Chapter 22: The intersection of old and new hatreds
Aunt Hu came to Zhou Hong's place, entered the door and was about to say hello, when she was stopped: "Sister Hu, you are an old man in this palace. We have known each other for decades, why are you so polite? p>
We are all blessed by heaven, so we can avoid any etiquette! Sit down quickly."
Zhou Hong has a round face, kind eyebrows and pale eyebrows, and is amiable and approachable to everyone.
Those who work under him have never seen him angry in many years.
"If I hadn't been too busy with the facts at hand, I should have come over to greet you, Mr. Zhou." Aunt Hu did not sit down and said with a smile, "You have been working very hard these past few months. At this age, you are still acting like a young man.
!"
"It is our blessing to run errands for the Holy Spirit. As long as we can do it, it doesn't matter whether it is hard or not." Zhou Hong asked Aunt Hu to sit down again, "Sit down quickly, sister. I'm coming back from the south.
, I brought some local products there and asked Xiao Yao'er to deliver them to you later.
I remember that you are from Wujiang, so you bought some rice wine and smoked bean tea when you passed by.
We are all people without roots. Even though we can’t go back, there is always something in our hearts that we can’t stop thinking about.”
"Mr. Zhou, you are such a thoughtful person." Nanny Hu sighed while wiping her tears with a handkerchief, "I entered the palace at the age of fourteen, and it has been forty years now.
I lost my parents after being a child, but my brother and sister-in-law were so cruel that they sent me here so that after I entered the palace, my brother would no longer have to do corvee service.
Even now, I often dream of picking water chestnuts and water shields in the lake! Alas! I can’t go back!"
It stands to reason that the average palace maid will be released from the palace after the age of twenty-five. She can return to her hometown or find a place to live on her own.
But there are also many people like Aunt Hu who stayed in the palace until they were fifty or sixty years old.
Such people usually won't go back to their hometown anymore, because their relatives at home have long since withered and been separated, and even if they still have children and nephews, they often can't count on them.
It would be easier if you had money around you. You could buy a house and get a few servants, and your life would be quite manageable.
If you don’t have money, you can only send it to the Clothing Bureau.
Although Huanyi Bureau is also part of the Eighth Bureau, it is not within the imperial city.
Instead, a separate boundary was set up and houses were built specifically to accommodate the elderly and retired palace residents.
People who fall here live worse than pigs and dogs.
"No, it's sad to think about it." Zhou Hong also sighed with her, "Although my background was better than yours, my experience was also worse than yours.
When my father and brother were beheaded, I escaped death because I was young and went to the palace to become a eunuch.
Now that I think about it, it feels like a dream."
Of course, Aunt Hu knew that the Zhou family was involved in the examination fraud case, which was a case that shocked the ruling and opposition parties of Great Xia.
It will be written down in the history books and will be mentioned again and again hundreds of thousands of years later.
Aunt Hu shed a few tears with him and said: "This is all a trick of fate, and it is what God has done for us."
At this time, a eunuch came in from outside and said to Zhou Hong: "General manager, General Manager Liang of Ronghua Palace wants to see you, saying that he wants to discuss the canonization of the imperial concubine in the first month of next year."
Zhou Hong didn't dare to be negligent after hearing this, and stood up quickly, not forgetting to say to Aunt Hu: "Sister Hu, I'm sorry to accompany you."
Aunt Hu quickly stood up and said, "Manager, hurry up and go! I'm going back too."
Zhou Hong left behind a eunuch beside him and told him: "Send Nanny Hu back home. Don't forget to take her things with you."
The eunuch was thin and smart, and looked to be no more than twenty years old. In fact, he was nearly forty years old, but he was not very handsome.
He is Zhou Hong's confidant. He was trained and promoted by Zhou Hong. His name is Liu Quan.
Aunt Hu smiled and said, "Eunuch Liu, I really appreciate you."
Liu Quan had a job in his eyes and something to say, so he smiled and said: "Look what you said, we are all hairy monkeys growing up under your hands, shouldn't we owe you our fair share of filial piety!" p>
After saying that, I picked up my things and walked back slowly with Grandma Hu.
"Xian'er, go ahead and make a bowl of hot tea for Grandma. It's cold, so let's fill up with cold wind." Liu Quan said to the little maid in front of Grandma Guo.
"Go! Check that the charcoal in the charcoal basin is almost burned and then add more." Aunt Hu gasped and said.
She has a cough and asthma, and she always gets sick when the weather is cold.
"Mommy, I have been away from the palace for the past few months to work with Master. When I came back, I heard that a group of family members of the dismissed and exiled ministers came to the palace as errands?"
"There is such a stall. Aren't all those people now working in the needlework bureau?" Aunt Hu nodded.
"There seems to be a girl from the Xue family in there, right? I think that when his grandfather Xue Chang was the minister of Dali Temple, he was the one who judged the case of my master's family." Liu Quan said, "If he hadn't thought that he was impartial in enforcing the law, my master's family would not be in trouble.
So miserable."
"Yes, the Xue family has been prestigious for a while." Aunt Hu is an experienced woman, so she doesn't need Liu Quan to explain clearly, "I have just seen the girl from the Xue family. She is as beautiful as a lantern, and her wind is beautiful."
It will break if you blow it."
"Then there's Auntie Lao." Liu Quan said with a bow.
When Aunt Hu returned, the medicine had already cooled down, so she asked the maid who served her to heat it up and give it to herself to drink.
Liu Quan put down his things and left.
In Qian Sanchun's case, the person who presided over the trial also suspected that the Eighth Bureau was involved.
Zhou Hong was not in the palace, so he called the deputy general manager Lu Shuangxi over for interrogation.
Lu Shuangxi was bitten to death without knowing it, and even though he was tortured, he did not change his tune.
Moreover, no one from the Fourth Division confessed that the Eighth Bureau was also involved in this incident, and people from the Fourth Division were always guarding Sasou in Miwuyuan.
There is another level. Zhou Hong, the general manager of the Eighth Bureau, has more seniority and is very popular. He is about to retire again. People are thinking that he will not take the risk, so they will stop here and no longer pursue the case.
In fact, it was Zhou Hongqi who was responsible for secretly hiding the treasure, but he left it all to Qian Sanchun without getting his own hands dirty.
He hid in the background and made plans, and at the same time he picked himself clean.
He is a thoughtful person, always thinking about possible eventualities, and never taking any chances.
So he had already made plans to step back and withdraw. Although this matter caused a lot of fuss, it never affected him.
However, even if he escaped unscathed, he still suffered losses.
One of the three boxes of jewelry belongs to him, and they are all palace treasures.
He had already bought a house for himself in Jiangnan, and he had already reserved a place for these treasures on Jin Shenan's book shelf in the secret room.
But when he returned to the palace and found that all these things had been found out, how could he be willing to do so?
Although others don't know much about what Xue Hengzhao did here, Zhou Hong knows it clearly.
He originally regarded the Xue family as enemies, but now that the new and old hatreds have been added together, he will never let Xue Hengzhao live easily.
The Smiling Buddha is just a facade. If he were really like this, he would have died many times.
Buddha's face and Rakshasa methods, this is the real Zhou Hong.