Chapter 37 - 1#
Huiping lit a stick of incense. The faint fragrance was something Jingzhe would sometimes light in the room, smelling somewhat familiar.
He took a deep breath and exhaled, forcing his emotions to calm down. Then, he gathered all the attendants and eunuchs he could find and had them stay in his room.
Shi’en complained a little. He was just chatting with someone about gossip, chatting away happily. As a result, Huiping broke into the room, saw them talking, grabbed them one by one, pulled them all out, and shoved them into his room.
This room was already small.
He insisted on stuffing a lot of people in, even the bed was full.
Gusheng wondered: “Huiping, what are you dragging us here for in this weather?” It was rare for everyone to have nothing to do and be scattered in the room resting. Being suddenly called over made him a little worried.
Shi’en nodded on the side, smelling a strange fragrance. He couldn’t help looking around and found a small burner on the table in the middle, with a stick of incense burning in it.
“What is this smell?”
Shi’en leaned over, waved his hand through the smoke, and thought it smelled quite good.
Huiping had also heard a bit about what happened on the way back and forth with Jingzhe just now, so he said: “Didn’t you often ask before why Jingzhe and I don’t get bitten by mosquitoes?”
He reached out and pointed at the faint smoke in the room.
Shi’en was surprised: “So it’s this incense?”
Huiping: “Just now Yunkui said that the heavy rain forced all the mosquitoes out, crawling everywhere. I was afraid you would get bitten, so I called you all here to fumigate with this smell.” With this explanation, his reckless behavior just now was glossed over.
In those days before, if anyone was bitten, it would definitely be a big bump, painful and itchy, and some would even rot, extremely painful. Now hearing that this was Jingzhe’s method, several people immediately surrounded the table first.
Although this room was crowded, no one wanted to be bitten.
Shi’en said “Hey hey” twice: “You people, you were not very willing when asked to come over just now, now why are you fighting for it!”
“We didn’t understand Huiping’s good intentions just now, alright.” A little eunuch said with a smile, “I’m terrified of those mosquitoes. If I get bitten and rot like Xia Dun, I’d rather chop off my hand.”
Xia Dun was the little eunuch whose hand had rotted from bites. It was his roommate Xun Ri who discovered it and hurriedly came to find Jingzhe.
Before, Lai Fu’s back was beaten badly, and Jingzhe secretly gave some trauma medicine. Because of this, they all knew that Jingzhe had all kinds of medicine, maybe it could be useful?
Jingzhe treated a dead horse as a living horse, tried it, and although it didn’t improve immediately, it didn’t rot anymore, and later healed slowly.
With Xia Dun as an example, as soon as Huiping said this incense could repel insects, everyone believed it and refused to leave the incense.
Gusheng: “Then what about Jingzhe and Yunkui?”
Huiping thought of the scene of Jingzhe rushing out, although worried in his heart, he said on his face: “They should be with Yunkui, looking for the Director.”
Gusheng nodded and didn’t suspect anything.
“How is Lai Fu?”
Huiping heard Shi’en asking.
The little eunuch who shared a room with Lai Fu said truthfully: “The Director helped buy medicine, so his life was saved, but he had a high fever for a few days, and he is really too weak.” The few of them were planning to pool some money for Lai Fu to buy something nourishing.
Even with the trauma medicine given by Jingzhe and the few packs of medicine bought, eating them would at most stop the high fever. He still had to eat more to nourish his body and see if he could heal his legs.
Fortunately, Jiang Jinming was kind and didn’t kick him out.
Otherwise, with Lai Fu’s injury, if he was moved out, it was unknown if he could survive.
Huiping felt in his bosom, “I’ll contribute some too.”
It just so happened that the room was full of people. Hearing this conversation, everyone chipped in a little bit of money, which was much more than what the little eunuch wanted before.
He sat in the corner wiping his tears, saying thank you to Lai Fu.
Shi’en remembered: “Lai Fu can’t move now, he’s in a room by himself, right? Huiping, is there any more of this incense? I’ll go get some for Lai Fu.”
Huiping took one out: “There’s still a little, you go, be careful.”
He was very cautious and didn’t show all the incense. Although they were all his own people, it was inevitable that people would mutter in their hearts if they saw it.
The fact that Jingzhe had medicine in his hand was almost known by everyone after a few times before. If someone came to ask for help in an emergency, Jingzhe would often give it.
But these medicines were expensive. Asking for them back and forth was a bit shameless. Fortunately, later, Jingzhe realized something was wrong and said that if it wasn’t serious, they would have to pay if they came again, which stopped some people’s excessive behavior.
Although not everyone was bad, not everyone was good either.
Huiping didn’t want Jingzhe’s kindness to be wasted.
After waiting for a while, several people in the room couldn’t sit still, feeling that the scent had been fumigated enough. Just as they planned to get up and leave, they saw Shi’en rushing back in a hurry.
That hurried look was as if a monster was chasing him from behind.
“Shi’en, what are you running for?” Someone laughed at him, “As if there’s a fire.”
Shi’en said with a serious face: “There really is a fire.”
“What?”
“Where is the fire?”
“With such heavy rain, how is it possible?”
“What place?”
Everyone was surprised, speaking almost in unison. Those who were quick had already walked to the door.
Shi’en wiped his sweat and said in a cool tone: “I advise you not to go out and look.”
The man had just opened the door, and his hand froze, not knowing whether to push it open or close it.
“Shi’en, what happened?” Gusheng noticed that Shi’en’s face was wrong and asked hurriedly.
Shi’en: “I went to deliver incense to Lai Fu. After lighting it and saying a few words, I heard something wrong outside. When I went out, there were insects scurrying everywhere outside.” There was indescribable fear in his voice.
Densely packed small black dots gathered together, crawling on the water surface like a large piece of twisted black cloth, changing shape at any time. The overlapping interwoven sounds and the rustling friction of wings were endless, like a terrifying scene only found in midnight nightmares.
For a moment, he almost didn’t react, his knees trembled uncontrollably, and he almost knelt down.
Later, he barely supported his body to stand up, first closing Lai Fu’s doors and windows, letting him ask several times inside the door without speaking.
…It’s better to let Lai Fu know nothing.
In his current state, if he knew the terror outside, he wouldn’t be able to run even if he wanted to!
He originally hesitated whether to lock himself up with Lai Fu, but in that interval, he found that the black tides on the water surface suddenly surged frantically in another direction.
In an instant, the black insects that originally covered the walls densely retreated a lot.
Shi’en swallowed, ran a few steps outside in the rain, and vaguely saw a looming black smoke permeating the sky above the palace complex a distance away from them.
…That was Fengxian Hall.
Through the rain curtain, Shi’en could vaguely see the drifting black mist, that kind of mist… he had seen it when he was young.
When someone’s house caught fire and was put out, the smoke rising from the charcoal looked like this.
Did Fengxian Hall catch fire? What on earth is going on?
He didn’t dare to run out in the rain, nor did he dare to chase the direction of those black insects, so he could only turn back immediately and rush back in. After all, there were still wandering black insects outside, looking quite scary.
What Shi’en said was too bizarre. Some people still didn’t believe it and went out together to see.
Not long after, they all came back with pale faces.
The grand scene they saw was not as good as Shi’en’s, but they did see scattered black insects. Some even tried to climb up the steps, but for some reason, they quickly dispersed.
Now, the room was full again, and no one dared to go out.
Guarding the incense that was about to burn out, trembling.
“Is this smell really useful?”
“It should be, I see they don’t come here.”
“But it’s almost finished.”
“Huiping, do you have any more?”
Huiping thought of the dozen or so incense sticks and finally said: “Yes, but not much.”
Shi’en immediately said: “Don’t use it yet. We don’t open the doors and windows, the smell won’t disperse in the room, it can last a little longer.”
“But, if we don’t open the doors and windows, how can we let the smell out to repel insects?”
Shi’en: “Anyway, if they don’t come in, we earn it. Why do you care how they smell it, as long as they don’t come.” Shi’en knew many people and had a lot of leeway in speaking. Usually no one refuted what he said, and the room became quiet.
This weird silence was too terrifying, and occasionally rustling sounds could be heard.
But no one came, and there were no other sounds.
This weird atmosphere made people have no strength to even speak. One by one, their expressions were depressed, and their hearts were anxious.
Until—
Bang! Bang bang!
Bang bang bang!
The piercing sound of the gong penetrated the rain curtain and entered their ears extremely powerfully. Following closely were shouts: “The Gu worms have been removed, come out everyone.”
That voice sounded a bit familiar. Shi’en identified it for a while and recognized it as a guard patrolling nearby. He glanced at the others in the room and immediately opened the door to check the situation first.
After a long while, Shi’en returned with a look of joy: “Gone, there are really no insects outside!”
Just now it was Shi’en who brought the news of the insect tide, and now he was the first to go out to confirm, which undoubtedly increased the credibility of his words.
“Really no insects?” The person who asked this was the eunuch who had gone out to look just now. He rubbed his arms as if trying to rub off the goosebumps, “It’s really creepy.”
Those small black insects, if there was only a single one, didn’t look very scary. Even stomping a foot could crush them. But when the number of these things was overwhelming, almost enough to devour people, the hunter and the prey suddenly changed.
“At least I didn’t see any.” Shi’en shook his head, and then said, “I saw them setting up braziers with charcoal fire burning inside. I asked and they said it can repel insects.”
With Shi’en’s foreshadowing, a few more people went out one after another to check. After confirming that this was the truth, one or two of them felt relieved.
It was inappropriate for so many people to squeeze together after all.
People left one after another, and soon the room was empty, leaving only Shi’en and Gusheng.
Gusheng and Shi’en sandwiched Huiping from left and right: “Is Jingzhe really with the Director? I went there just now, why didn’t I see Jingzhe?” Shi’en went out and after confirming safety, he also went to visit Jiang Jinming by the way, and got a lot of news from him.
Yunkui was indeed with Jiang Jinming, but Jingzhe was not.
Huiping pretended to be deaf and dumb: “Is that so? But when Jingzhe went out, he said he was going to deliver things to the Director and the others.” But he was also worried in his heart.
Gusheng frowned: “Could something have happened?”
Just then.
“Ahhhhhhh—”
Not far away, screams were heard.
“My clothes!”
One after another, various mournful cries rang out. Gusheng and Shi’en looked at each other, suddenly felt something was wrong, turned around and rushed out immediately.
Huiping subconsciously followed behind them, only to see that apart from their room, the residences of the others seemed to have been ravaged by a storm.
Whether it was the wardrobe or the bedding, strange gnawing marks were left, and even the corners of the table were gnawed off a lot of debris.
The whole place was a mess, but extremely terrifying.
Some people cried bitterly because of the damaged things, and some people had lingering fears, glad that they didn’t stay in the room just now.
Huiping couldn’t help swallowing.
…If he hadn’t listened to Jingzhe and stuffed everyone he could find in the Directorate of Palace Maintenance into the room…
How many people would have died?
…
In Shoukang Palace, the Empress Dowager was playing chess with Concubine De.
The pattering rain beat on the eaves of the palace wall, breaking into crisp sounds, falling like strings of pearls, turning into crystal clear water splashes.
“Concubine De, from now on, many things in this palace will still be handed over to you.”
The Empress Dowager placed a piece, looking with satisfaction as the white pieces ate up the black pieces cleanly.
The biting killing intent on the chessboard made Concubine De lower her head subconsciously: “This is this concubine’s duty.”
“It is a duty, but doing it well is what matters.” The Empress Dowager said calmly, “I see how well you do.”
Concubine De wanted to smile, but couldn’t quite bring herself to.
Ever since the incident with Concubine Zhang, she hadn’t slept well. The rosy complexion right now was only maintained by rouge and powder.
The Empress Dowager’s words were very gentle and considerate.
But inexplicably, Concubine De always remembered the day Concubine Zhang had her accident. The Empress Dowager also used such a gentle tone to comfort Concubine Zhang, and then…
And then, she died.
Concubine De knew Emperor Jingyuan’s character very well. Over the years, Concubine De had put a lot of effort into figuring out the Emperor’s preferences.
He either didn’t say anything, or if he really took action, it often meant he was enraged.
And this made Concubine De have strange suspicions.
Emperor Jingyuan didn’t think the child in Concubine Zhang’s belly was his. And the Empress Dowager’s first reaction after learning about Concubine Zhang’s pregnancy was also disbelief.
…Even if the relationship between the Empress Dowager and the Emperor was not good and she didn’t want the Emperor to have his own heirs, unwillingness and disbelief were two different things.
It was as if the Empress Dowager knew that the Emperor would definitely not have his own children.
Once this guess appeared, Concubine De inevitably thought of more signs.
She had been in the palace for many years, yet she was still a virgin; so many concubines in the harem, yet none had given birth to an heir; the Empress Dowager had presided over two draft selections for the Emperor. Although the selected ladies all had good family backgrounds, a careful investigation would reveal that most of them… just looked noble, but actually had no power in their hands.
Although the Empress Dowager was Concubine De’s aunt and she was willing to follow the Empress Dowager’s lead, it didn’t mean that Concubine De was willing to let her whole life be destroyed in the Empress Dowager’s hands.
It was clearly Concubine Zhang who stole a man, couldn’t hide it anymore, and insisted on forcing the Emperor to acknowledge the child… Such audacious behavior, it was impossible for Emperor Jingyuan not to be furious.
The means were a bit cruel, but far less than what the civil and military officials impeached…
Unscrupulous.
Concubine De suppressed the fear in her heart. Undoubtedly, Concubine Zhang’s matter was still a memory she couldn’t erase, and she would often wake up from nightmares in the middle of the night. But the Empress Dowager’s various behaviors had become more and more obvious recently, reaching a point where Concubine De couldn’t ignore them.
Could it be that the Empress Dowager really wanted to…