Chapter 6 Everyone in the capital knows that you poisoned your grandson!
"How did it spread? Who spread it?" Aunt Zhang's heart sank to the bottom.
"Who spread it? Hey! There are so many!"
The steward curled his lips
"At first, it seemed to be the girl named 'Zhu Xin' in the prince's courtyard. Her parents ran a tea stall in the west of the city. They cried and complained that their daughter was almost implicated and killed... Later
The Marquis's attendant, while drinking at Deyi Tower, accidentally let slip that the Crown Prince's poison... Tsk tsk, the recipe is quite elaborate, with red cinnabar mixed with seven-step vines, and dream-intoxicating flowers...
Ordinary pharmacies couldn't dispense it... Later, even street storytellers turned it into a joke! What's it called... 'An old woman in a Buddhist temple performs a brutal operation, leaving the young prince's life hanging by a thread'!
I heard the teahouse is always packed! Lord… Lord…it seems like he didn’t ask anyone to take care of it…”
He came closer, his voice almost inaudible, his eyes gleaming with gossip.
"The most amazing thing is those wives of officials! Guess what? Just a few days ago, the old lady of the Yongchang Earl's Mansion celebrated her birthday. At the banquet, the wife of the Minister of Personnel, the wife of the Vice Minister of Rites, and several wives of marquises and barons... They all gathered together.
Drinking tea, waving a fan, she said...tsk tsk, how ugly! They all say our old lady is "a snake in the mouth of a Buddha" and "a thief who refuses to die".
They said the second house's family was "crooked at the top and crooked at the bottom", "a nest of snakes and rats", and even... even the unmarried girls in the house were scolded as "raised by a vicious woman, who would dare to marry her"... Now, all over the capital...
From the royal family to the common people, who doesn't know that there's an old... old lord in the Weiyuan Marquisate who poisoned his own grandson? All the big deals your second master had negotiated outside have fallen through!
As for the matchmaking for several girls, when the matchmaker heard that it was from the second branch of the Weiyuan Marquisate, he immediately turned around and left! The reputation of the Marquisate... is completely ruined!"
The steward finished speaking like a bamboo tube pouring beans, and looked at Zhang Ma's face, which turned pale as paper and looked as pale as a human. He felt a little scared.
She quickly added, "Mammy...you...take care of yourself! Even gods can't save you from this!"
After saying that, he ran away as if avoiding the plague god, and disappeared at the end of the alley in the blink of an eye.
Nanny Zhang sat limply in the cold corner, as if all the bones in her body had been pulled out of her body. She tightly grasped the silver hairpin in her hand, which was twisted and deformed due to excessive force. The tip of the hairpin pierced her palm, and she was completely unaware of the blood oozing out.
It's over. Everything is over.
An old man who refuses to die is a thief.
Who would dare to marry the daughter raised by a vicious woman?
These vicious yet precise comments, like red-hot irons, burned deeply into her heart and the old lady whom she had served all her life.
She seemed to see the once glorious gate of the Marquis' Mansion collapsing amid countless scornful gazes, splashing up choking dust all over the sky.
And she and the master she serves are the dirtiest and most despicable scum in the dust.
There was a dead atmosphere in Yanshou Hall.
The rich smell of medicine mixed with aged sandalwood formed a suffocating and strange odor. The heavy curtains were drawn low, blocking out the last bit of fresh air from the spring outside.
Old Madam Zhou was half lying on the couch, covered with a thick brocade quilt, her face as pale as if covered with a layer of dust.
Ever since she was angered by Hu Qing and Cui Xiao that day, she has been feeling depressed, with the anger in her heart stuck and unable to go away.
She was still waiting, waiting for Aunt Zhang to spread the accusation of Cui Xiao's disobedience that he "made his grandmother faint" throughout the capital, waiting to see Cui Xiao's disgrace and ruin.
Waiting for the emperor to be furious and deprive him of his qualification as a study companion! She had even thought about it, when Cui Xiao was criticized by thousands of people,
She then "mercifully" came out to "forgive" him, and naturally pushed Cui Jun up...
The door was gently pushed open, and Aunt Zhang walked in with heavy steps, which seemed as light as if she was stepping on cotton.
Her face looked even uglier than the old lady lying on the bed. It was gray and deathly, her eyes were empty, and her lips were trembling.
"How about it?"
Mrs. Zhou's cloudy eyes flashed with an anxious light, and she struggled to sit up.
"Out there...what are they saying? Are they all cursing that little bastard? Are they all sympathizing with me? Quick! Help me up! I want to hear it!"
Aunt Zhang fell to her knees in front of the bed with a plop, her whole body shaking like a leaf in the autumn wind, her head buried deep in her chest.
He didn't dare to look into the old lady's eyes, and a suppressed, desperate sob came from his throat.
"Why are you crying? Speak!" Old Madam Zhou's heart sank suddenly, and she shouted in a hoarse voice.
Nanny Zhang raised her head, tears streaming down her face, showing true fear and despair.
She opened her mouth, but no sound came out, as if a heavy weight was pressing on her tongue.
Under the old lady's increasingly sharp and uneasy gaze, she finally squeezed out a broken sound from the depths of her throat:
"Old... Old Madam... the rumors outside... are not that the prince fainted from anger..."
"What is that?" Old Madam Zhou's heart was in her throat, and an ominous premonition wrapped around her neck like a cold poisonous snake.
Aunt Zhang closed her eyes, and as if she had exhausted all her strength, she roared out the truth that could destroy everything:
"What they're saying is... it's you! It was you who poisoned the Crown Prince for the sake of Second Master Jun! Red Heart Stone! Seven-Step Vine! Drunken Dream Flower!
The recipe has spread like wildfire! All over Beijing! Everyone knows it!
They're all cursing you... calling you a 'silly old hag'! They're calling the Second Master's family a 'nest of snakes and rats'! They're calling... calling the unmarried girls in our house 'raised by a vicious woman'!
The reputation of the Marquis’ Mansion… The Marquis’ Mansion… It’s all over! Second Master’s business is ruined! The girls’ marriages… All… All cancelled! Wuuwuwu…”
She could no longer speak, and collapsed to the ground, wailing loudly, her cries filled with fear as if the end of the world was coming.
"boom--!"
Madam Zhou felt as if a thunderbolt had exploded above her head! Suddenly, everything in front of her eyes went dark, and the world was spinning!
Those vicious curses were like countless red-hot steel needles, fiercely and densely piercing into her ears, brain, and heart!
A snake in the mouth of a Buddha...
Poisoning his grandson...
Snakes and rats of the same brood...
The daughter raised by a vicious woman...
Every word was like a dagger dipped in poison, piercing through her decency, dignity, calculations, and that pitiful, self-deceiving illusion of "kindness" that she had maintained throughout her life, leaving it riddled with holes and bleeding!
The Marquis actually disregarded the reputation of his mansion for the sake of the Crown Prince?
“Uh… uh uh…”
She wanted to scream, to rant, to curse! But her throat only made a gurgling sound like a broken bellows, and a fishy and sweet taste suddenly surged into her throat!
Her skinny hands tightly grasped the collar of her shirt, her knuckles turning white and twisted from the force.
The cloudy old eyes suddenly widened into a round shape, filled with terrifying bloodshot, and the eyeballs almost popped out of the sockets!
The muscles on his face were twitching and twisting wildly and uncontrollably. Half of his face was pulled upwards strangely, while the other half was drooping stiffly. Saliva flowed uncontrollably from the crooked corners of his mouth and dripped onto the luxurious quilt.
"Madam! What's wrong with you?!" Aunt Zhang was so frightened that she rushed over, rolling and crawling.
Old Madam Zhou's body was convulsing violently, like a fish out of water, and a strange "gurgling" sound came from her throat. Her bloodshot eyes were staring at the void, filled with extreme horror, resentment, unwillingness and... collapsing despair.
She tried to raise her hand and point outside the door, toward the collapsed mansion, toward the entire city that spurned her, but her arm could only twitch weakly and stiffly.
"Someone come! Someone come quickly! Something's wrong with the old lady!" Nanny Zhang's shrill scream broke the dead silence in Yanshou Hall.
The entire mansion was alarmed in an instant, with footsteps, screams, and cries mixed together.
People from the second house finally came after hearing the news.
Mr. Cui looked at his mother's twisted and hideous face with crooked mouth and eyes, and was so scared that he took a step back and his face turned pale.
The second wife screamed and covered her mouth with a handkerchief. Besides fear, there was also a barely perceptible trace of...resentment and disgust in her eyes!
Several unmarried girls stood far away, looking at their grandmother's horrifying appearance and listening to the terrible rumors outside about how they were "raised by a vicious woman". They were ashamed and afraid, crying, but no one dared to step forward.
"Hurry! Go and get the imperial physician! Get the best imperial physician!" Master Cui reacted and roared hoarsely.
The housekeeper said with a sad face: "Second Master...it's...it's so late at night...and...and our family...the Imperial Hospital...I'm afraid they can't invite anyone..."
Mr. Cui choked suddenly, and a cold reality hit him hard on the head.
Yes, the Weiyuan Marquis Mansion is no longer the glorious family it was when his grandfather and great-grandfather were alive!
Several generations of marquises have been mediocre and idle, and have lived off their wealth, and the marquisate has long been reduced to a mere empty shell.
When my father was alive, I could barely maintain some dignity. When my eldest brother Cui Yan inherited the title, although he had some prestige in the army,
But the money in the palace was already used up, and they only had titles but no real power. In the eyes of the nobles who really held power and the snobs in the Imperial Hospital,
What the hell is the Weiyuan Marquisate? Furthermore, it now carries the terrible reputation of "poisoning the legitimate grandson" and "the entire family is immoral"!
Which imperial physician would be willing to take on such bad luck? Aren't they afraid of tarnishing their reputation?
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