Just the basics? You mean you can tell if there was jade in the stone with the naked eye despite knowing just the basics? You’re even better than an expert! Jing Rong looked at her with a surprised and adoring look. Really, what does this woman keep in her head?
Over there, Wen Xian didn't even care that those experts were there to discourage him. Anyway, he had already paid up so he told Old Zhao to deliver the stone to his residence before he left. Yes, he bought a lousy stone and left just like that!
Those experts were still pointing fingers behind his back, saying that he had been tricked by Old Zhao into buying a blank stone.
……
"Young Master Wen spent so much money on a mere stone."
"That’s right."
"One hundred taels of silver, what an injustice."
As the crowd was gossiped. Old Zhao laughed and mocked those people, saying that they were the ones who couldn’t recognise quality, and said that the stone must be the first-class jadeite.
The crowd looked down upon him, then they dispersed.
Seeing that everyone had left, Ji Yunshu asked Jing Rong. "Should we still follow him?"
He kept silent and looked down the street. When he saw Wen Xian leave the Flying Crane House, he got up and said. "Of course."
As they prepared to go downstairs, they bumped into Old Zhao, who was holding the stone and also heading towards the stairs. The three of them bumped into each other.
"Make way, make way!" Old Zhao shouted loudly. Then he squeezed down the stairs ahead of the two of them with the stone in his arms.
Ji Yunshu’s shoulder was hit, but she wasn’t injured..
"Are you hurt?" She shook her head. The two of them went down the stairs, quietly following behind Wen Xian.
Wen Xian really kept up with his routine. After leaving the Flying Crane House, he turned down a lane and went into a pharmacy. When he went in, the pharmacy apprentice greeted him and smiled at him politely. "Young Master Wen, you’re here to get your medicine as usual?" He spoke as if they were old acquaintances.
Wen Xian nodded and walked over to the medicine cabinet. This tall cabinet was divided into many small medicine drawers, which housed various herbs. There were expensive herbs, common herbs, and exotic herbs. They had everything that one expected to find!
He stretched out his finger, tapped it on the counter a few times, and said to the apprentice, "This time, give me twice the dosage."
"Okay, Young Master Wen, please wait a moment, I'll prepare the prescription for you." Without having to read the prescription, the apprentice nimbly gathered the various herbs, tied the two packets of medicine with a thin string, and handed them over to Wen Xian.
Wen Xian drew out some money and passed it to him.
"Take care, Young Master Wen."
He just nodded with a straight face and walked away. For the past few years, Wen Xian would come to the pharmacy every other day, no matter what the weather may be. He would only grab a single dose of medicine each time. However, today he bought twice as much as usual.
After he came out, he went directly back to his residence.
Ji Yunshu wanted to go in and ask what kind of medicine he had bought, but Jing Rong held her back, "Both of us are in disguise now, wouldn't you attract unwanted attention by asking? Furthermore, there’s an unspoken rule for pharmacies to never disclose patients’ prescriptions. Even if you ask, they won’t tell you." He knew that because Mo Ruo's Yuhua Pavilion had such a rule as well!
After listening to that logic, she decided to give up on asking, and they continued following him.
Wen Xian's residence was neither big nor small, but it was very elegant. Everything was built from wood and bamboo. It was located in a quiet place, next to a small river with clear water, surrounded by mountains on three sides. Beside the river, there was a small pavilion standing there. This was indeed a nice place! It was even more suitable for physical and mental cultivation than Teacher Yu's Mingshan Academy.
After Wen Xian went in and put down the medicine he had bought, he came out again with a jug of wine, and immediately went to the lake outside the city and sat down on that big rock, drinking while looking out over the rippling water in the distance.
This person is really strange! Firstly, even though he is a merchant, he does not manage his own business. Secondly, if one were to consider him a gentleman of leisure, he did not play the part by staying in his elegant courtyard. Instead, he opted to spend his entire day either by going to a teahouse or sit here all day at the lake. Strange indeed!
Jing Rong and Ji Yunshu had followed him for an entire day but hadn’t found anything particularly suspicious about his routine. The two of them hid in a nearby bamboo forest, watching the lonely silhouette from afar.
"Is he waiting for someone when he sits like this every day? Or is he cultivating moral sentiment? " Jing Rong murmured.
Ji Yunshu silently observed and began to analyze, "His behavior patterns and routines are almost all repetitive. Such a person, from a psychological perspective, must have been hurt or irritated by something in the past. That incident likely caused him lingering regret and guilt that he has not been able to alleviate all these years."
What is this ‘psychology’? Is there such a thing? Jing Rong couldn't understand what that was, but understood the meaning of her words and analyzed them in his own mind. In the end, a conclusion was reached. "The incident with Ye'er!"
"That's right." Ji Yunshu was certain, "From start to finish, he has been carrying that flute around, occasionally cupping that jade pendant protectively in his palm. That jade pendant is a matching pair to that possessed by Miss Ye'er. So if my guess is correct, the reason why he came here every other day is most likely to be Ye'er, hmm... that is, he is missing her."
"What a besotted fool."
"Not necessarily, but if he really is a besotted fool, why didn't he do anything after Ye’er got pregnant and gave birth? And he let Ye’er go off to be a songstress? I think he may have... felt guilty because of Ye'er's death, so it turned into a scar in his heart." Speaking of that, it made one feel a little pity for him. The most painful thing in the world is love.
Jing Rong suddenly thought of something, his eyes deepened and narrowed, "There's one thing that I couldn't figure out before, but now, it’s starting to make some sense."
Hmm? Ji Yunshu turned to look at him, "What do you mean?"
"Didn't you say that he was the one who escaped through the window at Miss Ye’er’s scene of death? If it really was him, think about it, why did Wen Xian knock Qiao Zihua out when Ye'er was about to tell Qiao Zihua something? Could it be that the issue Ye'er was about to say might be related to Wen Xian?"
"..."
Jing Rong continued, "And the only thing related to Wen Xian is the disaster relief funds."
At that moment, Ji Yunshu was slightly shocked. Her pretty eyebrows were faintly furrowed and her thoughts turned dark, "So, you're saying that Ye'er might have discovered his secret and was going to report to the yamen. However, she was unable to do so for some reason, and that's why she thought of Qiao Zihua? She wanted to tell him the issue so he could report it to the authorities."
"It could be."
"Actually, Auntie Xie has said before that Ye'er came home very late one day and cried very sadly, so could it have been… this?"
Jing Rong curved his lips, "If that's the case, then those things can be tied together."
But...
"If that were the case, then why did he steal the disaster relief funds? And how was the funds stolen? And why did he want to kill the officers, and kill you?"All these questions were still unanswered!