Quickly wear salted fish, she won by lying down

Chapter 1825 My Aunt is the Empress 32
If she were to enter the palace and become a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, Empress Dowager Zhou would change her ways and have a bad relationship like that between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law in the common folk. Linlang would not save her, lest she bring trouble upon herself by saving her.

Now that Linlang knew that the person who harmed Empress Dowager Zhou was Consort Han, she naturally wouldn't let her off the hook.

Since this person was jealous of Empress Dowager Zhou and poisoned her, he must have been jealous of others as well, or had conflicts with others and poisoned them. After all, with such potent poison in hand, why wouldn't he take action after having a conflict with someone?

So there are quite a few people she has harmed—this is not what Consort Han said, and she could not possibly say who she had harmed, even in private (unless Linlang used extreme methods to induce her to do so). Rather, Linlang had previously examined those imperial concubines and knew who had been poisoned with this kind of poison. Those who had been poisoned with this kind of poison should all be the same person who harmed Empress Dowager Zhou.

Among them was Consort Yu, who was extremely favored for her beauty.

Because she was exceptionally beautiful, and since people are visual creatures, plus she was quite adept at social maneuvering, she was very favored.

Consort Han was envious and jealous of Consort Yu's beauty and favor, so she drugged her, causing Consort Yu to become very favored but unable to give birth to any children.

There were several others similar to Consort Yu, all of whom were beautiful and favored, thus catching the eye of Consort Han.

In fact, Consort Han may not have refrained from harming those who gave birth to princes and princesses. It's just that the other party might have been too cunning to let Consort Han succeed. After all, given Consort Han's personality, it's impossible for her not to poison those who were pregnant. When she got ruthless, she might have thought that since all the women who had slept with the emperor couldn't have children, and only she had become pregnant, would the emperor come looking for her again in the future? After all, she seemed to be fertile, and then she would have a prince.

However, it is estimated that firstly, poisoning everyone and making them unable to have children would create too many targets, which would easily arouse the emperor's suspicion, and poisoning too frequently would also easily expose her; secondly, not everyone could be persuaded by her, so some people still became pregnant and gave birth.

Especially after Consort Han grew old, the emperor stopped visiting her altogether. She probably stopped poisoning people she disliked, since the emperor no longer visited her, so her poisoning was no longer effective.

Besides, if she can't give birth to a prince, then let the other concubines have more, let the emperor have a bunch of princes, and let those concubines fight each other to the death.

Since Consort Han had poisoned so many people, Linlang naturally revealed this to them. After all, they had been investigating whether someone had poisoned them, causing them to be unable to have children. So Linlang deliberately let them find out, instead of letting Empress Dowager Zhou do it herself. Some things could be resolved without Empress Dowager Zhou's personal involvement, so as not to dirty her hands.

Sure enough, when Consort Yu and the others found out, they were almost furious. How could they not be angry when they thought about how favored they were back then, yet they did not give birth to a prince and become the Empress Dowager?
Of course, he also hated Consort Han and wanted to kill her.

In fact, the beautiful and favored concubines, such as Consort Yu, had spent a lot of time with the emperor back then, but they had never gotten pregnant. They had long suspected that something was wrong and had been investigating the matter, but they had never found anything out.

Unexpectedly, decades later, a new emperor ascended the throne, and they finally learned who was behind it all.

They truly never imagined that Han, a lowly concubine so much older than them, who had fallen out of favor after giving birth to only one princess and was only promoted to the rank of Consort Tai after the late emperor's death, was the one who poisoned them. They never would have guessed it was her. They had always assumed it was the mothers of other princes who were responsible, keeping an eye on those women and fearing they too might have given birth, so they poisoned them. They never expected it to be that vile Consort Tai, who poisoned them out of jealousy for their beauty. It was infuriating! Thankfully, they learned of this before they died. Some other favored concubines were probably also poisoned by Consort Tai, and no one knows who killed them.

Therefore, even though they knew that Consort Han's actions might shorten their lives, they were satisfied that they could kill their enemy before they died.

That explains it. They've been trying to maintain their health ever since the late emperor passed away, but their health has only gotten worse. It turns out that Consort Han is behind it all.

They were certain that Consort Han was behind it because, after receiving information from the investigation, they continued to investigate whether Consort Han had purchased this medicine.

They secretly investigated and discovered that Consort Han had indeed sent her confidantes out of the palace to buy this medicine from brothels.

Now that Consort Han has become a Grand Consort, no one pays much attention to her, so she can no longer be so discreet in sending people to buy medicine, which is why they were able to find out. It is estimated that back when Empress Dowager Zhou was in power, Consort Han's act of sending people to buy medicine was extremely secretive, otherwise no one would have been able to find out.

Right now, they've even found this medicine while investigating Consort Han's room.

Indeed, even though Consort Han is now a Consort and an old woman in her fifties or sixties, her heart is still as poisonous as ever. Whenever someone in the palace has a conflict with her, she will administer this kind of poison to that person. Although it will slow down their death, at least it will make them die sooner, which is acceptable.

Moreover, if a young and beautiful palace maid were to administer this drug, it could prevent her from being favored by the new emperor and giving birth to a prince.

Therefore, even after Consort Han became a high-ranking concubine, she never threw away the poison in her hands.

Further investigation revealed that Consort Han knew about the drug in brothels because her maternal grandmother was a former prostitute who had reformed, and thus knew about it.

Consort Yu and the others were all beautiful, so they never imagined that someone would go so crazy out of jealousy of others' beauty. Even now, in her fifties or sixties, she is still jealous of young and beautiful palace maids and does not want to see those palace maids have a chance to gain favor, so she sometimes poisons those young and beautiful palace maids.

Why doesn't she poison the current Empress Zhou? Empress Zhou is beautiful, and the new emperor only has her as his woman. Why isn't she jealous? I've heard that Empress Zhou is very shrewd. No one in the palace can escape her notice when she makes a move. The palace has been very peaceful these past few years. Anyone who dares to poison Empress Zhou will be in for a world of hurt if she finds out.

—Isn't this the reason why they didn't poison Linlang? They knew Linlang was powerful and were afraid of being discovered. Otherwise, as Consort Yu and others said, seeing how favored Linlang was, Consort Han was jealous that someone could receive such favor from the emperor. Remembering how she was not favored in the past, she might have poisoned Linlang.