Chapter 135: Anxiety, is there poison? (2/2)
“This commoner is Celestial Fragrance Teashop’s tea servant Bilü, Mu Liuyue’s exclusive tea servant. This canister of tea leaves was brought to the tea plantation by Han family’s Second Young Miss Han Ruoxue a month ago. She was preparing to gift it to Miss Liuyue, but forgot. This commoner was reluctant to leave it there, so I hid it away in private. Examinations showed that these tea leaves may contain poison, the same Ten-Thousand Snake Poison that was used on the Young General. In the past three to four years, Miss Liuyue and Second Young Miss Han often drank tea together at the teashop. Each time, Second Young Miss Han would gift tea leaves to Miss Liuyue, saying that they were personally cultivated by her mother and impossible to buy elsewhere.”
Bilü’s words were enough for any intelligent person to understand everything clearly. If these tea leaves really were poisonous, then Mu Liuyue was an accomplice, while Han Ruoxue was the true criminal. Han Ruoxue used Mu Liuyue to poison Mu Qingwu! As for Madame Li, she’d be the direct poisoner who cultivated the tea leaves.
Mu Liuyue’s heart was flustered at the words. She’d accepted so many tea leaves from Han Ruoxue, so she was clearer than anyone else how much her brother received. Looking at the familiar canister, her heart nearly stopped beating. It was as if something had snatched up her soul. She slowly backed away, unable to say a word!
How could this be?
She’d been tricked by Han Ruoxue and turned into her big brother’s assassin!
Big brother had been afflicted with a slow-acting poison that accumulated over the course of months and years. As for her, she’d gift him tea leaves almost every single day.
No…she didn’t want this! She didn’t!
This had to be a coincidence!
Suddenly, she made a mad dash towards Han Yunxi, nearly crashing into her. “I don’t believe it! I don’t! On what basis do you say that the tea leaves are poisoned? On what grounds?”
“So Miss Liuyue admits that these tea leaves were supposed to be gifted by Han Ruoxue and confirms Bilü’s words?” Han Yunxi asked.
How could Mu Liuyue be bothered to consider so much? She angrily replied, “Yes! I recognize this canister of tea leaves, it’s the kind that Han Ruoxue often gives me. And plenty of times, I give the tea leaves she gifts me to my big brother! But what can this prove? Why do you say that the tea leaves are poisoned?”
“Yes, on what basis are they poisoned? I don’t believe it!” Han Ruoxue piped up hastily.
The two of them were like drowning souls clutching at rice straws and refusing to let go. If the tea leaves had poison, then Han Yunxi would win. If they didn’t, then it wouldn’t matter what Han Yunxi said.
The crucial point lay in these tea leaves!
Finally, the reticent Madame Li spoke up as well. “Esteemed wangfei, please speak using evidence. Otherwise, this commoner won’t accept it! This commoner cries injustice! Injustice!”
As before, Madame Li believed in the strength of her poison skills, convinced that Han Yunxi wouldn’t be able to find any traces. It was good that there were so many people gathered here today. With so many eyes on them, Han Yunxi’s inability to find the poison for one more day meant Long Feiye would be unable to arrest her for one more day. As she shouted, she prepared to run over to Grand Concubine Yi, but Mu Qingwu blocked her way.
She took the opportunity to kneel down instead. “Esteemed Imperial Concubine, this commoner has been wronged! The Duke of Qin’s estate is making slanderous accusations without any proof that I’m a murderer. This is great injustice for this commoner!”
Grand Concubine Yi had backed up far away. Though her heart was on guard, of course she was planning to speak on Madame Li’s behalf. No matter what happened, she only wanted results. As long as Han Yunxi lost the bet, her reputation would be ruined!
“Han Yunxi, weren’t you going to test for poisons here? Madame Li isn’t satisfied, and I suspect many others here are as well. You might as well give it a go for everyone to see!” Grand Concubine Yi said coldly.
“In other words, Madame Li admits that she was the one who packaged and processed these tea leaves?” Of course, Han Yunxi had to ascertain things first.
Madame Li had no way out and openly admitted, “Yes.”
“Excellent!” Han Yunxi’s voice was quite loud. But nobody knew that she was taking a deep breath at this very moment.
Only she realized the detox system hadn’t reacted at all with the canister of tea leaves in her hands. There were two possibilities here: 1) the traces of poison in the tea leaves were too faint to be picked up, so ordinary poison doctors had no way to find them, which meant she had to use her deep scanning system to check; 2) there…really wasn’t any poison.
Right now, everyone’s eyes were on her. Madame Li and her daughter were equally determined in their denials. The object in her hands held the key to honor or disgrace, life or death! It’d be a lie to say the Han Yunxi wasn’t nervous. Her convictions had carried her this far, but the end of the road was at hand. Whether she’d travel past the dark willows to see blooming flowers[3] or a cliff before her was still uncertain.
Heart thumping, Han Yunxi clamped her jaws together as she opened the canister. Her bright eyes peered at the tea leaves while she started up her detox system’s deep scanners…
-o-
[1] refused to die before her words began to startle (语不惊人死不休) – yu bu jingren si bu xiu, a line taken from Du Fu’s poem written regarding his feelings upon seeing a stream lead into the ocean.
[2] Bilü (碧绿) – a tea servant for Spring Rain Courtyard at the Celestial Fragrance Tea Garden.
[3] travel past the dark willows to see blooming flowers (柳暗花明) – liu an hua ming, part of the saying 柳暗花明又一村 (liu an hua ming you yi cun), or, ‘after the dark willows, flowers will bloom and reveal another village,’ indicating a beauteous scene/new vista after a period of darkness and doubt.