Transmigrated into the Scumbag Ex-Wife of the Prime Minister - Chapter 40

Taking the visiting card, they went to the tea shop at Xianlin Mountain Villa. The shop’s manager came out personally to receive Lu Sheng and the other person after seeing the card, and even specially took them to see the tea garden on the mountain.

The Xianlin Mountain Villa’s tea garden was on Xifeng Mountain, north of Qinzhou City. The tea mountain covered nearly a thousand mu (acres), and in addition to various kinds of chrysanthemums, it also had Qinzhou’s specialty, white tea.

The price of the imperial chrysanthemums in the tea garden was less than one-third of what the seller in Binhe County was asking. Lu Sheng directly ordered five hundred jin (catties) of the imperial chrysanthemums most suitable for brewing wine, agreeing to have them delivered to the post house three days later.

It was noon when the two returned from the tea mountain, and they found an eatery for a meal.

Having not had a drop of water all morning, Lu Sheng, as soon as she sat down, poured herself a cup of tea and eagerly drank it all in one gulp.

With the main business settled, she recalled the question from yesterday, and Lu Sheng asked, “Why did this Princess Changning disguise herself as Miss Liang?”

She thought that the clever Qi Zhenshu might be able to guess the reason.

Qi Zhenshu refilled her tea, then poured a cup for himself before slowly saying, “Perhaps it is to investigate a case.”

“Investigate a case?” Lu Sheng asked, puzzled.

Qi Zhenshu explained Princess Changning’s official position and appointment, and then told her about an incident that happened this year.

Lu Sheng was also aware of this matter: the grain reselling case involving the family of Lu Huaying’s maternal grandfather.

The southern part of Xiliang Kingdom had a pleasant climate and abundant resources, while the northern part was dry with little rain and relatively scarce materials. There were no restrictions on grain sales within the country; people could freely buy and sell as they pleased, but this was limited to domestic circulation. Xiliang law strictly forbade the resale of grain to other neighboring countries.

The Wang family’s ancestors had always been in the local grain business in Binhe County. After generations of accumulation, by the time of Lu Huaying’s uncle, Wang Jiancheng, they found a way to expand the business to Yunzhou City in the northwest.

Each year during the harvest season, after purchasing grain within the borders of Qingzhou Prefecture, they would transport it by water to Zhaozhou Prefecture in the northwest circuit, and then transfer it by mountain road in Zhaozhou to Yunzhou City, the westernmost prefecture in Xiliang Kingdom.

This route was nothing special; most southern merchants used this method to move goods to the northwest.

Therefore, no one suspected anything amiss with the Wang family’s business until last year when Mu Xiuyuan, the Zhizhou (prefect) of Yunzhou Prefecture, was murdered in his home and the death was staged as a suicide by hanging. A month before that, she had directly submitted a memorial to the imperial court, accusing the Prince of Yunzhou of secretly colluding with Beidi and reselling provisions to them.

Mu Xiuyuan’s wife and daughter did not believe it was suicide and, after numerous failed appeals, had no choice but to go to the capital to beat the Dengwen Drum (the petition drum) and appeal to the Empress.

Learning the details of the incident, the Empress was furious, firstly because she had never received the memorial submitted by Mu Xiuyuan, and secondly, because a fourth-rank imperial official was inexplicably murdered and the case was hastily concluded as a suicide.

The Empress dispatched Administrator Si Xu of the Prince of Jing’s establishment, Junior Left Vice-Minister of the Central Secretariat Si Qingning (Princess Changning), and Junior Minister of the Grand Court of Judicial Review Liu Han to Yunzhou together to investigate the case.

After four months of investigation, the three discovered more than ten grain merchants, including Wang Jiancheng, who were involved to varying degrees across Yunzhou, Qingzhou, Qinzhou, Shangzhou, Maozhou, and Wanzhou, as well as seven minor and major officials, including the Deputy Inspector of the Yunzhou garrison and the official in charge of grain transportation in Yunzhou.

However, they found no evidence whatsoever linking the matter to the Prince of Yunzhou.

“You mean the Empress appointed Princess Changning as the Transport Commissioner because she wants her to continue investigating the Yunzhou grain reselling case?”

Qingzhou, Qinzhou, Shangzhou, Maozhou, and Wanzhou are all prefectures within the jurisdiction of Jiangnan Circuit. The deep meaning behind the Empress sending Princess Changning, who had previously investigated the grain case, to be the Transport Commissioner of Jiangnan Circuit might be more than just routine inspection.

“Mm,” Qi Zhenshu affirmed, “Yunzhou is the Prince of Yunzhou’s fiefdom, so investigations there are inevitably constrained. Starting with the merchants in Jiangnan Circuit is not a bad method.”

“Furthermore, Cao Can, the commander of the Qinzhou garrison, was previously an old subordinate of the Prince of Yunzhou.”

After finishing their meal, Lu Sheng remembered Qi Nan’s instructions and asked the waiter at the eatery for the location of the City God Temple.

The waiter simply took them for out-of-town tourists drawn by the reputation, and enthusiastically told them, “Follow the road in front of our place, and walk two intersections south to find the City God Temple.”

“You two have come at just the right time. Tomorrow’s Chrysanthemum Festival is the liveliest time in Qinzhou. There will also be a flower competition at the City God Temple. Flower farmers in Qinzhou will display their best flowers—all rare and unusual varieties that common people rarely get to see. It will truly be a feast for the eyes.”

“There will also be a lantern fair in the evening. The prefecture has also specially set up ten riddles hidden in Kangding Ward, where the City God Temple is located. Whoever is the first to find and solve these riddles will win a chrysanthemum lantern woven with gold threads.”

“That sounds quite interesting,” Lu Sheng said with a smile.

“Those ten riddles are not simple, and they get harder every year. The person who won first place last year spent four hours just to find the answers.”

Ten riddles took four hours? That was indeed not simple.

Following the waiter’s directions, Lu Sheng and the other person found the Qinzhou City God Temple.

Although tomorrow was the main day of the Chrysanthemum Festival, the City God Temple was already bustling with traffic and throngs of people, with banners and pennants fluttering.

Various acrobatics and variety shows were being performed, such as stilt-walking, broadsword play, weightlifting, and fire-breathing dragons. Besides various shops, there were also street stalls selling food and general merchandise.

Lu Sheng watched the excitement for a while, then found an old-looking shop at the intersection and asked if they knew the Zhu butcher’s family nearby.

Qi Nan didn’t know the exact location of her sister’s house, but she clearly remembered that her father had married her sister off to the widower Zhu the butcher near the City God Temple in exchange for a pregnant sow for the family.

She hated this matter intensely. Since then, she had never eaten pork and the memory of the event remained deep.

Coincidentally, the first person she asked happened to know Zhu the butcher.

“Zhu the butcher who kills pigs? I do know this person, but…” The old shopkeeper stroked his gray beard, pondered, and said, “He died of illness five years ago.”

“Died?!” Lu Sheng quickly asked again, “Then do you know his wife, née Qi?”

“The Qi lady?” The old shopkeeper raised his eyebrows, somewhat alert. “Why are you looking for her?”

“We are friends of her sister, Qi Nan. She has been worried about her sister all these years, so she entrusted us to help her find the person,” Qi Zhenshu said calmly.

“So that’s it.” The old shopkeeper relaxed his brows after sizing up the two of them. “I have heard the Qi lady mention her sister.”

“Where is she now?”

Judging by his tone, it seemed he knew Qi Bei.

“Over there, working as a helper at Huichuntang on Zhenglin Street.” The old shopkeeper pointed to a street diagonally opposite. “You walk west for about ten meters, and you’ll see it.”

The two left the shop and had just turned into Zhenglin Street when they heard a series of desperate wails coming from the roadside.

“My poor son! How could you just be gone?!”

A woman wearing a gray-blue cloth dress and a blue cloth wrapped around her head knelt on the ground, weeping loudly.

In her arms, she held a child of four or five years old. The child’s limbs were limp, eyes tightly shut, and his face was utterly pale, completely devoid of blood, indicating he had probably passed away.

“My son! My poor son!”

The woman was filled with sorrow, and her cries were mournful and agonizing, instantly wrenching the heart of anyone who heard them.

Compared to the main street of the City God Temple, there weren’t too many people on Zhenglin Street, but they all gathered after seeing the crying woman.

“My son! How am I going to live now, your mother!”

The woman was shaking the child’s clothes with one hand and constantly stroking the child’s face with the other.

An elderly auntie, unable to bear the sight, stepped forward and asked, “Madam, what happened to your child? And why are you sitting here crying?”

“My son caught a bit of a chill yesterday and started having diarrhea, so I brought him to Huichuntang to see the doctor…” The woman couldn’t help but cry as she said this.

“I never thought, never thought that after taking the medicine prescribed by Huichuntang, my son didn’t get better but suffered from even more relentless diarrhea.”

“My son, my poor, fated son, was just pulled to death by the sheer force of the diarrhea!”

The woman choked up, pointing her raised hand toward Huichuntang, which was directly opposite.

Hearing this, everyone looked towards Huichuntang.

Just then, a person rushed out of Huichuntang. This person’s hair was tied up high with a wooden hairpin, and he was wearing a green gown, suggesting he was a medical practitioner.

Seeing the man walk out of the shop, the woman dropped the child’s body, suddenly stood up, and went to grab his sleeve.

“It was you, you killed my son!”

“Madam, your son only had diarrhea. The anti-diarrhea decoction I normally prescribed, how could it cause death?” The man looked embarrassed and hurriedly explained.

“It was this dose of medicine, this medicine is problematic!” The woman said, wiping her tears as she angrily pulled out a handful of medicinal dregs from her bosom and threw them at the man.

The man was stunned by the impact, then looked down at the medicinal dregs on the ground. As soon as his gaze touched them, his expression changed in surprise, and he quickly bent down to pick up a piece of herb.

“This is not the formula I wrote for you yesterday!”

“What? You also see that these medicinal dregs are problematic?!” The woman cried out, wiping her tears as she complained to the crowd, “I specifically took these medicinal dregs to another shop today to ask about them.”

“It was this careless doctor who mistakenly wrote Huanglian (Coptis chinensis, Chinese Goldthread) instead of Huangcen (Scutellaria baicalensis, Baikal Skullcap), which not only failed to stop my son’s diarrhea but caused him to die from severe, relentless diarrhea!”

After the woman finished speaking to the crowd, she turned and grabbed the man again, wailing, “You pay for my son! You pay for my son!”

As soon as she said this, the onlookers began to discuss and point fingers at the man.

“It looks like this doctor prescribed the wrong medicine and caused a death.” “Unscrupulous quack!” “Let him pay with his life!”

“It can’t be.” A woman in plain cloth rushed out of Huichuntang and said to the crying woman, “I was the one who dispensed the medicine yesterday. The herb was Huangcen; there’s no mistake. I remember clearly.”

“He just looked at the medicine, and it is Huanglian. Where is the Huangcen you claim?” The woman pointed at the ground, her voice hoarse. “The medicinal dregs are right here. Are you still trying to deny it?” The woman looked at the dregs on the ground, then suddenly raised her head, looked at the other woman, and realized, “Could it be that you dispensed the wrong medicine? Mistakenly taking Huanglian for Huangcen?!”

“H-how could that be!”

Seeing the accusation suddenly turned toward her, the woman was instantly shocked and quickly defended herself, “I already said I remember clearly dispensing Huangcen. How could I have dispensed Huanglian!”

“If you didn’t dispense it wrong, did the medicine change by itself then?” The woman started wailing again, “My son, my poor son, it’s all my fault. I was useless and let a quack kill you!”

“I think the clinic did dispense the wrong medicine.” “Exactly, the dregs are right here; the evidence is conclusive.”

Hearing their words, the woman tearfully pleaded, “I kept the medicine in my bosom the moment I left the clinic and brewed it right away when I got home.”

“But the medicine I dispensed was indeed correct,” the woman with the green gown said, biting her lip. “Once the medicine leaves the shop, how can it be proven that we dispensed it incorrectly?”

“The clinic’s rule for dispensing medicine is that we are not responsible once it leaves the counter.”

“That’s true. Once the medicine leaves the clinic, who knows if it was swapped.”

“Swapped? Why would anyone swap the medicine?”

“Do you think this woman might have swapped the medicine herself, intentionally trying to extort the clinic?”

“Are you saying she deliberately gave her son a laxative?”

“Impossible, impossible.” The woman shook her head violently, tears streaming down. “My son, this is my own son. Why would I deliberately swap the medicine to harm his life?”

“It’s them! Their clinic dispensed the wrong medicine and caused a death!”

The elderly auntie who spoke first came forward to help the woman up. “Sister, if the problem occurred after you took the medicine home to decoct, you can’t say for sure that the clinic dispensed it incorrectly. Do you have any other evidence?”

“What about the prescription? Do you still have the prescription?” A man in a gray garment reminded the crowd.

The woman suddenly turned around, hurriedly reached into her bosom, pulled out a crumpled piece of paper, and nervously handed it to the auntie beside her. “This, this is the prescription.”

“I can’t read. Elder Sister, please look, what is written on this?!”

“I can’t read either.” The auntie shook her head, then unfolded the prescription to show the onlookers.

Whether literate or illiterate, everyone crowded forward to look at the prescription.

“It clearly says Huanglian on it!” The man in the gray garment glanced at the prescription and shouted loudly to the onlookers.

“Yes, it’s Huanglian.” “It’s definitely Huanglian.” “The prescription is right here. It looks like the clinic dispensed the wrong medicine.” “Quacks harm people!” “She’s presented the prescription. Let’s see how they can still argue.”

The man in the green gown stepped forward immediately.

He took the prescription, and upon clearly seeing the handwriting, his face instantly turned ashen.

The prescription clearly had Huanglian written on it, and judging by the handwriting, it was indeed his.

But this prescription for diarrhea was the most common, and he wrote one every few days. How could he have written Huanglian instead of Huangcen?

“H-how could this be!” Seeing the troubled look on his face, the woman also quickly grabbed the prescription to look.

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