淫欲的代价

Early the next morning, He Yuan was on his way to the emperor\'s courtyard. He had added a laxative to the meal of a low ranked eunuch the night before. This particular eunuch was one of the few that were tasked with cleaning the emperor\'s bedroom.

Since the eunuch was deposed, He Yuan was selected to join the cleaning crew. He\'d made friends with a bunch of low ranked eunuchs and even paid tributes to some higher ranked eunuchs so they had no issue with bestowing him with this \'opportunity\'.

The emperor had spent the night at the plum blossom courtyard so he would surely head to court from there. This opportunity was too good to miss.

Whilst he cleaned the dragon bed with the rest, he inadvertently broke a pill and spread its dust all over. This was a kind of numbing pill that made one inexplicably tired and also loose all senses in their skin.

As he packed up and left with the other eunuchs, he lowered his head and smiled in glee. He had been waiting for this chance for a long time. Xian Taiwen was once a general so his martial arts was unusually high.

There were certain types of poisoning that needed to be carried out with acupuncture as pills were not enough and if He Yuan wanted to get close enough to Xian Taiwen to perform acupuncture, it would be practically impossible as Xian Taiwen would detect the needle before it even gets close enough to his skin.

With the numbing pill, it was quite different as Xian Taiwen\'s unusually sharp senses would be dulled by a wide margin. The imperial physicians or even genius doctor Wei Yun\'er wouldn\'t be able to detect a thing because the combination of ingredients he had used to prepare the pill were everyday ingredients that were quite helpful to the body.

The only strange ingredient he added was blue rock ginseng. It had a high medicinal effect but one of it\'s extract could induce tiredness and a high level of numbness. The effects naturally wore off after three days and it was extremely hard to detect because its qualities usually gave off the same appearance as normal ginseng.

If anyone managed to detect it, then it must be because they were very familiar with it. The possibility of the imperial physicians or Wei Yun\'er recognizing it was quite low because this ingredient was so uncommon that it wasn\'t even recorded in books.

It only grew up in extremely remote mountains so far away from the imperial capital or surrounding cities. It was a stroke of luck that his master came upon it whilst wandering around.

Although Xian Taiwen spent most of his nights in the plum blossom courtyard, he usually gave Wei Yun\'er a night to herself. This was because of the amount of imperial scrolls he had to go through that he ,of course, left to pile up.

Xian Taiwen didn\'t want to disturb his sweetheart\'s rest whilst he dealt with ruling the nation so after he was done with them in his study, he slept at the emperor\'s courtyard. He Yuan thought this was for the best. With the amount of sexual activities those two indulged in for extremely long hours, it was only proper that they both took a break lest they developed kidney problems.

This night happened to be the break night when the emperor slept in his courtyard. He Yuan desperately hoped nothing went wrong. It took days of spending money and fawning to higher ranked eunuchs for him to gain this little opportunity, Xian Taiwen should better not let all his efforts go to waste!

Once all that was done, He Yuan went on to the next agenda for the day. Spreading rumours.

After hours of hanging out with some low ranked maids and eunuchs, subtly directing their thoughts with words laced with hidden meanings, the first piece of rumour was firmly established.

[The empress of the nation had been possessed by an evil spirit and had used her womb to exchange for beauty and amazing medicine talents.]

How did it get to this? He Yuan\'s words were not as revealing as one would think and he only needed to push the thoughts of the servants a little and let their overactive imagination take the reins.

It was no secret that the empress had been schemed against and was attacked by assassins who rendered her legs useless and made a mess of her face.

By a stroke of luck, she managed to survive the incident and met a master who taught her some medicine skills.

The empress had always been a sheltered daughter of a noble family and coupled with her knowledge, she was able to heal herself and even make beauty products that made her stand out.

The empress once had no martial arts but soon enough she worked hard and was able to advance to a high level.

Finally, it\'s been two years since their marriage but there has been no dragon heir. It was the empress\'s decision and since she was pampered by the emperor, he respected her decision.

Alone, all these points just seemed to say that the empress was an extremely lucky person blessed by fate but together, it seemed quite suspicious. No one was stupid.

It all seemed to start after the empress\'s accident. She suddenly gained medicine skills and even if she claimed she was taught by a reclusive master, no one had ever heard of him or knew his name.

He didn\'t even attend his own disciple\'s wedding! Another weird point the servants thought of was this; the empress was able to show peerless skills just one year after meeting this \'reclusive master\'. Was medicine skills so easy to learn? If so, they could all become genius doctors!

The empress was declared to be unable to walk for the rest of her life, had a horrible scar across her face but she was able to heal cleanly without leaving a trace and even suddenly developed martial art skills.

It was said that the empress used to be a simpleminded lady who knew how to laugh and was very nice. Very different from the empress they saw after the accident. It was like they were two different people.

The servants all thought back to the time when Xu-di and the twins expressed their doubts. They were people who had spent the most time with the empress at that time. They must have noticed something then!

If the empress wasn\'t possessed then why was it that she couldn\'t give birth all these years? It was said that it was the empress\'s choice but was that really the truth or just a cover up?

The servants felt like they had discovered a huge secret and couldn\'t wait to tell others their findings and accurate deductions that they\'d made based on their own intelligence.

He Yuan was very satisfied when he saw this situation. Even if they were truly some reclusive masters that never showed their face, what did it matter now?

These people all felt that they had figured out everything and were willing to overlook pure logic as long as their own logic seemed reasonable enough to them.