Chapter 1: Poisoning the Grandson
In late spring, amidst the lush and beautiful flowers and trees, the Weiyuan Marquis Mansion was filled with a heavy and unbreakable melancholy.
The source of this yin energy is lurking in the Yanshou Hall, the deepest part of the mansion, where sandalwood incense lingers all day long.
The old lady of the Marquis's Mansion, Madam Zhou, half-closed her eyes and slowly twisted a string of shiny red sandalwood Buddhist beads with her skinny fingers.
On the small gilded table in front of her, steam was rising from a cup of ginseng soup. The ginseng flavor was strong, but mixed with a very faint, barely noticeable scent of bitter almonds.
"Mother……"
Cui Yan, the Marquis of Weiyuan, a well-known military commander in the court, was now slightly bent over, his voice filled with suppressed anxiety.
"Brother Xiao's symptoms are too severe! He's suffering from severe abdominal pain, vomiting and diarrhea, and now... now even his lips are turning dark blue! This is definitely not just a cold! I beg mother to show mercy and allow me to immediately take a letter to ask Wang Yuanpan from the Imperial Hospital to come to my house for a consultation! If it's too late... I'm afraid something serious will happen!"
He stared at the bowl of ginseng soup, which was the "tonic" that the old lady had specially sent to her half an hour ago out of "sympathy" for her sick eldest grandson.
Mrs. Zhou did not stop twisting her Buddhist beads, and she did not even bother to lift her eyelids. She only hummed a bland tune from her nose.
"Brother Yan, you are now a marquis, in charge of such a huge mansion, so you should be more patient when encountering things.
Children have delicate spleen and stomach. If they eat something bad in spring due to greed, they will just have stomach upset for a few days. Is it worth it for you to make such a fuss and alert the imperial physician?
It would be ridiculous for our mansion to make a fuss out of nothing and have no rules."
She paused, her tone becoming even more undeniably cold.
"I think it's because you and your wife have spoiled Xiao a little too much. It might be a blessing to let him rest quietly and clean up his stomach."
Cui Yan clenched his fists at his sides, his knuckles crackling, and a surge of grief and anger rushed to his head.
He raised his head suddenly, his eyes bloodshot, "That ginseng soup..."
"What's wrong with the ginseng soup?"
Madam Zhou suddenly opened her eyes, and her cloudy old eyes shot out two cold lightning bolts, piercing Cui Yan.
"As a grandmother, I used my share of ginseng to make soup for my grandson out of kindness, but it ended up bringing sin upon me? Cui Yan!
Are you suspecting that I'm going to harm my own grandson?"
Her voice suddenly rose, carrying the intimidating aura of someone who had long held a superior position, and she slammed the Buddhist beads in her hand heavily on the small table!
Cui Yan was frightened by her gaze and froze. The anger in his heart was like a punctured ball, deflated in an instant, leaving only a deep sense of powerlessness.
Filial piety was like heaven, weighing down his spine and making him groan. He lowered his head in pain, his shoulders slumped, and his voice was hoarse.
"Son...it's just that Brother Xiao...really..."
The following words got stuck in his throat and turned into a desperate sigh.
He knew his stepmother's methods very well. Without evidence, further questioning would only bring greater disaster to Xiao Ge'er.
At this suffocating moment of stalemate, the tightly closed carved wooden door of Yanshou Hall suddenly clanged open with a loud noise, as someone from outside kicked it open fiercely!
The door hinge groaned as if it could not bear the weight, which frightened the maids and servants in the room into screaming.
"Don't you dare! Lao Cui! You're in dire straits, and you're still listening to this old hag chanting? If you delay any longer, your son will really have to report to the King of Hell!"
A loud voice like thunder exploded, shaking the dust on the beams and making them fall down.
As the words were spoken, a spherical figure rushed in like a cannonball.
The man was about forty years old, with an extremely plump figure. He was wearing a royal blue silk shirt that was neither new nor worn. He was sweating profusely from running, and his round face was shiny with oil, making him look like a big meat bun just out of the oven.
It was Feng Dayou, Cui Yan's former close friend in the frontier army, who was now doing business traveling between the south and the north in the capital.
Cui Yan was shocked and angry: "Fatty Feng! How dare you trespass..."
"I'll let your mother go!"
Feng Dayou ignored Cui Yan's scolding, and he didn't even take Madam Zhou, who was sitting at the top of the table with a dark face and about to lose her temper, seriously.
He grabbed Cui Yan's arm with amazing strength and dragged him out, his mouth crackling like frying beans.
"Don't talk nonsense to me! Trust me! Hurry up! I've brought the person to you! If you're too late, even gods can't save him!"
Behind him, there followed a thin young man.
He was about fifteen or sixteen years old, wearing a washed-out indigo coarse cloth shorts, and an old wicker medicine box slung across his back that was not much smaller than him, making his figure look even thinner.
This young man was handsome, especially his eyes, which were clearly black and white and bright astonishingly, like two balls of black mercury dipped in a cold spring.
At this moment, he was scanning everyone in the room, and paused for a moment on the face of Old Madam Zhou, whose expression was as gloomy as water. The corners of his mouth seemed to bend upwards very quickly, with an indescribable meaning.
"Where did this scoundrel from the city come from? Catch him!"
Madam Zhou finally recovered her breath, trembling with anger, and shouted fiercely. Several burly maids immediately stepped forward.
"Let's see who dares to move!"
Feng Dayou turned his head suddenly, and his pair of green bean eyes, which were always narrowed and shrewd, were now wide open, emitting some of the bravery and murderous spirit that he had crawled out of in the sea of blood and corpses.
He frightened the women so much that they took a step back. He pointed at the young man in plain clothes and spoke in a firm and decisive voice, leaving no room for doubt.
"This is Brother Hu Qing! Don't be fooled by his young age; he's a legitimate descendant of the Medicine King Valley! His master's nickname, 'Yanwangchou', is well-known to everyone on the Northwest Road.
He specializes in treating all kinds of unorthodox and sinister things! Today, your son's life or death depends on him! Lao Cui, do you want to gamble?"
Cui Yan looked at Feng Dayou's eyes, which were about to spit fire with anxiety, and then looked at the young man in plain clothes, Hu Qing.
There was no extra expression on the boy's face, but his eyes were unusually calm. He met Cui Yan's scrutinizing gaze without flinching or avoiding it, but only nodded slightly, with a certainty beyond his age.
His son’s pale face and the bruises on the corners of his lips flashed through Cui Yan’s mind, and his stepmother’s cold hands twisting the Buddhist beads made him feel even colder in his heart.
In a flash, a fierce determination to fight to the death suddenly seized him.
The imperial physician cannot be invited, and the doctors in the mansion are helpless. It seems that Xiao'er is about to die... Let's try our best!
He stamped his foot and hissed
"Okay! Fatty Feng, I believe you! Hu...Brother Hu, please follow me! Quick!"
He shook off Feng Dayou's hand and almost dragged the thin Hu Qing as he stumbled out of Yanshou Hall, leaving behind Old Lady Zhou's vicious gaze that seemed ready to devour anyone and the deadly silence of horror that filled the room.
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