She only knew that first the eldest grandson of the Marquis of Anding died suddenly, bleeding from his mouth and nose, and then the young master of the Right Vice Minister of the Ministry of Rites, and then the two girls of the Junior Secretary of the Ministry of Rites...
First the children, and later even adults were infected. More and more people died, including nobles and court officials as well as ordinary people.
At first, only three or four people died a day, but later, hundreds of people died every day. The government announced that it was a plague and asked everyone to stay at home as much as possible to avoid infecting each other.
During that period, the whole capital was shrouded in fear of death, fearing that their family would be the next.
At that time, the government drove those infected with the plague out of the city, enclosed a village and had soldiers guard it, leaving them to fend for themselves. It was Princess Kang, Gu Yunyan, who disregarded her own safety, went to the plague village and lived and ate with the patients, and turned the tide to put an end to the plague that could have killed tens of thousands of people.
Countless people in the capital were grateful for the kindness of Princess Kang, and they all spontaneously ran to the gate of Prince Kang's mansion to kowtow to her. There was a huge crowd of people, and many families even offered longevity tablets for her.
These things were heard and pieced together by Gu Yanfei from the idle chatter of the maids and old women in the Marquis' Mansion in his previous life.
Turn the tide? Gu Yanfei raised a faint smile of understanding at the corner of his lips, his eyes fell on the dense snowflakes outside the window.
This small world has almost no spiritual energy, so it is impossible for Old Madam Murong to be refined.
When a mortal dies, he is dead. As his body decays, corpse poison will be produced. The longer the time, the more toxic the poison inside the body will be.
But Madam Murong's corpse was different from ordinary dead people, the poison in her corpse was even more severe.
It was summer then, and there were many flies and mosquitoes.
Children are weak and are most susceptible to corpse poison, and the poison takes effect the fastest, so children are the first to die. Adults will react a day or two slower than children after being poisoned by corpse poison. The fastest is one day, and the slowest is three or four days. Those poisoned by corpse poison will gradually die...
"Huh?" Gu Yanfei paused stroking his chin and blinked.
Countless points of light suddenly appeared among the dense snowflakes outside, like a dazzling galaxy pouring down from the night sky, or like a fairy in the clouds casually scattering a handful of treasures...
Thousands of light points came towards her from all directions, making the courtyard shine brightly.
It is merit.
Gu Yanfei's eyes suddenly became as bright as stars, like a cat stealing some fish, proud and satisfied.
She avoided a disaster that would have killed thousands of people, and this was a reward from heaven for her merit.
Hmm.
Although the laws of nature in this small world are not very pleasing, they are still quite generous.
Thousands of firefly-like light spots quickly gathered around Gu Yanfei and sank into her body, nourishing her internal organs and unblocking her meridians, making her feel refreshed.
Gu Yanfei blinked and immediately felt the gain of this time.
Her eyes saw more clearly, and she could even see every petal of a red plum tree in the snow.
Merit is indeed more effective than any magic medicine!
"What's going on?" Gu Yuan looked out the window in confusion, thinking that something was going on in the courtyard. "What are you looking at?"
Gu Yanfei was still savoring the changes in his body. He came back to his senses a beat later and said with a smile, "I'm looking at the cat."
Gu Yuan didn't even see the cat in the yard.
“Meow!”
The next moment, a familiar cat's meow was heard from the other side of the blue brick wall.
A ball of fur leaped onto the top of the wall, lightly and steadily. The calico cat that had been wandering outside for half a day finally decided to come back.
It looked more energetic than before it went out, and its long fur was fluffier and shinier, as if it had suddenly grown a lot bigger.
This time she gained merit, and so did the cat.
However, the cat seemed to be in a bad mood. It lowered its head and sniffed the long hair on its body. Its round cat face wrinkled, revealing an expression of disgust and disgust.
The cat subconsciously stuck out its tongue to lick its own fur, but then stopped as if it remembered something, leaving its pink tongue half exposed.
It...it was dirty and smelly! A layer of snow had accumulated on the wall and the ground. The cat jumped into the snow and rolled around, getting covered in snow.
Gu Yanfei looked at the "icing cat" and couldn't help but curl his lips and smiled happily.
Seeing that Gu Yanfei was very happy to see the cat, Gu Yuan also smiled with a softened look on his face.
It’s good to have a kitten like this to make my sister laugh!
Gu Yuan said jokingly, "Sister, you are such a real cat."
Although Gu Yanfei also thought that her cat was naughty, today she felt that Qingguang was a little innocent.
The Murong family really stinks!
Thinking of this, Gu Yanfei couldn't help but sigh: "How pitiful!"
"The dead are forced to stay in the world, which consumes their souls... and the merits of past lives."
Madam Murong's soul is already defective, and she will be reborn as an animal in the next life. It will take at least several reincarnations to complete her soul bit by bit and be reborn as a human.
Everything in this world has a price.
The same is true for the Murong family and Shangqing Zhenren.
Gu Yuan vaguely heard Gu Yanfei saying that Old Madam Murong was pitiful, but he did not comment.
"Qingguang, you're back! I've been looking for you for a long time!" Juanbi trotted over from a certain direction, happily picked up the cat in the snow, and exclaimed, "Why do you stink?"
Juanbi held the cat tenderly and kept saying flattering things, but there was no response from the cat.
The word "stinky" she just said has made the cat autistic.
The calico cat closed its eyes and lay dead in Juanbi's arms.
The man and the cat left quickly, leaving only their footprints of varying sizes in the snow.
The courtyard became empty again, with only the wind and snow still there.
Gu Yanfei looked in the direction of Murong Mansion for a while, then turned his gaze to the direction of the ancestral hall and said, "Once the soul is damaged, it needs to be nurtured for a long time."
After a pause, Gu Yanfei's calm tone was tinged with sadness: "Our grandmother is the same."
"As a substitute, she should have been utterly dead, but now she has managed to keep a little of her soul."
"But only a little bit."
substitute……
Even though Gu Yuan already had some guesses in his mind, it was still a little hard to believe when he heard Gu Yanfei say this.
Their biological grandmother turned out to be a stand-in for Madam Gu!
All the events of the past few years since his father's death flashed through his mind in an instant, and Gu Yuan's eyes were filled with a huge wave.
He took a deep breath, clenched the armrest of the chair with one hand, and calmed himself down before asking clearly, "Sister, what is a 'stand-in'?"
The few words that Gu Yanfei said in the ancestral hall were mostly meant for Madam Gu, the person involved. The person involved knew it very well, but outsiders were confused.
Gu Yuan could only guess four or five points.
"Both the body replacement and the wedding are Taoist ways of borrowing luck." Gu Yanfei's voice was calm and emotionless. "If someone is in trouble, you can find a blood relative with the same horoscope as yours to be his body replacement, one life for another."
"Our real grandmother is the substitute for the Lady Dowager and is also her blood relative."
Hearing this, Gu Yuan's eyes became darker and darker, and he gradually calmed down. He speculated, "Sister, is our grandmother also surnamed Qi?"
Gu Yanfei nodded affirmatively and gently fiddled with the compass she had placed on the desk.
The house was silent for a moment, and large flakes of snow were blown in through the window by the cold wind.
Gu Yanfei lowered her eyes and watched the snowflakes on the desk turning into crystal drops of water. She recalled what Gu Yunzhen had told her about her grandfather in the ancestral hall last night: after her father was born, her grandfather fell seriously ill, and after that, his relationship with the lady-in-waiting had become bad.
I guess her and her brother's grandmother passed away at that time.
What on earth happened more than thirty years ago?! Gu Yanfei's heart tightened slightly, and a few ripples appeared in his heart. He couldn't help but smile bitterly.
She had been in the Yaoling Realm for two hundred years and had seen enough grudges, love and hatred, joys and sorrows. She had experienced all the stories, no matter how tragic, bizarre or terrifying they were. However, she still could not remain calm when faced with things related to herself.
After a long silence, Gu Yanfei regained his composure and continued, "The 'Substitute Talisman' is drawn with the essence and blood of the substitute. Logically, it should not be able to leave its owner. But now it is placed in my grandfather's tablet and is worshipped by the descendants of the Gu family."
"This was probably done by my grandfather."
More than thirty years have passed, and everything has changed. Some have died, some have passed away, and many of the details are probably only known by the lady herself.
However, there are still some clues about what happened back then.
"You'll find out eventually." Gu Yuan raised his hand and rubbed Gu Yanfei's soft hair, then smiled. His gentle smile melted the frost between his eyebrows, "I'm here!"
What he meant was, you're my sister, why do you care so much!
Gu Yanfei also smiled, with a hint of pride in his smile, and nodded seriously: "Yes, I have a brother!"
She is not alone, she has a brother.
The brother and sister smiled at each other, their smiles equally warm.
Gu Yuan was not just comforting Gu Yanfei casually, he did have some ideas in his mind.
After all, he knew much more about the Gu family's past than Gu Yanfei. His great-grandfather and grandfather should have been in Xizhou thirty-seven or thirty-eight years ago, and his grandfather also got married in Xizhou, so if he wanted more clues, he had to send someone to Xizhou.
As for the Qi family, if their grandmother is really a blood relative of the lady, then does no one in the Qi clan know of her existence? Not necessarily.
Since a person has existed, how can he be easily erased?
Gu Yanfei tilted her head with a smile and said, "It would be better to keep grandmother's soul in the ancestral hall for now, and wait for a chance..."
He stopped talking halfway, Gu Yanfei's pupils shrank and his eyes widened slightly.
Her deep gaze fell firmly on Gu Yuan's heart.
"..." Gu Yuan raised his sword-like eyebrows.
"Brother, are you injured?" Gu Yanfei pointed at Gu Yuan's left chest.
Gu Yuan thought about it and said casually, "I was just brushed by Shangqing's whisk. It was like a cat scratching me. It's okay."
Gu Yanfei's eyes narrowed little by little.
This should be... a mark.
(End of this chapter)
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