Reborn as the Crippled King's Beloved

Chapter 217: Chapter 217: The Second Prince Is Seriously Injured

Chapter 217 -217: The Second Prince Is Seriously Injured

The Emperor, concerned about the Third Prince, allowed the waiting Imperial Physician to come in.

But The Third Prince persistently refused.

The Empress felt that something was not quite right.

Just as she was about to speak up, she saw Consort Jing clutching her chest and collapsing in the arms of a palace maid.

“My beloved consort!”

The Emperor was shocked.

The Imperial Physician, who was about to take the pulse of The Third Prince, naturally turned all his attention to Consort Jing.

The Empress watched indifferently, only to discover that The Third Prince seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.

Strange, very strange.

With Consort Jing fainting, The Emperor became anxious and upset. Seeing that The Empress was still there, he sent her away with a few words.

Containing her anger, The Empress left submissively.

As soon as she returned to her palace, she immediately ordered her people to keep an eye on Consort Jing’s side, especially on The Third Prince and Prince Rui.

Suddenly, she remembered something The Second Prince mentioned before leaving the Capital City: that there were spies in Prince Rui’s Mansion. She waved her hand and summoned a confidant, ordering them to contact the spy in Prince Rui’s Mansion to see if there had been any unusual activity recently.

Before she could find out anything, an eunuch hurried over to report that a palace maid named Su Jin from Consort Jing’s side had confessed that the person behind the scenes was Her Majesty the Empress. The report almost knocked The Empress off her feet in anger.

Whether she did it or not, she would surely know, wouldn’t she?

Well, after all this trouble, it turned out to be aimed at her.

Consort Jing was indeed a great actress, pretending to be deeply affectionate, yet she was heartless to the extreme, even capable of harming the palace maid who had been with her for ten years.

Did Consort Jing intend to remove her and take the position of Empress for herself?

The Empress, amidst her fury, felt a pang of panic. Consort Jing had used a servant she had had for ten years to frame her, which indicated she must have been well prepared. Perhaps someone close to her had really been in contact with Su Jin.

However, this incident was beyond her expectations. Although The Emperor, in his great fury, had ordered an investigation, it did not lead back to her.

After all, the poisoned wax pill did not appear out of thin air. There were no procurement records from her side, and the medicinal stock from the Imperial Medical Office wasn’t short. In the end, nothing came of the investigation, which only infuriated The Emperor. He ordered the near-death palace maid to be executed by beating.

Consort Jing became seriously ill for some time.

However, Murong Jiu would no longer visit the palace.

Once she returned to the Prince Mansion, her master simply gave her another pill to take, which had no adverse effects on her body.

But externally, it was said that she had stirred her pregnancy and needed to recuperate, declining all visitors.

Because The Third Prince did not allow the Imperial Physician to examine him, The Emperor did not learn about Consort Jing’s schemes. He thought that the schemes of others targeted Consort Jing, accidentally incriminating Murong Jiu. In the end, he felt somewhat guilty and even sent many supplements to her, and he dropped the subject of inviting her to examine Consort Jing again.

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Consort Jing really lost more than she gained this time. Su Jin was very useful to her, a confidant who provided her with ideas and was extremely loyal. It was Su Jin’s idea to plot against Murong Jiu and Divine Doctor Zhai.

Without Su Jin, even sending messages to The Third Prince’s Prince Rui’s Mansion became inconvenient. Almost everyone else had been assigned by The Emperor to her side. Although it was for her own security in the eyes of The Emperor, to her, it felt like surveillance.

Worrying about The Third Prince’s hidden ailment, Consort Jing was full of anxiety. The illness she had feigned now seemed to have grown more severe.

However, these matters no longer concerned Murong Jiu.

She planned to stay within the mansion and not leave until the birth of her child.

The Third Prince had been harboring ambitions all these years, allowing the Emperor to make arrangements for him, but he must have always considered himself the future Crown Prince. Now, if he truly has a secret illness, he would certainly fear being excluded from the succession as a result.

Information from Jun Yuyan’s spies within the palace revealed that the Third Prince had not sought treatment from the Imperial Physician. Therefore, the Emperor would not be aware of this matter and would not gather Court Physicians from all over the land to treat the Third Prince’s ailment.

Now that the Third Prince had not informed the Emperor, he would be even more afraid to do so.

On the other hand, Prince Rui’s Mansion spies reported that the Empress had become suspicious of the Third Prince. This was exactly to Murong Jiu’s liking, so she let word of the eight Capital City physicians who had died mysteriously reach the Empress’s people.

Additionally, the Empress had learned from the spies that quite a few maids from Prince Rui’s Mansion had died. Given the Empress’s abilities, she could easily associate these deaths with the Third Prince’s secret illness.

This way, there was no need for Murong Jiu to do anything further. She could just focus on nurturing her fetus and watch the power struggle unfold from the sidelines.

She passed on the occurrences within the palace to Jun Yuyan’s side as soon as possible to prevent him from worrying upon hearing about her complications in pregnancy from others, such as the Second Prince.

Unexpectedly, just after sending out her message, she received a correspondence from Jun Yuyan.

“The Second Prince was seriously injured and has already returned to the Capital City?”

Murong Jiu carefully read the letter and despised the Second Prince even more.

When the army reached the Frontier Pass and united with her father’s troops, the Xiongnu launched an attack not long after, utilizing a large amount of Fire-thunder. Witnessing the power of Fire-thunder, the Second Prince lost his composure on the spot, likely deliberately falling off his horse.

He had intended to feign injury, but as fate would have it, a Fire-thunder exploded nearby. Several of his guards rushed to shield him from most of the blast, but shrapnel still penetrated his body, resulting in actual injuries.

Murong Jiu had never expected the Second Prince to be so craven and fear death, wondering how she had never realized he was such a coward in her past life.

That he was injured now was indeed what he deserved!

Jun Yuyan had mentioned that the Second Prince had always been looking for opportunities to withdraw from the Frontier Pass battlefield because as the army drew closer to the clashes, the Xiongnu spoken of by the common folk became ever more frightening. However, Jun Yuyan had not given him the opportunity until after experiencing the Xiongnu invasion, when the Second Prince ended up shooting himself in the foot, so to speak.

Murong Jiu cursed that it was well deserved and couldn’t help but smile.

She thought, why hadn’t the Fire-thunder killed the Second Prince?

But then she considered, perhaps dying instantly would have been letting him off too easily?

He should experience pain so severe that he wished for death.

The Second Prince had originally feigned injury, probably hoping to return and fight for power, but now that he was truly injured, there was no need to worry.

Furthermore, Jun Yuyan revealed that it was actually better that the Second Prince had left because they couldn’t directly reveal the Fire-thunder. It had to be developed at the Frontier Pass to avoid the Emperor’s suspicion.

Even though the common people would praise Jun Yuyan’s abilities for being able to repel the Xiongnu with the Fire-thunder, the Emperor would consequently become more suspicious of him.

Fortunately, her father General Fu had taken action early. Upon learning the power of the Xiongnu’s weapons through a secret letter, he went against many objections to fortify the walls. He had iron from surrounding towns melted and poured into the constructions, which made it difficult for the Xiongnu to breach the city.

Murong Jiu thought it was laughable that if the Second Prince hadn’t been injured, he could have earned some military merits by accompanying her husband.

She lit the letter with a candle flame, watching as it burned to ashes. Murong Jiu clasped her hands together, praying to the heavens for the safe return of her father, brothers, and husband.

Within a few days, a famine broke out in the Capital City, as a large amount of grain was prioritized for the soldiers at the Frontier Pass, and there was no harvest in autumn. Grain merchants throughout the country kept raising grain prices.

Although Murong Jiu’s grain stores did not raise prices, most of their grain was donated to the frontline soldiers, something well known to the Capital City residents, hence the amount of grain sold each day was limited.

In addition to selling grain, Murong Jiu also set up porridge sheds in the name of Prince Ling’s Mansion, with lengthy queues forming each day; refugees had started to appear around the Capital City.

Even the Emperor was angered by the shortage of grain, throwing tantrums several times in court.

It was at this time that hundreds of carts of grain from the seaport, personally escorted by Manager Chai, gradually arrived in the Capital City.