queen Mother came, and Xue Cui came to the Queen Mother's words, although I felt very confused, but I was still somewhat convinced of the Queen Mother, so I did what the Queen Mother said.

Three days later, Cao Jieyu was deposed as a concubine and confined in her own room, and she could not come out unless she died.

Everything seemed to be calm again, and I was still living my own life every day, and just like that, a year passed.

Yining hugged her one-year-old daughter and came to the kilometer to ask the Queen Mother for peace, and after the Cao family's incident, my relationship with the Queen Mother has also eased a little. I used to look down on their mother and children, thinking that their mothers were born slaves, so naturally they couldn't educate any good children. But when dealing with the Queen Mother, I think the Queen Mother also has some wisdom, of course, it is not easy to be the Queen Mother.

In short, I occasionally come to the Queen Mother to sit here. I looked at the pink and tender little girl in Yining's arms, and I really had an irrepressible liking in my heart, so I reached out and touched her little face. It seemed that because my hands were so cold, I actually woke her up, and she suddenly opened those dark eyes, and she must have seen me. I was shocked, what if this girl cried?

But she didn't cry, she first looked at me in a daze, then rolled her eyes, looked at her mother, and then grinned at me with a deep sleepiness, and the teeth in her small mouth were just over halfway white. And those beautiful eyes, full of smiles, finally closed again, and went on to sleep.

When I saw this, I felt as if I had melted.

Zhao'er is a very worry-free child, so worry-free that he rarely cries, but I am also most afraid of him crying, so I always give him everything he wants before asking him to cry. So raising Zhao'er is still a very easy task. But this girl called Xinyue is also quirky and cute, which makes me can't help but think that when I gave birth to Zhao'er, His Majesty said that if I gave birth to a princess, His Majesty would build her the richest city in the world, let her be the princess of Zhenguo, and then the best men in the world would come to her to ask for it, but this proposal must be agreed to by me, and if I don't agree, even the king of Liang State can't do it.

"Sister-in-law, what are you thinking about so fascinating?" Yining is a gentle but very strong woman, I have always disliked such a woman, too stubborn, easy to drill the horns, but she has always respected me, and I don't need to always keep a straight face, "I was just thinking about some stupid things your brother said." ”

After finishing speaking, I subconsciously covered my mouth and glanced at the Queen Mother, who had always been surprised by my presumptuousness, shook her head and said, "Yes, I have grown." Know what you can say and what you can't say in front of the mourners. However, if you have a good relationship with your husband and wife, it is naturally good. There is no best thing in this world that the emperor and queen are in harmony. ”

"Yes, the retainers know their mistakes." Although I was admitting my mistake, all my attention was on this pink little girl in Yining's arms, I really wanted to hug her, Yining saw through my thoughts, "If my sister-in-law doesn't dislike it, can I hug Xinyue for a while, I'll go to the inner room to change clothes." ”

When the child fell asleep, he put her on the bed, so that the adults were tired of carrying her, and she was also tired of sleeping. You go and come back quickly, I'll hug her for a while" Saying this, my subordinates kept and took the crescent moon from Yining's hand.

She was a little uneasy at first, as if the smell of her body had changed, I let go of the muscles in my arm, and I took her in my arms, she arched my arm, and then fell asleep very peacefully.

I touched her black hair, and the more I touched it, the more reluctant I was to stop.

I can't take my eyes off her and can't put it down, I'm not the only one, I beckoned and asked Zhao'er to come over.

Zhao'er trotted to my side for a while, and now when she was still two steps away from me, she slowed down, and slowly, almost silently stood in front of me, followed my example, stretched out a hand, touched the black hair of the new moon, and whispered to me, "Queen Mother, let's carry her back to our palace." ”

Hearing this, the Queen Mother, as well as Yi Ning, who had changed her robe and was about to come out, laughed, and I couldn't help it, and laughed out loud, "What are you doing in our palace?" Do you want to be a child bride? ”

"Is that okay? Can I be a daughter-in-law for my son? I looked at Zhao'er with anticipation, so I continued to joke with him, "This requires your aunt's nod." ”

"Auntie, aunt, give me the new moon as a daughter-in-law, I will definitely be good to her, I swear."

Yining listened, paused, smiled undiminished, but with a trace of sadness in her eyes, she said to Zhao'er seriously, "His Royal Highness the Prince, if you really have this intention, then wait for you, when you grow up, and get the permission of Your Majesty, Niangniang and Xinyue, your aunt can agree to you." ”

"Auntie must think that Zhao'er is young, and what she says has no weight, aunt, don't worry, when Zhao'er grows up, she will definitely ask her aunt again."

A year later, Xiao's son, His Majesty's second prince, was allowed to return to the palace, Xiao was pregnant again, and four months after the second prince returned to the palace, she gave birth to a baby girl, but the baby girl was congenitally deficient and died before she was one year old.

At this time, Zhao'er was also a little uncomfortable, I didn't blame anyone, it was Zhao'er's own poor health.

It's just that the matter of enlisting in the second prince and fighting with his brothers and sisters was mentioned again. The second prince was sent outside the palace again, and the Xiao family was a little crazy because of this successive blows. The Queen Mother told me that the time was ripe.

In fact, these things planted on the head of the Cao family were all done by the Xiao family. The Queen Mother asked me to keep Scarlet, and after more than two years of restraint, I finally heard the original appearance of this matter from her mouth.

Xiao Shi, in fact, is not as harmless as she seems on the surface, she is actually a person who is very good at two-faced and three-faced from the boudoir, and she is still like this when she enters the palace.

Scarlet Er and Lan Er, who has been killed, have indeed known each other since childhood, Lan Er has lived a very hard time by her side, beating and scolding her at every turn, and holding her parents tightly in her hands, as a handle and coercion. That's why Lan'er died.

The reason why she asked Lan'er to testify against herself at the beginning was just to confuse the truth with the falsehood, and in the end she really blinded me. If it weren't for the Queen Mother's message to let me stay in Scarlet, this matter would really have wronged the Cao family.

Ever since Xiao entered the palace, jealousy has been haunting her. She first instigated the Mu family to harm me because she was jealous of me, but she understood one thing, that is, no matter how she harmed me, Her Majesty would definitely defend me, stand on my side, and become my backing and pillar, I am something she will never shake.

So, she began to set her sights on other favored concubines, and she persecuted them almost madly. Because of my laziness and the Queen Mother's inability to take care of everything, she has cultivated a large number of her own forces in the palace, and even Her Majesty has her eyeliner around her. Yuelan was fortunate to be favored by His Majesty, and it was passed on by the people around His Majesty. Originally, a little Yuelan was just a grace overnight, but it was only because of the heavy rain that night that she couldn't sleep, so she let Scarlet get rid of Yuelan.

How did Scarlet become her person? She knew very well that she needed a scapegoat, and after everything happened, she could block this matter for her, and a little Lan'er naturally couldn't do it, so she set her sights on the Cao family, who had just experienced the pain of losing her child. Because of Lan'er's relationship, she quickly met Scarlet.