Chapter 95 The Monk (Second Update)
The maid and the old woman carried the ashes from the fire back to Gu Jinyu in handkerchiefs.
The ashes from the freshly burned paper could reveal a few words, but only a few, just enough for Gu Jinyu to recognize that it was her question, but she couldn't piece together the complete solution.
Gu Jinyu certainly wouldn't have guessed that Xiao Jingkong had burned it all to ashes. She thought that she had accidentally left the paper in the paper money, causing it to be burned along with the paper money.
Thinking of this, her heart ached, and she felt as if she wanted to vomit blood and faint on the spot!
After lunch, it was still early, so Gu Jiao decided to take a walk on the hilltop she had bought.
She's been going up the mountain a lot lately, not only to collect herbs and mushrooms, but also to memorize the topography of the entire mountain. Now she only needs to complete the topographic map of the whole mountain.
When Xiao Jingkong heard that she was going up the mountain, he tilted his head and asked her, "Can I go with Jiaojiao?"
Gu Jiao thought for a moment: "Do you want to go back and see your master and fellow disciples?"
I mainly want to be with you, but it's okay too.
Xiao Jingkong jumped off the stool and said to Gu Jiao, "Then I'll go see them."
The place I went to this time was quite close to the temple; it was actually on the way.
Gu Jiao carried a small basket on her back, and Xiao Jingkong looked on with envy, so Gu Jiao got him a small basket too.
The small basket on his back contained the gifts he brought for his friends.
There are vegetarian meatballs, fried by Gu Jiao.
There was osmanthus cake, which Gu Jiao bought.
There were wild fruits, picked by Gu Jiao.
Little Jingkong, carrying the same small basket as Gu Jiao, was extremely proud. He went to the old lady's house to show it off, and then ran next door to show it off in front of Xue Ningxiang and Gouwa.
Then the siblings set off.
Despite his young age and small stature, Xiao Jingkong is more hardworking than most children. He persevered and walked the long way around to the other side of the mountain.
He ran up the mountain with great strides, while Gu Jiao followed behind him at a leisurely pace. When they reached the halfway point, he finally exhausted himself and collapsed on the steps, becoming a complete slump.
Gu Jiao carried the little salted fish, Jingkong, up the mountain.
At the temple gate, Xiao Jingkong, having regained his strength, waved to Gu Jiao: "Jiaojiao, you go ahead and do your work. I'll go find Jingfan, Jingxin, and Jingshan myself!"
"Hmm." Gu Jiao watched as Xiao Jingkong entered the temple, greeted a monk warmly, and even called him Senior Brother Jingchen. Only then did she feel at ease enough to measure her own mountain.
It cost a lot of money to buy this mountain, but the more Gu Jiao visited it, the more she felt it was worth it. The countless wild medicinal herbs and wild animals covering the mountain belonged to her.
She must have been really lucky today, because she dug up two ginseng roots along the way. They weren't very big, but they were enough to make chicken soup.
For some reason, Gu Jiao suddenly remembered the trap she had set in the woods, but this time no one should be so unlucky.
No sooner had the thought crossed his mind than a commotion came from the woods, as if something had actually fallen.
That's the trap she once set.
"It can't be that much of a coincidence..."
Gu Jiao raised an eyebrow.
Perhaps it's a big insect?
Even a wolf will do.
Gu Jiao went to harvest her prey with great anticipation, but when she got there, she saw...
Uh... this time it's another person.
Gu Jiao was a little confused.
She made traps to catch wild animals, so why are people always the ones who fall into them?
However, this time it seems to be not an ordinary person, but a monk.
He was dressed in a grayish-white monk's robe, tall and slender, carrying something in his arms, with a section of his wrist bone protruding from his sleeve, as white and smooth as jade.
Perhaps hearing the noise from the ground, he looked up, and his unconventional face came into Gu Jiao's view.
This monk had a pair of narrow, almond-shaped eyes, and a beauty mark under his right eye. It was hard to tell how old he was; in short, he looked very young.
Gu Jiao sighed inwardly, "This world... even monks are so beautiful? Could it be that some monster in the forest has come to bewitch us innocent young women?"
Gu Jiao looked at him warily.
He curled his thin, rosy lips into a slight smile: "Young benefactor, may I be so kind as to help this humble monk up?"
Her voice is also very pleasant to hear!
There is a kind of ethereal quality, like that of a deity.
After thinking for a moment, Gu Jiao took out the rope from the basket and pulled him up.
Gu Jiao then noticed that he was holding a white and tender little wild rabbit, and that in the trap he had just been in, there was a dead venomous snake lying there.
Gu Jiao glanced at the venomous snake, then at the little rabbit in his arms, and said, "Did you fall into the trap to save this little rabbit?"
"Yes." He nodded with a smile.
His smile was gentle, but not the maternal gentleness of Yao Shi; rather, it was a gentleness that made people dizzy and blush.
Unfortunately, Gu Jiao was never shy.
Because he was good-looking, Gu Jiao glanced at him a few more times, but Gu Jiao was actually very calm inside.
When Gu Jiao heard him say that, she hummed in response: "You're quite kind..."
Before Liang could finish speaking, the other party drew a dagger and killed the rabbit with a single blow.
Gu Jiao: "..."
After killing the rabbit, the monk asked Gu Jiao for some water, washed the rabbit, and started a bonfire to roast the rabbit meat.
Gu Jiao was a little confused.
Killing and eating meat, is this a fake monk?
"Do you want some?" He cut off the fattest and most tender piece of rabbit meat, skewered it with a dagger, and handed it to Gu Jiao. "Whoever sees it gets a share."
Gu Jiao: Shouldn't it be that I saved you, so you're thanking me properly?
Gu Jiao hadn't eaten much for lunch, but she was actually quite hungry now. She took the rabbit meat and took a bite.
It's not bad, but it's not delicious either; it's a bit of a waste of ingredients.
"Ah, I forgot to add salt." The monk patted his head, took out a small bamboo tube from his wide sleeve, removed the lid, and began to sprinkle salt on the rabbit meat.
"This should taste much better." He cut off another piece and handed it to Gu Jiao.
Gu Jiao took the rabbit meat. The salt made it taste much better. She asked, "You saved it just to eat it?"
The monk replied matter-of-factly, "Otherwise what?"
Gu Jiao's lips twitched, wondering which monk from the temple this was. She had never seen him before.
The monk pointed to the trap beside him: "Want to eat snake meat? If you do, go and fish it out."
Gu Jiao said, "Why don't you fish it out yourself?"
The monk sighed, "I'm afraid."
Gu Jiao said strangely, "I'm afraid you'll kill it."
"It wasn't killed by beatings," the monk paused, then corrected her, "it was bitten to death."
Gu Jiao: "..."
Why did you bite it for no reason?
"It bit me first!" the monk said righteously, pulling up his left trouser leg to reveal his calf, which was swollen like a pig's trotter.
Gu Jiao was completely dumbfounded.
If a snake bites you, you bite the snake back. What kind of logic is that?
The snake probably never imagined that one day it would be bitten to death by a human!
And you've been bitten by a snake like this, yet you still have the appetite to eat roasted rabbit? Don't you know you're about to die?
The monk seemed to have read Gu Jiao's mind and sighed, "I know."
After saying that, he collapsed to the ground with a thud, spitting out black blood and losing consciousness!
Gu Jiao: "..."
What kind of bizarre monk is this?!
He was bitten by a highly venomous banded krait, but fortunately Gu Jiao had antivenom serum for banded kraits in her first-aid kit.
Antivenom serum is a type of horse serum preparation, which contains foreign proteins and can easily cause allergies.
Time was of the essence, so Gu Jiao gave up on the desensitization injection and reluctantly gave him two injections of anti-allergy medication.
When the monk woke up, he was no longer on the lawn. He found himself sitting under a big tree, and it was raining heavily.
He glanced at Gu Jiao beside him and said in a hoarse voice, "Don't you know that there are many thunderstorms in spring and you shouldn't take shelter under trees during the rain?"
Gu Jiao glanced at him casually and said, "A person who can calmly roast a rabbit after being bitten by a snake, I'd say you're not afraid of death."
The monk choked for a moment, then coughed lightly and said, "I thought I wasn't going to live, so I figured I'd at least die with a full stomach, right? Speaking of which... you saved me?"
He pulled up his trouser leg to take a look. The wound had been bandaged and treated with medicine. The pain had mostly disappeared, and the swelling was gone.
"You can even cure snake venom? Are you a hermit master?" he asked curiously.
Gu Jiao didn't respond to him, but just sat quietly to the side, avoiding the rain.
Feeling somewhat embarrassed that he owed her two favors, the monk smiled awkwardly and asked, "What is your surname, female benefactor?"
"Gu," Gu Jiao said, her gaze fixed on the relentless downpour, not on him.
The monk smiled and said, "This humble monk has some knowledge of physiognomy and can read your palm."
"No need," Gu Jiao refused calmly.
No woman could resist a monk as handsome as him, and Gu Jiao was the first.
The monk couldn't help but become curious and glanced at her a few more times. Gu Jiao had already put on a bamboo hat, so her face was obscured, leaving only a delicate chin visible.
The monk curled his lips and was about to look away when he suddenly noticed a bronze plaque that Gu Jiao was playing with in her hand.
He raised an eyebrow in confusion and said, "So, you're from the Marquis of Xuanping's household, young lady."
"What?" Gu Jiao turned her face.
The monk's gaze swept over the birthmark on her left cheek without showing any unusual reaction, and he said, "The token in your hand."
Gu Jiao looked at the token, then at him: "You recognize it?"
The monk smiled, stretched out his long legs, raised an arm behind his head, leaned against the big tree behind him, and looked at the fine rain, saying, "Yes, this humble monk knows you."
"Tell me about it," Gu Jiao said.
The monk glanced at Gu Jiao with amusement: "So you don't recognize it? Then how did you get this token?"
"I found it," Gu Jiao said.
"Hoo." The monk's expression became more and more amused, his beautiful peach blossom eyes narrowed into two crescent moons, like spring water and autumn waves, full of charm. "Then you are really lucky to have found something so valuable."
As he spoke, he withdrew his gaze from Gu Jiao and continued to look at the torrential rain that seemed to have no end in sight: "The Marquis of Xuanping's mansion is a family of officials with hundreds of years of history, relatives of the emperor, and a powerful force in the capital. It has produced two emperors' veterans and an empress. What exactly does Benefactor Gu wish to hear?"
Gu Jiao didn't ask him why a monk from the deep mountains could know about the situation in the capital, she only said, "Anything is fine."
The monk smiled and said, "So you want to hear both, but unfortunately the story of the Marquis of Xuanping's mansion can't be told in three days and three nights. Does Benefactor Gu want to inquire about people, or do you want to hear about interesting stories?"
Gu Jiao thought for a moment: "People."
"Master or servant?"
"what ever."
The monk's smile deepened: "You were the one inquiring about the news, so why are you following my lead? Fine, even if you really are inquiring about the servants, I don't know either. Let's start with Marquis Xuanping. This marquisate was inherited from the old marquis. Marquis Xuanping was the eldest son in the family, and also the legitimate son. It was only natural for him to inherit the family business, so there's nothing to say about it."
"He had a younger sister and a younger brother born out of wedlock. His sister is the current Empress, and his brother is the General of the Mighty Army. Oh, I forgot to mention, he also married Princess Xinyang. He and Princess Xinyang had a son, who was a truly remarkable child, but unfortunately, he died young."
"Is this all the people?" Gu Jiao asked.
"There are a few illegitimate sons, not worth mentioning." The monk said, looking at Gu Jiao with a smile again, but this time, his smile contained a hint of warning, "Girl, you picked up this token, but don't take it out and flaunt it, it could easily bring you to your death. Also, don't get involved with the people of the Marquis of Xuanping's mansion, that could also bring you to your death."
He became serious, and even changed how he addressed people.
Gu Jiao ignored his warning; she was never one to leave the judgment of risks to others.
However, the Xuanping Marquis's Mansion sounds very powerful, so how come Xiao Liulang has a token from the Xuanping Marquis's Mansion? What exactly is his relationship with the Xuanping Marquis's Mansion?
"What if..." Gu Jiao stopped mid-sentence, suddenly realizing something. She turned her head and saw that the monk who had been chattering beside her had suddenly disappeared.
Even more bizarrely, Gu Jiao had no idea when he left.
Gu Jiao has been in this other world for so long, and this time she has really encountered a master.
Gu Jiao looked at the spot where the monk had just sat, where a character written with a finger was clearly visible: Xiao.
Gu Jiao pondered and said, "The Marquis of Xuanping's residence... is surnamed Xiao?"
Xiao Liulang also has the surname Xiao, what a coincidence!
(End of this chapter)
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