Chapter 111: 94 Slap in the face (first update)
Gu Jiao’s figure was taller than Gu Jinyu’s. Even with her thick-soled embroidered shoes, Gu Jinyu still found herself being looked down upon by Gu Jiao.
Gu Jiao flatly said, “If you can’t even show this level of sincerity, don’t bother persuading me to go back.”
Gu Jinyu’s eyes slightly reddened as she said: “If you want to shoo me away…”.
Gu Jiao indifferently responded: “I don’t care. You can take whatever you want, just don’t bother me.”
This was already the most words Gu Jiao had spoken to a stranger. She usually only exhibited such patience toward those she cared about.
Next, Gu Jiao demonstrated the meaning of treating Gu Jinyu as if she were air.
With a hardened resolve, Gu Jinyu finished burning the paper money. Until the end, she could not bring herself to call out to the couple Gu Sanlang in front of Gu Jiao.
Gu Jinyu knelt so long that her legs had gone numb. It was her maid and nurse who came forth to help her up in the end.
She bowed toward Gu Jiao and said: “I’ll leave first. I’ll visit you when I have the time.”
Not long after she left, a little boy nicknamed Xiao Jingkong hopped down the path joyfully: “Jiaojiao!”
He saw Gu Jinyu in the distance and asked curiously: “Who are they?”
Gu Jiao said, “Strangers.”
“Oh.” They were strangers, so Xiao Jingkong did not need to pay them attention.
“Why did you come here?” Gu Jiao asked.
Xiao Jingkong said: “I returned home and you weren’t there, Granny told me you came to visit the graves!”
Xiao Jingkong would perform his morning prayers, practice his skills, and play with his village friends every morning. After having fun with his friends and returning home to find Gu Jiao absent, he asked Granny where she had gone.
“Who’s grave is this?” Xiao Jingkong stared at the two old graves and asked.
Gu Jiao looked at the two old graves and said: “My parents’. This one is my father’s and that one is my mother’s.”
Xiao Jingkong crossed his arms behind his back, tilted his little head to the side and thought for a moment: “If they’re Jiaojiao’s parents, then they’re Jingkong’s parents too!”
With that said, Xiao Jingkong knelt and performed several deep bows to Gu Sanlang and the Xun family.
He bowed very sincerely. His head even touched the ground and he call them father and mother.
His milky voice and serious expression, coupled with his small body kneeling in front of the desolate graves, would bring tears to anyone’s eyes.
A child who was adopted behaved so, while she, his biological child, couldn’t even utter the words father and mother. Gu Jinyu felt a sour feeling in her heart, as if she had been slapped.
“Miss, are you alright?” The maid noticed Gu Jinyu’s unusual state.
Gu Jinyu closed her eyes: “I’m alright. Let’s go home.”
Gu Jinyu and her entourage got on the carriage and left.
On the other side, Gu Jiao and Xiao Jingkong finished cleaning up the overgrown weeds around the graves and started walking back together.
“Jiaojiao, are you feeling better?” Xiao Jingkong asked while holding Gu Jiao’s hand.
“Mhm, I’m better.” Gu Jiao nodded.
The fever had subsided. For her, that was as good as recovered.
As for the healing of the wound and the falling off of scabs, that was commonplace to her. She didn’t think much of it.
Hearing that Gu Jiao was recovering, Xiao Jingkong was overjoyed and cheered: “I just spoke to father and mother!”
“Oh? What did you say?” Gu Jiao had heard the little boy mumbling something while she was weeding, but she wasn’t sure what he was murmuring.
Xiao Jingkong puffed up his chest, looking proud: “I asked father and mother to bless Jiaojiao so that she won’t get sick again! Father and mother must have heard me, that’s why Jiaojiao’s illness is gone!”
Gu Jiao thought: Is it even possible?
Xiao Jingkong firmly believed that it was the divine intervention of Gu Sanlang and his wife from underneath the spring. He was certain that he was the cause of their intervention, hence the credit should go to him and not to the medicine brought back by the bad brother-in-law!
It was safe to say he was a young monk who constantly sought to outshine his brother-in-law!
After Gu Jinyu left the village, she hurried back to the villa. Upon reaching the town, she realized she had lost something. “Stop,” she instructed.
The carriage stopped by the roadside, and Huang Zhong, who was on horseback, asked, “Miss, what happened?”
Gu Jinyu rummaged through her sleeves and bags, frowning: “I lost something.”
“What did you lose?” asked Huang Zhong.
“A letter,” said Gu Jinyu.
“I’ll have the others come and help you search for it.” Huang Zhong called the maid and the nanny from the carriage behind and helped Gu Jinyu search the inside of the carriage for the missing item.
However, despite scouring the carriage from corner to corner, they couldn’t find it.
“Is it an important letter?” asked Huang Zhong.
“Yes,” Gu Jinyu nodded.
The letter was from the Empress. It had a question that was initially put before the princes. However, the Empress’ son, the fifth prince, couldn’t solve it, so she sent the letter to Gu Jinyu.
Gu Jinyu, brilliant as she was, was much smarter than any of the fifth prince’s tutors. She would secretly solve problems for him since they were young, and then tell everyone that he solved it by himself.
The emperor, being unaware of the truth, believed that the fifth prince was smarter than the other princes.
The emperor’s love for the Empress and his favoritism towards the fifth prince owed much to this, which is why the Empress was particularly appreciative of Gu Jinyu.
The question this time came from the emperor himself and was reported to have stumped all the princes.
All of Zhan Country knew that their emperor had no interest in poetry, but rather in arithmetic and astrology.
In her letter, Imperial Concubine Shu repeatedly urged Gu Jinyu to help the Fifth Prince solve the problem as quickly as possible.
Whoever could solve the problem first would win the Emperor’s favor.
Gu Jinyu carried the problem with her every day, and worked on it whenever she had free time.
However, the Emperor’s problem was too difficult. She racked her brain for many days and could only solve half of it.
Even though it was only half of the problem, the calculations involved were enormous. To her great dismay, she lost the result that she had worked so hard for.
Gu Jinyu felt frustrated.
If she had to go through the calculations again from the start, she might go mad.
Gu Jinyu clutched her chest and said, “Could it have been left in the village? I was kneeling there burning paper money earlier, it might have fallen from my sleeve pocket then.”
Little Monk skipped home hand in hand with Jiaojiao.
Gu Jiao went to cook, he went to feed the chickens and sweep the chicken dung and clean out the cage.
Yet, he encountered something before he even began.
“Huh?” He looked at the object sticking to his heel, picked it up with a puzzled blink of his eyes. It turned out to be a folded little envelope.
The envelope bore no name.
He opened the envelope and took out the “letter” inside.
The “letter” itself also bore no name, no signature, but was filled with nothing but numbers.
“This looks like a problem.” Little Monk revealed a clueless expression.
He didn’t know how to approach it since this was a field he had never studied before.
More importantly, why did it appear under his foot?
He was absolutely sure his shoes had been clean when he left the house.
“Could it be… from my parents?”
The more Little Monk thought about it, the more he believed that his plea had been heard by his parents, and they had responded to him!
After pondering for a while, he put the letter in his pocket, ran into the kitchen, and squatted down to examine Gu Jiao’s shoes.
Gu Jiao was puzzled by his actions: “What are you looking at?”
Shaking his head like a drum, Little Monk replied, “Nothing! Nothing!”
His parents had left a letter only for him, and not for Jiaojiao.
Because Jiaojiao had not spoken to his parents just now; only he had.
With this thought, Little Monk was more convinced that this letter was from his parents in the netherworld!
However, since he had not communicated his academic level to his parents, they seemed to overestimate his abilities.
To not let his parents down, Little Monk decided to seek outside help.
Little Monk went back to the kitchen with the letter: “Jiaojiao, I can’t solve this problem!”
When Little Monk came down from the mountain, he brought numerous Buddhist scriptures and some peculiar problems said to be set by his master, some of them half-solved, and some untouched.
Gu Jiao didn’t think much when she saw this problem, assuming it was another one left by his master.
She was frying meat with the oil at the perfect temperature: not too low to undercook or too high to overcook.
She solved the problem for him while frying the meat to a golden brown in less than a minute.
Little Monk took the solved problem to his parents’ graves.
Little Monk was an honest child and didn’t hide the fact that he asked Gu Jiao for help.
Meanwhile, he recited the Buddhist scriptures he had learned to his parents, hoping they could set his next problem based on these scriptures.
“You rest well, mom and dad, I am leaving now! I will come to see you another day!”
Little Monk placed the solved problem in front of the tomb. To prevent it from being blown away by the wind, he placed a small stone on top of it as a weight.
Gu Jinyu and her party arrived at the entrance of the village again.
“Miss, you wait in the carriage while we go search.” The maid suggested to Gu Jinyu.
Being the precious daughter of a rich family, Gu Jinyu should not frequently show herself in such a lowly place.
After a moment’s thought, Gu Jinyu didn’t refuse.
The maidservant, maid, and Huang Zhong set off along the path to search.
“You all search this area, Liuliu and I will go to the tomb.” The maidservant spoke and led the young maid to the tomb of Mr. and Mrs. Gu.
The young maid suddenly pointed at a stone on the ground: “Look! There’s something under the stone!”
The maidservant’s eyes brightened, but when she picked up the stone, she only found a pile of burnt ashes and some half-burnt paper money underneath.
— Indeed, on his way back, Little Monk suddenly remembered something. That is, the paper money for his parents had to be burned before they could receive it. The same goes for the problem!
So he went back and burned the solved problem.
Now his parents should be able to receive it!
“I am really a clever boy!”