usatvline Chapter 94 Poisoning
Chapter 94 Poisoning
Later, Lu Qingqing asked Li Xuansheng for an unused palace in the palace, while Meng Qi used the silver to buy some raw materials and bowls and cups outside the palace.
Their first beverage shop had its trial operation right in the palace!
However, on the first day of the trial operation, only a few people went to buy milk tea from them.
These few people include Erxi and Xiaotao, as well as several good friends Meng Qi made in the palace.
On the evening of the first day of business, Lu Qingqing was flipping through the account book, and was a little worried when she saw the money flowing into the account that was not enough to cover her expenses.
She said to Meng Qi:
"With our current business model, let alone making money, we may end up losing money."
Meng Qi was also anxious when he saw this.
In fact, his friends all said it was delicious after tasting it, but their small shop had suddenly become popular in the palace, so everyone was waiting and watching.
So after discussion, they decided to start the opening activities in the palace tomorrow.
The next morning, Meng Qi hired a few idle palace servants and hung banners in his shop.
With red rice paper sprinkled with gold as the background, a few large characters were written with thick ink, shining brightly.
“Free sample of delicious bubble milk tea!”
Lu Qingqing even sacrificed her own reputation and asked the musicians in the palace to play music passionately in front of the shop.
Soon, the shop was surrounded by palace servants.
For a moment, the crowd was bustling with activity and discussions.
"Hey, that person looks familiar, maybe it's Doctor Meng."
"Yes, it's really him."
"But why did you open a shop in the palace?"
“What is bubble tea?”
"I only know about milk tea, which the Mongolian people drink. It contains meat and fried rice, and it's a bit salty..."
……
Meng Qi saw the crowd gathering around him and thought this was a good opportunity for him to promote his product vigorously.
He took the trumpet made of cardboard, took a deep breath, and shouted:
"Today is our trial opening. Each person can have a small cup of Mixue Ice Palace's special pearl milk tea for free!"
At first, everyone thought free was just a gimmick.
But when Meng Qi personally handed cups of prepared milk tea to the palace servants, everyone realized that the free tasting was real.
So they rushed forward.
The dozen or so cups of sample milk tea placed at the front desk were distributed in a short while.
Everyone drank the milk tea and showed surprise on their faces.
"Wow, this milk tea is really delicious."
"Yeah, I've never tasted anything so good."
"And these black, round things are pearls. They are chewy and delicious!"
"Boss, how much is this bubble milk tea?"
……
Meng Qi saw that Milk Tea had won everyone's approval, so he struck while the iron was hot and shouted:
"Pearl milk tea is 20 cents a cup!"
"During the first three days of the store opening, bubble tea is on sale, buy one get one free!"
"Everyone, don't forget to return the cup to me after you finish drinking!"
After hearing Meng Qi's call, everyone exclaimed, it turns out that such a delicious drink only costs twenty cents!
They swarmed in and formed a long queue at the door of the shop. Soon, they bought out all the milk tea that Meng Qi had prepared in advance.
In the evening, he and Lu Qingqing carefully calculated the amount.
The cost of a cup of milk tea is only five cents. When they just opened, they held a promotion and sold it for twenty cents a cup, buy one get one free, so they made five cents on a cup of milk tea!
Today, I sold a thousand cups of milk tea! I made a total of five thousand coins, which is five taels of silver!
And Lu Qingqing’s annual allowance was only one hundred taels!
In this way, after deducting the labor and raw material costs, and splitting the profits 50-50 between Lu Qingqing and Meng Qi, the profits from running the milk tea shop for two months can almost catch up with Lu Qingqing's annual salary as a concubine!
Lu Qingqing couldn't stop smiling as she looked at the account book.
The strings of numbers in the account book represent ounces of silver!
She’s going to get rich!
Lu Qingqing's Mixue Ice Palace was very popular in the palace and soon reached Lu Panpan's ears.
At this moment, she was rubbing basins of dirty clothes in the laundry room. She looked down at her fingers that had become red, swollen and thick from being soaked in water all day, and the more she thought about it, the angrier she became.
Why!
The two of them are sisters.
However, one person is a pampered concubine, while the other person can only be the most humble servant!
Now, Lu Qingqing can actually open a shop in the palace and make money!
Lu Panpan knew clearly that she had failed in her bid for favor and had left a very bad impression in the emperor's mind.
At the beginning, she came to the palace because the Queen Mother found her from the common people, hoping that she would compete for favor in the palace.
If she can no longer demonstrate her value now, what awaits her is not only the abandonment of the Emperor and the Concubine, but also the abandonment of the Queen!
By then, she would have completely lost the ability to turn around.
Lu Panpan lowered her head and stared at the dirty clothes in the wooden basin. A terrible idea gradually emerged in her mind.
She took out all the valuable things on her body and exchanged them for a bag of heartbreak grass from the eunuch in charge of purchasing items for the palace.
Lu Panpan held the bag of herbs tightly in her hand and thought to herself:
Since I can't win against my sister, I have no choice but to kill her!
Mixue Ice Palace sells milk tea and boils various ingredients every day. Lu Panpan plans to secretly put this bag of heartbreak grass into the big pot for boiling milk tea every day.
She is about to be abandoned by everyone. Now she is barefoot and is not afraid of those who wear shoes. She wants to borrow Lu Qingqing's hand to make a big fortune in the palace!
Lu Panpan wiped the sweat from her forehead and planned to secretly poison the milk tea pot when Mixue Ice Palace closed at night.
Today, the business of Mixue Ice Palace is as busy as usual. Even though the moon is high in the sky, there is still no sign of closing.
Lu Panpan hid under a tall banyan tree next to the shop and stood there for a long time.
Summer has passed, and it is the time of autumn when mosquitoes are rampant. Lu Panpan's cheeks and neck are red and swollen from the bites of mosquitoes near the tree.
She waited for more than an hour.
Finally, hard work paid off. Gradually, there was no one lining up in front of Mixue Ice Palace. Until the last cup of milk tea was sold out, the eunuch in charge of selling milk tea closed the shop.
After the little eunuch left, Lu Panpan walked forward quietly.
She found that the front door of the store was locked and there was no way to enter from the main door. She had to walk around the small courtyard and unexpectedly found an inconspicuous dog hole in the corner of the back door.
Lu Panpan was so determined to poison her that she bent down and crawled in without caring about the dog hole.
After entering, she saw stoves placed in the backyard, with large pottery jars on top of the stoves.
She was now very panicked. There were no lanterns in the yard and she could only rely on the dim moonlight to identify the direction.
Lu Panpan divided the heartbreak grass in her arms into four or five portions and threw them into four or five pottery jars in a panic.
After doing all this, she sneaked away through the dog hole again. Before leaving, she did not forget to cover the weeds next to the dog hole again to erase all traces of her presence.
Although Lu Panpan was cruel, it was the first time for her to poison someone.
Her heart was pounding, as if it would jump out of her throat at any second.
She imagined what would happen tomorrow, and a terrible curve appeared at the corner of her mouth.
By tomorrow, any palace servant who comes to buy Mixue Ice Palace milk tea will suffer from abdominal cramps and die of exhaustion within half an hour after drinking the tea.
By then, Lu Qingqing would not just have fallen out of favor.
She wanted Lu Qingqing to bear the responsibility of hundreds of lives, to have a guilty conscience forever, and to pay the price in blood forever!