TICIEC Chapter 20.1

Seeing that he understood her implication, Ning Wanyin took Lian Rui to the small kitchen.

This was an excuse for outsiders.

Actually, she wanted to check…

Where did this strange fragrance come from, and what exactly was it?

Because Ning Wanyin was sincere about wanting to do it herself, the palace maids did not follow her. Only Lian Rui followed her into the small kitchen.

The small kitchen is located in a corner of the backyard of Lingxue Pavilion.

The kitchen was clean and tidy, with a mixture of aromas of sesame oil, chili peppers, live fish, and pork. The strange fragrance was not too obvious. Ning Wanyin followed the smell and went straight to the stove.

After staring at the big pot on the stove for a while, Ning Wanyin reached out and took the pot down.

“Master!” Lian Rui was stunned.

Ning Wanyin whispered, “There’s something in this stove…”

There was a pile of ashes on the stove.

Ning Wanyin took a piece of firewood from a pile of dry wood in the corner and scraped away the ashes. The strange fragrance spread a little. In the normal pile of firewood, there was a little bit of ashes from burning herbs.

“Master, what kind of firewood is this? It has a faint, herbal fragrance?” Lian Rui asked in surprise.

Some woods also have a light fragrance when burned.

As long as there was no one in the small kitchen who was proficient in medicine, no one would notice that someone had thrown something into the stove.

Apart from Lian Rui and Lu Ju, no one usually visited the small kitchen.

It was rarely noticed.

“This is the ash from burning Tianzhu grass. Tianzhu grass is a medicine and a spice. If you burn it frequently, it can cause infertility.”

Ning Wanyin stared at the ashes for a moment, her eyes grim.

Lian Rui almost cried out in shock, quickly covering her mouth with both hands and whispering, “Master, is someone trying to make you infertile? Stay away from these filthy things!”

“It won’t have much impact for the time being.”

Various clues emerged in Ning Wanyin’s mind.

She didn’t usually come to the small kitchen, so she hardly smelled anything, so of course, it couldn’t harm her.

If someone really wanted to harm her, the person would have thrown it into the incense burner in the bedroom.

But Ning Wanyin’s inner chambers were always guarded carefully, and Lingxue Pavilion was cleaned twice a day. Even if the medicine ash was really placed in the incense burner in the middle of the night, it would be cleaned up early the next morning.

As for the stove ash, it was usually cleared every seven or eight days after it accumulated, so it wouldn’t attract attention.

The person who hid the thing in the stove must be very clever.

Besides causing infertility, the Tianzhu grass can also cause miscarriages in pregnant women…

Could it be…

However, there was currently no news of any concubine in the harem being pregnant.

Otherwise, she would know who to start guarding against.

Now the fog was thick, and based on the current clues, she could only roughly guess: one, someone in the harem might be pregnant, and two, someone wanted to frame her.

This medicine ash was the evidence of the crime.

Moreover, the opponent’s method was very clever. What they hid was not the Tianzhu grass, but the herb ash.

Who would harm others and then leave unused herbs in her own palace?

It must be destroyed.

Who would have known that the imperial physician could find clues from the inconspicuous pot ash?

It seemed that she was the mastermind behind the murder, which was why the evidence needed to be destroyed.

One thing led to another, leaving her no room for argument!

A hint of coldness flashed in Ning Wanyin’s eyes. She had long suspected that there was a traitor in Lingxue Pavilion. It was useless to change people, because she would still find the same one even if she replaced another batch.

Because the Ning family fell into decline, she had no roots in the palace and no one who knew her well enough to be used by her.

“Lian Rui, I’ll gather everyone together for a lecture later. Wrap these ashes with straw paper and throw them into the lotus pond when the opportunity comes.”

Both ashes and paper dissolve in water.

Completely destroy the evidence and eliminate all traces.

“And this piece of firewood is also stained with traces. Throw it in as well.” Ning Wanyin handed the firewood in her hand to Lian Rui.

“I understand.” Lian Rui nodded.

No matter how ingenious the other party’s plan was, she directly destroyed the ‘evidence’, which was to cut off the source of the problem.

 

 

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