Jiang Suizhou looked at him, somewhat stunned and speechless for a while.
Qi Min showed him no mercy, and after a glance at him, he flicked his
sleeve and said, "How can Your Highness give away the efforts of your
colleagues in the Ministry of Rites for the sake of your dignity?!"
After saying that, he stalked off without a backward glance.
Jiang Suizhou returned to his senses.
…He did not expect that the speculation he deduced in the courtroom just
now was actually true.
Although Jiang Suizhou seemed to be just an idle prince, those silent
ministers in the court imperceptibly regarded him as their backbone. Qi
Min's rebuke totally confirmed his suspicions.
Seeing that Qi Min was about to walk away, Jiang Suizhou took two steps
to catch up with him and hurriedly spoke.
"Does the Minister of Ceremonies think that I only did that for my own
dignity?" he countered solemnly.
Having confirmed this, Jiang Suizhou knew that at this moment, he
definitely couldn't stay silent or do nothing.
All ministers who joined factions had purposes. They secretly gathered
under his command, and even got Qi Min involved in the muddy water.
Eight out of ten, their goal was to fight against Pang Shao.
Jiang Suizhou still had three years to spend with these people. If he didn't
pacify them, he would die in the court battle before Huo Wujiu could chop his head off.
So…
What he had to do now was to fool them.
Take this Qi Min for example. Although he was a three-dynasty veteran
minister and the respected Minister of Ceremonies, in the end, he was only
an official in charge of the rituals of the ancestral temples. This kind of
high-ranking official, though high in position, had no real power. If he
conducted himself upright, he should not have engaged in any power
struggle to secure personal gain.
People like him were quite scary.
Sure enough, Qi Min paused when he heard Jiang Suizhou's words and
slowed down.
Seeing this, Jiang Suizhou sneered and put on an unfathomable tone.
"The Grand Minister over the Masses openly manipulated His Majesty in
the court today to compete with me. Do you think he isn't capable of doing
other tricks in the future?" He said, "The construction of the ancestral hall
concerns the clan ancestors. If something happens here, this is not
something you and I can afford."
As expected, Qi Min did not make another sound.
Jiang Suizhou gave a faint smile, quickened his pace, and brushed past him.
"Minister, my plan isn't to save my dignity," Jiang Suizhou said. "Rather,
it's to protect all your lives."
——
He left such a meaningful sentence and walked away without looking back.
After all, leaving the rest unsaid and giving him room to ponder and
speculate would bring out the best effect.
Not to mention he was still a conservative old man.
When Jiang Suizhou got on the carriage waiting outside Kaiyang Gate, he
secretly peeked back and saw Qi Min standing in front of the Zhengyang
Gate, looking solemn and pensive.
…He truly fooled him.
Jiang Suizhou couldn't help but smile a little.
Although he was now at a dead end with wolves in front and tigers behind,
he found pleasure in this adversity…It was pretty exhilarating.
For example, he bluffed to the famous loyal minister and let the old man go.
The minister probably wouldn't eat well for several days because of Jiang
Suizhou's ambiguous words.
This feeling was quite marvelous.
Although he originally chose to stay in school just to try to be an idler
disguised as a high intellectual, studying history was his hobby.
After all, his family had been chaotic since he was a child. His father relied
on what little money he had to change wives more frequently than changing
cars. There were not only many children in the family, but each also had
their own mothers. Those children had cherished their childhood, but Jiang
Suizhou was rather miserable. He was too quiet and uncommunicative.
Whenever his father's other children played court schemes at home, Jiang
Suizhou hid in his room alone to read books.
But when all was said and done, books were books and were nothing more
than words. Now, he could see those characters in history books thousands
of years ago, walking to and fro in front of him. It seemed… quite
intriguing.
Jiang Suizhou has always been very good at finding the silver lining in
things.
So he put the curtain down in high spirits and sat back.
As the carriage set off, he looked at the scenery outside through the floating
brocade curtain while devising plans deep within.
He must not neglect the main ministers of the dynasty, but above all, there
was still Huo Wujiu in his manor. He has traveled from the future and had
read enough 'spoilers' to know that no matter how much they fought against
it, the dynasty would still perish, and the country would be destroyed after
three years.
Since this was the case, there was no point in fighting Pang Shao to death.
Therefore, Jiang Suizhou just needed to appease and fool them enough to
get through these three years.
The carriage rocked as it wandered through the wide streets of Lin'an,
turned around Qinghe Square and finally stopped in front of Jingwang
Manor.
Jiang Suizhou got off the carriage and headed to Anyin Hall where he was
staying.
He was an idle official, and he also didn't have to go to the government
office to work today after attending the Grand Court Assembly. He wanted
to rush to Jingwang's study to go through the letters and folders in his room
to get a better understanding of everything.
But at the entrance of Anyin Hall, a sobbing maid stopped him.
"…Your Highness!" The maid looked exquisitely dressed and must have
been someone's personal maid.
"Madam Gu was wronged this morning and is crying at this moment. Please
be the judge, Your Highness!"
Jiang Suizhou was stunned.
…Who's Madam Gu?!
He frowned and asked solemnly, "…What happened?"
The maid answered, "This morning, the new Concubine Huo moved
courtyards and happened to run into My Lady. My Lady just casually
chatted with him, but he raised his hand against her. He injured My Lady!"
Jiang Suizhou's relaxed expression stiffened little by little with the maid's
report.
…He did not expect that the original owner had other concubines in the
harem in addition to marrying Huo Wujiu.
It was even more beyond his imagination that a man would fight a woman
in his manor.
The servants who went to pick up Huo Wujiu to move courtyards arrived
when Doctor Zhou was administering medicine to him.
When Huo Wujiu married, he came alone, so there was no dowry luggage
to move. Hence, at this moment, only two maids and a tall brawny
manservant went.
The two maids should have been assigned to serve Huo Wujiu. When they
came in, their faces looked surly. They looked down and indifferent.
Seeing that Doctor Zhou was applying medicine to Huo Wujiu, one of the
maids opened her mouth and said, "Doctor Zhou, how much longer will it
take you to treat him?"
They didn't look at Huo Wujiu in the slightest, much less salute him, as if
they didn't see him.
While bandaging Huo Wujiu, Doctor Zhou replied, "Hold on, ladies. He'll
be ready in no time."
The maids grunted, turned around, and said, "Then be quick. We'll wait
outside."
After saying that, the few of them turned around and went out.
They went out of the room but didn't close the door, and left it ajar instead.
The maid who didn't say anything before spoke up, "How annoying. If we
wait a little longer, it will be noon, and we will have to walk in the sun
again on the way."
The other maid said, "You don't say. We're unlucky."
Hearing this, the maid laughed a couple of times and said, "Unlucky? The
sun is not bad luck. We're only unlucky that we were assigned to this job."
"Right? Who wants to come and serve a disabled enemy? It's just not our
luck today."
They made no effort to tone down in the slightest, as if they were afraid that
the person inside the room couldn't hear them. The sharp, clipped voices of
the girls reached Doctor Zhou's ears.
Doctor Zhou's legs started to tremble.
Others might not know, but he knew that the man sitting in a wheelchair in
front of him was the King of Hell, who could kill without batting an eye.
Doctor Zhou was so petrified that he broke out in a cold sweat and carefully
raised his eyes to look at Huo Wujiu.
He only saw him sitting in place. There wasn't a lift in his eyes, nor a bit of
reaction, as if he hadn't heard anything.
The sunrays fell gently onto the side of his face.
Perhaps the sun was so bright that it gave the impression that the motionless
cripple in front of him should be an extremely proud man.
Doctor Zhou dared not say more. He swiftly withdrew his gaze and
bandaged his legs properly.
"Afterward, you mustn't let your wounds get wet. The dressings must be
changed once every three days. I will report this truthfully to His
Highness," Doctor Zhou said.
Huo Wujiu made no response.
The doctor then packed up his medical kit and retreated.
Not long after, the two maids came into the room. They instructed the
brawny manservant to push the wheelchair forward, so they could take Huo Wujiu away and send him to his future residence.
The wheelchair was in no way easy to push.
The wheelchair was originally large and heavy, and because it was for Huo
Wujiu, it was only a tool for transporting prisoners. The wheelchair was
terribly rough, and the two wheels on the chair taken from a prison wagon
were barely installed.
From the room to the backyard where the wives and concubines live, they
had to pass through the gardens of Jingwang's residence if they wanted to
take a shortcut. The gardens in the sunny south have always been a sceneric
place for strolls. There were streams and ponds everywhere, and small
bridges or gravel paths were built for people to walk on.
The two maids loathed their job and didn't want to bake in the sun, so they
insisted on walking through the garden. Even if the manservant was strong,
pushing the wheelchair took great effort.
After walking for a while, he couldn't keep up with the two.
The two maids only cared about moving forward, and only a while later did
they turn around and find that Huo Wujiu had fallen behind.
They have long been resentful because they were assigned to serve Huo
Wujiu. He was not only a cripple, but an easy target to bully. Hence, when
their master did not say a word from the beginning to the end, they became
increasingly presumptuous.
One of them turned around and said to the manservant, "Why are you
walking so slowly? Is it because she is a lady of an eminent family, so
you're afraid of dirtying her embroidered shoes?"
The manservant pushing the wheelchair was simple and honest. Upon
hearing this, sweat dripped down his forehead in anxiety, and he hurriedly
explained, "Sister, it's not my fault. The road is really bumpy…"
The other coldly retorted, "Who's blaming you? Hurry and keep up."
Since it wasn't his fault, then whose was it? There was no fifth person
present.
The manservant did not dare to say anything and could only diligently push
the wheelchair. The wheels were not sturdy enough to move steadily. In his
nervousness, his hands lost control, and the wheelchair suddenly tilted
down and was about to tumble to the ground.
But then the man in the wheelchair, who remained silent the whole time,
raised his hand lightly and pressed it on the armrest.
The wheelchair stabilized.
The manservant promptly bowed to apologize and thank his master, but out
of nowhere, he heard a mellow voice from the front.
"What's all the noise about?"
When the manservant looked up, he saw two people standing under the
weeping willow by the pond ahead, followed by a group of servants. One of
them was dressed in green, with pale, delicate and pretty features, looking
as gentle as jade. The other one was utterly gorgeous. He was a man, but
was naturally enticing. He was dressed in red.
They were the two concubines in the mansion.
The manservant hurriedly followed the two maids and saluted, "Good day,
Madam Gu. Good day, Madam Xu."
The red-clad Madam Gu waved his hand and told them to get up. He
stepped forward and said in a lazy voice, "I thought it was someone. So it's
the new Madam Huo who joined the household yesterday."
As he spoke, he walked up to Huo Wujiu and stopped in his tracks.
But Huo Wujiu acted as if he didn't see the man.
"How old are you, Madam Huo? You must be 23 years old, right?" He
spoke. "You're a few years younger than me, so just call me elder brother in the future."
With that, he smilingly stood in front of Huo Wujiu. His stance suggested
that he would block the path and wouldn't go away if Huo Wujiu ignored
him.
Huo Wujiu did not lift a single eyelid.