Both the wet nurse and Fanglan were very thoughtful people, so Lin Mengya basically ruled out the possibility that Ying Hua was sick, due to poor care.
She sat on the edge of the bed hurriedly, and held the little child’s hands to feel his pulse.
Looking at the little child’s sallow face, Lin Mengya became suspicious. After opening and examing Yinghua’s eyelids and mouth, she whispered a question,
“Did he drink water today? Did he have any diarrhea?”
The wet nurse wiped her tears and answered,
“Today the tenth prince drank a lot of water. Later, I was really afraid he would suffer from too much drinking, and so I stopped giving him water to drink. There was some diarrhea, but today, the prince always complained that he was very tired and did not like to move about. Unexpectedly, he became feverish after supper.”
Lin Mengya thought about it. “It seems that food should be the cause of the problem.”
Immediately, she asked Baisu and Fanglan to prepare some sugar water and let Yinghua drink it, only after she tasted it.
Everyone in the small courtyard became busy due to the illness of the tenth prince, but no one thought that Lin Mengya would not use any herbs, but only asked them to prepare light sugar water for the tenth prince to drink.
Lin Mengya held Ying Hua and watched him drink the sugar water bit by bit, as she gently massaged his acupuncture points.
Although the wet nurse was now anxious, Concubine Xian told her that she must obey every order of Princess Yu. So, she had to suppress her extreme anxiety and take care of the tenth prince with Princess Yu.
Fortunately, after the little child drank a lot of water, his physical signs gradually stabilized. His little face gradually became ruddy again, and his delicate brows were no longer knitted tightly together.
Lin Mengya felt his pulse again and became slightly relieved, telling everyone that the tenth prince was already well. Thus, everyone was relieved as well.
Now, it was already midnight. Lin Mengya settled the matter of the tenth prince, asked the wet nurse to look after him, gave many careful instructions, and then returned to her main room with Baisu and Fanglan.
As soon as they entered the room, Fanglan immediately knelt and shed tears, asking Lin Mengya to punish her.
“You have done nothing wrong, so how can I punish you? Get up, quickly.”
Lin Mengya, who was feeling sore all over, leaned against the heated brick bed. She knew that Fanglan would blame herself to an extreme extent. Fanglan was quite stubborn and only rose when Baisu went to lift her up.
“Your Highness, you are magnanimous. I shall remember it, but the tenth prince became ill in a strange way this time. The truth is that the wet nurse and I carefully checked every detail of the prince’s diet, but how did the prince still get sick?”
Fanglan was puzzled, and Lin Mengya rubbed her forehead. In fact, Ying Hua’s illness was simply caused by dehydration. Once he drank enough water in time, he would not be in danger.
However, the little child’s diet had been specially arranged. She also touched his clothes, and they were all appropriate in thickness. “So, what is the problem?
“Right! The wet nurse said that the little child drank a lot of water today. So, he should not have any symptoms of dehydration, right?”
Thinking of this, Lin Mengya immediately asked Fanglan to fetch the water the tenth prince drank today, to her.
Lin Mengya took only a small sip, and then spat it out immediately.
Baisu also took a sip, and then the two of them looked at each other and frowned.
“Why did you let the tenth prince drink such salty water? How could the prince not be ill after drinking this?”
Baisu put the water on the table immediately, Fanglan looked ignorant and also took a sip. Instead of having a similar look like Lin Mengya and Baisu, she looked at the two of them in confusion.
“Salty? The water tastes pure and nice and does not have any other flavor”
Fanglan was not lying to them, and Lin Mengya’s and Baisu’s taste buds could not be wrong at the same time. Immediately, Lin Mengya understood that this might be very strange.
“Why didn’t the tenth prince drink the water we usually drink? Who brought this water?”
Her diet and Baisu’s were the same as the people in the place. Besides, no matter how bold those who worked in the imperial kitchen were, they would not have dared to do such things so openly.
The physical functions of children are different from those of adults. Drinking such salty water can almost cause humans to become like mummies. What a venomous idea! If she hadn’t discovered it in time, who would have suspected that the cause of the death of the young prince was salt?
“Princess, this is the spring water from the mountains, and it is Concubine Xian who sent it to us. The wet nurse and I checked it in advance, and there should not have been such a big mistake. Moreover, the wet nurse also said that the tenth prince has been drinking this water, since he was young. Even when the wet nurse fed the tenth prince with her milk in the past, she also drank this water. In theory, there should not have been something like what you say.”
Lin Mengya nodded. Of course, parents always wanted to give their children the best things in life. Naturally, Concubine Xian wanted to provide the tenth prince with the best living conditions, but unexpectedly, she was used by someone with an evil heart.
The problem was, “Why didn’t the wet nurse and Fanglan find the water salty after tasting it?”
“Fanglan, open your mouth, and let me look at your tongue.”
Lin Mengya began to check Fanglan’s tongue carefully, as she spoke.
As expected, there were tiny red dots at the base of her tongue, and the coating on her tongue was bright red, which was different from normal tongues.
Although she was ready, Fanglan was still a little nervous, looking at Lin Mengya, for fear that Lin Mengya would say that she had some incurable disease.
Her eyes were somewhat weepy, but she still had no fear at all. Perhaps, in their eyes, life and death as not an important issue anymore.
“Don’t be nervous. It’s nothing serious. It’s just a temporary numbing of your taste buds. You and the wet nurse usually don’t eat much, and so it’s not harmful to your health.”
Lin Mengya comforted Fanglan with a few words. Fundamentally, someone did this with the intention to hurt Long Yinghua. The water was sent by Concubine Xian, and so the problem was related to the storage.
“Both of you need to remain calm and say that the tenth prince played too much and caught a cold. Fanglan and the wet nurse, watch him in the room, and don’t allow anyone to see him. Dump his daily meals, and then share some of the food you eat with the little child. Remember that you need to give him something that is easy to digest, and don’t allow anyone, but two of you to visit the tenth prince, for whatever reasons.”
Since the person could do the thing in her courtyard, she knew who the person was, even without having to guess.
From the ragdoll to the illness of the tenth prince, even if she thought with her toes, she knew who did them, but she was more curious about the person who gave Pearl so much courage to dare play such tricks under her nose.
Or she did not fear death, and so she did such brainless things.
“Yes, I will make up for my mistake and won’t allow any accidents to happen to the tenth prince anymore.”
Now that Fanglan and the wet nurse knew what the problem was, they would not allow anything bad to happen to the little child anymore, because they were both very capable people.
“Leave and take an early rest. For the next few days, both you and the wet nurse should drink some mung bean soup and warm water, and then you both will recover. You can also let the tenth prince drink some.”
Fanglan would bear that in mind and make suitable arrangements.
After the dawn broke and Lin Mengya was done with her morning ablutions, she and Baisu sat at the edge of the bed, chatting.
“In the past, I always heard my master say that the royal families are ruthless and the fights in the palace are always bloody. But I did not expect that after getting involved in them, I find that they are scarier than I thought.”
Baisu had been used to killing in cold blood since she was young, but the conspiracy hiding its evil intent beneath the nice surface, still made her breathless.
“I can’t get used to it, either. Compared with those in the palace, the ones in our mansion are not scary at all. What’s the point of being born in an emperor’s family? The children in the palace always have to face disasters and trouble. Even when they grow up, they won’t have real happiness, either.”
Gradually, a handsome face came into her mind.
“Had he also grown up in this kind of condition? Did he get everything that he has now after going through numerous life-and-death calamities? Initially, she approached Yinghua and saved him from his deathbed, because his little face resembled the face of Long Tianyu.”
Baisu looked at her master curiously, as she was one who was rarely so absorbed in thought.
She waved her little hand before her master, but there was no reaction from her master.
With a half-suppressed sound, Baisu laughed out loud. Lin Mengya looked at the girl next to her, as if she had just woken up from a dream.
“Why are you laughing?”
She cast a suspicious look at her maid Baisu, but her maid leered at her.
“Master, tell me what are you thinking? You were so deep in thought!” “Are you thinking about another prince, when you see the tenth prince?”
Lin Mengya glared at her maid, and smiled. Living with her had allowed her maid to learn something from her. Her maid was once old-fashioned, but she had learned how to laugh at her.
“I am not thinking about the prince. There are so many things in the palace, so I—”
When she found that her master spoke against her will, Baisu could not help laughing happily.
Lin Mengya was a little annoyed and pinched Baisu’s face gently.
She was thinking about Long Tianyu, Xiaoyu, who had returned to her motherland, and also Qinghu, who still needed to explain something to her now.
Now, she worried about so many people, but she had no one to worry about in the past. Perhaps, her life was destined to belong to this strange time and space.
After staying up all night, Lin Mengya had a rare chance to spend the morning of the following day catching up on sleep.
After she got up, she checked Yinghua again, and after making sure that the little guy was safe and sound, Lin Mengya took Baisu to the Court of Imperial Physicians.
She forgot about the meeting with Qiu Yu, but the man looked energetic. Anyway, he was not so stupid, because he did not wait for her for the whole night.
