Chapter 492
Jing Lie helped Yuan Jing take inventory of his current property. They did not touch the things the old lady had sent them and placed them separately in a warehouse.
Both of them were not optimistic about the future of the Nabo Mansion. If the Nabo Mansion fell into decline in the future, Yuan Jing was not willing to use his own money to fill that hole, so he decided to keep the things given by the old lady and give them to them later to avoid being accused of being unfilial.
"Now I have three farms, five shops, a three-story house, calligraphy and paintings, antiques and jewelry, and two hundred thousand taels of silver in cash."
Yuan Jing held his face and said, "Does that mean I've become rich all of a sudden? Here, here, these are rewards for you. Follow me and you'll have meat to eat." As he said that, he grabbed a stack of banknotes and stuffed them into Jing Lie's arms.
Jing Lie snorted and pushed the little bastard down on the bed and gave him a good beating. Let's see how he can still show off. When Li Yan and the others came to see him, Yuan Jing was lying on the bed and secretly massaging his waist.
Now that he is in poor health, there is no way for him to go to the Bo's house to pay his respects to the old lady. No one will complain about this, so Yuan Jing can live a life of raising pigs in Zeng's house with peace of mind. He really treats himself as a pig. Li Yan and others don't even urge him to work. When they see Yuan Jing holding a pen to write a manuscript, they rush over to snatch the pen away and insist that he lie in bed and rest, and not work hard.
The imperial physician has said that his current health condition is affecting his life span. No matter how beautiful the Huangliang Dream is, does it matter as much as his brother’s health?
Yuan Jing felt that he had screwed himself over when he was acting.
The enthusiasm in the capital about the Fourth Young Master Zeng and the House of the Earl of Yongyi gradually subsided. Yuan Jing also slowly adjusted his pulse according to the progress of the imperial physician, allowing his body to gradually improve. Of course, this improvement was not comparable to that of a normal person. Even if he could recover to be lively and energetic in the future, he would still be seen as a "sickly person" who would not live long in the eyes of others.
After the imperial physician's treatment was over, the toxins in the Fourth Young Master's body were basically cleared, and he would rely on conditioning from now on. Yuan Jing was allowed to pick up the pen and take a walk in the yard. Yuan Jing stood in the yard and looked at the sky above his head, thinking that his life was not easy. He was watched by Song Shi and others during the day, and was suppressed by Jing Lie at night. What kind of life was he living?
Because he was not allowed to write, the third volume of Huangliang Meng was nowhere to be published. Xia Zhou became a celebrity in the capital. Seven or eight out of ten people he met urged him to finish the work and asked him when the third volume would be published. Xia Zhou experienced the troubles of being a celebrity. In the past, he, Xia Zhou, was nothing in the eyes of others. But now, everyone looked at him eagerly, and some even tried their best to poach Si Yao from him.
Prince Shun and Xiang Cheng also expressed their curiosity. According to Si Yao's writing speed, the third volume of Huangliang Dream should have been published long ago. Why is it delayed so late this time and there is still no sign of it?
"If there is anything strange, it's that the Fourth Young Master Zeng is in poor health and needs to rest in the house..." Prince Shun got stuck here and looked up at Xiang Cheng, saying incredulously, "How come you can't find Si Yao's shadow? Could he be the Fourth Young Master Zeng?"
Xiang Cheng almost couldn't help but pick his ears: "Your Highness, you are not joking, are you? The experience of the Fourth Young Master Zeng in the past ten years was very simple. Where did he learn all those things?"
Although Prince Shun was in the capital, he could remotely control the affairs of his fiefdom. He asked his subordinates to implement the measures written in the Yellow Liang Dream in his own fiefdom, which had achieved initial results and proved to be feasible. So they thought that Si Yao, who wrote the Yellow Liang Dream, must be a wise man with rich experience and had traveled to many places. He must also be quite old, at least forty or fifty years old, to have such rich knowledge.
But what about Zeng Yuanjing? He had grown up in the backyard of the Bo's mansion for more than ten years. Even when he left the Bo's mansion, he would eat, drink and have fun with Li Yan and his friends. He had never done anything serious and had never left the capital. How could he know about weather changes, water conservancy surveys and other livelihood knowledge?
No wonder they are so suspicious.
But when Yuan Jing finally finished the third volume of Huangliang Dream, Xia Zhou went to Zeng's house to get the manuscript and sent it to the workshop for printing. Prince Shun and Xiang Cheng looked at each other and sent the people who were keeping an eye on Xia Zhou back to report the situation, telling them a fact that could no longer be denied, that is, Huangliang Dream was indeed written by the fourth young master Zeng.
Because he had a serious illness before and needed to stay in bed to recuperate, he was unable to finish the manuscript, which resulted in the third volume of Huangliang Dream not being published for a long time.
Prince Shun took a long time to come back to his senses and blinked at Xiang Cheng: "So, we were all fooled by a 17-year-old boy? He is not really stupid, but he has been pretending to be stupid, right? The palace banquet that day was also deliberately staged by the fourth young master Zeng, just to make the affairs of the Zeng family known to the world, so that they can move out of that mansion openly and people can't say anything bad about him?"
Xiang Cheng felt a toothache, as if he had been slapped in the face: "If that's true, then this Fourth Young Master Zeng is really too secretive. Was he pretending when he chased after that guy surnamed Xie?"
Prince Shun was also in a state of confusion, unable to understand what was going on in the head of this seventeen-year-old boy.
By the end of the year, Yuan Jing's body recovered enough to go out and play, but Li Yan and the other two refused to let him go out. It was cold outside, what if Yuan Jing fell down again? He was now a baby who needed everyone's protection.
What could Yuan Jing do? He could only go out and have fun at night when no one was around.
The sickly Fourth Young Master Zeng, who had not been seen for a long time, was mentioned less and less often. Even the Yongyi Marquis's Mansion gradually became depressed and had not made its presence felt in the capital for a long time. At this time, a corruption case was uncovered in the officialdom of Jiangnan, and many officials were involved. There was a new excitement to watch, and no one paid attention to the Fourth Young Master Zeng anymore.
However, people from the palace came twice, both to run errands for the old emperor, and rewarded Yuan Jing with some things. To outsiders, this was a sign that the emperor liked the fourth young master Zeng, and several princes also followed suit and sent some things over.
Yuan Jing asked Song Shi to pack some gifts. It was the end of the year, and he had to show up at the Yongyi Marquis's house. He could ignore his uncle and aunt, but he had to be filial to the old lady, so he had to make this trip.
"Do you want me to go with you?" Jing Lie helped to pack.
Yuan Jing shook his sleeves and laughed: "What identity are you going there with? Don't make the old lady so angry that she becomes seriously ill again, that would be my fault. I will go there to give the gift and come back, I won't stay there for long, so as not to embarrass those people who see me. Anyway, I don't owe them anything."
"Okay, I'll drive the car for you and I'll wait for you in the car."
Jing Lie served as Yuan Jing's coachman, and sent him to the gate of his current Earl's Mansion. He watched him go in, and then waited in the carriage.
Although several months had passed, the happenings in the Bo's Mansion had spread throughout the capital. How could the servants in the Bo's Mansion not know about it? So when they saw the Fourth Young Master coming, they were very polite and did not dare to be careless at all.
After several months of recuperation, the old lady's hemiplegia symptoms were alleviated a lot. When she heard that the fourth young master came back to visit the old lady, she immediately asked people to make arrangements to serve the fourth young master, and also asked people to invite the uncle, the uncle's wife, and other young masters and young ladies.
Yuan Jing had just walked to the door when he heard these instructions and stopped them, saying, "Madam, there's no need to bother. I'm here to see you and will leave after sitting for a while."
The excited old lady froze and looked up at her grandson. Yuan Jing used to play dumb in front of her, but now he was unwilling to do so. His clear black and white eyes, filled with indifference and without a trace of attachment, poured cold water on the old lady.
The old lady waved her hand and told people not to call.
Yuan Jing sat below the old lady, holding up the tea bowl and drinking tea without saying a word. He came to visit the old lady with gifts only because of his status, which did not mean that he was really willing to be a close pair of grandparents and grandchildren with the old lady. In fact, he did all this for others to see. No matter how the old lady thought, he had nothing to do with her.
Nanny Lin and the servants waited outside, allowing the old lady to talk to the fourth young master alone.
The old lady couldn't hold back any longer and asked in a trembling voice, "Yuan Jing, are you blaming me, your grandmother? It was my grandmother who let you down and made your uncle and aunt make such a big mistake. Are you okay now?"
"I won't die," Yuan Jing put down the tea bowl and said unceremoniously, "Thanks to my second uncle for bringing me into the palace that day. I was poisoned because I drank a few more glasses of wine. And because I was in the palace, the imperial physician personally detoxified and nursed me back to health. I finally recovered. Otherwise, I might have died quietly in a corner one day."
The old lady was about to pick up the tea bowl, but after hearing this, her hands began to tremble and the bowl began to clatter. She had no choice but to put the bowl back on the table and wiped her eyes. "Don't blame you. It's your uncle and aunt who should be blamed. I'm very happy that you can come back to visit me. As long as you are well, I will be relieved."
Yuan Jing found it rather boring. The more he knew about past events, the more he could guess what the old lady was thinking. She had complicated feelings towards her grandson. On the one hand, she wanted to preserve the only bloodline left by her eldest son, but on the other hand, because his face looked so much like his biological mother, and his biological mother was the one the old lady disliked the most, she might vent her anger for the death of her eldest son and grandson on his biological mother. Zeng Yuanjing, who looked so much like his biological mother, would certainly not have a good time with the old lady, so she let him fend for himself in the backyard.
Yuan Jing didn't believe that the old lady didn't understand Song's intentions. She just thought that as long as the person was still alive and well, that was enough. She felt that as long as this grandson was alive and well, he would be doing justice to his eldest son.
But when it came time to sacrifice Zeng Yuanjing, this indifferent grandson was not as important as the future of the Bo family. So even though she knew Zeng Kang's intention in bringing him into the palace, the old lady did not stop him in the end and watched him enter the palace.
Now that the choice has been made, why bother pretending to be so sincere now? Yuan Jing is not willing to act out the love between grandparents and grandchildren with her.
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