Qu Zhiwen hurried over to check Zhu Liu’s pillow and indeed found the twenty taels of silver hidden inside the pillow.

It was small pieces of silver. Apart from the fact that they were fairly new, there was nothing special about them.

However, after Qu Zhiwen asked his subordinates to inquire, he learned that Zhu Liu’s family was poor and he couldn’t have such a large amount of silver in savings.

If they looked at it from this point of view, what Zhu Liu said should be true.

It was true that someone found him, gave him some silver, and asked him to poison everyone by washing dishes in copper sulfate water, causing them to be poisoned. However, that person deceived him, and even his name and background were false.

It was that man. He was indeed a hunter and hated the mining and coinage here, which prevented him from making money by hunting. He was resentful, so he wanted to make trouble. However, when he talked to Zhu Liu, he lied about his name to avoid being held accountable.

Or did that person make up all these lies and simply come there to cause trouble?

If so, what was his reason and was he instructed by someone?

With such doubts, Qu Zhiwen found He Yanxiu and told him all about the situations. “What do you think about this matter, Lord He?”

“It seems that Lord Qu and I have become thorns in the eyes of others.”

He Yanxiu’s eyes were dark. “Anyone who can take out twenty taels of silver just to cause trouble is certainly not an ordinary person, nor is he a person who is desperate because he has no way to make a living. He simply thinks that if you and I can open a mine and mint coins here, we will be rewarded, so he is just looking for trouble to make things difficult for you and me.”

“If that person had better luck and caused many people to die of poisoning due to eating copper sulfate, it would be a serious matter and we would definitely report it. If such a big mistake was made, we would be reprimanded. Whether we can keep our official hats is another matter.”

Hearing this, Qu Zhiwen’s face darkened. “I had this guess just now, but I wasn’t sure. Now that I hear what Lord He said, I feel that it is true.”

“But this person is so despicable. If he wanted to kill me, he could just find an opportunity to kill me and silence me. Why did he go to so much trouble and involve so many innocent people?”

It was fortunate that Zhu Liu was timid and did not follow what that person said and did not all the whole copper sulfate.

Otherwise, there would be corpses everywhere here.

These were living life!

Qu Zhiwen didn’t dare to think about whether he could accept it if something like that really happened.

“If they kill you and me, someone new will replace us, and they might be more difficult to deal with than us. Of course, they won’t do that. It will only make us lose our fighting spirit, and they will also take the opportunity to kill the chicken to scare the monkey so that others can see.”

He Yanxiu said in a low voice, clenching his sleeves again and again, “These people are far more ruthless than we thought. If they fail this time, they will have other plans next time. We need to be cautious and strengthen our defense.”

“Your Excellency is right.” Qu Zhiwen raised his chin, indignant. “Since ancient times, good has always been defeated by evil. I just don’t believe they can really cover the sky with one hand!”

“Don’t worry, sir. I will increase the number of staff and have people pay attention to every detail. Don’t let such a thing happen again!”

Especially in the territory of his Hedong Prefecture!

“Thank you for your hard work, Lord Qu.” He Yanxiu cupped his hands, the gloom on his face becoming even darker.

As he said, this matter was probably not aimed at the mine, but at the people.

If they were coming for Qu Zhiwen, he had no idea what to do, but if they were coming for him…

Then he knew what was going on.

He Yanxiu clenched his fists and gritted his teeth.

Su Yujin hardly slept a wink all night.

Since arriving here yesterday, she has been busy diagnosing and prescribing medicines, and also carrying out emergency treatment for people poisoned by copper sulfate. After the medicine was obtained according to the prescription, she watched it being boiled and told people to feed the poisoned people the medicine, and then checked the detoxification status.

The poison was not serious, but only taking decoction to detoxify it was like taking a thread away. After taking the decoction three times in one night, the men’s symptoms were alleviated a little. After taking the medicine several times during the day today, the condition of the poisoned men had almost stabilized.

Su Yujin took the pulse of many people again, confirmed the extent of detoxification, wrote a new prescription, reduced the amount of some detoxifying herbs, and ordered people to get the herbs and boil them again.

After those people started working as she said, Su Yujin finally breathed a sigh of relief, drank two cups of tea, and took a break.

“Miss.” Ai Cao brought the bowl over, “Miss, you have been busy since last night and have not even had a good breakfast. You only had a cake to fill your stomach. I just borrowed the big stove to cook a bowl of noodles for you. Although my cooking skills are not as good as yours, it is hot after all. I also cut some shredded pork into it. Miss, have a bowl first.”

“Okay.”

Su Yujin had been busy for a long time and was indeed tired and hungry, so she just took the bowl from Ai Cao’s hand.

Ai Cao was not a good cook, but normally she did tasks like rolling noodles and dumpling skins, so the noodles she rolled were thin and chewy, which made up for the poor taste of the fried shredded pork.

And it was indeed as Ai Cao said, the best thing was that it was a hot bowl.

After eating this hot bowl of shredded pork noodle soup, Su Yujin felt as if all the fatigue in her body was gone and she felt very comfortable.

Seeing Su Yujin finish the bowl of noodles, Ai Cao was very happy and her worries disappeared. “I’ll scoop another bowl for Miss.”

“Give me a bowl too.” He Yanxiu walked over.

He hadn’t had a proper meal yet.

“If you are hungry, I will make you a bowl of rice.”

Although He Yanxiu’s sense of taste had not fully recovered, he was extremely picky about the taste of food. She could barely accept Ai Cao’s cooking, but He Yanxiu probably couldn’t eat it.

“No need.” He Yanxiu stopped Su Yujin who was trying to cheer herself up, “Just eat a few bites. You’ve been working hard all night, so you should take a break.”

Su Yujin’s face had turned pale, and he really couldn’t bear to let her work even more just to satisfy his own appetite.

Seeing He Yanxiu say this, Su Yujin was really tired, so she went along with it and asked Ai Cao to help He Yanxiu and her bring the noodles over.

Ai Cao called Xing’an together and brought two bowls of noodles and some pickled side dishes.

There were two more poached eggs in each bowl of noodles.

The two of them sat on low stools and slurped noodles around a low table.

Su Yujin had already eaten a bowl of noodles and originally wanted Ai Cao to give her another half bowl, but Ai Cao was worried that she would not be full, so she still gave her a full bowl of noodles.

Even though Su Yujin was full, there was still half a bowl of noodles left in the bowl.

(End of this chapter)

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