No one in the room spoke for a moment, only Zhou Ningyue's suppressed sobs.
After a long time, Xin You nodded slightly: "I may not have been here today, but I have a request."
"What's the request?" Zhou's mother looked relaxed at first, and then became excited again.
"When this matter is over, I want to have a good chat with my aunt."
Hearing that Xin You only asked for this, Zhou's mother nodded without hesitation.
In her opinion, the girl who suddenly became friends with her daughter is mysterious and may not be that simple.
But these are nothing compared to the current difficulties. It is their mother and daughter's luck that the other party does not tell what they saw today. As for talking about it later, no one can pry her mouth open for those things that cannot be said.
Xin You glanced at Zhou Ningyue and asked Zhou's mother, "Do you need my help?"
Mother Zhou understood immediately and said with gratitude: "Thank you very much. Yue'er, please go to the west wing."
"I--"
"Be obedient and go to the west chamber." Zhou's mother said in a tone that said nothing.
She killed her husband under resistance, and she didn't care about her various emotions in order to deal with the aftermath, but it would be too cruel for her daughter to see the scene in the West House again.
At this moment, Zhou's mother felt truly grateful to Xin You.
No matter what the girl's purpose is, at least I can help her now.
She really needs someone to help her at this time.
"Thank you, thank you." Zhou's mother thanked her again, and only then did a tear slowly fall from the corner of her eye.
Zhou Ningyue ran out crying.
In the west room, the smell of blood was strong. Zhou Tong still kept his eyes wide open, but he had completely lost his breath.
Zhou's mother squatted on the ground and wiped the blood on the ground with a rag. She was a little panicked at first, but gradually she became more efficient.
Seeing this, Xin You felt more and more that Zhou's mother's background was not simple.
Judging from Zhou's mother's performance, she must have seen blood.
Xin You silently sorted out the overturned pen mountain, fallen brushes, and scattered books.
She offered to help, of course, not purely to help Zhou's mother tide over the difficulties, but more importantly, to look for it to see if she could find any valuable clues.
Based on her previous speculation, the dispute occurred in the study rather than the living room. Maybe Zhou's mother discovered something in the study.
With this in mind, Xin You picked up a piece of letter paper, but before she could take a closer look, a hand suddenly stretched out.
Xin You immediately took a step back and put the letter behind her back, but she didn't expect that the target of that hand was not the letter in her hand, but another piece of paper.
Mother Zhou stuffed the piece of paper into her mouth at lightning speed.
Xin You frowned and looked at the woman who looked in pain from swallowing the letter.
Zhou's mother tried her best to swallow the paper: "Miss Kou, it's not good for you to see something you shouldn't."
Xin You didn't say anything, but squatted down to clean up the broken celadon pen washer, gaining a better understanding of Zhou's mother's agility.
No wonder he was the one who could kill his husband.
"Aunt, are all the servants at home here? Will they come back suddenly?" Xin You asked seemingly casually after putting away the broken porcelain.
"Thinking that tomorrow is the Mid-Autumn Festival, I let them go home this morning and won't come back until the 16th." Mother Zhou's voice trembled obviously when she mentioned "Mid-Autumn Festival".
Xinyou sighed secretly.
That day, I heard Zhou Ningyue say that she would let the spring buds go home for a day during the Mid-Autumn Festival. Unexpectedly, Zhou's mother gave her an extra day off and let her go home on the 14th.
It can be seen that human behavior is the most unpredictable, so we should be more cautious in the future.
Time can always cover up many things, but after an hour passed, Westinghouse seemed to have returned to normal except for one missing brush.
After the blood stains were cleaned, Zhou Tong's body was moved to the kang in the east room, changed into clothes, and covered with a thin quilt. At first glance, it seemed that he had just fallen asleep.
Xin You knew Xu Xu Tuzhi's truth and left quietly.
When she returned to the east courtyard of the bookstore, the first thing Xin You did was take a shower and change clothes. Then she took out the letter and read it slowly.
In fact, there is nothing to read. This is the last page of a letter. There are only a few decent words, which are usually written at the end of a letter. The only valuable thing is the name at the end of the letter: Dongsheng.
But trying to find someone with a name that doesn't even have a surname is like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Xin You folded the letter and put it away, and arranged for Nanny Fang to go to the Jixiangfang area to pay attention to the news about the Zhou family.
In the evening, Grandma Fang brought back the news.
"How did the girl know? Something really embarrassing happened. The male owner of the Zhou family fell ill and died in his dream during his lunch break. His wife and daughter were left crying miserably. The male owner's sister and her family all went there. Now, even my sister can’t stop crying..."
Xinyou thought for a while and made a plan.
Early the next morning, Xin You was about to go out when she met Duan Yunlang.
"Cousin, let's go home together."
"Second cousin, please go back first. I'll go buy something and then go back."
"What is my cousin going to buy?" Duan Yunlang asked curiously.
"There is a pastry shop near Jixiangfang that sells delicious pastries and meat mooncakes from the south. I plan to buy some back for my grandma to try."
Delicious pastries?
Duan Yunlang immediately said: "I'll go buy it with you. Anyway, I'm not in a hurry to go home."
Xin You hesitated for a moment and nodded: "Okay."
With Duan Yunlang together, it didn't look deliberate.
The two cousins and Xiaolian went straight to Wuxiangzhai, and when they got there, they saw a long queue.
"It seems that this dim sum is really delicious." Duan Yunlang came to the end of the queue with great expectations.
Xinyou stood beside him silently, paying attention to the sounds around him.
Queuing is boring. Such a big thing happened to the Zhou family, and Zhou Tong's special status as a member of the Jinlin Guards Hundreds of Households made it impossible not to discuss it.
"Have you heard that the new man in Yanzi Alley fell asleep while taking a nap?"
"I know, that's Sister-in-law Ji's brother. Sister-in-law Ji's eyes are swollen from crying."
"How miserable!"
"Yes, it's really miserable."
Duan Yunlang listened carefully and quickly discussed with Xin You: "Cousin——"
As soon as he opened his mouth, he noticed something was wrong with Xin You's face.
"Cousin, what's wrong?"
"They seem to be talking about my friend's house!" Xin You bit her lip, turned around and left.
Duan Yunlang was stunned for a moment and hurriedly caught up.
Xin You walked very fast, and saw a white hanging outside the door of Zhou's house from a distance. People came in and out from time to time, and intermittent crying could be heard.
Walking outside Zhou's house, Xin You paused for a moment and looked in through the open door.
There were many people in the courtyard who came to express their condolences, and a mourning hall had been set up in the main room.
She walked in. No one stopped her to ask questions at this time, and she just walked to Ji Cailan.
Ji Cailan was very surprised to see Xin You: "Sister Kou, why are you here?"
"My cousin and I went back to Shaoqing's Mansion today. Thinking about the snack shop that Sister Ji mentioned, we went over to buy some pastries to take with us. Unexpectedly, we heard someone said that something happened at Sister Zhou's house, so we came over to take a look."
Ji Cailan's eyes were red: "Sister Kou is interested."
"My condolences to Sister Ji. I would like to offer my uncle a stick of incense and visit Sister Zhou."
This kind of white matter can be said to be open to those who express condolences. Ji Cailan didn't think much and took Xin You and Duan Yunlang into the mourning hall.
In this ancient background, most of the people did not hold officials accountable.
(End of chapter)
