Volume 4: Gathering of Sages Chapter 727: The Evil Ghost Passes Through
Looking at the three children sleeping in a messy posture and snoring on the big kang, Zhang Shou found it funny, but he did not wake them up to ask them what was going on. Instead, he pulled the quilt over them. Seeing that the Fourth Prince was still not well resting in his sleep, he put one hand directly on Little Peanut's chest. As a result, Little Peanut moved around as if he was very uncomfortable, and Zhang Shou could not help but shook his head.
When he found that there was no trace of blood on Xiao Cheng's face, he thought about what Ah Liu had just told him and realized that he should have taken a shower. He wondered if his appearance when he came in had frightened his family. He turned his head to look at Ah Liu and asked in confusion, "Don't you have a guest room at home? So the three of them need to sleep together?"
Zhang Garden is such a big place, there's no need to be so frugal, right?
Seeing that Zhang Shou really hadn't remembered, Ah Liu sighed helplessly, "I used all of it to set the table."
This time, Zhang Shou finally did not ask such low-level questions as why the table was placed in the guest room, because he finally remembered what excuse he had used when he refused the Fourth Prince to live in his house and instead left him in a public school outside the city to keep Xiao Cheng company.
Although Zhang Garden was large, it was said that he invited many guests on the day of his wedding. In addition, the cold weather was not suitable for setting up a wedding tent, so after counting the guest rooms, Wu began to arrange and tidy up all the guest rooms in advance, and had already set up tables and chairs.
This has one advantage, that is, no guests will get cold, but the disadvantage is that many empty guest rooms are now uninhabitable. Fortunately, the previous guests are not affected, but new guests will undoubtedly have nowhere to stay - this room is the one that Peanut used to live in.
As for why it is a kang instead of a bed, it is because when Xiaohuasheng was in Cangzhou, he preferred a heated kang, so the east wing of the courtyard where Zhang Shou's study was located happened to have a kang, so it was left to the Cangzhou boy.
In order to cover up the embarrassment of forgetting about the wedding banquet, Zhang Shou changed the subject and said, "Xiao Huasheng hasn't been home for a long time. Is the kang too cold? I don't even feel warm when I stand next to it."
"It was heated this afternoon, so of course it's not too hot." Ah Liu did not say that before he was ordered to accompany them out, he sent a message back to ask someone to heat the kang - although he did not have the ability to predict the future, he instinctively felt that it was very likely that they would move from the outer city to the inner city, and he might have to come back to live then.
He paused for a moment before explaining , "After they came back, they all drank ginger soup and took a hot bath in the bathtub to drive away the cold. If the kang is heated too hot, they will definitely not be able to sleep."
Thinking that the three little guys must have been exposed to a lot of cold wind tonight, and they were still kicking the quilt, Zhang Shou couldn't help but say unhappily, "Children of this age love to kick the quilt the most. When they catch a cold and get sick, they are afraid of the bitter medicine and acupuncture, and they complain all the time. In my opinion, it would be better to sew the quilt into a bag shape, stuff them whole body into it, and then lock them in there."
"From now on, we won't have to worry about them catching a cold anymore!"
Zhang Shou casually brought up the concept of sleeping bags, but Ah Liu did not take it as a joke. After thinking about it carefully, he made up his mind and went back to tell Mrs. Wu about this matter. If his young master and the eldest lady had children in the future, he would follow this procedure.
Zhang Shou didn't know that Ah Liu had thought so far, and he didn't plan to wake up the three little guys to ask them questions. Anyway, Ah Liu had already told him everything he needed to say.
And these information were originally like scattered beads, but with the hard work of the three naughty kids, it was as if a thread strung them all together.
A guy who claimed to be the third steward of the Hua family persuaded students in the public school to drop out, and promised them apprenticeship jobs in Gusu Restaurant, and even successfully persuaded the parents of the students with high salaries; the so-called third steward betrayed Jiang Zhuoer, and Jiang Zhuoer betrayed Master Kong Jiu who hired him, which just confirmed his previous statement. Not only that, the guy also gave away a dozen good deeds done by someone.
Including secretly murdering his son of the same age in order to compete for an official position.
Under the threat of Xiao Cheng, who was dressed as a ghost, Master Kong Jiu panicked and not only admitted to hiring a killer, but also revealed that he sank the guy who hired the killer into the pond afterwards (as to whether the person who sank was alive or dead, it is not known for the time being). In order to send away the ghost fairy who was urging people to die, the doctor of Taichang even promised a generous sacrifice.
The rich offerings included three kinds of animals, a large amount of paper money, paper dolls and paper houses, and even a wooden doll engraved with the birth date of the person who hired the murderer... To be honest, if a boy with a bloody face, who looked like he had returned from the underworld, stood on the windowsill in the middle of the night and asked for these things, Zhang Shou felt that he would be scared to death!
As he was thinking, he suddenly asked, "By the way, Ah Liu, when you took them away, did you quietly knock Kong Jiu unconscious? Did you clean up the other traces?"
"I didn't clean it up. I even took off Xiao Cheng's shoes and left bloody footprints on the window bars."
Do you really want to scare people to death? The more Zhang Shou thought about it, the more outrageous it seemed. He couldn't help but frown and asked, "Pretending to be a ghost to scare people into telling you something is a bad idea, but it is also a way. You guys managed to get a lot of information out of them. But if you leave footprints, aren't you afraid of backfiring?"
Ah Liu said with a strange look on his face: "Otherwise, wouldn't that coward who fainted three times think that the encounter with a ghost was a dream?"
Seeing Zhang Shou suddenly laughed and cried, he whispered: "After I knocked the man unconscious, I also asked Xiao Cheng to pinch his neck to leave bruises." Xiao Cheng's hands were the right size...
Zhang Shou was stunned. How could they be so cruel! These three naughty kids plus Ah Liu, a cold-faced killer, could do something that would make people's eyes water! He couldn't help but ask, "Didn't you kill a chicken in the back garden and leave blood? There is a live chicken missing from the kitchen of the Confucius Mansion. They wouldn't even ignore such an obvious theft, right?"
However, Ah Liu's answer stunned him: "Master, you once said that one cannot return empty-handed after entering a mountain of treasures."
With a bad feeling in his heart, Zhang Shou quickly asked, "Then what? Didn't you rob the study room in the Kong family's East Mansion? If that were the case, no one would believe it. It would be pure ghost story!"
"The study is full of books. None of the four of us are good at looking through them, so I didn't allow them to touch it. But..." Seeing Zhang Shou's face full of confusion after he said "but", Ah Liu continued, "I carried the Fourth Prince, Xiao Cheng and Xiao Huasheng out, and then went back to empty the Kong family's kitchen."
Even though Zhang Shou had made some mental preparations, he couldn't help but gasp. Even if the Kong family found out that a large amount of food was stolen from the kitchen, once the report was made, the frightened Master Kong Jiu would definitely think that it was really a ghost passing through... Otherwise, who would risk going to the kitchen of an official to steal a bunch of food? Add to that the bloody footprints, it was simply terrifying!
His attention soon shifted to another question: "You emptied out such a big kitchen in the East Mansion of the Kong family? How many things are there? Moreover, live chickens, mutton... and those fishy things, you can't carry them all back in a carriage, right?" This is too much of a show. Will people be able to ride in his carriage in the future?
"I didn't bring back anything that smelled too bad." Ah Liu seemed very confident . "There was an abandoned shabby house two streets away from Kong's house. There were many beggars living there. I threw all the mutton over there. When I left, I woke them up. They were probably cooking the mutton to eat. This should have covered up the corpse." When he said this, Ah Liu didn't think about whether covering up the corpse was appropriate in this case...
"I threw the live chicken to a house a few blocks away. They were in a tizzy in the middle of the night." This time Ah Liu used the idiom very accurately. When a couple was sleeping, a live chicken fell from the sky and flew onto their bed. Even if their mouths and legs were tied tightly, they would still be scared. Of course, after the scare, he couldn't care whether the couple were happy or upset to get the live chicken.
" I brought back other mushrooms, wild delicacies, pickled meats, and more..."
"Don't worry! I know what you are capable of, and this time you are really very capable." Zhang Shou felt angry and amused. He was completely certain that seeing the bruises on his neck, the bloody handprints on the window sill, and the empty kitchen that looked like it had been swept clean, Master Kong Jiu would definitely not mobilize a large force, and would definitely do everything he could to calm the matter down, and at most find a scapegoat to take the blame!
Seeing that the three children on the kang were still sleeping soundly, as if his conversation with Ah Liu had not disturbed them at all, Zhang Shou beckoned to Ah Liu, and the master and servant quietly left the inner room. When they returned to the study, he said thoughtfully: "Since things have come to this point, there is nothing more to say! You have to let them understand that finding the mastermind does not mean that the matter has been resolved."
Ah Liu knew that Zhang Shou was referring to the apprenticeship job that paid one string of silver per month, which had made the three families willing to let their sons drop out of school. Now that it had been proven to be a scam, some people might feel relieved, but there would certainly be others who would beat their chests and stamp their feet, and even suspect that they were interfering. Most importantly, for the three families, that kind of apprenticeship job was a hope.
Therefore, he nodded slightly and said in a deep voice: "I will remind the Fourth Prince. But...what about the man surnamed Kong? Just let him go like this?"
Seeing Ah Liu's expression of wanting to eradicate all evil, Zhang Shou couldn't help but be amused. "With Yingying's elder brother, an official, keeping an eye on him, why would you bother? I bet he'll only be in trouble for a day or two. If Yingying's elder brother was more ruthless, he would have chosen a particularly delicate time."
Ah Liu seemed to understand something, and his eyes revealed a certain intention when he looked at Zhang Shou - it was nothing more than... Master, you are still cunning! After watching Zhang Shou yawning and going back to bed, although he had also been tossing and turning for half the night, when he returned to the bed next door, he opened his eyes and looked at the tent above his head.
The indignation of the Fourth Prince and Xiao Cheng, a little flower, did not have much impact on him, who had seen killings since he was very young. It just made him feel that the world was more filthy. However, he was not very interested in those things of benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom and trustworthiness, so even though he was close to the water and had the moon in his hand, he did not have much interest in studying at the public school.
Even though Xiao Huasheng didn't like reading, he was a completely different person from Zhang Shou. If he hadn't been trying to pull Zhang Shou into his own world since he met him, he might have been like those imperial attendants, completing tasks like a puppet, passing by each person like a passerby, leaving behind a poor experience.
"I'll probably have to clean up the mess tomorrow... Okay, time to go to bed!"
After muttering to himself, Ah Liu gently closed his eyes and fell asleep as quickly as possible. On the bed across the wall, Zhang Shou, who had no desire to sleep for the time being, had to count sheep jumping over the fence in vain. When he woke up again in the early morning, he was bleary-eyed and a little listless.
However, compared to him, when Ah Liu went to bring the three naughty kids to him, Zhang Shou only saw the three normally energetic little guys, now like completely wilted cabbages after a rainstorm. Especially when the kitchen sent a sumptuous breakfast and Zhang Shou asked them to sit down to eat breakfast, the fourth prince almost fell into the bowl of porridge, his little peanut head dozing off little by little, and even Xiao Cheng's face was covered with sesame seeds from the sesame pancake.
So, he had to remind them: "If you are too tired, go back to your room and continue to sleep. Children who don't get enough sleep will not grow tall easily. Don't be stubborn!"
Although he was planning to hold on, the words "not growing tall" scared the Fourth Prince back. Seeing that Peanut was yawning, he couldn't help but whisper, "But Sixth Brother said that we still have to go to those three families to clean up the mess..."
"There's no rush to deal with the aftermath. Besides, Chen San and the other three don't have classes today. If they're not doing odd jobs, they're at home. It doesn't matter when you go." Zhang Shou said this to Ah Liu last night, but now he ordered without further ado, "Take a nap after breakfast. At least you should be fully refreshed before you go!"
When the Fourth Prince really went back to sleep because of Zhang Shou's words, and was finally woken up by someone, he realized that the outside room was already as bright as it could be. He had no idea when and where he was, and stared blankly at the person who pushed him for a long time before he realized it was Xiao Huasheng. Then he felt as if every incident from last night flashed before his eyes like a revolving lantern.
He almost immediately propped himself up with his hands on the bed and rolled over to his feet. Just as he was about to ask, he heard Xiao Huasheng say angrily, "Xiao Cheng took advantage of us taking a nap and left us behind, running away alone!"
Seeing that the Fourth Prince was stunned for a moment, and then his face turned red with anger, Xiao Huasheng directly pulled the Fourth Prince up and quickly put on his clothes: "This kid is stubborn. I'm afraid he will tell Chen San and the other two that I went to Kong's house to dress up as a ghost and scare people to find out the truth. But Sixth Brother followed the young master to the public school this morning and didn't come back. Let's go and chase him!"
