Volume 4: Gathering of Sages Chapter 734: Unrest among All
While the three naughty kids and Zhang Shou, Zhu Ying, and Zhang Chen were lobbying and betting in An'er Hutong, the Kong family was in chaos. Master Kong Jiu woke up with a splitting headache, but he wanted to treat what happened last night as a nightmare. However, after getting up, two servants came in with panic on their faces, and when they saw him, they were so frightened that they stepped back repeatedly.
The scene was like seeing a ghost—and they thought he was a ghost!
According to his usual habit, Master Kong Jiu, who was sitting on the bed, would have ordered the man to be dragged down and beaten severely. However, at this moment, he was weighed down by the incident last night, so for the first time in his life, he suppressed his anger and just shouted angrily, "How can you be so flustered? Why don't you change my clothes!"
"Master...your neck!"
Hearing the word "neck", Master Kong Jiu's heart skipped a beat. He subconsciously reached out to touch his neck. When he found nothing unusual, he immediately showed his fierceness after a false alarm. However, the next sentence the servant said tremblingly made him freeze: "Master, there is a handprint on your neck... on your neck!"
Master Kong Jiu felt a chill in his heart, and the chill spread all over his body, making his teeth chatter! He wanted to denounce the absurdity, but the two servants' terrified expressions didn't look fake, so he simply got out of bed with a stern face and dressed, but even though he pretended to be indifferent, his movements were extremely stiff.
It was not until he put on a few pieces of clothes and stood in front of the bronze mirror that he saw the completely abnormal mark on his neck. He was so shocked that he took two steps back. However, even though the bronze mirror was polished frequently, its clarity was not very good. Therefore, in order to see what shape the mark was, he had to bite the bullet and move closer again.
When he finally saw the small handprint clearly, his face was almost pressed against the bronze mirror . Terrified, he touched the bruise on his neck with his trembling hands, but with just a slight pressure, he couldn't help but gasp.
It hurts so much! It’s not fake, what happened last night was not a nightmare, it was all real!
Master Kong Jiu felt that every pore of his body was emitting a chill. Even though he used to pay the most attention to dignity and decorum in front of his servants, he was completely unable to maintain the demeanor of a scholar-official at this moment. What made him shudder even more was that one of the servants suddenly lost his composure and started to yell loudly.
"It's a ghost, a real evil ghost passing through! He even dared to pinch the master's neck, not to mention ransacking the kitchen! All the food in the kitchen was taken away, whether it was live chickens and ducks, or mutton, beef, eggs...even the chicken and pig offal were not spared. This is the reincarnation of a ghost who died of starvation for many years!"
Thinking of his classmate surnamed Tang who died of anger and illness not long after his youngest son died, and that there was a scandal of succession and inheritance disputes in the family, Master Kong Jiu completely regarded it as a joke at that time, but now he is trembling all over. No matter who inherits the Tang family, it is now completely ruined. I think they forgot about such a young child. Without sacrifice and support, wouldn't he become a starving ghost full of resentment towards him?
With a pale face, he forced himself to remain calm and stopped the obviously frightened servant. However, when he was about to question the other servant, he saw that he was also shaking like a sieve. Knowing that he could not count on these two useless guys, he could only overcome his fear, change his clothes, and wrap a thick scarf to cover his neck. Then he left the study without even bothering to wash up.
When Master Kong Jiu hurried to the kitchen, his wife Zhao had already arrived before him. Unlike Master Kong's wife, Gu, who was good at dealing with people, Master Jiu Zhao was not a smart and capable person, but rather a bit cowardly. At this moment, she was facing the messy kitchen and the messy servants. She was so confused that she couldn't even suppress it.
"This is...what on earth is going on?"
Of the four mothers who came with them, one said she would report to the police, another said she would invite a monk or Taoist priest to perform a ritual, another said someone must have stolen the property, so why not arrest everyone in the kitchen and have them interrogated, and the last one said she would ask the master to make the decision. Therefore, what Master Kong Jiu saw was a chaotic scene with no one stepping forward to make the decision.
Normally, he had little affection for Zhao, the yellow-faced woman, and was just trying to save face for his wife. Seeing this scene, he was already in a very bad mood and couldn't help but shout angrily, "Why are you all gathered here to gossip? Go back and do your own things! And you... How can you, the mistress of the house, manage things? When I woke up in the morning, the whole house was in a mess!"
When Zhao saw Master Kong Jiu coming, she got angry. Although she felt wronged, she dared not argue as she had always been obedient to her husband. She could only apologize timidly.
However, Master Kong Jiu had no time to deal with her and went straight into the kitchen with a cold face. He was a man who always believed that a gentleman should stay away from the kitchen. When he entered the kitchen, the smell of various smells mixed together hit him in the face, and he almost staggered. When he saw the mess, he almost lost his balance and fell to the ground.
All the cabinets were completely open, and the jars that were used to store rice, flour, pickled meat, and vegetables were all open. There were all kinds of chicken feathers, vegetable leaves, and other debris on the ground, as well as broken eggs. But the most frightening thing was the small bloody footprints that could be seen in many places!
"Sacrifice, he said he wanted a sacrifice, this is actually true..."
Muttering about what the other party had asked him for last night, Master Kong Jiu's last thought of shirking his debt disappeared, replaced by fear from the bottom of his heart. He didn't dare to stay in this messy place at all, and staggered back out, not even looking at Zhao who was waiting for him to give orders, and went straight to the study in a daze.
When he returned to the study room, he saw the two servants standing in the yard with pale faces. Before he could even ask them, the two rushed over as if they had found a savior. The one who had lost his temper and yelled that there was a handprint on his neck was also yelling at this time.
"Master, bloody footprints, there are two bloody footprints on your window sill!"
The last point is that the nightmare was not a good idea. Master Kong Jiu felt dizzy and could no longer support himself. He collapsed. Facing this scene, the two servants were so frightened that they didn't care about their master and ran out in a panic, leaving Master Kong Jiu lying alone in the empty yard.
By the time someone rushed over, the doctor had been lying on the ground for quite a while, and his whole body was cold - of course, only literally cold. When the servants hurriedly sent him back to his room, they found that he had developed a high fever.
Zhao was completely confused and had no time to blame the servants. She came to take care of the patient herself and hurriedly sent someone to inform her sister-in-law Gu next door. However, the reply she received was just a box of medicinal herbs and the news that Gu was also bedridden.
Gu also sent a message saying that Grand Secretary Kong went to Huairou Royal Manor to quell the rebellion. She was worried that her husband might have an accident. She was also worried about Zhu Tingfang's visit. So she became ill due to the worry. Now she has handed over the household affairs to her daughter-in-law. She really can't help. If needed, the Kong family's West Mansion will definitely provide people and materials, but it can only help so much.
That day, she witnessed with her own eyes her husband arguing with the Grand Scholar Kong, who had always been the leader of the Kong family. The Grand Scholar Kong, who had always been very concerned about his reputation, even lost his composure and grabbed the man's collar and yelled. Even if Zhao was not a person who cared much about other people's affairs, she knew that her husband must have done something wrong.
She felt even worse when Master Kong Jiu actually argued with Gu in front of Academician Kong about how much money he had provided to Academician Kong over the years.
Therefore, Gu acted like she didn't want to get involved, and Zhao had no other choice. Without the respect of Grand Secretary Kong, she couldn't invite the imperial physician in the palace. She could only ask people to invite a few famous internal medicine experts in the capital. As a result, they were invited, but she didn't dare to ask anyone to see him while staying by her husband's side.
Because, when she was guarding by the bedside, she didn't know whether Master Kong Jiu was confused due to the fever or was possessed by the passing evil spirit that the servants were shouting about in private. He was talking nonsense with a fever, and kept apologizing to a young man named Tang. He kept saying that he would prepare the sacrifices that the other party wanted as soon as possible, and even shouted... I don't want to kill you?
If the doctor heard this, wouldn't it be fatal? How could such evidence be given to a stranger?
So, even though the doctor was finally invited, Zhao could only send her confidant mother to pay the medical fee, saying that her master was fine, and then politely sent the doctor away. As for how to reduce the fever of Master Kong Jiu, she could only use the folk method of applying a cold wet towel to his forehead.
Of course, she also knew that such fever-reducing methods were only symptomatic and not a cure for the disease, so she had no choice but to quickly send her confidants outside to find those doctors who dared to prescribe medicine without even treating the patient, and then take the fever-reducing prescriptions for treating the bone-chilled wind to the pharmacy to get the medicine.
However, she thought that this would prevent Master Kong Jiu's nonsense from being leaked out, but she didn't expect that the concubines in the backyard were all worried that Master Kong Jiu would be bedridden, so they all tried their best to find out the news. When they heard that she had invited a doctor but sent him away, and that she had gone to the pharmacy to get medicine, and that the medicine was also prescribed by some unknown doctor, they couldn't sit still.
When Master Kong Jiu was around, they were concubines adorned with gold and silver. When Master Kong Jiu was not around, the mistress Zhao would just have to say the word "sell" and they would be kicked out immediately. By then, the expensive hairpins, rings, and jewelry would not belong to them, and they would not even have any clothes left!
So, after seven or eight maids and concubines discussed it with each other, they ignored Zhao's prohibition and rushed straight to the main room. When they reached the gate of the courtyard, they didn't care about anything else and burst into tears. One shouted that the master was very ill, another cried that the wife was reluctant to hire a doctor, one said she was willing to sell her jewelry to pay for the master's medical treatment, and another shouted that husband and wife were birds of the same forest, but they flew away separately when disaster struck.
Upon hearing the sound, Zhao was both angry and anxious. She did not care about the fact that Master Kong Jiu was still lying on the bed with a high fever and had not yet woken up. She hurried out to scold them. However, she, who had always been unable to control herself, was no match for these shrews and was put down after a few rounds.
She didn't dare to let anyone else look after her husband in the house, so she only left a trusted mother. As a result, the mother heard the one-sided battle outside and didn't care about Master Kong Jiu on the bed, and hurried out to help. This time, Master Kong Jiu was lying on the sickbed with no one to take care of him. When he woke up from a daze, he only heard the quarrel outside.
He wanted to speak, but his throat was dry and his voice was as weak as a mosquito's. He wanted to move his body to sit up, but from his fingers to his toes, no part of his body responded to his commands. He could hear and see, but he couldn't hear or move. Although this only lasted for a short while, he felt as if he was about to be driven crazy.
He was even terrified to think that the ghost from the underworld last night had cursed him, causing him to become so miserable overnight.
Just when Master Kong Jiu was about to go crazy, there was a sound of banging and smashing things outside the door. He shuddered and regained a little bit of rationality, and then he heard a noise and footsteps. Not long after, Zhao, with tears on her face, appeared in front of him angrily. When their eyes met, he saw that Zhao was first shocked, then ecstatic, and rushed over to him.
"Master, you are finally awake!" Zhao was full of grievances, especially those little bitches who were dressed up just now slandered her for wanting to kill Master Kong Jiu, which made her even more angry and hateful. Therefore, she forgot that Master Kong Jiu had just woken up, and she poured out everything he had just said.
She emptied her heart of grievances, but Master Kong Jiu was so frightened that his heart was completely tightened. You know, for this fatal matter, not only did he kill the guy who hired the killer, but he also tried every means to eliminate the remaining insiders one by one in the past two or three years.
He thought he could sleep soundly all his life, but a ghost came out last night to take his life, and today he has a high fever and talks nonsense! Fortunately, the person who heard it was Zhao. If it was one of those concubines who used their beauty to serve others, wouldn't he be doomed?
No, no, no, even Zhao can't be infallible. He has never paid much attention to this yellow-faced woman. God knows if she hates him to the core, so she uses this as an excuse and refuses to find a doctor for him!
Master Kong Jiu took a deep breath and moved his lips to say something, at least to appease Zhao, even if she really disposed of those concubines he liked in the past, but even if he tried his best, he couldn't utter a complete sentence. And just at this moment, a mother rushed in at such an inappropriate time.
"Madam, madam, it's bad! Lord Zhu, who is in charge of the Five Cities Military Department, is here. He wants to see the master. We said the master is ill and sent someone to the Imperial Palace to ask for leave, but that didn't stop him. Those little rascals have already gone to complain to Lord Zhu. What should we do?"
Not only Master Kong Jiu, but even Mrs. Zhao felt a chill rushing to their heads, and their entire bodies were chilled.
