Hibiscus Tent: The Prime Minister’s palm is reborn

The courtyard was bare in winter, and there was really no place to hide. Liang Qian turned around and ran back before Ruizhu came close, and hid in an alley.

She leaned against the wall and relaxed, then leaned out a little to look outside, but she didn't expect Ruizhu to follow her over here.

Liang Huan gritted his teeth.

It can be seen that Ruizhu is much more familiar with the cold palace than she is.

Liang Qian glanced at the person who was getting closer, then looked towards the end of the unknown alley.

There is no other choice now but to go deeper.

Liang Qian was hiding from Ruizhu who was not far behind her, while being on guard against people who might suddenly appear in front of her, and at the same time she had to remember the road under her feet.

Trying to do three things at once is not an easy task.

As a result, she successfully avoided people, but also lost herself.

The high palace walls blocked the orange and red of the sky, and the biting cold wind in the alley became even colder.

Liang Qian looked at the narrow and similar alleys, tightened her clothes, chose a direction and walked forward.

Finally, at dusk, I saw a not-so-big dog hole under the mottled palace wall, half-covered by dry weeds.

She pushed aside the hay, squatted down and tried it, and almost got through by squeezing through.

Before she even stood up, Liang Qian frowned.

Outside the palace wall was not the Hualin Garden as expected, but a vast field of grass. The withered hay seemed to be spreading out from inside the wall. It seemed that this should be the back of Fengdu Garden.

The setting sun almost fell on the ground in the distance, bringing no warmth at all.

Liang Qian rubbed her frozen hands and walked south along the palace wall towards Fengdu Garden.

Gradually, a faint cold fragrance seemed to float in the air, and the fragrance became stronger as we walked forward.

Until the end of the grassland, a large dense forest came into view. The stretched brown branches were covered with small waxy yellow flowers, densely packed together.

Liang Huan was surprised.

She didn't even know there was such a place in the palace.

Even when visiting gardens and enjoying the scenery on ordinary days, the farthest they would go is Fengdu Garden and no further.

Liang Qian looked carefully again and vaguely saw a path paved with bluestone slabs in the dense forest. She didn't know where it started or where it led to.

The sky gradually darkened and it was almost night. Liang Qian shivered in the cold wind.

She hesitated for a moment, but decided to take the path, hoping to get out of the woods as soon as possible. However, the opposite happened. At the end of the path was a courtyard surrounded by a fence.

There is a inscription on the door: Chao Yun.

Liang Qian stared at the two words in a daze.

In the past, a goddess said goodbye to the King of Chu in a dream, saying: "I am on the south side of Wushan Mountain, blocked by high hills. In the morning, I am the morning cloud, and in the evening, I am the rain. Morning and evening, under the balcony." The King of Chu looked at her the next morning and saw that it was just as she said. So he built a temple for her and named it "Chaoyun".

Suddenly, she squinted her eyes and smiled.

The laughter was low and abrupt.

She thought of the night she died in her previous life, in the icy snow, with only a roll of tattered mat to wrap herself around...

Liang Qian pushed open the small door in the fence, walked into the yard, and stepped onto the steps of the wooden house.

It was a little dark in the cabin.

Liang Qian found a lamp on the table, found a tinder and lit it, then picked up the oil lamp and looked around the room.

Although small, it has everything. There is not only a tea room and a bedroom, but also a study.

The furnishings are not old at all, but even look new, clean and elegant.

A five-string pipa was hung on the wall opposite the bookshelf, a seven-string harp was placed on the long table below, and a wooden painting box was placed on the wooden shelf next to it.

Liang Qian put the oil lamp aside and opened the lid of the wooden box under the warm yellow light.

There are not many paintings, only two.

The painting on it depicts a woman in coarse linen clothes. She is standing alone in front of the door, with a shadow falling at her feet.

Liang Qian vaguely remembered that in the cold palace, Cao Ruomi said that she had seen a portrait on the desk in the Taiji Hall.

Liang Qian picked up another one with a stiff hand. Under the corridor next to the royal poinciana tree, a little girl and a boy were sitting side by side on the stone steps. The girl tilted her head and smiled, and it was unclear what she was saying to the boy...

Liang Qian put down the painting in her hand and fell silent in front of the lampstand.

On New Year's Eve, she coaxed Gao Qian to leave the palace. In the carriage, she deliberately asked him where he had thrown her body in her previous life, and they must go and see it together some other day.

There were hurried footsteps outside the house, and before Liang Qian could stand up, the person strode into the house.

In the dim light, Liang Qian saw his face clearly.

It’s Xiahou Zhao.

"Queen Mother."

Seeing Liang Qian, he breathed a sigh of relief and bowed to Liang Qian.

"Gong Yangjing sent someone to tell me that you are missing..."

"I just lost my way for a moment."

Liang Qian put the wooden box back in its place, picked up the oil lamp and walked forward.

"Why don't you tell me what's going on with this cabin?"

"This..." Xiahou Zhao looked up at her, then lowered his head. He seemed very embarrassed and didn't know what to say.

Liang Qian waited patiently.

Xiahou Zhao sighed helplessly and said, "This Chaoyun Temple was built by me when the late emperor was still alive. The craftsmen who built it were selected from the workers who built the imperial mausoleum."

Liang Qian frowned. Even though this house was exquisitely built, it didn't need to be used—

She paused, perhaps to cover up her tracks.

Xiahou Zhao continued, "The late emperor once left an oral instruction that if one day the empress dowager does not want to live in Renshou Palace but cannot leave the palace, he will tell me to move here..."

Liang Qian narrowed her eyes and looked at the lamp in her hand.

Xiahou Zhao said: "I didn't expect that before I could tell you, you had already discovered it yourself--"

Liang Qian glanced at him.

In fact, Xiahou Zhao wanted to say that he didn't know whether the empress dowager was still willing to live in Hanzhang Palace.

So, he never told her.

"Let's go. If we're any later, we'll be exposed."

"Yes." Xiahou Zhao lowered his head and did not make way. He only said: "When I came here, Hanzhang Palace had already discovered that you were missing. Now I believe Taiji Palace must have known about it too."

Liang Qian frowned, fearing that it was not just the Taiji Hall.

She had already thought about it when she got lost. How could she have kept it a secret after being out for so long? If Gong Yangjing and Guya could handle it, they would not have risked being discovered and alerted Xiahou Zhao.

Liang Qian thought about it and decided that since the problem couldn't be solved, she might as well make it a more serious one.

Just as she was about to leave the room, Xiahou Zhao said again, "Gu Ya secretly gave your brocade robe to me. I was afraid of attracting attention, so I only brought one guard with me."

He turned and left the house, and came back a few moments later with a cloth bag in his hand.

……

Liang Qian left the palace maid's clothes she had taken off in the wooden house, then blew out the lights and walked out.

*

The Queen Mother was found in the Imperial Garden.

When they found her, she had fainted under a plum tree, her eyes closed and unconscious, like a corpse.

According to the imperial physician, if it had been any later, the person might have frozen to death.

However, what is puzzling is, how could the Queen Mother go from her bedroom to the Imperial Garden for no reason? And how did she avoid the eyes of the palace servants?

Later, after interrogating the people on duty, they found out that the Queen Mother took advantage of their sleepiness and dozed off and ran away.

There is no doubt that everyone on duty in Hanzhang Palace, from top to bottom, was punished by the emperor.

People in the palace secretly murmured that perhaps the Queen Mother had been driven a little crazy by the evil spirit.

The next day at noon, when Liang Qian was taking the medicine, she heard some palace servants gathered together and talking mysteriously.

Liang Qian called the eunuch to ask, and the eunuch replied that last night, news came from the cold palace that the commoner Wei had died, and it seemed that she had eaten something unclean and was poisoned to death.

Some say it was suicide, others say it was murder.

Gong Yangjing personally reported to the emperor. After hearing the news, the emperor frowned, was silent for a moment, and then sent a eunuch to examine the body.

*

In the Yaohua Palace, Lu Wanying stood in front of the bronze mirror.

Palace servants and eunuchs stood in a row with their bodies bent, holding trays in their hands, on which were placed the new winter clothes that had just been delivered by the Clothing Department.

Lu Wanying looked at herself in the mirror. Since she became pregnant, she had become thinner instead of fatter. She looked even more haggard after the miscarriage. After recuperating for a few days, she finally regained some of her former complexion.

Ruizhu squatted on the ground and helped the person in front of the mirror to adjust her skirt.

Lu Wanying took off the gold hairpin that didn't match her hair and threw it aside with a smile: "Are you sure the person is dead?"

"Yes." Ruizhu stood up. "The master sent the servants to the cold palace to identify..."

Lu Wanying smoothed the wrinkles on his sleeves and looked at her with a half-smile: "How about burying him?"

Ruizhu lowered her eyes. "Ms. Wei was guilty, but the Lord spared her life because of the Queen's plea. Now she doesn't repent, doesn't thank the Emperor for the grace, and even dares to commit suicide in the cold palace. It's really unlucky and hateful. The Lord is merciful to leave her body intact. How dare she have any other extravagant hopes?"

Lu Wanying nodded: "That's right."

Then, he turned around in front of the mirror, looking left and right, and was dissatisfied all the time.

She took off her outer garment and threw it on the ground, then glanced at the row of jade plates, but none of them looked pleasing to her eyes.

Lu Wanying said irritably, "The people from the Clothing Department always give me a perfunctory answer. Go find that Fang Zhi of yours to come to me!"

A palace maid from the Clothing Department came forward.

Lu Wanying said with a dark face: "Go, return all of these."

The palace maid lowered her head timidly.

Lu Wanying raised her eyebrows slightly, "By the way, tell Fang Zhi clearly that I also want an outer garment embroidered with kingfisher blue silk thread."

Ruizhu winked at the palace servant, and the palace servant led everyone out of the hall.

Looking back, Lu Wanying was sitting in front of the mirror wearing only her underwear, removing the pearl from her earlobe with an expressionless face.

"You're saying she's really crazy?"

Ruizhu took Mingzhu from her and said, "The imperial physician has said that it cannot be false."

Lu Wanying didn't even raise her eyelids: "I don't believe she's going crazy. But I do believe she's pretending to be sick to win his sympathy."

Ruizhu thought about her words, and something flashed through her mind. "Yesterday, I saw someone in the cold palace. From the back, she looked very much like the Queen Mother."

When Lu Wanying heard this, she immediately turned around and asked, "Are you sure it's Liang Qian?"

Ruizhu shook her head: "No, she was too far away. I didn't see her face clearly. I only saw her back."

She added, "I just think the back view looks a bit like her. After all, the Queen Mother should have been in the Imperial Garden at that time. I think that palace maid must have poisoned Wei."

Yesterday, she had gone to take Wei's life, but when she arrived at Wei's residence, Wei had already vomited black blood and fell to the ground.

It was obvious that someone had taken action before her.

Wei would never commit suicide.

She didn't dare stay for long, for fear of running into the murderer who had returned, so she took a quick look and left.

"I will keep an eye on Zhaoyang Palace."

Hearing her say this, Lu Wanying couldn't help but shake her head and laughed, facing the mirror again, and said coldly: "If it was really done by Yuan Shi, I don't think you will have the chance to see that palace maid again."

Ruizhu was stunned for a moment, but said nothing and silently took the other pearl that Lu Wanying took.

Lu Wanying added: "In fact, no matter who did it, as long as Wei is dead, it's fine."

She sighed in annoyance again: "The palace has been chanting sutras for quite some time. When will this Yuan Shi stop chanting and give me peace and quiet?"

Today, she had to take sick leave to avoid going.

Ruizhu put away the pearl and frowned, saying, "The Queen Mother was so ill that she shouted to go to the Lecture Hall as soon as she woke up. The palace servants couldn't stop her..."

Lu Wanying snorted coldly: "If she wants to go, she can go. I don't want to go."

At this moment, someone walked in with his head bowed, bowed respectfully, and said, "Something happened in the Lecture Hall."

"What's the matter?"

The eunuch replied, "The Queen Mother smashed the lecture hall and alarmed the Lord."

Lu Wanying was slightly surprised: "Why?"

Ruizhu also raised her eyes.

The eunuch said timidly, "I only heard that... when the master was speaking, the queen mother went crazy for some reason. She rushed forward and overturned the master's desk. Then she beat and scolded the people who tried to stop her. Her words and actions were just like... like the dead Wei."

He paused and continued, "After the master came, she even pulled the master and cried and shouted about her injustice. Later, her eyes rolled back and -"

"Okay, stop talking and go down." Lu Wanying interrupted with a frown.

The eunuch stopped talking, lowered his head and left.

Ruizhu looked at the person sitting quietly in front of her, and then thought of Wei's death. She felt a chill down her spine and said hesitantly, "The Queen Mother is suddenly like this. Could it be... that something has really possessed her?"

Lu Wanying glanced at her coldly. "Nonsense."

Ruizhu knelt down on the ground.

"It was my fault."

*

In the bedroom of Hanzhang Palace.

Gu Ya wiped her tears and stood by the bed.

The emperor sat behind a desk at a certain distance from the bed with a sullen face. He glanced at the couch and then looked back at the face of the imperial physician kneeling in front of him.

The imperial physician hesitated for a long time and still couldn't explain clearly what illness the empress dowager had.

"...I will prescribe some soothing medicine for the Queen Mother, just -"

With a bang, the cup shattered before my eyes.

"What a waste."

Jin Zhi and others were startled and shrank their necks. The Queen Mother's behavior was becoming more and more weird, and the imperial physician was unable to diagnose her. So it was no wonder that the Lord was angry.

The emperor lowered his voice: "Come here, drag this quack doctor away——"

"Queen Mother, you, you're awake?" Gu Ya sobbed.

The person on the bed slowly opened his eyes, raised his arms, and murmured, "Gu, Ya... I'm in pain all over..."

When everyone saw that the Queen Mother had returned to normal, they breathed a sigh of relief. They were really afraid of seeing that 'Wei' again.

The emperor stood up and walked closer: "Does the Queen Mother remember what happened?"

Seeing Gao Hao, Liang Qian wanted to sit up, but she couldn't muster any strength.

Gu Ya helped Liang Qian sit up carefully.

Liang Qian slowly looked around and shook her head in confusion: "I...wasn't I in the lecture hall? How...why am I back? What's going on?"

Gao Hao stood there and said nothing.

Liang Qian's breathing suddenly quickened. She fumbled around on the couch in panic and shouted anxiously, "Gu Ya, the scripture, where is the scripture? Where is my scripture? Did one of you steal it? Return it to me quickly! Quickly!"

Gu Ya hurriedly took the scriptures from the pillow and brought them to Liang Qian.

"Queen Mother, the scriptures are always here."

Liang Qian snatched it away, held it tightly in her arms, and muttered to herself.

There were footsteps outside the door.

"Your Majesty, I have invited the master here."

Before Yuan Yun'e could stand still, someone with disheveled hair came up to her and walked past her.

"Master, please accept me as your disciple!"