Chapter 25 Visits and Dowry Gold
State affairs were heavy. Ten thousand matters passed through my hands each day.
However busy the government was, every day I made time to see Xiao Yan and chatter at him about every small thing.
"Right. I blew up that ice palace of yours."
I pushed a teaspoon of black-brown pills into his mouth.
The divine physician's poison truly was strange. It only had to be fed every day, which was a bother.
So be it. I had been mute for so many years. A belly full of words had been held back.
"As for those severed limbs, you did not leave them whole bodies, so I could only bury them all in the imperial tombs."
"I decided. When the time comes, you go under their graves, fertilizer for the flowers on the mounds. Count it as a bit of merit set aside for you. Do not thank me."
I paused. "But after you die, whether they are willing to let you go, I do not know."
Xiao Yan could not move and could not speak. He could only stare at me.
I hummed a tune and pushed another spoon of medicine into his mouth.
"This divine physician really was formidable. Good thing you invited him down from the mountain back then. Left to me, I could not have found such a master."
"These days Bianzhou had a plague. He even took a thousand taels of my gold for relief. He said he would open a medical hall and take a few apprentices."
"Just as well. Skill like that would have someone to carry it on."
But Duke of Zhenguo did not think it good, because the thousand taels I gave the divine physician came from my mother's dowry.
He rushed over in a rage to question me, and said that dowry was to be left for Half-Sister to marry with.
"Your aunt is dead. Is that not enough? Must you force your sister to death too?"
I sneered. "She cannot live without my dowry? Besides, that money was what Mother left to me."
I waved for Xiao Cui. No. Now I had to call her the commander.
The commander's skill was excellent, and her loyalty was solid. I appointed her Commander of the Palace Guard. She now held most of the palace guards, the first woman official of this reign.
The commander had people drag my father out. He cursed and said I had no conscience, that I had used him up and cast him off.
My father really was old. He forgot that my mother, daughter of the richest house in Jiangnan, had married him, gone with him from a common soldier to marquis and chancellor, and been used up and cast off too.
I took up my father's will. I did not dare forget it for a moment.
Let him go back where he came from. The Wei family had plenty of young people who could be raised.
That day I was reviewing memorials. The commander came to report that the censor had taken a great crowd of ministers to Yangxin Hall.
He had learned about the divine physician.
He tied Xiao Yan's sudden illness to the divine physician leaving the palace, called it foul play, and came to pull the monstrous woman down and clear the ruler's side.
I did not rush. I finished the memorials in hand.
"Come. We are going to watch the show."