The hearty smile on the Queen's face turned into bitterness. When asked by Emperor Jingren, she didn't know how to answer.
After a moment of silence, when Emperor Jingren thought he would not get an answer, the Queen whispered, "It's not that you can't feel pain at all. You can feel some minor pains from bumps and bruises, but when the pain reaches a critical point, the pain will disappear."
When he was fighting with Hu Yanxi just now, he still felt pain. But since the waist knife pierced into his ribs, Xiao Jinyi no longer felt pain. So it was not that he was so strong that he could stop Hu Yanxi regardless of his own pain, but that he was not afraid of pain in the first place.
Xiao Jin thought about hiding it from the little emperor, but when he saw that Emperor Jingren was pale but still maintained his dignity and tried to be strong, he couldn't bear it, so he stopped pretending to be in pain and tried his best to be calm and composed. But he was not good at acting, pretending to be in pain was not easy, not to mention pretending to be in pain was even more difficult.
A flaw was inevitable, but he didn't expect Emperor Jingren to be so smart. Even when he used acupressure to cover it up, he still had doubts and would test it a quarter of an hour later.
Xiao Jinyi didn't want to lie to the little emperor, so he chose to tell him about his physical condition but did not tell the reason.
Emperor Jingren did not ask. He just looked at Xiao Jinyi quietly and said, "I don't know why I am like this. Ever since I woke up from hitting my head, I always feel that everything is out of place. There is a voice in my heart telling me not to delve into it. Some things are beyond human control. But this feeling of disharmony makes me unable to sleep or eat. I always think about it and investigate it."
Once investigated, it would be easy to find a few people who were different from the others. No matter how well they acted, they were different. Then someone was assigned to focus on these people. The secret guards who had been watching Concubine Shu had never withdrawn, and Emperor Jingren had been watching their every move.
"On the eve of the autumn hunt last year, Concubine De went to visit Concubine Shu. At that time, she slapped Concubine Shu hard and said that Concubine Shu was stupid for doing such a 'oh-oh-thin' thing. I don't know what this 'oh-oh-thin' means. This is what the secret guard wrote in his report to me. He also emphasized these words and said that no matter how he looked, he couldn't find out what the code word was. But one thing is certain, Concubine De was talking about Concubine Shu dancing in front of me, so I think the word 'oh-oh-thin' probably has a similar meaning to 'reveal'." Emperor Jingren said while observing Xiao Jinyi's expression. The empress always looked like she was not afraid even if the sky fell, but when he mentioned that weird word, Xiao Jinyi's expression became very stiff, and there was even a hint of fear in his eyes.
He did not stop and continued to say to Xiao Jinyi: "This matter was reported by the secret guards after I came back from the autumn hunt. I already knew about the incense at that time, and I could probably guess that something would be exposed about Concubine Shu, which was her dancing. In my memory, Concubine Shu was an excellent dancer, like a fairy descending to the earth, but the dance that Concubine Shu danced that day was not beautiful in any way, but rather a bit funny. I think that my previous dance for Concubine Shu was induced by the incense, so I sent someone to find Lin Boyuan."
"Why did Your Majesty go to find Lin Boyuan?" Xiao Jinyi's face was not good. When he was struggling whether to invest feelings in an NPC, the little emperor actually did so many things.
"Because you, Queen, collected all the incense in the palace and destroyed them, I couldn't test whether the incense really had such a good effect. So I ordered Lin Boyuan to hand over all the incense. He seemed to be very close, but you have also seen Jing Xixian's methods. You can't resist it just because you are not afraid of pain. Lin Boyuan is very far away from Beijing. After this trip, Yan Xu had already committed treason by the time I got the incense, so I asked Commander Jing to search for his incense as well."
"I tried hard to imagine the dancing posture of Concubine Shu in the past. I lit Lin Boyuan's incense, but I only dreamed of Lin Boyuan and me. I lit Yan Xu's incense again. As expected, I dreamed of being raped by Yan Xu." Emperor Jingren sighed, "I have been alive for 23 years, and I have never heard of such a magical incense in the world. It makes people only dream of being tender with the owner of the incense, and the dream is more real than reality. If I didn't know that Yan Xu was dead and Lin Boyuan was indeed too far away from the capital, I wouldn't even realize that this was a dream."
"Queen, can you tell me what this incense is that can cause me to have such hallucinations?" asked Emperor Jingren.
Xiao Jinyi had no idea that the little emperor had investigated to this extent. He shook his head with difficulty, without lying, and just said, "No."
"I also think it's impossible," Emperor Jingren smiled bitterly and continued, "I continued to order people to investigate and find all the people who the Queen had found the incense that year. In addition to the four concubines and Concubine Lin, it was discovered that Eunuch Lian, Xiao Shunzi and Doctor Chen also had such incense, so they were all monitored. However, when monitoring, I instructed the secret guards that if these people wanted to meet the Queen, they must not continue to follow them. My Queen is a powerful martial artist and no one can defeat her. It is precisely because of my instructions that the secret guards always stay away from the Queen that the Queen has never discovered that someone is monitoring the concubines in the harem, right?"
"Indeed... nothing was found." Xiao Jinyi's heart sank gradually. He no longer dared to guess how much the little emperor knew about the matter.
"Something happened next that the Queen may not know about. The Prince of Huainan expressed his love to me." Emperor Jingren said.
"When did it happen? How dare he?" the Queen said in surprise. Her understanding of the King of Huainan's stupidity reached a new level.
"Yes, I was thinking about that too. How dare he?" Emperor Jingren's tone was not a question, but a certainty that he already knew the truth. "When I thought of this, I suddenly thought of two other people. Both of them had done something very bold, so bold that I couldn't even imagine it. And what these three people did was exactly the same."
"Looking at the Queen's expression, I guessed who the two people were. That's right, they are Lin Boyuan and Yan Xu. Although the severity of what these three people did is different, they are the same in that they all have improper thoughts about me." Emperor Jingren shook his head, "I am really confused. If my concubines did these things, it would be fine. Why are there so many people who are talented, capable, and have status who express their love to me? They would rather have a reputation as a treacherous villain than become a pillar of the country. Am I really as beautiful as a fairy and so charming?"
"Your Majesty is of course charming. I am so fascinated by your Majesty that I almost forgot who I am." said the Queen. Her words were sincere, completely different from those three people.
However, Emperor Jingren did not respond to his words, but continued: "So I also asked someone to follow the King of Huainan, and asked the Jinyiwei to search the King of Huainan's mansion for the same incense, and they found it. I tried the incense myself and had a dream of incest with my brother. After waking up, I felt so ashamed of my ancestors. It suddenly occurred to me that if I could dream when I smelled the incense, then the maids and servants in the palace would occasionally smell the fragrance. Would they also dream? So I asked others to try it, but the result was quite strange. This incense was only effective for me. When others smelled this fragrance, it was no different from ordinary incense."
Xiao Jinyi couldn't even smile bitterly and could only look at Emperor Jingren quietly, as if waiting for the final judgment.
"You want to know why I still want to have physical contact with you even though I have investigated so far?" Emperor Jingren said, "I believe you, you. You are probably the same as these people. She has never thought of doing anything to me. She even took away all the incense from everyone and burned it. I have also thought about why these people are unwilling to do it themselves when they clearly have improper thoughts about me. Instead, they use this kind of incense that is easy to... 'oh, oh, thin'. I couldn't figure it out at first. In fact, it's not that I couldn't figure it out, but I didn't want to think the truth was so unbearable. If I were willing to deceive myself a little, maybe this matter would have been revealed. But I wanted to get to the bottom of everything, and finally, I thought of the answer."
"You want me to fall in love with you, but you deeply hate having physical contact with me, so you use this method." Emperor Jingren said with a self-deprecating smile.
Xiao Jinyi felt extremely distressed when he saw this smile. Regardless of the current atmosphere between him and Emperor Jingren, he hugged him tightly. The bandages were oozing red, but he still held Emperor Jingren firmly: "It's not you! It's them!"
"Really?" Emperor Jingren's eyes were full of suspicion.
"Yes!" the queen said firmly, "You don't know how lucky I am that these people have been using perfume on you. You don't know how lucky I am that you have always belonged to me!"
"Oh?" Emperor Jingren was not moved by the Queen's words. Instead, he said coldly, "So the Queen is very clear and sure that I had never had physical contact with anyone before I had sex with the Queen, right?"
Xiao Jinyi felt as if a bucket of cold water had been poured down his head. What on earth had Xiao Jinyi found out
"But I still remember that before the wedding, when I was still the crown prince, I married two concubines. But they died not long after the wedding. They only exist in my memory, but they are so vague that I can't even remember their faces. I have asked others how much they remember about things four years ago. Even Jing Xixian said that they can't remember things that happened too long ago. Some people can't even remember their faces, but they remember them very clearly. Then I realized that it wasn't just me who had a problem with my memory, but I was the only one who discovered that there was a problem with my memory!"
By the last sentence, Emperor Jingren was extremely angry, but perhaps even he himself did not know what he was angry about.
"The whole world, everyone around me, has the most profound memory from the time when I favored Concubine De three months after my wedding, and they don't think there is anything wrong. Xiao Jinyi, your maids, your confidants, including your third brother, have not discovered that you are a man so far. Xiao Jinshu, who is so smart, watched you and Hu Yanxi fight for hundreds of rounds, and he still firmly believes that you are a woman disguised as a man!"
"Xiao Jinyi, tell me, what kind of world am I in? Am I in a nightmare, or is this country..."
Emperor Jingren couldn't finish the last sentence.