Hearing Ruan Jiu's question, Lan Yu kept silent.
She just tilted her body slightly.
When Ruan Jiu saw Xiao Wang standing behind Lan Yu, her eyebrows furrowed even deeper. "Did you hurt her?"
Her voice was cold and full of displeasure, with a thin layer of anger in her eyes.
"She was disobedient," Xiao Wang replied in a deep voice.
Obviously, Xiao Wang already knew what Ruan Jiu and Lan Yu had done.
Then Ruan Jiu immediately stepped forward to check Lan Yu's injuries.
Although the black clothes on Lan Yu covered the bloodstains, the strong smell of blood told Ruan Jiu that Lan Yu must be seriously injured.
Even though they had done those things behind Xiao Wang's back, Lan Yu had been with Xiao Wang for so many years. How could Xiao Wang be so cruel!
She really wanted to dig out Xiao Wang's heart and take a good look.
To see if it had died with Song Qingyu three years ago!
That's why Xiao Wang was so cold-blooded!
Then she looked at Xiao Wang angrily. "I told her to do it. Why did you hurt her?!"
"I can't bear to hurt this face of yours."
Xiao Wang stared straight at Ruan Jiu and was slightly dazed.
Ruan Jiu knew that he was looking at another person through her.
"You're crazy, Xiao Wang!" Ruan Jiu shouted angrily at Xiao Wang.
Xiao Wang came back to his senses and looked at Ruan Jiu coldly. "Don't think you can do whatever you want just because you have this face. You should know that someone will surely pay the price for what you've done."
Xiao Wang's words instantly enraged Ruan Jiu, and all her grievances from the past days burst out.
She smiled faintly, but her eyes gradually dimmed, showing a chilling look.
"Then I'll return this face to you."
After saying that, she was about to tear off the human-skin mask on her face.
Seeing this, Xiao Wang immediately grabbed Ruan Jiu's wrist and said fiercely, "How dare you!"
"Why wouldn't I dare! I have nothing now!" She was like a barefoot person. Was she still afraid of Xiao Wang, a person with shoes on?
She had long been unwilling to continue working for Xiao Wang. She was afraid of death, but she was even more reluctant to live like this!
Thinking of this, she struggled to break free from Xiao Wang's grip.
Then she grabbed Xiao Wang's neck tightly like a crazy person, shouting angrily with red eyes, "Don't you like to choke people's necks? Then I'll strangle you!"
Watching Xiao Wang's face turn red and gradually gasp for breath, she suddenly felt that the big stone weighing on her heart had finally disappeared.
She began to laugh wildly, laughing like a madman.
It was so good. Everything was about to end.
...
Of course, all of the above was just Ruan Jiu's fantasy.
Xiao Wang was the crown prince. He could make her and the Shen family disappear from this world with just a flick of his finger.
She didn't dare to do anything to Xiao Wang, and she couldn't either.
She could die, but the Shen family couldn't.
In reality, Ruan Jiu forcibly suppressed the anger in her heart and waved to Lan Yu, signaling her to leave first.
Xiao Wang calmly sat on the chair and even leisurely poured himself a cup of tea.
"Tell me. When did you find out?"
Ruan Jiu knew what Xiao Wang meant. He was asking when she found out that Lian Chun was sent by Song Yanran to stay by her side.
Ruan Jiu sat down on the other side unhappily and replied, "At first, when Lian Chun came to me, I really thought she wanted to avenge her younger sister. It was just that they were too impatient.
In order to gain my trust, they let Lian Chun expose many of Song Yanran's people around me in just half a month. How could a little maid achieve that?
So I played along and let Lian Chun continue to stay by my side. Until one day, I inexplicably had frequent nightmares. Lian Chun carefully prepared a pillow for me, but I smelled a trace of aconite in it."
She was really lucky that she had read so many medical books before. Otherwise, she wouldn't have noticed the aconite secretly put in the pillow.
Ruan Jiu paused for a moment and then continued, "Moreover, Lian Chun kept saying that she wanted to take revenge on Song Yanran for her younger sister, but she wore the hairpin given by Song Yanran on her head.
So I asked Lan Yu to investigate Lian Chun's real identity. Unexpectedly, the maid who was beaten to death by Song Yanran was indeed Lian Chun's younger sister.
However, their relationship was not good. Lian Chun's childhood sweetheart wanted to marry both sisters. Lian Chun pretended to be magnanimous and agreed, but secretly colluded with Song Yanran and pushed her younger sister out to take the blame."
"But just based on the aconite, how could you be sure that they would try to harm you?" Xiao Wang interrupted Ruan Jiu. He wasn't interested in other people's love-hate relationships.
Ruan Jiu continued, "At first, I wasn't sure what kind of means they would use. I just asked Lan Yu to replace the things in the pillow first. Until Song Yanran invited me to a banquet in the palace. Do you still remember the bowl of soup you served me?"
Xiao Wang carefully recalled the scene at the palace banquet that day and then nodded.
He remembered that Ruan Jiu drank that bowl of soup and spat out blood soon after.
"I picked it up and smelled pinellia in it. Then I thought of the pillow Lian Chun made for me. So I guessed that they wanted to use these two medicinal materials, aconite and pinellia, to poison me.
This way of poisoning is not only cruel but also very difficult to detect. After all, no one would think that the pillow in my room and the soup at the palace banquet would combine to form a deadly poison.
I knew that this palace banquet must be a Hongmen Banquet, so I had already asked Lan Yu to prepare a blood bag for me. Unexpectedly, it really came in handy."
Ruan Jiu raised her head proudly.
But Xiao Wang's eyebrows furrowed deeper and deeper.
He said coldly, "Weren't you trying to fake your death and escape?"
Hearing this, Ruan Jiu averted her face guiltily.
She had actually thought about it.
However...
She murmured softly, "Isn't Lan Yu the one you sent to monitor me? Even if I wanted to escape, could I?"
Xiao Wang snorted. "Then why didn't you tell me about this in advance?"
"If I had told you first, could you have acted so well?"
Xiao Wang's eyebrows didn't relax because of what Ruan Jiu said.
He really thought that Ruan Jiu was poisoned, just like Song Qingyu back then.
He was even more afraid than he was back then. He was afraid that Ruan Jiu would die!
If he hadn't noticed Lan Yu's flaw during the day, he might still be kept in the dark now.
He didn't even know that they had secretly planned such a big thing behind his back.
They were really bold!
"Come on. The process is not important. The result is what matters," Ruan Jiu explained. "Think about it. The person who could cooperate with Song Yanran to attack me at the palace banquet and has a stake in you is either the queen or Xiao Qi.
And since it made such a big fuss today, with all the imperial physicians present, and Lian Chun publicly accused herself of being instigated by Song Yanran, we will surely be able to expose Song Yanran and the people behind her this time and avenge Song Qingyu."
In this way, she could be Ruan Jiu again.
But Xiao Wang's eyes darkened, and his expression became complicated.
After a long while, he said coldly, "Song Yanran has been released."