Song Qingshu froze. What was going on?
Looking closely, he saw that Li Yuanzhi's eyes were unfocused. She was clearly already delirious.
Questions arose in Song Qingshu's heart. Hadn't Li Yuanzhi been sent by her father to form a marriage alliance with Southern Song? Why was she here? But he quickly realized that, judging by the time, Li Yuanzhi should have arrived in Lin'an long ago. Besides, Li Kexiu had originally sent her to compete for the position of Empress, so it was not strange for her to appear in the imperial palace.
What was strange was why she had appeared here at this time. Hadn't Consort Jia summoned him into the palace?
Song Qingshu's thoughts raced as he considered countless possibilities, only to reject every one of them.
While he was distracted, Li Yuanzhi had already torn off her palace gown, leaving only her undergarments. Song Qingshu hurried over, grabbed her hand, and checked her pulse. He could not help frowning. Her internal energy was in disarray; she had clearly been drugged with something vile.
Song Qingshu had watched plenty of palace-intrigue dramas in his previous life. Though he knew the harem was a battlefield without smoke, those had only been television dramas. After coming to this world, he had acquired quite a few beauties, but thanks to his own strength, his harem had never seen much trouble. This was his first time personally experiencing the terror of palace intrigue.
Though he did not know the full story, Song Qingshu could roughly guess that Li Yuanzhi's current plight had surely been caused by infighting in the harem. Her father commanded heavy troops and was one of the most prominent figures in Southern Song recently. With the support of Wan Qixie, the court's chief minister, she could not be underestimated