I am cultivating immortality in the Red Mansion

The little maids led the way to the residence of a row of servants.It is quite spacious, with a total of seven or eight rooms, each of which is about the same size as the maids' rooms in Jia Mu's courtyard.

Stopping in front of a room in the middle, the little maids pointed to the door and said, "Mr. Fang is inside. If you don't mind it, go in and have a look. If you feel it can't reach your eyes and nose, come out quickly."

Jia He was keenly aware that they mentioned their sense of smell. When he opened the door, he paused and slowly pushed it open.

There were no lights in the room, and there was an indescribable stench.Ordinary people may not know it, but Jia He knows that it is similar to the smell of rotting corpses, but there is less rotting meat. Even if the smell is not smelly, it is not too strong when it is spread far away in the house, and it will only feel unpleasant. smell.Once it gets close, it irritates the nasal cavity and almost causes nausea.

The mother-in-law, who was suffering from high fever in bed, usually tended flowers and plants in the yard. She was not too close to others, but she was very easy-going and always lived in harmony with others.

Therefore, when she was sick this time, no one cared about her. Occasionally, two or three maids took turns to pour her a glass of water and feed her, but no matter how much else they did, they would not do it.

At this moment, the maids and wives in other rooms heard the noise and came here one after another to watch.

Jia He looked back at them: "I want to see Mrs. Fang's wounds."

Immediately, some older maids came in and lit lamps, and then came up to her holding the lamps.The broad bean-like candlelight swayed, illuminating the surrounding area.

Another woman who originally lived with Mrs. Fang took the initiative to come in and said: "Girl, I am also from this room. Mrs. Fang has been ill for a few days. Last night she started to have a high fever and talked nonsense. We gave her all kinds of things. The fever didn't go away even after I tried the method, so I moved out of the house and went to someone else's house to squeeze in."

She stepped forward and lifted Mrs. Fang's quilt, intending to gently lift her clothes to show Jia He the wounds.

Unexpectedly, as soon as she touched Mrs. Fang's body, she said "ouch" and her body completely froze.

Jia He stretched out his hand and touched it, only to realize that Mrs. Fang's body was no longer hot at all, but completely cold.I don’t know when he died.

The woman who held out her hand took a long time to recover, and said in a sad voice: "Why did you say it was gone? I was thinking just now that I would go to the kitchen tomorrow to see if any of the masters had any leftover porridge, so I could feed it to her. .Why is it gone?”

She kept mumbling for a long time, talking over and over again about her intentions towards the other woman.

Jia He knew that it would take a while for the body to cool down after death.Mrs. Fang must have been here for a long time. Otherwise, how could she have discovered she was dead after it was so cold?

But she didn't say much. She only waited for the nagging person to sigh and then asked, "How did Mrs. Fang's injury begin?"

The old lady then asked, "Do you want to know more details, or can I just give you a rough idea? Don't blame my old lady for being so talkative. I also heard that you are helping the government investigate the case today, and I wonder if you would be willing to listen more." Some details."

Jia He nodded: "The more detailed and trivial the better."

"In the past, there were some small wounds. I thought they were mosquito bites and didn't pay much attention to them." The woman said, "If you think about it seriously, some deep wounds have appeared one after another in the past two months, but they are not serious." It wasn't too big, and it looked like it had been bitten by a mouse. I casually went to the kitchen and asked for some ashes on the stove to rub on, but didn't take it seriously. Unexpectedly, she started not feeling well in the past few days, first with low-grade fever, and then High fever. He was not very conscious yesterday, so we felt that something was wrong."

Jia He remembered that when a servant in the Hou Mansion was sick, Madam Hou and the others would send someone to give medicine, so he asked: "Why didn't you tell Madam when you started to have a fever? You could just talk to Grandma. Find a doctor to prescribe some medicine."

The mother-in-law smiled bitterly and said: "Young lady, you don't know. These days, the Hou Mansion is really in shock. Throwing a stone can cause a big wave. The prince went to Hualou, what? The prince has gone to the mistress's house. There are a lot of things like this every day, and they all rush to the madam. No matter how serious the things here are, they are just a trivial matter when it comes to the master. Even if they are reported to him, , who will care? Just because you are kind-hearted, girl, come and take a look. If you don’t come, you will find her completely cold tomorrow morning, wrap her in a straw mat and throw her out."

Someone at the door muttered: "The reason why the boy's death is taken seriously is because it is related to the reputation of the prince. Otherwise, who cares?"

Someone next to me said angrily: "You should say less!"

Jia He was silent.A series of events involving Hong Wenchang caused the entire Hou Mansion to become increasingly decadent.From the master to the servants, no place is functioning normally, and there is already a rift between the master and the servant.

This is not a good sign.

The current plan is to find the real culprit as soon as possible and make the Hou Mansion clean.If Jia He guessed correctly, it was Hong Wenchang's change that was caused by that person.

Jia He asked his mother-in-law to help find the rotten wound and put the lamp over to take a look.Pus oozed out from the ulcerated wounds, mixed with the ashes that had been smeared on it, forming a muddy mess that stuck to the flesh, smelly and unpleasant to the eyes.

Jia He let Sleepy Gu come close to him for a moment.An image of an enlarged wound appeared in my mind. Sure enough, if you look carefully, you can still find small gnawing scars and traces of cutting.

"Where did she go during her lifetime?" Jia He asked the woman.

The mother-in-law said: "Just plant some kind of flowers and plants everywhere. Because she is old and experienced, people who tend to flowers and plants in various yards will come to her to have a look."

Jia He nodded.

Where there are many flowers and plants, there are naturally many insects.If there are Gu insects mixed in, it is really not easy to find.

It can be seen that the murderer is a cautious person.

At this time, a big maid came over and asked loudly: "What's wrong? I heard that Miss He is here, but did you disturb her by making trouble?" The tone was very stern.

Mrs. Hou originally sent her to take the maids to keep watch for Jia He, but she was lazy and went to rest somewhere.Unexpectedly, she encountered Miss He running around outside the house. When she realized that it was already too late, she rushed over to scold her.

Jia He naturally knew these details and was impatient to answer her. He just asked everyone at the door: "Do any of you other people have similar wounds like this? It can be big or small. If so, please tell me."

For a long time no one answered.

Finally, a woman hesitated and said slowly: "Girl, I'm not injured at all, but I heard that someone was bitten like this, and they said it was probably a rat bite, and they complained to me that no one was taking care of things in the house. It was so noisy that rats dared to run all over the place.”

"who is it?"

"The Cuixiang beside Aunt Liu."

"what's your name?"

"My husband's family name is Zheng. You can call me Zheng Tiezhu's family. I am responsible for sweeping the courtyard."

The people in this house were those who did menial work, and the capable people who usually served the masters did not live in this kind of place.

Aunt Liu was Hong Wenchang's concubine. Jia He had never been to her residence and didn't know the way, so he called Zheng Tiezhu's family and said, "Come with me to Aunt Liu's place and ask Cuixiang for a few words."

The eldest maid wanted to follow, but she didn't agree and only asked the attendants from Zheng Tiezhu's family to be by her side.