Crossing the Palace Fighting Fox Harem

Chapter 318 Denseness

With a hint of luck, Ji Anni pushed open the window and put Prince Ming's clothes on the windowsill.

She didn't dare to really take it to the lawn to dry, but it shouldn't be a problem to hang it on the windowsill, right?

After hanging all the things that needed to be hung out to dry, Ji Anni finally relaxed. She climbed onto Shui Furong's bed, buried herself in the quilt, closed her eyes and rested. She only wanted to take a short nap, but she was too tired. As soon as her body touched the soft quilt, she quickly fell into a sweet dream in less than a quarter of an hour.

#

In the next room, the guards brought snake-repellent incense and helped Concubine An fumigate every corner of the room.

After a long time of fumigation, no green snake came out, so Concubine An was more certain that the snake Ji Anni saw last night was the poisonous snake that crawled out of her cage. Ji Anni was really lucky, the poisonous snake didn't bite her to death.

After fumigating the entire room with incense, Concubine An finally let the guards leave with satisfaction. Then, she brought a pack of snake repellent incense to Ji Anni as promised, but after knocking on the door for a long time, there was no answer from the room.

Concubine An thought Ji Anni had fainted from the hot bath, and she was a little worried. But then she thought, Ji Anni was lucky and had a long life. Even a poisonous snake didn't kill her, so how could a bucket of hot water kill her? If Ji Anni really died in the bathtub, Concubine An would be happy. So she just ignored it and pretended to know nothing and went back to her room.

Ningshuang was holding incense and carefully checking the corners of the room, fearing that the guards were careless and had not smoked out the poisonous snakes. After hearing the footsteps of Concubine An coming back, Ningshuang turned around to greet Concubine An. Suddenly, she saw that Concubine An was still holding a box of incense. She was a little surprised and asked, "Your Majesty, doesn't Concubine Zhao want these incense? Isn't she afraid of snakes?"

Concubine An closed the door, placed the incense on the table, and said, "It's not that she doesn't want the incense, but she didn't respond."

"Isn't Princess Zhao not allowed to leave Taoyuan? There's no way she isn't in her room."

"Who knows? She is a weird person anyway."

"Your Majesty is right..." Ningshuang had never raised any objection in front of Concubine An.

"Let's not talk about her anymore. By the way, Ningshuang, have you checked the room? Are there any snakes?"

"It has been checked, don't worry, madam. It's just that snake cage..." Ningshuang pointed under the cabinet and lowered her voice, "Madam, what should we do?"

Since even the snake was gone, leaving a snake cage behind meant that they had brought the poisonous snake in. In order to avoid leaving any evidence, it would be best to get rid of the snake cage as soon as possible.

Concubine An was too lazy to care about these trivial matters. She waved her hand and said, "Go ahead and do it. Remember to do it cleanly and don't make any mistakes again. I haven't settled the score with you for the snake's escape this time."

"Your Majesty, please forgive me. Ningshuang never thought... that the venomous snake would suddenly escape..."

"Hmph, if I had known I wouldn't have let you put such a dangerous thing in my room." Concubine An still feels scared when she thinks about it now. If that poisonous snake had crawled onto her bed last night, wouldn't she have died long ago?

In fact, Concubine An asked Ningshuang to put the snake cage in her room at first. She felt it was safe because no one would dare to search her room. Now that the venomous snake had escaped, Concubine An put all the blame on Ningshuang.

Ningshuang also knew that this matter was serious and almost resulted in a loss of life. Concubine An did not hit her and she was about to kowtow to express her gratitude. But now seeing Concubine An's stern face, Ningshuang was immediately frightened and quickly fell to the ground, shouting "Your Majesty, please spare my life!"

"Forget it. It's already like this. There's no point blaming you. The most urgent thing is to have the guards search the area thoroughly. If they find any poisonous snakes, kill them immediately. Otherwise, it will be too dangerous if the snakes roam around the palace."

"Yes, Ningshuang, I'll tell them to search for the poisonous snake right away." Seeing that Concubine An did not blame her, Ningshuang immediately ran away as fast as she could, as if she was afraid that Concubine An would change her mind.

But Concubine An did not expect that the poisonous snake had already been bitten to death by Prince Ming, and the body was buried by Ji Anni in the grass outside the window.

#

There were only two guards, one of whom had to guard the garden gate, and only one could be used to search for poisonous snakes.

The guard in charge of searching for poisonous snakes looked around Concubine An's room and thought that the poisonous snake was most likely to have escaped through the window, so he climbed out of the window and planned to search for traces of the poisonous snake on the lawn.

The guard held a long sword, opened his eyes wide, and walked slowly and cautiously on the lawn, carefully searching every inch of the lawn. After taking two steps, he immediately found a strange white cloth on the windowsill in front.

The guard stopped and thought, that windowsill should be Concubine Zhao Congfei's room, why did Concubine Zhao Congfei put a piece of white cloth on the windowsill?

The more he thought about it, the more strange it seemed. The guard walked towards Ji Annie's window to see what was going on.

Ji Anni did not close the window because she was drying clothes. The guard came to the window and looked up to see Ji Anni sleeping on the bed, as well as the sheets and quilts hanging out to dry in the room, and a large wooden barrel for bathing.

It was obvious that Ji Anni washed the quilt with hot water from her bath.

The guard was even more puzzled, but because of his low status, he did not dare to question it. He just thought that he saw something he shouldn't have seen and turned around to leave. Unexpectedly, at this moment, the sleeping Ji Anni seemed to sense someone outside the window and suddenly opened her eyes.

Seeing someone outside the window, Ji Anni, who had just woken up, thought it was a thief and screamed in fright.

"Hush, Madam, don't scream, don't scream!" The maid was afraid that Ji Anni would think she was a bad person who was peeping, so she hurried to the window and raised a finger to signal Ji Anni not to make a noise. "Madam, I came here to look for snakes, not to peek at you sleeping."

Ji Anni was very scared at first, but she suddenly felt relieved when she heard the guard's voice, because the guard's voice was very familiar, as if it was an old acquaintance.

Ji Anni turned over and got out of bed, came to the bedside, grabbed the guard's sleeve, and blurted out: "You are, you are...you are Lai De?"

She and Lai De had met several times. Whether it was fate or coincidence, she would always meet Lai De unexpectedly, just like now.

Lai De was very happy to hear Ji Anni calling out his name. He pushed up the brim of his hat so that Ji Anni could see his face more clearly. He asked excitedly, "My lady, do you still remember me?"

"Of course I remember you. I'd recognize you even if you turned into ashes. By the way, why are you here?"

"Oh, we changed shifts."

Ji Anni then realized that it was already noon, and the guards of the morning and afternoon shifts were just changing shifts.

"My queen, what are you doing?" Lai De curiously picked up the white cloth that Ji Anni had hung on the windowsill and took a look at it.

In fact, it was not white cloth, but Prince Ming's underwear. However, after being cut by Ji Anni, it looked like a rag of very high-quality texture.

"This... this, I'm telling you, you must not tell anyone else..." Ji Anni's eyes rolled around, and she leaned close to Lai De's ear mysteriously and whispered, "In fact, Prince Ming... Prince Ming wet the bed last night."

"Wetting the bed?" Lai De was really frightened, and his hat suddenly slipped down and covered his eyes.

He immediately lifted his hat with his hands. The action was so funny that Ji Annie laughed.

While Ji Anni was smiling, she kept apologizing to Prince Ming in her heart: Ming'er, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to slander your reputation. It was just the situation that forced me to do so. You can't blame me.

Lai De believed it and asked with concern, "Oh, Madam, how about asking the imperial kitchen to make a few bowls of mutton soup? I heard that drinking more mutton soup can cure children's bedwetting."

"Mutton soup? Okay, okay, anything is fine." Ji Annie thought to herself, as long as Lai De doesn't find out that the stains on the white cloth are blood, it will be fine. As for other things, it doesn't matter what Lai De says.

"Lai De, aren't you searching for poisonous snakes? Why don't you find them quickly?" Ji Anni urged Lai De to work faster.

"Oh, okay, I'll go find it right away. I will definitely not let the poisonous snake disturb the ladies again." Lai De said with a smile.

Seeing Lai De turning around to leave, Ji Anni hurriedly called him and told him, "By the way, Lai De, don't let others know that Prince Ming wet the bed. Prince Ming will be embarrassed."

"Don't worry, Your Majesty. Lai De will never reveal a word to outsiders. By the way, Your Majesty, what about your laundry water?" Lai De said, pointing to the basin of "bath water" from Ji Anni's room.

Ji Anni was also worried. There were sheets and bed sheets hanging in her room, so she couldn't open the door. But if she didn't open the door, she couldn't deal with the bath water. If she didn't deal with the bath water, it would probably arouse the suspicion of Concubine An next door.

"How about this, Madam? I will help you move the bath water out first, and then look for the poisonous snake, okay?" Lai De knew that Ji Anni didn't have the strength to move the wooden barrel out by herself, but she couldn't let others come in to help her move the wooden barrel while she was drying things in the room. The only person who could help Ji Anni move the wooden barrel was Lai De, who accidentally knew that Ji Anni was drying her quilt.

"Laide, you are still loyal. Come in." Ji Anni grabbed Lai De's shoulders and dragged his upper body into the room.

#

Lai De and Ji Anni worked together and after great effort, they finally moved the wooden barrel to the door.

Lai De opened the door a little, and with his clever eyes, he carefully checked the situation in the yard. Not seeing Concubine An and Ning Shuang, he made a safe gesture to Ji Anni. Ji Anni nodded at him, indicating that he could open the door. Lai De opened the door, squeezed out first, and then lifted the wooden barrel out of the threshold little by little.

After finally getting the wooden barrel out of Ji Annie's room, Lai De breathed a sigh of relief.

Ji Anni gave him a thumbs up through the crack in the door, praising him for his excellent performance.

"Your Majesty, I will take care of the rest. Don't look anymore and close the door quickly." Lai De said as he actively helped Ji Anni close the door.

Just when Lai De thought that the task was accomplished and was about to call on another guard outside the garden to help move the wooden barrel, he suddenly slipped and fell towards the wooden barrel.

Then there was a loud "crash" and a deafening sound instantly resounded throughout the Taoyuan compound.

After being pounced on by Lai De, the wooden barrel fell straight down, and all the water in the barrel spilled out.