Reborn Princess

"The Emperor and the Empress have arrived." A shrill voice was heard, and behind Zhou Hengyan and Cao Shuyi, seven or eight palace maids and eunuchs walked towards the side hall.

Seeing this, everyone hurriedly kowtowed.

"What happened?" Zhou Hengyan looked at Zhou Cechen.

Zhou Cechen glanced sideways into the room and said calmly, "My Royal Brother will know at a glance."

Zhou Hengyan glanced inside the room and frowned when he thought of the report from the palace maid just now.

At this time, Imperial Physician Han and several other imperial physicians came over carrying medicine boxes. He had just left when he was summoned again. Today was really busy.

This room was already a filthy place. The ladies of status and position had already hidden far away, and only a few palace maids and imperial doctors entered.

When Doctor Han came out, he said with difficulty, "Prince Huaiyuan is drunk and unconscious. I have ordered someone to boil medicine. He will wake up in an hour, but... the palace maid has died suddenly."

Shen Xilan glanced into the room, then turned his gaze to the group of ladies.

Cao Shuyi followed Shen Lilan's gaze and looked at them and said, "Why are you in the side hall? This hall has always been used for changing clothes and sobering up."

No one answered for a while, Cao Shuyi continued, "Princess Jiahe, Countess Zhongqin, and General Yongyi's wife, are you all drunk?"

"Of course not." Princess Jiahe was the first to answer. "Just now a maid in the palace reported that something happened in the side hall. We just came here and didn't know that this happened."

"Maid? Why did the maid report to you instead of my head maid?"

"This..." Everyone was speechless for a moment.

"Princess Jiahe, can you point out which maid it is?"

Ye Qinghe glanced at the palace maids present, but didn't see the person she was looking for.

Just as she was about to answer that the palace maid was not present, two guards carried out a woman covered with a white cloth. A gust of wind blew up a corner of the white cloth, and Ye Qinghe's face suddenly turned pale.

She froze in place and suddenly shouted, "She! It's her! That maid is her!"

Everyone present was watching with their eyes on their noses and their noses on their hearts. Shen Lilan watched all this with cold eyes.

In her previous life, she was safe because Zhou Cechen arrived in time. However, she didn't know that the person behind the scenes wanted not only to ruin her reputation, but also to take her life.

Zhou Hengyan said in a deep voice, "Since she reported to you that something happened in the side hall, why is she the one in trouble now?"

"Or did Princess Jiahe deceive us? Deceiving the emperor is a capital crime!"

Princess Jiahe felt a chill in her heart and she stopped where she was. She had thought that if she had come a quarter of an hour later she would have been able to see Shen Xilan making fun of himself, but she had no idea that the situation in the house would be like this.

She turned her gaze to Jiang Xi who was standing in the corner. The moment she looked at Jiang Xi, she seemed to understand everything.

"It's you."

Ye Qinghe pointed at Jiang Xi and shouted, "You deliberately delayed me so that I could come a quarter of an hour later to watch the show, otherwise this wouldn't have happened!"

Jiang Yu was being watched by everyone. She curled her lips and smiled, then looked at Ye Qinghe and said, "Princess Jiahe, are you joking? When did this servant say that? The side hall has always been a place for people to rest. How could I tell you that I came to watch a play?"

"Besides, how could I, a girl from the boudoir, know about such filthy things? On the contrary, the princess keeps saying that she is here to watch a play. I wonder..." Jiang Yu cast his eyes towards Shen Lilan, "Whose play is she watching?"

"I heard that Princess Ding'an is resting in this side hall. Could it be that you are here to watch Princess Ding'an's play?"

Ye Qinghe and the other ladies froze in place. Did Jiang Xi want to die? She exposed this matter and ridiculed it. She was going to drag everyone present into the water, including herself.

Shen Lilan raised his eyelids, glanced at her and sneered. It turned out that Sheng Ruyan had such a good friend who went to so much trouble just to help her vent her anger.

"Miss Jiang, what you mean is that everyone came to watch my play, including you, but I designed a palace maid to die suddenly, right?" Shen Lilan's cold voice came, Jiang Xi remained calm, but the others panicked.

"I wonder if this play is good, Miss Jiang."

Jiang Xi did not answer her, but asked instead: "Did Princess Ding'an admit this?"

For a moment, everyone began to whisper, "Could it be that, as Jiang Yu said, Shen Yulan designed a plan to cause the palace maid to die suddenly?"

"If that's the case, then why did she kill the maid? And why was the maid in the side room of the palace?"

After listening to the discussions of those people, Cao Shuyi said in a stern voice, "How can the Princess Ding'an of the Great Zhou Dynasty be allowed to be discussed casually by you?"

After the words were spoken, everyone wisely shut up.

Zhou Cechen took Shen Lilan's hand and said, "The princess has always been with me, so how can there be any conspiracy?"

"Or... do you think that I have also plotted against that palace maid?"

Shen Lilan lowered his eyes to look at his wrist which was grabbed by Zhou Cechen, then looked at his face, still calm.

Shen Xilan sneered and said to Jiang Xi, "Miss Jiang, you listened to Sheng Ruyan's words and thought that the prince and I were not on good terms, so you tricked me and Zhou Chao into a side room."

"But despite all your calculations, you didn't seem to have anticipated that the prince and I were changing clothes in the same room."

Jiang Xi chuckled and asked, "What evidence do you have?"

"evidence?"

"If you want it, I'll give it to you."

Shen Xuanlan glanced at Lu Nong, and Lu Nong understood and brought a palace maid over.

When the maid was brought up, she knelt down and begged for mercy, "Please spare my life, my lord, please spare my life!"

After shouting a few times, she saw Jiang Xi in a purple dress and turned to Jiang Xi to beg for mercy, "Miss Jiang, please, please spare my life. I will listen to you from now on..."

Begging for mercy was fruitless. She seemed to have thought of something and spoke in a trembling voice, "I am guilty. I shouldn't have accepted money from Miss Jiang and helped her plot against the princess."

After saying that, she hurriedly took out the banknotes from her sleeve and handed them to Shen Yanlan, saying, "Please, Madam, spare my life."

Jiang Xi stared at the palace maid who was kneeling on the ground begging for mercy, without saying a word.

Zhou Hengyan asked, "Jiang Xi, do you have anything else to say?"

Jiang Xi's face was ashen, and she didn't try to argue anymore. She said to Shen Lilan, "It was indeed my idea to do this, but I didn't kill the person. I never thought of killing you."

In the previous life, Shen Xilan was rescued by Zhou Cechen at the critical moment, leaving the onlookers empty-handed. Zhou Cechen was furious and found out the person behind it, Jiang Xi.

Half a month after Jiang Xi was sent to the imperial prison, he had become an abandoned son of the Jiang family. Even after he was released from the imperial prison, he had been removed from the family tree and finally committed suicide.

Shen Xilan heard these from other people. In her previous life, she didn't care about these things, nor did she want to care about them, because she knew from the beginning that Zhou Cechen would take action.

After listening to Jiang Yi's words, Shen Xilan realized that Jiang Yi was not the only one who plotted against him, and there was someone even more cruel and ruthless who wanted to kill him.

But Jiang Xi cannot be separated from the whole thing.

"Empress, the imperial physician wants to see you." Xi Yuan whispered beside Cao Shuyi.

Cao Shuyi glanced at Shen Lilan, and Shen Lilan nodded at her.

"Xuan."

"Your humble servant greets His Majesty and Empress."

"What does Doctor Li have to report?" Zhou Hengyan asked.

"After examining the body with Imperial Physician Han, I suspect the maid died of poisoning."

"Then why is King Huaiyuan fine?"

"I also felt that this matter was suspicious, so I checked the food at the Huaiyuan Palace banquet and found that the wine was spiked with Soul-Devouring Powder."

"The white peony in the wine is compatible with one of the herbs in the poison. After entering the body, it neutralized most of the poison, saving her life. However, the palace maid did not drink the wine, so she died of the poison."