The Concubine's Daughter Travels Through Time and Space and Takes the Road of Confrontation

Everyone in the room was dumbfounded. Empress Dowager Li was now anxious. "...Why are you all standing there in a daze? Hurry up and bring her back to me!"

So today, everyone in the palace saw a strange scene where Princess Roujia was running wildly along the palace road, with a group of people chasing her.

The commotion here was so loud that it finally alarmed the Purple Palace. Eunuch Chongrui and several guards stopped Roujia at the door. "Greetings, Princess, what are you doing?"

Roujia Chaihuan muttered incoherently, "Someone is going to kill someone, someone is going to kill someone." Then she fainted with a snap, her eyes rolled back.

Several people looked at each other, and no one dared to move.

Lu Yun appeared at the right time, picked up Roujia and rushed into the palace. She blinked and tears as big as beans came out and broke the thread, "Princess, don't scare this servant, wuwuwu!"

"Ah, ah, ah, what are you running around for, little maid?" Chongrui hurriedly stopped her, and several guards followed closely behind. Unfortunately, the little maid was holding someone so slippery that the few of them hugged her tightly and didn't even wipe the corner of her clothes.

Emperor Wende rubbed his aching forehead. For some reason, more than a dozen officials had already taken leave of absence today, claiming illness. He looked at the little palace maid holding someone at the door and said in a deep voice, "Chongrui, please ask the imperial physician to move Roujia to another place for proper treatment. Anyone coming from Changchun Palace should be turned away." Unexpectedly, the little palace maid knelt down in front of him.

"Ning'an, I meet His Majesty."

Emperor Wende's eyes widened, and he stood up straight, his voice rising a degree, "Ning...how could you?"

Roujia retired after completing her mission and went to a side hall under the obscure gaze of Eunuch Chongrui.

Finally, only Lu Yun and Emperor Wende were left in the hall.

Lu Yun said respectfully, "Your Majesty, there are reasons for this. Could you please listen to me first before making any decisions?"

Emperor Wende sighed, "You say."

"One year I imported a crop called sweet potatoes from overseas, with a yield of 2,500 kilograms per mu. A month ago, I sent a pamphlet with detailed information about the sweet potatoes to Kyoto, but more than half a month ago, news came back that the messenger had been killed and his belongings stolen." Lu Yun glanced up at Emperor Wende. "This matter seemed suspicious, and I was worried, so I went alone to Shimen Cave to investigate the truth behind the messenger's disappearance. I discovered something even more shocking: Baibanjiao."

Emperor Wende's expression changed completely. "Bai Ban Jiao? But that's the herbal ingredient used to make Fu Sheng Xiao Yao San!"

Lu Yun nodded without hesitation. "Yes, I discovered that the Cheng'en Marquis Li family was secretly colluding with the Nanyue people to purchase Baibanjiao. They used the Shimendong bandits to regularly go to Dali to receive the goods, and then a manager named Li would regularly transport them back to Kyoto. It was also the Li family who killed the people I sent and stole the goods."

"Do you have any evidence?" Emperor Wende's face turned pale. "Ning'an, this is a serious matter. Without evidence, it will be difficult for me to hold the Li family accountable."

Lu Yun took out the pamphlet she had written and presented it to him. "Your Majesty, regarding sweet potatoes, this is the one I originally wrote. If I were to copy the pamphlet that the Li family had already seized and present it to you verbatim, you would be able to make a judgment by comparing them. Furthermore, both of them share a common flaw: the pamphlet states that the best time to plant sweet potatoes is March each year, but this only applies to South Vietnam. In reality, the climate in Kyoto is much colder, so the optimal planting time is about a month later."

Emperor Wende closed the booklet, his eyes cold. "This one item is enough to convict the Li family of deceiving the emperor." He sighed softly, "Ning An, I believe you have also obtained evidence of Baibanjiao?"

Lu Yun nodded heavily, her eyes complicated. "Your Majesty, Baibanjiao is a source of endless harm. I found a box in Shimen Cave. Inside the box were dozens of dried Baibanjiao sticks and four boxes of incense powders: agarwood, sandalwood, and ambergris. Of these, only two boxes contained ambergris."

As soon as she entered the room, she could smell ambergris in the Zichen Palace.

Emperor Wende clenched his fists and gritted his teeth, "Go on."

"This is the confession of the bandit leader. There are also several other pieces of evidence." Lu Yun listed them one by one. "Last night, I went to the teahouse and found a large amount of Baibanjiao soup in the kitchen. There is also a father and son named Gong who are the Gong family members who made mistakes and were expelled from South Vietnam. It is very likely that the people who provided Baibanjiao to the Li family in South Vietnam were also members of the Gong family. And..."

Emperor Wende's voice seemed to be squeezed out from between his teeth, "There is also the incense from Changchun Palace, which the Empress Dowager gave to..." My ambergris.

The hall fell into a long period of dead silence. Lu Yun's heart began to beat fast, wondering whether to play the emotional card to dispel Emperor Wende's other concerns.

Emperor Wende finally spoke again, his expression calm, "Ning'an, I will not reveal a single word about this matter to anyone. Before my father died, he also told me not to be suspicious of you. I will always remember your great kindness to the Qin Dynasty."

Lu Yun breathed a sigh of relief but not completely. She still remembered that Emperor Longqing had sent someone to plot against her, and the Fifth Prince's credibility was temporarily unreliable.

Imperial Physician Wende stood up and walked Lu Yun to the door, then turned around and closed the palace door again.

Unscrewing the vase beside the bed, the deep cave entrance opened again. Emperor Wende walked down the stairs and lit the oil lamp on the wall.

The small space was filled with bookshelves in two rows of four. The first shelf was filled from top to bottom with a variety of paper scrolls. Some were yellowed and cracked, some were half-new, and some were very new, as if they had just been put there. Each scroll was labeled with the name of the event, the date, and the person who sealed it.

The first and fifteenth years of Taizu’s reign… the tenth and twenty-ninth years of Longqing’s reign…

Emperor Wende took out a blank paper and wrote down the reign title, name, and event name neatly. Then he wrote another note and threw it out from the small round hole in the wall.

In three days at the most, the secret guards will have thoroughly investigated the matter of Baibanjiao. Every generation of emperors in the Qin Dynasty would record certain events in full and put them on the shelf for future generations to evaluate.

When Emperor Wende entered this secret room for the first time, he found an unfinished scroll that recorded some things related to Ning An.

Qin Mao was very ashamed after discovering the truth. Now he found that he could suddenly understand his father's decisions.

Whether it was letting Ning An marry into South Vietnam, or using Rongrong and the Lu family to restrain Ning An and hunt down Ning An, he specifically instructed himself to treat Ning An well before his death.

The previous things came from an emperor, and the last one was the true intention of an old man on his deathbed.

Three days later, when the first rays of sunlight pierced through the clouds and fell upon the earth, the Kyoto crowd was surprised to find that Li Guojiu's mansion and teahouse were both covered with ominous white seals. The air above the house was dead and silent, as if no trace of life had been found.

Just as people were arguing with each other, rumors quickly spread that the Li family had deceived the emperor and was involved in treason.

As for the unusual incident of more than a dozen officials being demoted or reprimanded, almost no one cared.

Lu Yun left Kyoto on the fourth day, her bag a bit bigger than when she arrived. Some were given by Roujia, while others she bought, such as Zhang's dim sum.

The peach blossoms were already in bud, and the further south they went, the more flowers bloomed. Lu Yun was in a good mood until she saw a group of people who looked very embarrassed.

Lu Yun clasped her fists from a distance and asked, "Are you all escorts from the Changping Escort Agency?"

An exceptionally handsome young man walked out, his wheat-colored complexion highlighting a set of large white teeth. "Yes, sir, who are you?"