Red Mansion: Fuyao River and Mountain

Chapter 420: Undressing the Luan Tent

Mingze Lane, Jinling.

Jia Cong fed Zou Min'er half a bowl of porridge. The swallowing movement caused pain in her wound, and she could no longer swallow.

However, after two days of coma, the body was extremely exhausted and weak, and the porridge and water did help to relieve the symptoms.

Jia Cong helped Zou Min'er lie down to rest. Suddenly, he looked a little confused and embarrassed, as if he wanted to say something but stopped himself.

Seeing his appearance, Zou Miner blinked her bright eyes and asked in confusion, "What's wrong with you?"

Jia Cong said with a stiff face: "Mr. Zhang told me when he left that I should change the medicine and rebandage your wound every twelve hours to speed up the healing process."

The first two times Jia Cong applied medicine and bandaged her, Zou Min'er was in a coma. Even if they did something private and ambiguous, the other party would be unaware, thus saving a lot of unnecessary trouble.

Now that Zou Miner has woken up, he can't knock her out and then undress her and change her medicine.

In fact, in this kind of thing, no matter whether the other party is unconscious or not, except for the doctor's parental love, private teaching between unrelated men and women is considered heresy.

However, with her life at stake, Zou Miner had to conceal her tracks and fake her death to survive. There was no one else in the courtyard except Jia Cong, so it seemed impossible for her to ask anyone else to do it.

Zou Miner's pretty face flushed, her brows slightly furrowed, and she stared at Jia Cong helplessly.

However, this was not the first time that Jia Cong had behaved like this, and he had probably already broken the girl's bottom line.

Zou Miner looked at Jia Cong with a rather fierce look, but it seemed that there was no other way...

The words that came out of his mouth were weak, helpless and soft: "Then you better hurry up..." After that he closed his eyes and dared not look again. It seemed that he had made up his mind that if he didn't see it, he wouldn't be bothered.

Jia Cong took out the medicine, bandages and other things left by Zhang Youpeng, then went to the kitchen to boil water and prepared some boiled cotton cloth.

After everything was ready, he closed the doors and windows, gently lowered the bed curtains to block out possible dust, and washed his hands with the strong liquor he had bought earlier.

In later generations, when encountering such serious knife wounds, the risk of wound infection was reduced to an extremely low level because of anti-inflammatory drugs.

In this day and age, these things don’t exist.

Some of Jia Cong's preparatory movements were instructed by the famous doctor Zhang Youpeng, while others were added by him based on the knowledge of later generations.

The night after Zou Min'er was seriously injured, she had a low fever. Fortunately, Zhang Youpeng used acupuncture to remove the evil spirits and gave her medicine to drink, which helped her get rid of the low fever.

At that time, Jia Cong believed that having a fever after being injured was an extremely dangerous thing.

If Zou Min'er was seriously injured and had a fever, the situation would be even more dangerous. If Zhang Youpeng was not there, but an ordinary quack doctor, the consequences would be disastrous.

Now that Zhang Youpeng is away, if Jia Cong gets infected while changing the bandage, it will pose a hidden danger, but no one can help him, so she dare not be careless at all.

He patiently carried out all the more infectious measures he could think of from his knowledge of two lifetimes.

Zou Min'er saw Jia Cong busy with all kinds of things, and noticed that the light in the room suddenly dimmed, and she couldn't help but feel nervous.

……

Although her eyes were closed, she could still clearly feel Jia Cong approaching her, and he reached out to unbutton her dress one by one.

Although she knew what it meant to change the dressing, she still felt shy when the time came and her body tensed up involuntarily.

When her clothes were completely untied, her breasts and belly felt cool and her whole body was shaking uncontrollably, but she clenched her teeth and refused to show weakness.

Zou Miner's abnormal reaction made Jia Cong, who had been calm, suddenly become aroused. The sight of the snow-white skin, the undulating curves, and the wonderful appearance in front of him made his blood boil.

When his fingers touched the silky skin, he almost lost control. He forced himself to calm himself, turned Zou Min'er's body on her side, and slowly untied the bandages on her body.

Use a piece of boiled cotton cloth to remove the old medicine on the wound and carefully wipe and clean the slightly reddish skin around the wound.

Inside the bed curtains, Zou Miner lay on her side, enduring the dull pain from the wound as the bandages were removed.

Jia Cong's hands kept touching her skin as he treated the wound, and she could feel his cautiousness.

But every time their skin touched, she felt a soft tremor and could no longer feel the pain of the wound.

There were two vaguely overlapping figures in the bed curtain, exuding a strange, charming and ambiguous atmosphere.

……

Jia Cong cleaned the wounds on Zou Min'er's chest, abdomen and back, and took out the secret medicine for knife wounds left by Zhang Youpeng.

The secret medicine for knife wounds was in the form of a pitch-black paste. As soon as Jia Cong opened the medicine box, a strange, pungent and spicy smell of medicine filled the room.

Jia Cong was somewhat familiar with the strange smell of the medicine. Zhang Youpeng had used this secret medicine to treat Feng's severed finger.

When he first met Qu Hongxiu, he was applying medicine to the knife wound on Qu Hongxiu's back in a cave in the barren mountain.

The medicine that Qu Hongxiu carried with him was very similar to Zhang Youpeng's secret medicine in appearance, color, and smell.

Even later, when Jia Cong was severely injured by Jia She's whipping, Qu Hongxiu used the medicine to treat his injuries, and the effect was miraculous.

Jia Cong also told Qu Hongxiu about this matter, but Qu Hongxiu didn't know Zhang Youpeng at all, and her secret recipe for healing medicine was a family heirloom.

Traditional Chinese medicine has always been about connecting all schools of thought. Chinese herbal ointments have similar therapeutic effects, and probably the medicinal materials used are also similar, so it is reasonable that their shapes and smells are similar.

Jia Cong carefully applied a spicy ointment on the wounds on Zou Min'er's chest, abdomen, and back.

When the ointment touched the wound, Zou Miner felt a piercing pain and broke out in a cold sweat.

He used cotton cloth to wipe off the sweat from Zou Miner's body, then re-bandaged her wounds with clean bandages, and helped her put on her clothes again.

Perhaps it was Jia Cong's unrestrained intimacy, or perhaps it was the severe pain of the plaster invading the wound, which made Zou Min'er's face flushed red, her breath was gasping, and her head was dizzy.

Jia Cong covered her with a thin quilt, hung up the bed curtains, and opened the window to let the cool air from the yard flow into the room.

When Jia Cong turned around, he saw Zou Min'er staring at him blankly. When she saw him turning around, she quickly turned her eyes away.

That night, he was worried that Zou Miner's injury would relapse after the dressing was changed, so he spent the night on the rattan chair in front of her bed as usual.

……

Two days passed like this. Jia Cong fed Zou Miner porridge, cleaned her, applied medicine and bandaged her every day. The intimacy and ambiguity that had been embarrassing before became somewhat commonplace.

When Zhang Youpeng came back after preparing the secret medicine, he found that Zou Miner's injuries had recovered better than he expected.

He handed the prepared sufficient amount of external medicine to Jia Cong, and after taking Zou Min'er's pulse and diagnosing the wound, he determined that the knife wound was stable, and then prescribed a decoction for internal use.

By attacking both inside and outside, combining both civil and military skills, Zou Miner's injuries recovered faster.

When Zou Min'er's injuries eased, Jia Cong sneaked into the inner courtyard of Qingyin Pavilion again and took the secret document token from the mezzanine of the desk in Zou Min'er's room.

Following Zou Miner's instructions, he went to the instrument room of Qingyin Pavilion and took away her portable pipa.

Because of the well-known relationship between Jia Cong and Zou Min'er, the steward in the pavilion did not stop him from taking the pipa. He just thought that Earl Weiyuan was too sentimental and took Lady Zou's instrument as a souvenir.

On that day, the pipa was not placed in Zou Miner's room, but was stored in the instrument room of Qingyin Pavilion. This was the customary way for the ladies of Qingyin Pavilion to store musical instruments.

So, that day, Shui Luosha searched Zou Miner's room but did not touch the pipa.

……

When Jia Cong brought the things back to Mingze Lane, Zou Min'er removed the head of the pipa, took out a secret document from it and handed it to Jia Cong.

Jia Cong was surprised. When he opened the document, he found that it was the confidential file of Du Hengxin, the commander-in-chief of Jinling, with many annotations by Zou Miner on it.

Zou Miner said: "In order to investigate Zhang Kangnian's background, you asked me to collect the secret files of military officers above the fourth rank of the Guard from the secret documents of the Central Vehicle Department.

But Du Hengxin is not included in the list. "Jia Cong said: "That's because Du Hengxin is a second-rank commander and Zhang Kangnian's superior. He can't be controlled by him, so he is not in doubt."

Zou Miner said: "I think the same as you. I later collected his work documents not because I suspected him, but because of another thing.

Do you still remember that day you asked about the origins of the Jinling Du family?

Jia Cong naturally remembered this incident and said, "Xinchunhao once purchased a farm in the east of the city from the Jinling Zhen family. The previous owner of this farm was the Jinling Du family.

I heard that the Du family had a great history in Jinling fifteen years ago, so I was a little curious. You grew up in Jinling, so I asked you about it."

Zou Min'er was a little surprised when she heard this. When Jia Cong asked her about it, he did not mention that the farm under his name came from the Du family. Did she misunderstand it?

When Jia Cong asked her about the Du family, she selfishly suspected that Jia Cong's biological mother had a connection with the Du family.

Therefore, Xu Qinnan was asked to use the power of the Central Chariot Division to investigate the background of the Jinling Du family. The results of the investigation were not only unexpected, but also had serious implications.

Xu Qinnan advised Zou Miner not to get involved in the matter anymore, so Zou Miner never mentioned it to outsiders.

……

If it were in the past, she would have had a grudge against Jia Cong and would have kept some things in her heart and not told him.

But after the assassination in Qingyin Pavilion, she had a close call with death. If it weren't for Jia Cong's timely rescue, she would have died.

Moreover, Jia Cong's intimate care over the past few days, doing almost all the most private things between men and women, had an indescribable impact on her heart.

Perhaps it was due to women's nature, but without them noticing, the hard barriers of the past gradually became weak and elusive.

Moreover, according to the results of Xu Qinnan's final investigation on the affairs of the Du family, Zou Miner thought about it countless times afterwards and felt that her initial speculation was not unreasonable.

She felt that she should let Jia Cong know about this matter. After thinking about it for a moment, she told him all the private thoughts in her mind that day without reservation.

"When I heard you suddenly ask about Jinling Du's family that day, I remembered that your biological mother's surname was Du, and I thought your suspicion about the Du family was related to your biological mother's origin.

I asked the people from the China Railway Corporation to investigate and learned a lot of the Du family's secrets."

When Jia Cong heard this, his heart suddenly jumped. When he asked Zou Min'er about the Jinling Du family that day, he did not connect his biological mother's background with the Jinling Du family.

After all, there are so many families with the surname Du in the world. It is impossible that as long as one has the surname Du, he is related to his biological mother Du Jinniang.

However, Zou Miner's words brought back his worries. He had solved a major case at the Water Conservancy Bureau and submitted a letter to Emperor Jiazhao on strategies for building camps with firearms. Due to his meritorious services, his biological mother was posthumously awarded an imperial decree.

From that time on, Jia Cong became curious about this biological mother whom he had never met, and he once spent some time to inquire about his biological mother's background in Shenjing.

But the only clue he could trace was that his biological mother Du Jinniang was once a courtesan in Yunyan Tower in Shenjing.

Today, Yunyan Tower is still there. Jia Cong once asked Jiang Liu to search for old friends in Yunyan Tower to find out his biological mother's birthplace.

But the final result of the investigation was extremely strange.

Of the people who might have known Du Jinniang in Yunyan Tower more than a decade ago, not a single one can be found now.

Although brothels are a young profession, fifteen years is enough time for a change of girls to greet guests there.

If even the store owner, the madam, the waiters, and the handymen were replaced, things would become a little weird.

However, there are so many brothels in the capital, and over the long period of more than ten years, rise and fall, and the dispersal of personnel are all common occurrences in the market.

No one has ever used the situation of his biological mother to connect the dispersals of people related to her like Jia Cong did.

Therefore, the things that Jia Cong found strange were either not surprising to others, or they simply did not realize that there was anything strange about them.

He also asked his wet nurse, Madam Zhao, but it turned out that even she didn't know the origin of his biological mother.

Moreover, Nanny Zhao had stayed in the East Courtyard for more than ten years and knew everything that happened there.

According to her, even Jia She couldn't clearly explain the origin of the woman he carried into the courtyard.

In fact, it is not surprising that such a situation would occur, because the women who were bought into brothels would never tell anyone about their family background to avoid bringing disgrace to their family.

Therefore, it became increasingly difficult to investigate the origin of an oiran who had been dead for fifteen years.

……

I don’t know how Zou Miner suddenly came up with the idea that her biological mother was related to the Jinling Du family.

Jia Cong said: "Although my biological mother's surname is Du, she was exiled to the capital and has been dead for many years, so her origin and place of origin cannot be verified.

When I asked you about Jinling Du Family, I didn't mean this."

After hearing this, Zou Min'er saw that Jia Cong's brows were slightly furrowed, with inquiry and confusion in his eyes.

She thought of Jia Cong's bizarre life story that had long been circulating. He had never seen his biological mother, and he must have been feeling resentful about it. Thinking of this, her heart couldn't help but soften.

It's just that I can't help him with this matter.

Zou Miner told Jia Cong all the stories about the Du family that Xu Qinnan had learned from Liuhe that day.

Among the information obtained by Zou Miner, Jia Cong had already learned from Qu Hongxiu the part about the Du family being confiscated and exterminated by the imperial court because of their collusion with the Hidden Sect.

However, the person who handled the Du family case in Jinling at that time was actually the current Emperor Jiazhao.

Moreover, the demise of the Du family was actually related to the change of imperial power fifteen years ago. Almost around the same time, the emperor abdicated and the current emperor ascended the throne.

Even after the Du family was exterminated, the officials who handled the case did not have a good end.

This shocking information was the first time Jia Cong heard it.

He really didn't expect that the Du family, which had only made him a little curious at first, actually hid such a deep and complicated story behind it.

What caught his attention most was that, according to Zou Min'er's account, all the male descendants of the Du family were executed, and the female members of the family were sold or sent to the Jiaofangsi.

However, because the documents and materials of these female relatives were mysteriously burned or lost, and Shenjing and Nanjing were thousands of miles apart, there was not even enough time to prepare the archives.

In the end, the whereabouts of these women of the Du family became an unsolved case.

The whole thing sounds like someone is clearly trying to cover up some important information, including those officials who did not have a good end and the whereabouts of the women of the Du family.

However, his biological mother fell into a brothel at about the same time period, and her family background and hometown could not be verified. These two seemingly unrelated things did contain some vague coincidence.

When Jia Cong figured out all these, he couldn't help but feel a little creepy. Could it be that Zou Miner's original groundless speculation was really the truth of the matter...?

Zou Min'er saw that Jia Cong's expression suddenly changed, but unlike Jia Cong, she had not investigated Du Jinniang's identity, so naturally she didn't know what he was thinking at the moment.

She continued, "When the Du family was destroyed, not only were all the male descendants of the Du family's direct lineage, including the head of the family, Du Hengchang, executed, but even the younger brother of the Du family's concubines was implicated and convicted.

Only one member of the Du family not only escaped the catastrophe, but also stayed out of it, rose rapidly to prominence, and is still a high-ranking official in Jinling. It is really incredible. "

Jia Cong looked at the document in his hand, and it seemed as if a chill rose from his heart and rushed straight to his head, and he felt a chill all over his body for no reason.

He murmured to himself, "This Du family member who escaped the disaster is Jinling Commander Du Hengxin!"

Zou Miner said: "The Du family case back then was complicated and seemed to be covered up by the court. In addition, it has been a long time, so few people know the truth.

If you don't know the name of Du Hengchang, the head of the Du family, who would associate him with the highest-ranking military officer in Jinling City, the second-rank commander-in-chief.

Du Hengchang and Du Hengxin, as can be seen from their names, are from the same clan.

Du Hengxin, the commander of Jinling, was the one who was executed by the imperial court for colluding with the Hidden Sect. He is the concubine brother of Du Hengchang, the head of the Du family. "

(End of this chapter)