Poison Genius Consort

e left with a single drop of glistening blood that was exceptionally redder than usual.
Han Yunxi waited a bit longer, and the drop of blood solidified.
Long Feiye didn’t know anything about poisons, so he simply looked to Han Yunxi to wait for her explanation.
Han Yunxi stared at the blood drop as she turned on her detox system’s scanners.

Before the two poisons had combined, the detox system knew nothing of Perplexing Butterfly Illusion.
It couldn’t even recognize it as a poison.
However, now it was producing results.

“Your Highness, this is a type of slow-acting corrosive poison.
Its effects aren’t as potent as Perplexing Butterfly Illusion, maybe only half a strong,” Han Yunxi said seriously.
The detox system could categorize anything as long as a record existed of the item, but things like this had no record, so it didn’t offer up a name.
It could only based its observations from previous data regarding the record of the Beauty’s Blood’s slow-acting poisons and the highly-corrosive plants that Han Yunxi had shown it before to create a description of effects.

“Is it impossible to tell what it’s made of?” Long Feiye asked.

Han Yunxi could only shake her head.
She used a glazed dagger to chip a sample off the solidified orb and mix it into water, before feeding it to a little white mouse.
Soon enough, its internal organs began to fester.

“It’s showing symptoms of internal organ poisoning,” Han Yunxi could only explain the situation this way.

The Beauty’s Blood was the key to unlocking the Perplexing Butterfly Illusion, while the owner of the latter was destined to take the entire world.
To put it another way, if they could solve the mystery of this new blood pearl in their hands, they might get answers to everything else. But how was she supposed to do that?! Was she supposed to investigate its uses or its chemical makeup? And did any of these things have relations to the corrosive plants she’d found back at the Poison Sect’s forbidden grounds?

Han Yunxi’s head hurt from thinking so much.
“Your Highness, I have no leads whatsoever.
This is a really thorny problem.”

“There’s no rush, take your time.” Although Aunt Ru and Tang Zijin were notoriously impatient over this matter, Long Feiye wasn’t anxious at all.

Han Yunxi was clearer than anyone else that solving poisons took time.
Some research yielded nothing even after ten to twenty years of work.
“Mm, I’ll try my best,” she said as she looked at the pearl.
“Your Highness, why don’t you give this thing a new name?”

Long Feiye mused for a while before he suggested, “Beauty’s Tear?”

“Excellent!” Han Yunxi was thinking the same thing.
This pearl had come from Beauty’s Blood and was shaped very much like a teardrop, so the name fit to a tee.
She cleaned up the Beauty’s Blood and Perplexing Butterfly Illusion, deciding to clear her head for a bit before investigating the two again. Maybe it’s my methods that are wrong.
It’s possible that there are other ways to find the relationship between Beauty’s Blood and Perplexing Butterfly Illusion without combining them together.

Although things had stalled with the Perplexing Butterfly Illusion, Han Yunxi still continued to ‘nurture’ her body.
For someone as restless as her, staying a month in the Leisurely Cloud Pavilion was pure torture.
More than that was the fact that she had to drank tons of different soups and stews everyday.
Heaven knows if she’d start looking misshapen after getting so fat.

In the midst of her boredom, Han Yunxi even entertained the thought of going to find Long Feiye for a god argument.
Still, her courage only extended so far.
Finally, something gave Han Yunxi an excuse to leave the estate: Chu Qingge was finally coming!

Chu Qingge was to wed Emepror Tianhui as part of a marriage alliance between their two countries.
Emperor Tianhui had already sent a caravan to Western Zhou to deliver his bride to the capital.
They would finally arrive today.
Only the crowning of a new empress could be considered a national affair with a grand ceremony to match.
Anyone woman who entered the palace after her—even top-ranked Noble Consorts—had their titles bestowed in ceremonies within the imperial harem.

However, Chu Qingge was now a Western Zhou princess, and the significance of the marriage alliance couldn’t be downplayed.
Thus, her ceremony would be held at the palace proper.
Emperor Tianhui called for Chu Qingge to ascend the steps of the palace in front of all the civil and military officials, then conferred her with the official rank of Noble Consort.
Her title would be the Virtuous, and her quarters the Pure Serenity Palace.

Naturally, such grand processions had nothing to do with Han Yunxi, so she wasn’t required to attend.
Long Feiye never went to the morning court sessions at the palace either, so he wasn’t planning to show up at all.
However, the morning of the next day had Empress Dowager Li summoning Han Yunxi to the palace.
According to custom, the Qin Wangfeiand the emperor’s Noble Consorts had no reason to mingle at all.
If Chu Qingge had been crowned as empress, then Han Yunxi would be obligated to go and pay her respects. Wangfeis were lower in rank than empresses after all, and such a title would make the girl her official sister-in-law.
But right now, Han Yunxi was Long Feiye’s official consort and wife, while Chu Qingge was still a concubine despite her Noble Consort status.

Thanks to the Duke of Qin’s power and influence, Han Yunxi’s status wasn’t necessarily inferior to Chu Qingge’s.
But with the connections of the imperial clan in place, Chu Qingge wasn’t exactly Han Yunxi’s sister-in-law, either.
In short, no matter how glorious Chu Qingge’s wedding was, Han Yunxi was still well within her right to snub the girl.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t refuse a direct invitation from the empress dowager.

Because the imperial harem was lacking its empress, the empress dowager had stood in to lead its members in the interim.
Now that the emperor had a new wife and the harem a new member, Empress Dowager Li would naturally call all the concubines together to get acquainted with each other.
She had long given up hope for the empress cast aside in the western mountains.
She was all too clear on the threat that Chu Qingge’s arrival posed to the Eastern Palace of the crown prince.
Thus, the first person she thought of using was Han Yunxi.

Han Yunxi and Chu Qingge had a vendetta!