bookrebus Chapter 252: Lady Yao Ran Away
Chapter 252: Lady Yao Ran Away
I have to say that Cui Lanwei is very capable. She quickly comforted Imperial Noble Consort Dehui. After she took a bath and changed her clothes, she came to the vault again and found that the place had changed a lot.
The boxes were sorted and stacked on one side, and the rotting snake carcasses on the ground were cleaned up as quickly as possible.
The vault was filled with thick incense, almost covering up the stench.
And the handkerchief thrown on the ground by Ye Jintang was finally seen by someone.
"My Lady, I found a blood-stained handkerchief among the pile of rotting snakes at the door."
Che Xiang carefully placed the handkerchief on a wooden tray and presented it to Imperial Noble Consort Dehui.
"It looks like the handkerchief was torn by a wild beast. It's strange. How could there be a wild beast in the palace?"
Cui Lanwei was not afraid of getting dirty so she reached out to pick up the handkerchief and examined it carefully. She could vaguely make out the word "Yao" embroidered on the torn corner.
"My lady, look, the clue is here."
"It's obvious that the handkerchief is not from the palace. If I'm not mistaken, it must have been left behind by the person who stole the silver in a hurry. There's even snake blood on it."
"Yao? This surname is not uncommon. Where do I start looking for it?"
If it's a rare surname, you might be able to cast a wide net to find it, but if it's too common, there's really no way to find it.
"For items like these that are kept close to the body by women, most of them are embroidered by women themselves. Everyone has different habits when doing embroidery."
"I think the embroidery of the word Yao is very good. It doesn't look like something that a girl from an ordinary family can do. We can find a few people to take a look. Maybe there will be some unexpected clues."
Noble Consort Dehui nodded slightly. How could she have forgotten about this?
The two chatted for a few words and went to check on the snake heart fruit.
Cui Lanwei looked at the empty cave with mixed feelings. The two giant pythons in the vault were both raised by her, and they were raised together with the snake heart fruit.
People have emotions. If you say you don't feel sad when a pet you have raised for many years is killed by someone else, you would be lying.
"It seems that the person who came is an expert. The snake heart fruit was dug up with its roots. He wants to transplant it to other places. The other party should know the wonderful uses of the snake heart fruit."
Cui Lanwei's face looked a little unhappy. As far as she knew, not many people knew about the miraculous benefits of the Snake Heart Fruit. Basically, they were all disciples of the Divine Doctor Valley. Among the outer disciples, those with less experience might not even know about it.
"This matter needs to be investigated as soon as possible. The longer we delay, the harder it will be to recover the lost silver."
Of the two things, snake heart fruit and silver, Imperial Noble Consort Dehui valued the silver more.
"Don't worry, your Majesty. Just leave this matter to me. Your Majesty must not reveal too much in front of the Emperor these days, and you must not let the Emperor know the amount of silver that was stolen from your vault."
Cui Lanwei couldn't help but lower her voice when speaking, for fear of being heard by others.
"What are you talking about? I lost so much money, shouldn't I hold the Guards responsible?"
"The Emperor only knows that the Empress has a private vault, but he doesn't know how much silver is in it. If this matter gets out of hand and the Emperor knows the exact amount of silver in the Empress's private vault, it will cause another disturbance."
Imperial Noble Consort Dehui suddenly realized.
"I was really angry and lost my composure, which almost caused a disaster. Fortunately, you reminded me, otherwise I could have arrested the commander of the Royal Guards and tortured him."
"Don't worry, madam. The boat will straighten itself out when it reaches the mountain. If you want to eat so much silver in one go, you will probably die of bloating."
"I estimate that the silver should still be in the capital. As long as we seal the city gates and search carefully, we will be able to recover the silver sooner or later."
"You are right. I will have someone conduct a secret search in the capital right now."
Imperial Noble Consort Dehui handed the matter of investigating the brocade handkerchief to Cui Lanwei, while she herself kept an eye on the developments in the capital.
Just as Cui Lanwei said, it is not easy to hide so much silver. Even if it is transported out of the palace, there will be clues left. With so many people under her control, she doesn't believe that nothing can be found.
As long as the person behind this is found out, no matter who it is, she will definitely kill all nine generations of his clan.
As for Cui Lanwei, she personally took the handkerchief and went to ask several old maids in the palace who were good at embroidery whether they had ever seen such craftsmanship.
For Imperial Noble Consort Dehui, silver is the most important, but for Cui Lanwei, the snake heart fruit is a priceless treasure. Even the giant python she has raised for more than 20 years is worth more than the lost silver.
Moreover, she saw that the python's gallbladder had been dug out, and she was eager to retrieve the snake heart fruit and the python's gallbladder.
Money can be earned again if it is lost, but if she wants to get these two things again, she will have to spend another 20 years. She doesn't have that much time to wait.
After searching the palace for a while, Cui Lanwei didn't find any clues. She was unwilling to give up, so she left the palace without stopping and continued to look for an embroiderer with certain skills in embroidery outside the palace.
At the same time, Emperor Jing also received news that Noble Consort Dehui's private vault had been robbed.
"Zheng Hai, go and find out how much silver the Imperial Concubine lost. I heard that the Imperial Concubine has been depressed these past two days because of this matter."
"Your Majesty, I have already investigated this matter. The news from there is that not much silver was lost, but a medicinal herb that the Imperial Concubine had been raising for a long time was lost. I heard that the medicinal herb is extremely rare."
"I know. It seems to be called snake heart fruit. When Imperial Noble Consort Dehui first started raising it, I told her that it was very evil and that if she raised it in the palace, she must also raise two giant pythons."
"Your Majesty is right. I heard that not only were the snake heart fruits stolen, but even the two giant pythons were killed."
Emperor Jing was slightly moved when he heard Zheng Hai say this. He knew that Imperial Noble Consort Dehui valued the snake heart fruit very much, and he was afraid that he would feel bad if all of it was lost this time.
"Today's dinner will be served in the Imperial Concubine's bedroom. I haven't had dinner with the Imperial Concubine for quite a while.
"Yes, I will make arrangements now."
For three consecutive days, Cui Lanwei was inquiring about the news outside the palace. She was so high-profile that she naturally could not hide it from some people.
Ye Yanran, who had been recuperating in the palace, also received news that Aunt Cui, a favorite of Imperial Noble Consort Dehui, had been investigating the origins of a brocade handkerchief as soon as she returned to the capital.
"It's really strange. Aunt Cui has only been back in the capital for a few days. Why is she investigating a handkerchief?"
Ye Yanran talked about this while drinking the medicinal food prepared by Madam Yao.
Madam Yao was also quite puzzled. Logically speaking, with Cui Lanwei's status, she didn't need to do things like checking the handkerchief herself. She could just leave it to the people below.
"Did something happen in the palace? Otherwise, why would Aunt Cui suddenly leave the palace?"
"It's possible. There hasn't been any news sent out from the palace in the past few days, and we don't know what exactly happened."
In the past, the palace would send out some news every now and then. But today, when they knew something had happened in the palace but couldn't send out any news at all, it really made people suspicious.
Ye Yanran was just confused about this matter and didn't take it too seriously. The most important thing for her right now was to recover quickly.
As for the mess in the palace, we’ll talk about it later.
But Madam Yao was concerned about it, and she went to find out what kind of handkerchief Cui Lanwei was looking for.
It didn't matter that she asked this question, but Madam Yao felt a little nervous.