Chapter 4 The Abortion Tonic
Before sleep, the maid Suyue brought me a tonic to stabilize the pregnancy.
I held the bowl and sniffed it. "This bowl of medicine is Abortion Tonic, isn't it?"
She stayed composed. "This servant does not understand what Lady of Excellence is saying."
I answered, "Your Highness the Crown Prince is bathing at this moment and will not come for a while. Why would you help me?"
Suyue still pretended not to understand.
So I said it plainly. "For more than a year, it was you who swapped the Conception Tonic for Contraceptive Tonic, wasn't it, because you knew the palace's secret law, knew that if I bore a son I would surely die.
"Now that I am pregnant, you want to use Abortion Tonic to flush the child and save me. Is that it?"
Shock filled her eyes. "How did Lady of Excellence find out?"
I told her I had conceived in Li Yuancheng's army tent, and that time I had not managed to drink the medicine.
Counting back from that, she, who was in charge of brewing my medicine, was the most likely.
"You helped me because you like my Fourth Elder Brother?"
Her eyes flickered. "N-no. This servant would never dare think of Xie Ziyan."
So my guess had been right.
After I died in my last life, Fourth Elder Brother had not believed I died in childbirth and had investigated in secret.
Someone sent him a secret letter saying I had been harmed by others. Fourth Elder Brother therefore submitted a memorial asking for the coffin to be opened and the body examined. Li Yuancheng of course refused, and found a charge to exile Fourth Elder Brother.
In the end my iron-spined Fourth Elder Brother died on the road to the southern frontier.
After Fourth Elder Brother died, in all of Great Zhou besides my Second Elder Sister, only Suyue had shed tears for him.
She had originally been a medical maid. Her clan was implicated in a crime, and she entered the palace as a palace maid.
On this same day in my last life I had also drunk Suyue's abortifacient, but perhaps the dose was not enough. I only had a moment of abdominal pain and then was fine.
Because of that, Li Yuancheng threw everyone who served me into prison, and only released them after I died.
Suyue knelt before me. "It was this servant's fault.
Before this servant entered the palace, Xie Ziyan once saved me.
After Lady of Excellence entered the palace, this servant happened to overhear a conversation between the emperor and Your Highness the Crown Prince.
I could not bear it, so I used medicine on Lady of Excellence. Please punish me, Lady of Excellence."
I could tell she had come to drug me ready to die. Of course I would not punish her.
True hearts were hard to find in this world now.
I helped her up and asked her to help me find that secret medicine for bearing sons.
From my last life's memories, I suspected the medicine was not in the Conception Tonic I took as a matter of course, but in the food and drink.
Suyue told me to wait for her news. Someone as clever as she was might already have guessed my plan.
When Li Yuancheng came out from his bath, I was sewing clothes for the child under the lamp.
In his eyes I should have looked like a virtuous wife and a good mother.
He embraced me from behind, his lips lingering at my neck.
I turned my head away. "Your Highness, this concubine is with child. It is not convenient to serve Your Highness."
He said in a low voice, "I will only hold you. I will not do anything."
My whole body went stiff.
In my last life, that was not what he had said.
In my last life he had said, "The imperial physicians said your pregnancy is very stable. It will not matter."
Why had those words changed now?