"You have so dark circles under your eyes. Didn’t sleep well last night? Want to recomnd a product for you?"
Li Qiong’er hated her nonchalant deanor the most.
"I’ve never t a woman like you before. I don’t need your stuff, but I do have a question for you!"
Asking a question with such an overbearing attitude. Tian Sangsang raised a hand to gesture "stop" and cut her off: "Then you’d better not ask, because I refuse to answer."
Li Qiong’er: "...!!"
Of course, what Li Qiong’er wanted to ask about was how she managed to slip the bracelet into Jia Wenxiu’s bag last ti. But in the end, she left in frustration. After she was gone, Guan Kunling erged from the next room.
Tian Sangsang was startled: "Weren’t you upstairs?"
She smiled slightly: "I was worried about you, so I ca down to observe from the shadows. How did you even et soone like her?"
"You an?"
"That Mr. Hua." She furrowed her brows lightly: "He harbors ill intentions, no different from Lu Chi."
"He helped once, and I helped him in return—we’re even now." Tian Sangsang said helplessly, "I don’t have much contact with him anymore. It was his mother who helped out before. She even brought over so loquats today..."
She pointed to the loquats on the table and picked one up.
These loquats were beautiful—plump and emanating a sweet fragrance. Her stomach growled with hunger. She peeled off the skin, about to taste it, when Guan Kunling snatched it out of her hands.
"Don’t eat it yet. There’s sothing wrong with these loquats."
Tian Sangsang’s heart tensed; it was rare to see Kunling this serious.
Guan Kunling held the loquat to her nose and sniffed it. She then used her fingernail to scrape off a small piece of its flesh to inspect. Finally, she picked up the peeled skin, her gaze fixed on it.
Her sharp eyes narrowed slightly: "There’s a layer of sothing on here that’s not part of the loquat."
"What’s going on?" Tian Sangsang panicked. "Could it be pesticides?"
"No." Guan Kunling shook her head slowly, her eyes cold. "It’s probably a substance that’s addictive. It doesn’t harm the body outright but causes severe damage over ti."
"Sothing addictive?" Tian Sangsang’s first thought was tobacco.
"Yes, similar to opium."
Her eyes widened in horror. "You’re saying it’s poison?!"
It was too unbelievable! Poison on loquats?!
Tian Sangsang took several deep breaths to calm herself.
"This can’t be a coincidence," she said.
She might believe it if it were pesticides, but poison? That definitely wasn’t a coincidence!
Did Hua’s mother know the loquats she brought were poisoned? Did Hua Zifeng know? If she’d just eaten one a mont earlier, she might have beco addicted. And now that she was pregnant, she absolutely couldn’t touch these things. Even non-pregnant people shouldn’t.
"Under the emperor’s rule, such blatant disregard..." Her hand rested on her stomach. So close! Overwhelming fear consud her, and she realized she was stuck in a vicious cycle—one misstep, and she’d be beyond redemption.
"That’s the situation," Guan Kunling’s gaze was calm, her voice chilling. "These days, Beijing isn’t all that peaceful. There’s an air of disorder."
She placed her hands on Sangsang’s shoulders, her tone soothing. "Sangsang, you don’t need to be afraid. I’ll investigate this."
Tian Sangsang: "No, don’t investigate it. It’ll be dangerous, Kunling."
Guan Kunling: "This is clearly aid at us. Are you just going to sit back and wait for disaster?"
"But—"
"I can handle it," Guan Kunling whispered. "Trust ."
How could she rest easy?
Tian Sangsang fell into deep thought. First of all, when Hua Zifeng brought the loquats to the shop, Ji Qin and Li Qiong’er were also there. During that ti, all three were under her watchful eyes, leaving no opportunity for anyone to poison them. In other words, the poison was already there when they arrived. The most likely suspects were Hua’s mother and Hua Zifeng. But then again, maybe she was overthinking it. Hua Zifeng did say the loquats were shipped from the south. Perhaps they were contaminated with toxic powder or liquid during transit.
"For now, there’s one possibility: the Hua Family. If not the Hua Family, then where did these loquats co from? Were they inspected? Who conducted the inspection? Who are the primary recipients of these loquats? All of this needs to be answered."
Guan Kunling nodded in agreent: "I’ll get to the bottom of it."
On their way to pick up ng Shuyan, they spotted Zhao Chun at the cultural palace’s entrance.
He was holding ng Shuyan’s hand and smiled. "I passed by while grocery shopping, so I thought I’d pick up Yanyan."
Tian Sangsang gave a faint hum, her eyes landing on the bag in his hand.
"Mommy." ng Shuyan happily reached for her hand. Held between two adults, he was overjoyed.
"By the way, did you guys have any loquats today?"
Zhao Chun’s eyes sparkled. "Are you craving loquats? I’ve noticed they’re hard to co by these days. Even when available, they’re outrageously priced—not worth it. Back in East Sea, we ate so many loquats we got sick of them. But here, people treat them like treasures."
ng Shuyan shook his little head, indicating that he hadn’t eaten any this year.
"Scarcity drives value," Tian Sangsang sighed in relief and solemnly warned, "If you see loquats, don’t eat them. Many of the ones shipped from the south at this ti of year aren’t fresh, and eating them could harm your health."
Both of them nodded earnestly.
Still shaken, they arrived ho. ng Shuyan settled on the sofa to watch TV—just the news—chewing on a cherry tomato with great enthusiasm. Zhao Chun was in the kitchen preparing a al.
Entering her room, Tian Sangsang pushed open the door and imdiately sensed that sothing was off.
Sunlight poured in warmly through the windows. The room was eerily quiet, so quiet one could hear a pin drop. At the sa ti, it was unnaturally clean—so clean that the faint motes of dust in the air could be seen.
The quilt was neatly folded on the bed, and the books on the shelf were perfectly aligned.
She walked to the edge of the bed, silently observing. Was this how her pillow was positioned earlier? Didn’t she place it in the center? Why was it now slightly shifted to the left? She had made the bed ticulously, without a single crease, yet now there were several noticeable folds.
Opening her closet, she saw that the clothes inside were hung up, but unlike before, when each hanger was well-spaced, now several hangers were clustered together. These were minor changes, almost imperceptible without careful attention. Yet lately, she had been extra sensitive, and after the earlier scare, her senses were unusually sharp.
On the bookshelf, the books were in order from top to bottom, on the fifth row.
Looking at them one by one from left to right, they seed untouched at first glance.
Tian Sangsang furrowed her brows slightly, her hand lightly brushing the books in front of her. This copy of "Dream of the Red Chamber"—wasn’t it placed to the left of "Wuthering Heights"? Why was it now to its right?
And "Romance of the Three Kingdoms"—it was supposed to be on the left of "Dream of the Red Chamber," and now it was on the right. She had reorganized the bookshelf just a few days ago and clearly rembered the sequence.
Sitting on the bed, she pondered deeply. The stillness of the room felt almost unnerving. She stood up and moved to the doorway, carefully surveying the living room, but found nothing out of the ordinary.
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