Quickly wear salted fish, she won by lying down

Chapter 1806 My Aunt is the Empress 13
Without the protection of the eldest prince, Qingcao's fate was predictable. He was dragged away like a dead dog and sent to the yamen. Master Zhou wouldn't kill someone himself and cause gossip, saying that his family was heartless for killing a servant. Instead, he would send him directly to the authorities and let them handle it as they saw fit. Whether he lived or died was up to the officials and had nothing to do with him. He didn't need to worry about what others said.

After being handed over to the authorities, he poisoned his master. The evidence was conclusive, and Qingcao was doomed anyway. Moreover, he believed that the eldest prince, fearing that Qingcao would speak recklessly in the yamen, would also instruct the yamen officials to kill her.

Master Zhou was right. Qingcao poisoned her master and was sentenced to be executed in the autumn. But in fact, she didn't even live to see the end of the autumn. She only stayed in prison for a few days before dying mysteriously. Master Zhou figured that the eldest prince must have killed her. After all, since Qingcao had betrayed her master before, she must have had many schemes with him. He dared not let Qingcao continue to live and then spread rumors and cause him trouble. After all, he already had enough trouble, so it was normal for him to kill Qingcao.

Just as the eldest prince had thought, what he did to the Zhou family reached the emperor's ears, and the emperor summoned him and gave him a severe scolding.

If he were framed, it could be said that the Zhou family's banquet was poorly arranged and that the Zhou family was responsible. Not only could the eldest prince not be blamed, but the Zhou family's responsibility should also be investigated. However, according to the eldest prince's previous confession, this was the eldest prince's own problem. He himself liked the Zhou family's maid, Qingcao, so he got involved with her. This is not the Zhou family's fault.

The emperor couldn't help but scold his eldest son, who first had a beloved woman, and now was fooling around with a maid at a minister's house. He was acting like a lecherous scoundrel.

It should be noted that the emperor originally had a lot of affection for his eldest son, after all, he was the first child and he was very fond of him. He originally thought that as long as there were no major problems, he would give the throne to his eldest son in the future. After all, his other sons were not particularly outstanding compared to his eldest son. Since they were all of similar ability, he decided to establish the eldest son as heir without a legitimate heir.

Who knew that this son was truly disappointing, causing trouble time and time again, drawing the attention of the entire court.

Now, very few people in the court support making the eldest prince the crown prince. They all feel that the eldest prince is too unreliable and that it is not reassuring to entrust the country to him. The emperor is not a one-man show and also has to consider the country and its people. He cannot just hand over the country to someone else. He must find a reliable person. So, seeing the eldest prince's behavior, the emperor was angry at his lack of ambition and naturally scolded him again.

The eldest prince knew long ago that his actions would be exposed and he would definitely be scolded. If he had been with Zhou Linlang, his father would not have scolded him for the sake of the Zhou family. But now that things hadn't gone through, he wasn't with Zhou Linlang, and he didn't have the Zhou family's protection. In fact, because he had seduced a maid from the Zhou family, and the maid was "accusing" him of instructing her to harm a girl from the Zhou family, the emperor had become suspicious of him and might even secretly cause him trouble. How could the emperor possibly protect him?

It's normal that he would be scolded by his father, the emperor, since no one was protecting him.

Thinking about this, the eldest prince felt that he had been having a really bad time lately. First, the woman he liked was discovered and he was scolded by his father; then the Zhou family decided not to choose him anymore, and he lost his biggest supporter; he wanted to carry out Plan Two, but it was also ruined by someone.

He was thinking to himself whether to carry out Plan Three: kill Zhou Linlang and then marry that Zhou Erniang.

You should know that Zhou Erniang is much easier to control than Zhou Linlang.

I just don't know who's been watching me in the dark and ruined my second plan.

If the person secretly watching me doesn't find me, they'll know about my third plan. If they try to sabotage it, it's one thing if my plan fails, but if the Zhou family discovers that I'm trying to kill Zhou Linlang and punishes me, then things will get complicated.

So the eldest prince was still debating whether or not to proceed with Plan Three. He wondered if the third prince was the one secretly watching him, and so he continued to attack the third prince.

Regardless of whether it was him or not, he has harmed me, so targeting him is definitely the right thing to do.

While attacking the third prince, the eldest prince also investigated who had secretly sabotaged his plans.

Leaving aside the fact that the eldest prince and the third prince had fought again, Linlang was in a good mood after finally getting rid of Qingcao, the venomous snake hiding around her.

To be honest, having a spy by your side, especially your closest personal maid, makes it really inconvenient to ask her to do anything. Now that the spy is gone, you finally don't have to be on guard every day.

Then, since there was one less head maid, Linlang promoted a second-class maid from among those she had been keeping an eye on to fill the vacancy. She found that the maid was quite capable and loyal. She also selected a replacement for Qingcao from among the previous head maid candidates.

In the original world, this didn't happen. The reason it didn't happen was that in the first life, the original person knew that Qingcao had already gotten together with the First Prince and was his spy. So, after being reborn in the second life, the original person didn't keep Qingcao by their side like Linlang did, intending to deal with her severely. Instead, they found an excuse to get rid of her as soon as possible.

The original owner was afraid that she wouldn't find a suitable opportunity to deal with Qingcao, and that keeping her around would only do harm and no good, so she simply sent her away. Although this would make it difficult to deal with Qingcao later, since Qingcao was usually very cautious and efficient, it was hard to find fault with her or punish her—after all, she had the ability to become a head maid—the original owner still found a pretext to send her away as soon as possible for safety reasons.

Since Qingcao was no longer by the original owner's side, the eldest prince's plan to use Qingcao to poison the original owner and then send her to his bed to carry out Plan Two naturally failed.

Therefore, being simple and direct also has its advantages.

After the affair between Qingcao and the First Prince was exposed, Zhou Erniang was also shocked.

She never imagined that the eldest prince not only had a beloved woman, but also kept other women on his estate. He even had an affair with Qingcao, one of the women in their household. Just as everyone in the manor was gossiping, he was too lecherous. If it weren't for the fact that no other princes were trying to seduce her, she would have already found someone else to like. After all, who would like such a lecherous person?

However, since Zhou Erniang had no better choice, although she was unhappy to see the eldest prince with Qingcao, she still did not break up with the eldest prince and continued to flirt with him.

Linlang saw that Zhou Erniang knew that Qingcao was having an affair with the First Prince. Despite being such a rotten person, she was still unwilling to separate from the First Prince. Linlang didn't secretly send someone to speak ill of the First Prince to Zhou Erniang so that she would come to her senses. After all, judging from Zhou Erniang's behavior towards her, she was not worth Linlang saving.