“WHAT!?”
Everyone’s voices exploded.
“That’s Impossible!”
“How do you know-?”
“Who could-?”
I put up my hands in an attempt for them to let me explain. “During my travel west, I stopped at the Ji province, and one of the nobles there invited me to eat and sleep with his family. That same night I discovered our food had been laced with a poison that accumulates in the lungs.” I shook my head, “I immediately cleansed it and searched for the poison the next day, finding it in the kitchen. I took it with me, but it was lost when the assassins attacked us a few days later.”
Everyone was stunned, especially the physician who, despite his best efforts, had been unable to find a cure for the Emperor.
I sighed, feeling like a failure for a moment. My lack of foresight had lost me the only evidence I had to support my claims... that meant that there was nothing I could do to stop the person responsible for the poisoning.