Chapter 360 Were they biological father and son?
Meng Ying rode the horse very quickly and accidentally noticed a familiar figure on the roadside. He pulled the rein to stop the horse and asked in a low voice, “Yi Tong? Why are you sitting on the roadside? Where’s your master?” He ran into Yi Tong now so he could find out if He Danggui had told the truth.
Yi Tong was sitting in a tea-booth on the roadside. She looked up and found it was Meng Ying in disguise. Surprised, she asked, “Third Childe, did you have some news about our Childe? Yi Tiao, Miss Xiao, and I have been looking for him, but we just lost him!” Sitting upright on the horseback, Meng Ying asked calmly, “You lost him? How? He’s not a little kid.”
With a sigh, Yi Tong told the whole story slowly, “In fact, our Childe has been strange since the night of the day before yesterday. He shouted and sat up at the midnight and told us he had a nightmare. I helped him drink some convulsion-arresting tea and go to bed again, but he kept staring at a place the whole night even though he was lying on the bed. Then, on the morning of the next day, he went to do ‘that thing’. I noticed he was listless and was worried about him. I didn’t expect he would really be in trouble later.” Yi Tong said this very implicatively because they were in a busy street.
“What trouble?” Meng Ying asked and touched his beard like an old pedant.
Yi Tong felt helpless and replied, “Today you went to the theater and I told you about it, didn’t I? Our Childe was injured!”
“Oh? Oh!” Meng Ying simpered and apologized, “Back then, I wanted to experience old people’s life so I stuck my ears with cotton wool. Sure enough, that was interesting... As for what you have said, I didn’t hear it clearly. Sorry. Please tell me about that again. Why did you suddenly decide to do ‘that thing’? Didn’t I ask you to wait for some time? They are not the main enemies. Even if you want to deal with them, you shouldn’t take action now.”
Yi Tong spread her hands and said, “Didn’t I say that our Childe has been strange since the day before yesterday? He became like that and got a new idea now and then. We failed to stop him so we could just do as he said. Fine. We did that. Anyway, the opportunity was quite good. However, he dropped the ball at the most critical moment and became in a daze. I called him again and again but he still didn’t sober up. I just watched a man stabbing our Childe with a sword.”
“Is he hurt badly?” Meng Ying finally asked.
“We didn’t feel anything special at that time because that sword belonged to us and that man just picked it up from the ground. There wouldn’t be any poison on it.” Yi Tong recalled her memories and said, “But half a day later, we noticed that several of our fighters having been hurt by the blades or palms of ‘some men’ found their wounds festered and hurt. Their injuries aggravated much. Thus, we suspected they were poisoned. When we went back to our Childe who was also hurt by that sword to report this, we found he had left the room. There was only a note left on the table. It wrote, ‘I go out to relax and will be back in three to five days. Don’t worry.’ What was going on? ‘The matter’ we’ve been expecting for almost a year will happen in ten days, but now our Childe is hurt and gets lost!”
“Have you looked for him everywhere?” Meng Ying asked suggestively, “We lived in Luo’s Mansion several days ago. Didn’t you send people there to find him?”
“I went there, but Xi Chang Yard you’ve lived in was empty.” Yi Tong answered honestly.
Meng Ying finished his question and got the answer he wanted. Then, he took out a little medicine bottle behind his belt buckle and poured out one pill. He threw it to Yi Tong and said in a serious tone, “This is the antidote to that kind of cold poison. I don’t have many of it and I still need them to save Meng Xuan. You just distribute half of it to those who have been hurt and give the other half to Su Niang. Let her analyze the ingredients of it as much as she can and then, find and decoct the corresponding medicinal materials for the wounded. Just relieve their condition first. I’ll try finding more of the antidote in one or two days.” If he had known there were so many injured people, he would have asked He Danggui for all of the antidotes.
Yi Tong put the pill in her palm, looked up, and said with a smile on her face, “Third Childe, you’re brilliant. You just settled it so quickly while we got nothing after having wandered in Ten Mile Slope for hours and we were even scared away easily by a young woman. After we went into the city, the more we thought about it, the weirder it felt. We thought we might have been cheated and that woman was probably with those guys!”
“A young woman? What did she look like?” Meng Ying became a bit vigilant.
“She may be 15 or 16 and has covered her face with a cloth. Her skin is very fair,” Yi Tong described that woman, “and her eyes seem to be able to speak but we couldn’t read a bit of her mind through them at all. We knew she was pretty as soon as we saw her. Right, Third Childe, how did you get the antidote? You didn’t even know our Childe was hurt, did you?”
Meng Ying replied vaguely, “I had my own ways. You don’t need to know about them so well.” He already guessed it. About the young woman with her face covered by a cloth Yi Tong ran into outside the city, he was certain that it was He Danggui. He didn’t expect that she indeed had gone through a lot before getting the antidote. What did she want by sacrificing so much? After thinking for a while, Meng Ying said again, “Yi Tong, listen. First, you shouldn’t mention the young woman you met outside the city anymore, especially to your Childe. Second, if my brother asks you about the source of the antidote, you just tell him...” He talked to Yi Tong in the lowest voice.
Yi Tong didn’t even ask him why but just nodded obediently and replied, “Okay. I understand.”
Meng Ying sighed with relief and continued, “You shouldn’t sit on the roadside staring blankly at midnight like this. Go back with the pill now. Your Childe is recovering outside these days so all of you should behave yourselves. Stay in the house to wait and see unless you have to go out.”
“Got it.” Yi Tong answered and explained to him, “Young Childe couldn’t fall asleep and kept crying so Miss Xiao asked me to buy him some goat milk paste. The vendor is still boiling it. I need to wait for a while to get it.”
“Meng Xuan has gone too much.” Meng Ying heard it and shook his head in dissatisfaction, “He didn’t take care of his son at home but seek pleasure outside. Won’t he break Su Niang’s heart?”
Yi Tong got shocked slightly and replied, “Take care of his son? But Younger Childe is not his son!” Meng Ying was amazed this time and asked, “Not his son? Who told you this?”
Yi Tong raised her eyebrow and answered, “Me? Of course, Miss Xiao told me about it. Third Childe, who talked such nonsense with you? Who told you they were biological father and son?”
Meng Ying raised his eyebrow higher and said with a smile, “What a coincidence. I heard it from Su Niang as well. She also said as soon as Meng Xuan came back to the city, they would get married. Moreover, I also sounded out Meng Xuan’s views and he seemed to have implied that he would marry Su Niang as his concubine and admit the child as his son. They’re not biological father and son? How could a servant like you say something absurd like this? Watch your words. I won’t forgive it easily if you say it again.”
Yi Tong tilted her head and said with a grimace, “But they are just not. Third Childe, I didn’t say anything absurd. I definitely have a say in this matter!”
“Really? Are you serious?” A young girl was exclaiming with her sweet voice, “He Danggui’s mother didn’t live in the Taoist temple anymore?”
“Why would I cheat you?” Another woman with an older and mature voice laughed and replied, “I saw her in person. Although I’ve never seen He Danggui’s mother before, lots of people know about her because she was the legitimate daughter of East Yard of Luo’s Family with her middle name as Chuan. The two old mammies around me know her. They covered their mouths and talked in low voices when they saw her, ‘Isn’t she the daughter of East Yard of Luo’s Family? How strange! Why is she buying a fish in the market with a basket in her hand?’ The other mammy replied, ‘Right! That’s her. Listen. She’s bargaining with the fishmonger for 3 wen off! Gosh. Did East Yard of Luo’s Family go bankrupt?’ Hahaha.” The woman that was saying this made a peal of laughter and continued, “Miaoyi, it’s funny, isn’t it?”
The girl talking with her also laughed and said, “She was buying a fish in the market? He Danggui’s mother was buying a fish? Ha, ha! If you didn’t visit me today, I wouldn’t be able to hear such an interesting thing. She went to the market with a basket today. Will she go begging with a bowl on the street soon?”
Yes. These two women are Ling Miaoyi and Guan Yun. They were talking in a room of Gao Jue’s house when it was already late night and both of them were enjoying the conversation. It was almost 1 am at this time and the rain still didn’t stop. Gao Jue, the owner of the house, and Liao Zhiyuan, the guest, weren’t at home, but Ling Miaoyi who felt lonely was visited by Guan Yun. She brought a fresh funny topic and both of them liked it so they kept talking until midnight.
In fact, except for Ling Miaoyi and Guan Yun, there’s an uninvited guest in the house now. She just bent over the window and listened to them quietly. This guest was He Danggui. She held her breath and her long eyelashes blotted out her gloomy eyes. She listened to their laughter without doing anything.
Ling Miaoyi asked with interest, “Guan Yun, what does He Danggui’s mother look like? Since she has been abandoned twice by her husbands, she must be ugly, right?”
Guan Yun shook her head and replied with a smile, “She’s not ugly. I think she looks better than He Danggui. If she’s ugly, how could she have a daughter like He Danggui that is so coquettish? But I just feel something strange when I observe her...” Guan Yun hissed and said, “I think she is... is too fat. She has a fat belly.”
Ling Miaoyi sneered and replied, “Alas, it’s not strange at all. It’s very normal to see a woman in her thirties being paunchy. He Danggui might be like this as well when she reaches this age.”
Guan Yun still felt something strange and mumbled as if she was talking to herself, “She put her left hand on her waist from time to time. That makes her look a bit like a pregnant woman... Um, the clothes she wore were more than twice bigger than her usual figure. If she wasn’t too poor to buy clothes that fitted her, Miaoyi, what would be the reason, then?”
Ling Miaoyi’s eyes got bright and she held her sharp chin with her two fair fingers. She became interested and shook her head while asking, “He Danggui’s mother was pregnant? She moved out from the Taoist temple and settled in the city. And she got pregnant now? But didn’t He Fu, He Danggui’s stepfather, get in jail two months ago? Guan Yun, did you mean He Danggui’s mother couldn’t bear loneliness and had an affair again?”
“Again?” Guan Yun held her chin with one hand and yawned. She wiped her eyes and asked, “Has her mother done such a thing before?”
“Of course.” Ling Miaoyi answered complacently, “Guan Yun, you’re too ill-informed. This has been talked about frequently in Chengxu Academy. It was just an old story happening during the time when He Danggui’s mother was driven out from He’s Mansion in the capital. I heard it was about extramarital affairs as well and she did that with several dirty beggars. Gosh, so disgusting. Such a mother often gives birth to a daughter like her.”
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