On the day he returned from Zuixiaolou, Shen fell ill.
He had always been in good health. Even when he was severely injured after being tortured several times before, he was only sick for a few days before he fell down again. He had never fallen down for no reason like this before.
It was probably because the injuries from the previous few times had not been healed well, and the chronic diseases that had accumulated in the past came back to bite him. Chen just felt pain all over his body and couldn't sleep soundly. When he closed his eyes, he saw a dense black and white web. Every time it jumped, he felt more uncomfortable.
This time his illness came on like a mountain, and he had a fever for several days in a row, and he looked unrecognizable.
Scenes in the nightmare were intertwined, one moment it was Jiang Shaoxiong and his deceased mother, the next moment it was Chen Luo. A knife appeared from nowhere in the crowd in the dark night, but Shen didn't think twice and rushed forward to block it for him.
But it was just one step short, and the knife still pierced Shen Luo's heart. Shen Luo watched helplessly as a bloody black hole suddenly appeared in his broad chest. The blood kept flowing, and he quickly reached out to cover it, but the blood leaked out from his palms again.
His whole body was numb, and he fell to the ground helplessly, crying bitterly, and shouted, "Brother!"
But he had never heard his own voice. Even in his dreams, he could not create one. He thought he was shouting at the top of his lungs, but to other people it sounded like a pitiful and silent venting of his emotions.
In or out of his dream, he suddenly heard Shen Luo's voice. The urgent and worried tone was like a thin thread that pulled him back to reality.
"Aque, Aque!" A blurry figure in front of me was shouting, "Brother is here, brother is here."
Shen opened his eyes, and even his eyelids were hot, and the tears that fell were scorching. He could not distinguish between dreams and reality, and reached out with a trembling hand and touched Shen Luo's chest.
Fortunately, fortunately...it’s not empty.
Chen Luo grabbed his hand, clenched it, and wiped the cold sweat from his forehead with a wrung-out handkerchief, and whispered, as if to coax a child: "Don't be afraid, Ah Que, don't be afraid, brother is back, brother is watching you."
After Chen Luo's accident, two colleagues from the Kyoto Royal Palace were sent to replace him. After he woke up, he took a carriage and hurried back slowly. After all, he was young, so he had good food and drink along the way. By the time he arrived in Kyoto, he had almost recovered.
He was planning to come back and ask Chen Que to treat him to a meal and a drink to welcome him, but who knew that Chen Que would suddenly fall ill and die.
After watching him fall asleep, Chen Luo walked to the yard outside the house and grabbed Yuan Zhi to interrogate him: "Why did you fall ill out of nowhere? What happened to Aque during the time I was away?"
Yuanzhi was a little annoyed with him. This man was different from Chen but not Shiyi. His face was clearly pale and sickly, but he was very fierce when questioning people.
Moreover, Yuanzhi could sense that he didn't seem to like him very much, but he knew that this man was close to his master and was the "senior brother" he often mentioned, so he still told him: "Your master has not been sleeping well these days. That day, he didn't sleep all night. I heard that his grandfather was clamoring to see him at the gate of the mansion. Your master personally took people to Zuixiao Tower to talk to him. I think he was irritated by that man, and he collapsed when he came back."
He still remembered what Chen Que had told him, that he must not tell anyone about the fact that someone would come at night, so what he told Chen Luo were things that only other people knew.
"What did those bastards say to him in Zuixiao Tower that day? What happened?" Chen Luo frowned, "Tell me everything in detail, don't leave out a single word."
Yuanzhi tried hard to recall and repeated to him what happened that day as carefully as possible, but he was still a child after all, so there were bound to be omissions and he could not remember many details. He only remembered that his parents were beaten by Jiang Shaoxiong.
"He scolded you for being unfilial and said he would report you to the government," Yuanzhi was so angry that his teeth were trembling when he thought of that incident. "He also kicked you in the waist and abdomen. You squatted there for a long time and couldn't straighten up. It was really too much bullying!"
He was also sold by his grandfather, so he could empathize with him and his anger was heartfelt.
After Shen Luo heard what he said, he was about to explode: "A Que has been in the mansion for more than ten years, and I never knew he had anything else. He has sold his body and spent his money, and now he has the audacity to ask for filial piety money. I think he is looking for death!"
He walked out a few steps, then paused for a moment, turned back and told Yuanzhi: "Take good care of your parents. There's medicine brewing in the backyard. Remember to check it out from time to time, and don't let it get too hot."
Yuanzhi nodded quickly, trotted out again, and called him, "Sir!"
Shen Luo stopped and looked back at him. He was very angry at the moment, and his tone was full of impatience: "What's the matter?"
"My Lord gave all the money he had saved to that man that day. Commander Shen came early in the morning and said he would take care of the matter, but my Lord refused to do so and would not allow anyone else to attack that scoundrel," Yuan Zhi said bluntly, "If you beat him up, I'm afraid... I'm afraid my Lord will be unhappy when he wakes up."
Shen Luo became angrier and angrier as he listened: "He's a fool!"
"Who the hell is he? A low-class scoundrel. How could he be caught so easily?" he said angrily. "How can a handful of silver feed such a scoundrel? If he can't be cut off now, he will haunt me for the rest of my life. Even if I sell him off, it won't be enough to pay for it."
"Why should we be soft-hearted towards such a man? Tie him up and give him a good beating to vent our anger, then have the city officials send him back to his hometown and never allow him to come to the capital again!"
He left as soon as he finished speaking, and Yuanzhi couldn't stop him at all, so he had to run into Chen Que's room. Chen Que had not slept soundly to begin with, and he had just heard vague noises in the yard. When he heard the footsteps, he tilted his head in confusion.
"What happened?" He coughed a few times, then recalled the voice he had just heard and asked Yuan Zhi hurriedly, "Is Senior Brother back?"
He is still ill, weak, dull-witted, and his hands move slowly.
Yuan Zhi glanced at Shen Que's chapped lips and hurriedly poured him a cup of hot tea to moisten his throat. Seeing him drink it, he slowly said, "Master Shen Luo came to see you just now, asked me a few questions, and then left in a hurry. I think he was going to find Jiang Shaoxiong..."
Chen Que's heart tightened, and after a long while, he raised his hand to gesture: "Go, go and get him back, and tell him that this matter has nothing to do with him, and I don't want him to care."
Perhaps because he felt that this was not harsh enough, before Yuan Zhi left, he added: "If he refuses to come back, tell him. If Senior Brother insists on intervening, I will definitely hate him."
This was the first time he had said such harsh words to Shen Luo. Even though he didn't say it to his face, Shen Luo still felt as if there was a knife against his chest, with the back of the knife facing Shen Luo and the blade stabbing straight into his heart.
This matter cannot be known to a third person. He is already tired, scared, and in pain enough.
He treated Shen Luo as his own brother, but that didn't mean he dared to be honest with him. Secrets had always been kept by oneself. If his senior brother knew about it, he would certainly keep it secret for him, but Shen was afraid that he would harm him because of it.
If the truth comes out one day, Chen Luo, as the person who knew about it but did not report it, will inevitably suffer the consequences.
Everything is his fault, all his sins and crimes, and no other person should be involved.
Shen Luo had a lot of informants under his command, and he just sent someone to investigate and found out Jiang Shaoxiong's whereabouts in the past few days.
For three consecutive days, this man spent the money given by Chen Que in brothels and theaters. He first changed into clean clothes, and then went out to drink, watch operas, and visit prostitutes on pleasure boats.
When Chen Luo found him, he was still in a pleasure boat, hugging a beautiful prostitute and living a life of drunkenness and debauchery.
Chen Luo kicked over a few tables, grabbed Jiang Shaoxiong by the collar, and pulled the drunk man from the beauty bed. After all, it was still early spring, and Jiang Shaoxiong shivered involuntarily when he was pulled out of the bed. He shook himself and was woken up by the cold.
"Who are you?!" Having spent the whole night in a drunken dream with wine and beautiful woman in his arms, Jiang Shaoxiong was still dizzy, with his tongue sticking out and his eyes wide open.
He reeked of alcohol, his eyes were yellow and bloodshot, and as he looked at Shen Luo's face, he thought it was the lover of the prostitute on the couch, who had come to compete with him for her favor so early in the morning.
"Do you know who my son is?" Jiang Shaoxiong shouted, "Have you heard of Regent King Xie Ling? He is a master who is second only to the emperor. My son Jiang Guan'er is the confidant of King Yan and the most capable person at his side!"
"If you dare to touch a hair on my head, watch out for your head! My son has issued an order that your whole family will be sent to prison!"
Chen Luo didn't say much, he raised his leg and hit him hard in the lower abdomen. Jiang Shaoxiong felt pain and saw stars from the impact of his knee. He knelt down exhausted and vomited all the food and wine he hadn't digested last night all over the floor.
The sleepy prostitute on the couch saw this scene and screamed while curled up in the quilt.
Shen Luo looked at her coldly: "It's none of your business, shut your mouth and save some energy to shout at night."
"You dare, you dare," Jiang Shaoxiong almost vomited everything in his stomach in one breath. His throat was burning, and the fire in his heart was ignited little by little. "You dare to hit me? How dare you hit me?"
He is no longer the helpless peasant. His son has become a high-ranking official and he has money and power. He, Jiang Shaoxiong, has been a loser for more than fifty years. Now he is enjoying a comfortable life.
How dare this person touch him? !
Chen Luo stepped on his head, and his hard-soled black leather boots pressed his head hard on the deck: "Jiang Guaner, who is Jiang Guaner? Who the hell are you? How dare you call yourself his grandfather? Take a look at yourself in the mirror, you scumbag!"
He often walked around in the taverns in the city and had acquaintances everywhere in Kyoto. He was different from Shen Que who kept himself in his house all year round. He had seen scoundrels like Jiang Shaoxiong before.
Before he could speak, Shen Luo stepped on his head and crushed it to the ground: "He let you make a fuss and beg for money. That's because he is soft-hearted and has a heart as kind as a bodhisattva. You must be stupid to dare to trample on him like this."
Jiang Shaoxiong's face was half squeezed and he said vaguely with a crooked mouth: "It was him, it was Jiang Guaner who asked you to come, right? He was reluctant to give me the money he gave me that day, so he hired you to threaten me..."
At this point he suddenly laughed grimly: "What am I afraid of? What am I afraid of? I used up all the silver last night. Go back and tell Jiang Guaner that if he doesn't send me the silver tomorrow, I will reveal his shameful secret to everyone in Kyoto."
Shen Luo was stunned for a moment. Seeing that he was not afraid even when death was imminent and he was still so decisive, he leaned down slightly and asked, "What secret?"
"Didn't he tell you? That's right, how dare he say it?" Jiang Shaoxiong laughed, "Go back and ask him, go ask him, what shameful evidence does he have in my hand?"
Chen Luo hesitated, he knew his junior brother, it was true that he was soft-hearted, but he was not a soft persimmon that could be bullied at will, he seemed easy-going and gentle, but he actually had a temper.
As for this grandfather, he refused to even mention him in front of his face for so many years. Chen Luo once thought that he fell into the hands of human traffickers because his parents were both dead.
Later, he kept asking Shen Xiangzhi, and only then did he find out that Shen Que was not an orphan, but was sold by his grandfather in order to earn money for wine.
As much as Chen Luo loves this junior fellow apprentice, he hates his unknown bastard grandfather.
"If you treat me like this, the only one who will regret it is Jiang Guan'er, not me," Jiang Shaoxiong struggled and gritted his teeth, "He is an official. If this gets out, no one in Kyoto will tolerate him. Just beat me. Beat me to death. I still have a wife. She will report to the authorities for me. If I die, he won't be able to escape!"
At this moment, a small boat paddled towards the pleasure boat.
"Sir, Sir Shen!" It was the voice of the little servant in Lan Sheng Courtyard.
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