Eat the whole family? I emptied the storehouse of the Marquis' Mansion and married the crippled

Nanny Zhang took a deep breath and said, "Your Majesty, the people from the farm said that they couldn't find out why the chickens died. This is a serious matter, so they quickly sent a message to the palace."

The people in the village have seen that the broiler chickens bred by Ye Jintang can grow to weigh more than ten kilograms each. They naturally know the importance of a chick. No one can take the responsibility if so many die at one time. If it is concealed and not reported, it would be an even greater crime.

"I'll go over and take a look in a moment."

"It may be too late for you to go to the manor at this time, Your Majesty."

It was already mid-afternoon, and if I left the city at this time, I might not be able to return in the evening.

"It's okay. I can ride a fast horse and come back in time for dinner."

Ye Jintang gave the lotus seeds and lotus flowers she had picked to Ping Ping'an and gave them a few instructions. Then she took Liu Yin and a few guards and rode out of the city to check on the chicks on the farm.

The workers on the farm had already packed all the dead chicks into bamboo baskets and were preparing to find a place to dig a hole to bury them.

There were also some half-dead ones, and they were also picked out separately.

Ye Jintang once said that chicks are very susceptible to disease, and as soon as any are found dead, those that are in poor spirits must be picked out immediately.

The head of the village didn't expect Ye Jintang to come, so he hurriedly brought the people from the village over to pay their respects.

"Everyone, get up and go check on the dead chicks first."

Ye Jintang threw the whip in his hand to the guard and strode into the farm, with Gu Zhuangtou following closely behind him.

The deaths of the chicks in the bamboo baskets were all very strange; nine out of ten had blood at the corners of their mouths.

If the death was caused by a virus, there would be almost no visible injuries on the outside. It is obvious that these chicks did not die from the virus.

"Liu Yin, use my silver needle to test each of them to see if they died of poisoning."

"Yes."

Ye Jintang has a special silver needle that is very sensitive. No matter how strong the poison is, he can tell what it is with just one try.

Liu Yin took out a silver needle and gently pierced it into the chick's throat. The silver needle, which had no reaction just now, instantly turned black.

I pierced more than a dozen chicks in a row, and they were almost the same, the silver needles were all black.

"Gu Zhuangtou, bring the chick feed here. I suspect someone has poisoned it."

When Gu Zhuangtou heard that someone had poisoned someone, he was so scared that his legs went weak. He didn't dare to delay and quickly brought the feed.

The chickens studied by Ye Jintang were fed different feeds at different times.

A lot of corn and peanut cake crumbs are put in the feed for the chicks. The better they eat when they are young, the stronger they will be and the less likely they will get sick in the future.

Ye Jintang, who looked unhappy, grabbed a handful of feed and examined it carefully.

If you just look at it, you really can't tell anything. Even if there is something wrong with a handful of crumbs, it is not easy to find.

But Ye Jintang had a keen sense of smell. When she put the feed in front of her nose, she smelled a strange odor in it.

"Take me to the feed mixing workshop to have a look."

"Yes."

There are many poultry and livestock raised on the farm, and the amount of feed used every day is very large, which needs to be distributed almost every two days.

When Ye Jintang came over, some workers had already placed the prepared grains next to a large wooden barrel. They were preparing to pour all the grains into the barrel for mixing, and then put them into sacks for transportation to the chicken coop and livestock shed.

“All food is open.”

"Yes."

Gu Zhuangtou personally stepped forward and opened all the bags of grain.

Ye Jintang checked them one by one, and didn't find anything strange at first. It was not until she grabbed a handful of corn crumbs that she discovered something was wrong.

There were some small white grains mixed in with the corn crumbs. Those small grains were crystal clear and didn't look like corn at first glance.

"Gu Zhuangtou, come and see what's mixed in the cornmeal. I don't remember corn containing this kind of white corn."

When Gu Zhuangtou heard Ye Jintang say this, he felt his scalp tingling. He quickly stepped forward and picked up a handful of corn crumbs to take a closer look.

"That's not right. The cornmeal processing plant is also ours. When I went to check it out yesterday, all the corns were yellow, no white ones."

At this point, Gu Zhuangtou became completely panicked. If the problem really was with the cornmeal, then he and I would be in trouble.

"Why are you still standing there? Go check the workshop to see if anyone has tampered with it."

"Yes, I'll go right away."

Gu Zhuangtou, who was in a panic, quickly took a few people to the workshop to search for white corn.

He secretly prayed in his heart that the problem would not arise from him, but unfortunately, the opposite happened. In less than an incense stick of time, the guards brought by Ye Jintang found a bag of white seeds in the workshop. The seeds were smaller and slightly similar to wheat seeds.

"Madam, we found a bag of suspicious seeds."

The guard handed the seeds to Ye Jintang, and he recognized at a glance that they were the seeds of the jade dew grass that grew in the mountains.

Jade dew grass is a plant that wild rabbits prefer to eat. The seeds it produces in order to survive are all poisonous. If wild rabbits eat them by mistake, they will die immediately, not to mention chicks.

"Zhou Cong, go check and find out who is the traitor who dares to tamper with the feed."

"Yes."

Ye Jintang sat on the armchair, looking at Gu Zhuangtou who had knelt on the ground in fear, and was too lazy to speak.

The entire village was under the management of Gu Zhuangtou. She had thought he was quite smart in the past, but she had never expected that once a problem arose it would become so serious.

The batch of chicks raised this year are very important. Now there are so many of them that she has no way to promote them among the people, so she can only delay it until next year.

It seems like only a one-year delay, but it is crucial for the devastated Tianqin Kingdom.

The people's good days would be delayed for another year for no reason. She didn't even dare to think about how many people would starve to death during this year.

The workers on the farm were all farmhands recruited from the surrounding villages. The big man who took the money and secretly brought the jade dew grass seeds confessed everything after being frightened by Zhou Cong.

"My lady, I have sent people to continue the investigation. Wang Hu said he was from the capital. I gave him 500 taels of silver and mixed the seeds of Jade Dew Grass into the feed."

"The man told Wang Hu that the seeds of Jade Dew Grass would only cause diarrhea in livestock and would not kill them, so he accepted the money."

"That's really stupid."

"Master Gu, I will give you one more chance. You must punish all the farmhands in and out of the farm. If anyone dares to be so careless in the future, I will directly sack his three clans."

"Yes, thank you for not killing me, my lady. I will check the farm carefully and will never let this happen again."

Knowing that someone had tampered with the feed, Ye Jintang did not stay at the farm for long and immediately returned to the palace.

By the time of dinner in the evening, Zhou Cong had already investigated the matter thoroughly.

"Madam, I have already found out that the person who contacted Liu Hu was a manager of the Qu family. This matter may be related to Madam Qu."

"Jiang Lingshan?"

Ye Jintang looked up at Zhou Cong in disbelief.

"As long as we arrest the steward and interrogate him, the matter will become clear."