maidservant

A few days later, the young prince quietly ended his life in the deep palace with a cup of poisoned wine.

Everyone knew about this, but they kept silent about it, as if he had never existed in this palace, and all traces were quickly erased.

After this turmoil, the entire palace was in ruins.

It happened that those days were holidays, and that night, there were only two pharmacists on duty in the bureau, and two other pharmacist servants were also killed by the rebels.

When the rebels broke in to search, they turned the pharmacy upside down, with bottles and jars scattered all over the floor and medicinal herbs scattered everywhere, making it a mess.

Concubine Cui acted decisively and ordered the recruitment of palace maids and craftsmen to inject vitality into the reconstruction and restoration of the imperial palace.

As a result, the Pharmacy once again ushered in a new wave of recruitment examinations.

Yunshan was wearing the newly-appointed green official uniform of a sixth-rank medicine minister, and was in charge of this medicine test together with Medicine Minister Zhong.

There were dozens of candidates who came to take the exam. They had different backgrounds and identities. Some were carefully recommended by local counties, and some were relatives and female relatives of the Imperial Hospital, with a family background in education.

In the crowd, there was a fifteen-year-old candidate with a pair of pigtails. Her eyes were rolling around, revealing a kind of intelligence, but at the same time, people felt that something was wrong.

Yunshan inadvertently stared at her for a moment longer, and this gaze made the woman instantly nervous. Her hand trembled violently, and the prescription in her hand fell directly to the ground. Seeing this, Yunshan shook her head gently and stopped looking at her.

However, after three rounds of written tests, Zhong Yaocheng praised the candidate highly, saying that she was cautious and polite, had rich knowledge of pharmacology, and was a rare talent.

Yunshan was full of hesitation. Although the girl answered all three exams fluently, her intuition told her that she was hiding some secret.

Yunshan secretly speculated that this person might have some kind of relationship with Zhong Yaocheng.

The people selected by the Pharmacy will be directly responsible for the medicine and food supplements for everyone in the six palaces in the future. This is a heavy responsibility, and incompetent people must not be allowed to get involved.

Therefore, Yunshan just said that she and Zhong Yaocheng had different opinions, and the selected list had to be submitted to the Lord Fengyu for decision.

When it came to the stage where Lord Fengyu personally questioned her, the girl's true colors were revealed in an instant.

Faced with questions about pharmacology from classic books, she hesitated and could not answer a single question.

The Lord Fengyu was furious and crossed her name off the list on the spot, and also banned her from taking drug tests in the future.

Afterwards, Fengyu called Zhong Yaocheng in and seriously questioned her whether she had sold the test questions privately.

For a moment, the atmosphere in the pharmacy became tense.

"I am innocent! I have never met her before, do I really not know her?!" Zhong Yaocheng was suddenly panicked, waving his hands in panic, trying to explain himself anxiously, with beads of sweat appearing on his forehead.

The Lord Fengyu snorted coldly, unmoved. He immediately sent someone to find the girl's ID card. After flipping through it, he stared at Zhong Yaocheng and asked, "What are you doing?"
"We're from the same hometown, Zhong Si? How dare you say we have no connection?"

When Zhong Yaocheng was asked this question, his face turned pale instantly. He just kept shaking his head and waving his hands, denying it flatly.

Upon seeing this, Lord Fengyu ordered an investigation, but after a rough search, he found no concrete evidence to prove that Zhong Si was selling the exam questions.

Lord Fengyu was secretly weighing the pros and cons in his mind. The palace had just experienced a change and now it was a time of stability. It was really not appropriate to cause any more trouble.

After much deliberation, she ultimately gave Zhong Yaocheng a stern warning and fined her three months' salary for "unclear investigation." This incident further intensified the already strained relationship between Yunshan and Zhong Si.

Zhong Si believes that Yunshan deliberately targeted him, which caused the incident. When he met Yunshan, his eyes were full of vigilance and hostility, and their relationship became increasingly bad.

"Zhong Yaocheng is not a tolerant person. You'd better be careful! She has been watching you make mistakes these days!" Li Mi reminded in a low voice.

At first glance, the four newly appointed pharmacists all seem to have pretty good pharmacological abilities.

They have different personalities, some are lively and cheerful, some are calm and introverted, but they all have a cleverness, lively eyes and quick brains.

The other three were fine, except for a medicine attendant named Fan Yao, who did not match the list selected by Zhong Yaocheng.

The entire Pharmacy was busy conducting a thorough investigation. After a lot of trouble, the pharmacist with the double-breasted hair failed the exam, while Fan Yao successfully entered the Pharmacy.

Now a lot of rumors spread, and everyone secretly speculated that Fan Yao was Yunshan's disciple. Privately, they tacitly assumed that their relationship was that of master and disciple or accomplices, as if there was some unknown secret behind it.

Yunshan was deeply troubled by this matter and repeatedly explained to everyone that she and Fan Yao had no special relationship and that she always treated the four medicine attendants equally. However, once prejudice takes root in people's hearts, it is like a weed that cannot be uprooted. Explanations only make things worse, deepening the misunderstanding.

On this day, a medicine servant actually came up to Fan Yao in order to please her and rushed to help her share the work. His fawning look was very eye-catching.

As luck would have it, this scene was witnessed by Zhong Sicheng.

In the subsequent pharmacology class, Zhong Sicheng was merciless, his words were full of thorns, and he openly mocked:
"There is such a story recorded in our unofficial history of medicine."

Zhong Sicheng had a meaningful smile on his face, his eyes glanced towards Fan Yao intentionally or unintentionally, and he spoke slowly.
"It's said that there was a wealthy man who was suffering from a leg disease. He sought out many famous doctors, but they all shook their heads and sighed, saying there was no medicine to cure it. He even tried acupuncture, but there was no improvement."

"Alas, just when the official was feeling desperate, a lame monk came to him and said he could heal his leg. However, this treatment would come at a price."

She paused deliberately, whetting everyone's appetite, before continuing, "This monk's method is very unique. He simply breaks the official's calf and then connects it with the calf of his servant."

"This is simply the reincarnation of Hua Tuo!" Everyone was shocked when they heard this, and their faces were full of shock.

Zhong Sicheng chuckled and continued, "When the servant heard this, he asked, 'Then where can I find my legs?' The monk replied calmly, 'Just replace your dog's hind legs.'"

As she spoke, she gestured with her hands, describing the story vividly.

"The servant worried again, 'This dog's leg is too thin. What should I do?' The monk then suggested a solution: to make a gold cover to cover the dog's leg. The official also said that if the gold cover got damaged or fell off, he would repair it."

"After that, the servant often showed off his golden-covered 'dog leg' in front of everyone. He was so proud of it that the other servants all rushed to curry favor with him."

After the story was told, everyone instantly understood what was meant. This was clearly a subtle criticism of Yunshan's favoritism towards Fan Yao and the medicine servant who fawned over Fan Yao.

For a moment, everyone's eyes were cast towards Fan Yao with different meanings.

Li Meng gritted her teeth when she heard this and left the hall on the pretext of having a stomachache.

Yunshan felt a surge of rage rising to her head when she learned of this, her face turning slightly pale at Zhong Sicheng's despicable insinuation. (End of this chapter)