Children of Loulan

Time flies, and more than half a month has passed in the blink of an eye. Mammy's injuries are gradually getting better, but she still needs careful care to fully recover. Although she can get out of bed and walk slowly now, she has to be extremely careful with every step she takes, as the slightest mistake will cause severe pain like a drill to her heart.

Every morning, Mammy would get out of bed and try to walk a few steps to help her body recover. However, she found that if she was too focused on other things and forgot to keep pace, she would easily speed up because she forgot about her foot injury. However, as soon as she speeded up her pace, she would feel a sharp pain in her foot, as if all the bones in her body were torn apart and it was unbearable.

Today, as usual, Mammy went out for a walk again. Unlike the past, she did not walk in a hurry or for a long time this time, but she still felt a sharp pain in her injured foot. Mammy was deeply confused about this situation. Not only that, but even the maidservant beside her saw something was wrong:

"Mammy, the court doctor clearly said that it would take half a month to heal. Now the deadline has come, but your foot... I see... it seems that only the wound on the skin has healed, and the inside has not yet recovered."

After hearing what the maid said, Aunt Taji looked up at her in surprise, and her originally slightly frowned brows deepened a little.

"Really?" Madam Taji muttered to herself, lowering her head to carefully observe her injured foot. As the maid said, the foot was no longer red and swollen, but it was still painful to walk.

Seeing this, the maid quickly continued, "Yes, Madam, you still feel so much pain when walking, but you don't look anything wrong! This means the problem must be inside!"

Madam Taji nodded thoughtfully, agreeing with the maid's statement: "Well... maybe the injury was too severe at the time and the bones were injured, so the recovery is relatively slow."

Even though she said this, Aunt Taji's heart couldn't help but "skip". Just when she heard the maid mention that she was only healed on the surface, but not on the inside, the image of the bowl of poison flashed through her mind.

Although Aunt Taji did not show any obvious symptoms of poisoning at the time, she secretly sent someone to investigate afterwards. However, because too many people had touched the bowl of poison that day, and she did not publicize the matter, half a month later, there was still no clue. Not only that, the medicine she took was now confirmed to be free of poison.

This meant that not only did she fail to catch the murderer, but she also lost the chance to lure the murderer into poisoning her again so that she could catch him.

However, just when she was secretly relieved, thinking that the other party was afraid of being discovered and did not dare to continue the investigation, the maid's words woke her up like a revelation. It turned out that during this period of time, she had focused all her attention on the medicine she was taking and had never considered whether there was anything wrong with the ointment she was using.

As for why she was so careless, the reason was actually very simple - after all, the ointment would not be swallowed, so she naturally thought that the murderer would only choose to poison pills or decoctions that could be taken orally, and she never had any doubts about the bottle of ointment used daily.

Now that she realized this, her heart became heavier, and she could hardly breathe. She reached out to hold the arm of the maid beside her, and whispered, "Let's go back to the room first."

Perhaps because she was still thinking about this matter, she was a little dazed when she walked. She exerted force on her foot without paying attention, and a sharp pain came over her in an instant, making her unstable and she almost fell to the ground.

"Ah..." She couldn't help but exclaimed in a low voice.

Seeing this, the maid beside her hurriedly supported her and asked with concern: "Mammy, are you okay? Do you need to ask the palace doctor to come and take a look?"

Seeing the maid's worried look, she shook her head. Fortunately, the maid had been supporting her and immediately grabbed her when she was about to fall. Otherwise, she would have really fallen to the ground.

It was when this piercing pain came that she seemed to suddenly realize that there must be something wrong with her ointment.

After returning to her room, she immediately called her maid to bring the mysterious ointment. After receiving the exquisite porcelain bottle, she first examined it carefully, then put the bottle mouth close to her nose and sniffed it gently, but due to her lack of relevant professional knowledge and experience, no matter how she observed and sniffed, she could not see what kind of mystery this bottle of ointment concealed.

As she was thinking hard, a name suddenly popped up in her mind - Hanguli! Yes, the maid mentioned last time that this person was quite knowledgeable about medicine and could even detect the presence of poison with her keen sense of smell. So, maybe this Hanguli could also sniff out whether this box of ointment contained poison.

Having made up her mind, she immediately ordered the maid: "Go and invite Hanguli here quickly, and tell her that I think her dancing skills are extremely poor, and I need to have a face-to-face meeting with her to discuss ways to improve them."

The maid followed the order and left. In a short while, she led Hanguli back. However, just as Hanguli entered the room, there was a slight commotion in the whole Xiangyuan. The cause was nothing else but the several concubines who were expelled from the house together with Dora. Although they were dissatisfied, they only dared to whisper to each other in private because of the previous experience, and did not dare to discuss the matter openly.

The topic they were discussing was why Aunt Taji chose to summon Hanguli at this time. After all, there was only half a month left before she entered the palace, and Aunt Taji even criticized Hanguli's poor dancing without mercy, which was really puzzling.

Although they were just talking in private, no one dared to speak out. Looking back, in the past six months since she entered the Xiangyuan, Hanguli has always been in the whirlpool of public opinion and the focus of everyone's attention. At first, it was the fall incident when she first entered the Xiangyuan, then she was called a "fool", and then someone tried to poison her but accidentally poisoned someone else. It seemed that everything revolved around her.

Hanguli led Dal and the maid to the nanny's room. Hanguli bowed respectfully and said, "Greetings, nanny!"

Aunt Taji said quickly, "No need to be so polite, come and sit down." At the same time, she signaled with her eyes to the maid to move a chair to the side of her bed, and she personally reached out and gently rubbed her injured foot.

Hanguli looked at the nanny's things and asked:

"Is Mammy's injury okay?"

Mammy: "It's much better now, but you still have to be careful when you walk."

Hanguli: "Then rest for a few more days. It won't be too late to go out after your injuries are fully recovered."

Mammy smiled and replied, "Originally, I injured my bones and muscles this time. Fortunately, the doctor in the mansion is very skilled and prepared such a wonderful ointment to treat it. The wound healed so quickly!"

As soon as she finished speaking, the nanny cast her eyes on the maid beside her. The maid understood what she meant and immediately went forward to open the drawer and took out the remaining half box of ointment and handed it to the nanny. After the nanny took it, she did not rush to apply it, but first gently opened the lid and put it to her nose to sniff.

"This ointment is so well made! Not only is it effective in healing wounds, but it also emits a charming fragrance." The nanny said intoxicatedly, with an expression as if she was bewitched by the fragrance.

Then, the nanny turned to look at Hanguli again and invited her warmly: "Come and smell it, it smells really good!"

In fact, when Hanguli entered the room, she had already smelled something wrong. When the nanny took out the ointment, she knew what was wrong. Something had been added to the ointment, so she was afraid that the nanny's feet were only healed on the surface.

Hanguli took the ointment with a smile, put it to her nose and sniffed it, then said:

"Well, it smells quite good, but... Mammy, since your injury has almost healed, you don't need to use this ointment anymore. It looks like you will be back to normal after two days of rest."

Mammy said calmly, "Well, you are right. It is almost healed. There is really no need to continue using the ointment."

She gently replaced the lid of the ointment, handed it to the maid beside her, and instructed, "Put it away carefully."

Then, the nanny suddenly changed the subject and asked, "You will be entering the palace in half a month. Have you made up your mind?" Faced with this sudden question, Hanguli was stunned for a moment. In fact, she had already forgotten about this matter and had never thought about it, let alone expected the nanny to mention it today.

Just when Hanguli felt a little embarrassed and didn't know how to answer, the nanny reached out and gently held her hand, saying earnestly: "It's okay, there is still some time before you enter the palace. If you encounter any difficult problems in the palace in the future, you can come to ask for help from the nanny."

Hanguli listened to Mammy's words. Although Mammy had said the same thing last time, it felt very different now. Last time, Mammy was more formal when she spoke; however, this time, she seemed to detect a hint of concern in Mammy's tone.

After leaving Aunt Taji, she returned to her room with a heavy heart and sat alone on the edge of the bed in a daze.

Dal gently pushed open the door and walked in. Seeing that Hanguli looked absent-minded, he asked with concern, "Miss, what's wrong with you?" As he spoke, he poured a cup of hot tea and handed it to Hanguli.

Hanguli came back to her senses, reached out to take the teacup from Dal's hand, and whispered, "I'm thinking about the queen and the virtuous concubine..." There was a hint of worry in her words.

Dahl comforted her, "Miss, we know very little about them now, so it's really hard to make a decision easily. It's better to wait until we enter the palace and then act accordingly."

Hanguli nodded slightly, indicating her agreement with Dal's statement, but her eyes were still confused. "I believe that Mammy really wants to help me, but Xilin looks a little strange..."

As if she remembered something, Hanguli hesitated to speak.

Seeing this, Dar hurriedly asked, "Miss, do you think there is something wrong with her?"

Hanguli frowned slightly and nodded gently, "I always feel that she doesn't seem to be trying to win me over, but rather deliberately wants to sabotage my visit to the queen."

After hearing this, Dahl's face changed and he said nervously, "Doesn't that mean she is on the opposite side of Mammy? What should we do? What if she is doing something secretly? What should we do?"