Chapter 299: The Ghost Sighting
There are many eccentric young men from wealthy families, and Jia Rong, as the eldest grandson of the Ningguo Mansion, is the weirdest of all.
Needless to say, lust and dissolute behavior are basically common problems of the younger generation of the Jia family. The eldest brother cannot say anything about the second brother - but he has one "good thing" that his brothers and uncles can't even dream of, and that is "filial piety"!
Take the Qin he married before, for example. I heard that she was a stunningly beautiful woman who was the most beautiful among all the girls. She also had a very good temper and personality. Everyone in the mansion praised her.
If an ordinary person got such a beauty, he would probably treat her like a treasure and protect her all day long.
But Jia Rong was a "selfless" man, and he "presented" Qin to his own father Jia Zhen. It was unknown how the two of them managed to end up with Qin, but within two years, Qin died.
Now that Qin's body is still warm, Jia Rong has married Hu and brought her home. He is still a filial son!
It is said that every night Mrs. Hu was like a busy girl, accompanying Jia Rong, then Jia Zhen, and after accompanying Jia Zhen, she would go to coax Jia Rong. Fortunately, the father and son, one old and the other weak, were both cowardly, otherwise if Mrs. Hu had become pregnant, I really don't know how seniority would be determined.
It would be fine to chat with such a "topic figure" at ordinary times, but why did they invite him to the table?
Isn't this like a toad on your foot - it doesn't bite, but it's annoying?
But then again...
Xue Pan's reputation doesn't seem to be any better, especially since he just married a forgiving girl named Wang - could it be that the two of them suddenly fell in love with each other like "heroes appreciate heroes, and turtles love mung beans"?
However, Sun Shaozong was daydreaming. When everyone saw him coming, they all stood up to greet him, even Wei Ruolan was no exception.
“Second brother!”
"Ji Lang~"
"Brother Sun."
"Lord Sun."
Depending on the closeness of the relationship, there are all kinds of greetings.
After Sun Shaozong responded one by one, most people greeted Qiu Yunfei at the side - although he was basically running errands for Sun Shaozong in the Criminal Law Division, who outside would dare to ignore the background of this young master?
Xue Pan, for Sun Shaozong's sake, also greeted him with a fake smile, "Are you here?", but Feng Ziying pretended not to see him.
Sun Shaozong did not mediate for them, but politely gave way to everyone else and sat in the top seat on the right side of Xue Pan.
In fact, in Sun Shaozong's opinion, the reason why these two people were hostile to each other was entirely due to the deliberate guidance of their elders. If the major military leaders stationed in the capital had close connections with each other in private, Emperor Guangde might not be at ease.
After figuring this out, Sun Shaozong certainly wouldn't be so foolish as to help the two of them turn hostility into friendship.
But at this table, sitting on Xue Pan's left were Jia Lian, Feng Ziying, Wei Ruolan, Jia Rong, and Jia Qiang; next to Sun Shaozong were Qiu Yunfei, Jia Baoyu, Jiang Yuhan, Liu Xianglian and others.
Of course, there were a few beautiful girls among the crowd, but Sun Shaozong was the only one who repeatedly expressed that he did not like prostitutes, so there was no one around him.
Almost as soon as he sat down, Liu Xianglian stood up and made a fuss, asking him to drink three cups of wine as an apology, and the people around him followed suit.
Sun Shaozong did not refuse. He poured himself three cups of liquor and showed the empty cup to everyone. There was a burst of applause from all around.
Sun Shaozong then smiled and said, "In fact, I drank these three glasses of wine for no reason. If it weren't for Brother Xue's immediate superior's sudden death, I would have rushed here early in the morning."
Xue Pan only knew that Sun Shaozong had gone to investigate a case, but he did not know that the person who died was Chen Zhu, the Right Counselor of the Ministry of Public Administration. When he heard what Sun Shaozong said, he hurriedly opened his mouth to ask what happened.
Sun Shaozong briefly introduced the general situation, and finally said helplessly: "The thing under the bed is probably the key evidence in this case!"
"It's a pity that the Chen family was in chaos at the time, and it took more than two hours before they remembered to report the case. I'm afraid it won't be easy to find out the truth."
After he finished speaking, he noticed that everyone at the table had strange expressions on their faces. The only one who remained relatively normal was Qiu Yunfei, who had come here with him.
"What's going on?"
Sun Shaozong asked doubtfully, "Could it be that Chen Bo is familiar with you?"
What he just said was extremely brief, and he did not deliberately exaggerate any weird atmosphere, so after thinking about it, this was probably the only reason why this incident touched so many people.
Unexpectedly, Sun Shaozong guessed wrong this time. Xue Pan swallowed his saliva and said in a hoarse voice, "Second brother, this... this can't be a real resentful ghost, right?"
Jia Lian, who was standing by, nodded with lingering fear and said, "Yes, if this was the only incident, we could say that someone was playing tricks, but this time, two people were bewitched..."
"Two people are possessed by demons?"
Sun Shaozong was stunned and asked hurriedly: "Were you guys discussing something similar just now?!"
"Isn't it?"
Then Jiang Yuhan said, "I just heard a nobleman from the palace talking about a similar weird thing yesterday. I just finished telling you all about it, but who knew that you, Lord Sun, would bring up another one!"
As he spoke, he briefly told Sun Shaozong the weird story he had heard.
It turned out that half a month ago, the cousin of one of Prince Zhongshun's concubines suddenly went crazy for unknown reasons. He spent the whole day either in a coma or chasing and hacking others with a sharp weapon. He saw many doctors but his condition did not improve.
There was nothing the family could do, so they had to tie him to the bed, and his eating, drinking, defecating and urinating depended entirely on the maids and old women. However, within a few days, he died in a daze.
Later, people said that he was too arrogant in his daily life and accidentally offended some master, so he was cursed by five ghosts to take his soul.
Everyone had heard it before, but at the time they just thought it was weird talk. But listening to it again now, they couldn't help but feel a chill in their hearts - Ghost Festival was supposed to be still a long way off, so why were there curses one after another?
Moreover, those who were cursed were all officials and nobles...
Others were fine, but Jia Rong was a timid man. He couldn't help shrinking his neck and asking, "Sir Sun, they say you 'judge the living during the day and the dead at night', but do you have any way to prevent this curse?"
Although Sun Shaozong looked down on this guy, he couldn't show it too obviously in front of so many of his relatives, so he shook his head and laughed, "This is just a rumor spread by the common people, how can you take it seriously? Besides, didn't our ancestors pass down this method of preventing curses a long time ago?"
Jia Rong was stunned when he heard this, and asked in confusion: "What method is this? Why haven't I heard of it before?"
"What else?"
Sun Shaozong smiled and said, "It's just like 'If you don't do bad things, you won't be scared when someone knocks on your door in the middle of the night'. These ghost stories are mostly made up. As long as you don't have any evil thoughts, why should you be afraid of curses?"
As he spoke, he raised his glass high and said, "Let's not talk about this anymore - come, let's drink a full glass first and congratulate Brother Xue for getting his official position!"
Everyone responded loudly, so Jia Rong didn't dare to ask any more questions, otherwise it would seem that he had done a lot of bad things.
After that, as the banquet became more and more lively, everyone forgot about this episode, but Sun Shaozong did not mention it. In his heart, he felt that it was no coincidence that these two events happened one after the other.
So when the show was over, he went to find Jiang Yuhan alone, ready to ask about the identity of the concubine's cousin so that he could investigate the case together with Chen Bo's.
Who would have thought that just as he approached Jiang Yuhan's carriage, he saw Jia Baoyu and him arm in arm, bidding farewell to each other with a sweet voice, and Jiang Yuhan's left hand even covered Jia Baoyu's face, caressing it tenderly and affectionately...
