A Girl Traveling Through Troubled Times

Gui'er looked carefully and saw that the person being held was a servant in the Madam's courtyard, named Lao Jiu. He had been under the Madam's command for many years and was considered a confidant. He was brought from Jiangcheng and usually didn't talk much, but he only obeyed the Madam's orders.

The people who carried him in were the vendors who had set up stalls near their house and were keeping watch on them.

Everyone in the room was stunned. At this moment, a burly man in a leather jacket and a peaked cap walked in. He crossed his arms and said to his wife and Sha Yanyao, "This guy just sneaked out of the backyard and was caught by us."

Upon hearing this, the lady stepped forward and said with a smile, "This is our servant. He might have wanted to sneak out to meet his lover. I'm sorry to bother you, sir. We'll handle it ourselves."

The sturdy man grinned and said, "But we found a bag of things like this on him." As he said that, he took out a cloth bag and pulled out a bunch of jewelry necklaces and gold bars from the bag.

Guier recognized at a glance that one of the jade necklaces was the one that the lady often wore, and was very shocked. What was going on?

When the lady saw this, her face turned pale and she stood there in a daze.

Sha Yanyao suddenly stepped forward and slapped Lao Jiu in the face, saying, "You rascal, you actually stole things from home. Fortunately, the commander discovered it in time." Then he turned to the strong man and said with a smile, "Thank you, commander, but this man has served in my family for many years. I don't want this family scandal to be exposed. Please let us deal with it ourselves."

The burly man smiled and said, "Okay, since you don't want to pursue it, then we can't say anything. But these things are stolen goods, we have to take them away for record." Then he picked up the cloth bag and put it directly into the inner pocket of his leather jacket, said to others, "Let's go." Then he walked away with a swagger.

The lady quickly took two steps forward and opened her mouth, but no words came out.

Everyone watched the group leave.

Sha Yanyao frowned and glanced at his wife, then said to Lao Jiu, "Get up."

Lao Jiu seemed to have been hit hard and stood up staggeringly.

"He's bleeding a lot." A maid screamed.

Everyone turned around and saw a pool of blood on the ground where Lao Jiu had just been squatting. It turned out that the two bullets had hit him, but he was wearing dark clothes, so it was not very obvious.

Gui'er quickly said to the old doctor, "Doctor, please take a look at him."

The old doctor stepped forward and undressed him, revealing a large bloody hole on his back. Everyone gasped. Gui'er said to Sha Yanyao, "Brother's injuries are too severe. I'm afraid he needs to be taken to the hospital. The doctor is here. Let's bandage him first and then send him to the hospital run by the foreign doctor."

Sha Yanyao nodded and signaled the old doctor with his eyes.

The old doctor took out some cotton from his medicine box, plugged the hole, and said, "Okay, go to the doctor immediately."

The servants in the courtyard all stood still, looking out the gate worriedly. Guier knew they were afraid of being beaten if they went out, so she said to Ah Cheng, "Human life is at stake, Ah Cheng, please go and help deliver it."

Ah Cheng nodded and said, "Okay, but I can't take charge alone."

The lady reluctantly took out three silver dollars and stuffed them into Ah Cheng's pocket. She then called the doorman, a native of Nanjing, and said, "You two can take him there."

The two of them found a cart, took the already unconscious Lao Jiu, and left under the guidance of the old doctor.

Ah Cheng didn't come back until the afternoon. Gui Er asked hurriedly, "How's the situation?"

Ah Cheng said, "He lost too much blood and couldn't be saved. His body is still in the hospital. What to do with it is up to the Madam and the Young Master to decide."

The lady heard this and covered her nose and said, "What bad luck! If I had known I was going to die, I wouldn't have wasted these three silver dollars. Lao Jiu is a servant, and his relatives also work on our farm. I'll give his parents a ten-silver reward later. You can find someone in the hospital to deal with the body. Take off the clothes and bring them back to Jiangcheng to make a cenotaph for his parents."

Ah Cheng said, "Yes." Then he turned and left.

Everyone present was silent. No one had expected that group of people to be so ruthless, and they didn't know what to do for a moment.

Gui'er always felt that something was wrong, but she couldn't figure it out. She returned to her bedroom and looked outside the window at the corner where she had originally planned to crawl out. Suddenly, she found a few more footprints there. It turned out that Lao Jiu also crawled out from here.

She was so scared that she broke out in a cold sweat. If Sha Yanyao hadn't delayed her in the afternoon and she hadn't been able to go, and Lao Jiu had gotten there first, she would have been the one beaten to death.

After walking back and forth in the room twice, Gui'er felt that there was no way out and she had to go downstairs to check the situation. So she came to the living room again. The servants had all gone back to their rooms. She walked around again and had no choice but to go upstairs. Remembering that the lady looked very panicked just now, she wanted to comfort her, so she came to the outside of the lady's room.

Just as she was about to push the door open, she stopped immediately when she heard voices coming from inside.

"I was the one who told Lao Jiu to leave. No one else would have dared to go. He only agreed because he had lived in my house for many years. I didn't expect that he would lose his life like this."

"Mother, don't be too sad. When the time comes, we can give more money to his wife and children privately. His son hasn't married yet, so when the time comes, you can give one of your maids to his son. It will be considered as fulfilling his wish."

"That's all we have to do."

Gui Er suddenly realized that it was the Madam who had sent them. She hadn't expected Director Zhou's deployment to be so airtight. However, she thought it was not right. When she went downstairs, she had clearly observed that no one was watching there. Why was Lao Jiu caught as soon as he left? It was very likely a trap.

Thinking of this, Guier came up with an idea. She knocked on the door and pushed it open to go in.

Sure enough, Sha Yanyao and his wife were sitting on the sofa in the suite. Seeing Gui'er, Sha Yanyao smiled and asked, "Guier, what's going on?"

Guier said obediently, "I just saw that mother didn't look well. Okay, I wanted to come and see if she was feeling unwell."

After hearing this, the lady turned around and said to her with a smile, "Come in."

Gui'er walked in, and the lady said to her in a rare kind voice, "Thanks to you this time, we were able to escape. But Director Zhou is still keeping a close eye on us. You saw today, too. Lao Jiu tried to get out, but was beaten to death. What are we going to do if this continues?"

Gui'er thought of the bag of jewelry the burly man had just taken away and said, "Mother, the jewelry that Lao Jiu just took was taken away by that official. It's worth at least ten gold bars, right? Can it be taken back? If not, how about saying hello to Director Zhou? And count this amount towards the remaining 900 gold bars."