hotmtlnovel Chapter 220 Deadly Food Box
Chapter 220 Deadly Food Box
It was exactly one hour when Eunuch Li returned to Fengxian Hall.
Following behind him were several Black Dragon Guards, as well as Wang Fuquan, the eunuch in charge of the Eastern Palace, who was escorted by the Black Dragon Guards.
"Your Majesty, I have brought the eunuch in charge of the East Palace."
Eunuch Li stepped forward and saw a food box on the emperor's desk.
Where is it?
Never mind, the most important thing is to find out who forged the imperial edict.
He frowned slightly, with a hint of suspicion in his eyes, but he did not make it public. "Your Majesty, I have already checked with the Eastern Palace and the Ministry of Personnel. Today's memorial was taken out of the Ministry of Personnel by Wang Fuquan, the head eunuch of the Eastern Palace, and then brought back to the Eastern Palace as usual."
"The guards in the palace didn't see anything unusual along the way."
While Eunuch Li was reporting to the Emperor, he was secretly thinking in his heart.
That's strange.
He is now solely responsible for preparing all the emperor's meals.
But he clearly remembered that when he was ordered to leave Fengxian Palace, he did not ask the imperial kitchen to send any food.
So, who sent this carved food box?
The ladies in the harem?
That's impossible. The old emperor was suspicious. When the late queen was alive, he would only eat in her palace.
Since the death of the Queen, Eunuch Li has been in charge of the Emperor's food and daily life.
He knew that the emperor was always afraid of being poisoned by the concubines in the harem and would never eat any food sent by the concubines.
You have to know that the emperor was cruel and bloodthirsty, and more than 80% of the concubines in the harem had their fathers and brothers killed by the emperor.
Therefore, even if the concubines sent some food, the emperor would never allow them to be placed on his table.
Especially after the Prince of Qin was poisoned by several maids in his own palace, the emperor became even less trusting of the women in the harem.
Looking at the food box on the table, although Eunuch Li had many questions in his mind, he held back the words he was about to ask when he saw the emperor's face was livid.
"Wang Fuquan!"
"The slave is here."
"I want to ask you, are these memorials that you are going to send to the Crown Prince for his review today?"
The Emperor of Daxia narrowed his eyes and looked at Wang Fuquan who was kneeling in front of the desk, and asked in a cold voice.
Wang Fuquan walked to the table trembling with fear and looked into the box.
That’s right, those memorials also had traces of being sealed with wax at the Ministry of Personnel when Wang Fuquan took over.
"To reply to your Majesty, that's right!"
"Wang Fuquan! You are so brave!"
The emperor suddenly raised his voice by an octave and shouted harshly.
Wang Fuquan was so frightened that he trembled all over and knelt on the ground, "Your Majesty!"
"When you got the memorials from the Ministry of Personnel, did you count them? How many copies were there in total?"
"When I received them from the Ministry of Personnel, I indeed counted the wrong number. There are a total of forty-eight memorials." Wang Fuquan's voice trembled violently.
"Count for me again!"
The emperor was so angry that he swept all the memorials on the table to the ground.
Wang Fuquan answered yes and hurriedly picked up the memorials on the ground one by one, counting them as he picked them up and putting them into the wooden box he carried every day.
Everything that happened after he received the memorial from the Ministry of Personnel today flashed through his mind at this moment.
As usual, he followed the order of the Crown Prince to go to the Ministry of Personnel to retrieve the memorials from all officials of the day. When handing them over, he even counted them carefully and found that there were indeed forty-eight memorials.
But now, the memorials he counted had one extra one!
Forty-nine!
Fine beads of sweat were already oozing out of Wang Fuquan's forehead.
After receiving the memorial, he returned to the Eastern Palace from the Ministry of Personnel as usual.
The only difference was that when he first entered the Eastern Palace, he met Cui, the Crown Princess's personal nanny.
Cui said that the Crown Princess was seriously ill, and she wanted to ask the imperial physician to treat her, but it happened that the Crown Prince had just gone to Fengxian Hall for an urgent matter.
Cui couldn't get the token of the Crown Prince, and the guards of the Eastern Palace would not let her leave the Eastern Palace, so Cui asked Wang Fuquan to help her go to the Imperial Hospital and ask Imperial Doctor Sun to treat the empress.
The reason why Wang Fuquan was able to become the eunuch in charge of the Eastern Palace was really due to Cui's recommendation, because after hearing this, he readily agreed to help run a trip to the Imperial Medical Service.
But when he looked at the heavy box of memorials in his hands, he thought that the round trip to the Imperial Hospital was really too much for him, and some hesitation appeared on his face.
He originally wanted to deliver the memorial to the Crown Prince in his study first, and then go on this trip to help Cui.
But Cui seemed to see through Wang Fuquan's thoughts. She said anxiously, "Eunuch Wang, the Crown Princess treated you well in the past."
"Besides, the Crown Prince is not in the East Palace right now, so you can just leave your things here and I'll help you look after them. You can go on this trip for me, which will not delay your work, and will also help the Crown Princess remember the kindness of the father-in-law."
"Besides, the emperor is in such a state now, the Crown Princess has only been confined, but her position has not been deprived..."
When Wang Fuquan heard this, he knew that Cui was hinting to him that the Crown Princess would soon sit on the throne of the Empress Dowager.
The Crown Princess is still young, and the Empress Dowager will definitely be in charge of the affairs of the six palaces in the future.
If Wang Fuquan offended the future empress dowager at this time, he would probably die without knowing how.
Now, by just wasting a little bit of my time, I can win a favor from the future empress dowager, which is naturally extremely worthwhile.
Wang Fuquan did not hesitate too much and handed the wooden box containing the memorials to Cui, asking her to stay where she was and not go anywhere until he went to the Imperial Hospital to call the imperial physician and came back to return it to her.
Cui nodded hurriedly.
When Wang Fuquan brought Doctor Sun back to the East Palace, Cui was still standing in the corridor with the wooden box in her hand, waiting for him.
......
"After counting so many times, have you figured out how many copies there are?" the emperor suddenly asked in a cold voice.
Wang Fuquan was startled. He knew that Cui must have tampered with the wooden box while he was in the Imperial Hospital.
But he didn't know that this extra memorial was actually the emperor's will forged by Lu.
"Your Majesty, there are forty-nine copies here..." Wang Fuquan replied in a low voice: "Perhaps I counted them wrong when I handed them over to the Ministry of Personnel."
On one side is the current old emperor, and on the other side is the future empress dowager.
Wang Fuquan couldn't afford to offend anyone, so he could only take the blame on himself. After all, it was just a memorial.
The worst that could happen is that the Crown Princess has been imprisoned for too long and wants to take the opportunity to slip in a memorial begging the Crown Prince to lift her confinement, so that her own son can release her with legitimate reasons.
Originally, there would most likely be no problems if we did this.
Because the old emperor had not asked about the affairs of the harem for six years. Even the affairs of the court were mostly left to the Crown Prince to handle.