Chapter 1451: Chapter 1429: Where is the Stone?
Director Xiao’s body stiffened, and he almost immediately thought of Zhou Man.
After pondering for a moment, he said, “Your Majesty, Doctor Zhou Junior’s medical skills are indeed excellent, but she is the only female doctor in the entire world. Why not grant her a position and bring her into the Imperial Hospital?”
But she wasn’t willing at all. Zhou Man had already refused once before, and the emperor could see that she truly didn’t like the idea of joining the Imperial Hospital as an imperial doctor.
The Crown Prince sat aside drinking tea, not participating in their conversation.
The emperor thought it over and felt it wasn’t urgent, so he waved Director Xiao to leave for now.
After everyone had left, the Crown Prince put down his teacup and said, “Father, there is one thing I haven’t told you.”
The emperor, in a good mood, asked, “What is it?”
“After the state banquet, someone presented a gem, but it turned out the gem was poisonous, and I got poisoned.”
The Emperor: …
His mouth slightly open, “Then, then you…”
“Zhou Man found out after entering the capital and has already removed the toxin for me.”
The emperor’s heart settled, and he frowned, asking, “Who did this?”
The Crown Prince said, “I have limited information, and I couldn’t even trace the origin of that stone, so I wanted to report it to you, Father, for you to investigate.”
The emperor squinted at the Crown Prince for a while, then nodded and said, “Alright, I’ll have Yin Li investigate.”
Yin Li did not expect case after case to come up just as he made some progress on the Crown Prince’s drunken incident case.
The Zhou Man carriage accident, the throwing knife incident with the carriage, and now, even better, a poisoning case involving the Crown Prince.
Yin Li felt rather helpless, although he was quite anxious, he still accepted the emperor’s decree and took Tang He along to the Eastern Palace to take over the case.
The Crown Prince had already uncovered quite a bit, and the next step involved going out of the capital to investigate, which was evidently not as convenient for him as it was for the emperor.
Tang He examined the information the Crown Prince had uncovered and arranged the four cases on the table before him.
Yin Li sat across from him watching, and then placed the Crown Prince poisoning case and the Zhou Man carriage accident case together, saying, “These two cases are very malicious and both aim to kill. Could they be the work of the same group?”
Tang He nodded, “It seems like it.”
But his intuition told him something was off, yet intuition is not a reliable standard for judging cases, so he said nothing.
Yin Li said, “The Crown Prince mentioned that the gem was very colorful and brilliant, like jade, which wasn’t surprising, but it glowed at night like a luminous pearl. Go find Zhou Man and have a closer look at the stone.”
Tang He agreed.
The next day, he went to find Manbao, waiting for her outside the palace.
She was escorted out of the palace by the Imperial Guards, and he waved at her from the palace gate, smiling, “Just in time, I just came from the Ministry of Justice. Shall we share the carriage?”
Manbao wasn’t sure why Lord Tang was looking for her, but she nodded anyway.
So the two of them were sent back to Changqing Alley together.
Manbao invited Madam Tang inside; there was no one home.
Lord Tang smiled and said, “It seems everyone went out to enjoy the spring sunshine.”
Manbao went to the kitchen, brought back a pot of boiling water for tea, and curiously asked, “Lord Tang, what brings you here?”
Lord Tang smiled and said, “I came by order.”
He raised his eyes to look at Manbao and smiled, “The Crown Prince’s poisoning case is now also handed over to Lord Yin for investigation by His Majesty.”
Manbao was surprised, not expecting the Crown Prince to report even this case after setting it aside.
Seeing she had no reaction, Lord Tang said, “Isn’t that gem with you?”
Manbao stiffened, blinked, knowing she couldn’t play dumb, otherwise, if he asked the Crown Prince in the palace, he’d find out everything, right?
However, Teacher Mo had taken the gem for research, and he had been rarely online lately because he was engrossed in the stone. Where could she find a stone to give him now?
Noticing her strange expression, Lord Tang suspiciously stared at her, “You didn’t embezzle it, did you?”
Manbao said, “I destroyed it.”
Lord Tang: …
Manbao nodded vigorously, as if that would make it more convincing, she said, “The stone was toxic. Even if buried underground, it would pollute the land and then affect people’s bodies, so I destroyed it.”
Lord Tang leaned back in his chair, leisurely saying, “Alright, I believe you, so where’s the stone after it was destroyed?”
“It’s gone.”
Lord Tang chuckled, “How could it be gone? If you smashed it, there should be debris; if you burned it, there should be residue. How could it be gone?”
Manbao squirmed a bit, thinking to herself, if iron can be melted into liquid, can’t stone also be melted into liquid and poured away?
But she didn’t dare say that because while stone might be able to be turned into liquid, there was no way the stove in her house could manage that.
Manbao sighed, dropping her head, and said, “Lord Tang, give me two days to think, and I’ll see if I can get it back for you.”
Lord Tang: “… You didn’t really sell that stone, did you?”
He frowned, “That was a toxic stone!”
Manbao said, “Am I that kind of person? Ugh, it’s hard to explain right now. Please go first, and let me try to see if it’s still around.”
With that, she shooed Lord Tang away.
After seeing off Tang He, Manbao ran back to her room to find Keke, “What do I do, what do I do?”
Keke said, “You’ll have to fabricate one.”
“Can a stone be fabricated?”
“Of course, but it seems there are no shops like that in the mall. You can find Teacher Mo; this isn’t expensive, and in that world, a few hundred points will do, and you can have it made however you want.”
Manbao felt reassured upon hearing that and immediately went to find Teacher Mo.
Teacher Mo wasn’t online, so Manbao sent multiple messages and waited nearly an hour before he came online.
As soon as he was online, Manbao explained the situation, saying, “They need the stone for the investigation, and I must return a piece of stone to them.”
Without a wrinkle in his brow, Teacher Mo said directly, “I’ll have someone make you an identical stone based on this one.”
Manbao asked, “By identical, do you mean even the poison is the same?”
“Of course not,” said Teacher Mo, “toys cannot contain substances harmful to the human body. But don’t worry, in our world, there are many kinds of luminescent materials, and making a glowing stone like the poisonous one isn’t difficult.”
“But without poison, they’ll know if they come into contact with it for long,” Manbao said. “Then they’ll know I’m deceiving them.”
Teacher Mo: “… There are many toxic substances as well, but are you sure you want to do that?”
He frowned and said, “We are doctors; our job is to heal and save lives. How can we put poison on things people often come into contact with?”
“So you should remove the glow and keep the color,” Manbao stated. “Then I can just tell them I’ve removed the poison from the stone.”
Teacher Mo hesitated, “Can this really fool people?”
Manbao sighed, “I don’t know, but I feel that if it’s truly identical, without the poison, it’ll be even harder to deceive them. My friend is smart; if the appearance is the same but there’s no poison, I think he’ll accept it more easily.”