Chapter 275
Chapter 275
I could hardly believe the Ninth Concubine had been alive all this time.
But on second thought, centenarians were not that rare. Many elderly people who spent their entire lives in the countryside lived to a hundred.
Even so, I had never imagined the Ninth Concubine would survive that long.
Anning was just as shocked as I was.
“Sir, when did Immortal Maiden Xu pass away?” I asked the Old Man.
He said, “Three nights ago. She suddenly departed this life. Usually, she was in good health, with no illnesses, and she had a strong appetite. But for someone over a hundred, a sudden passing isn’t unusual. She died peacefully at the end of a full life.”
I barely heard anything he said after that.
His first sentence had already stunned me.
Three nights ago. Wasn’t that when Seventh Master and I entered the construction site?
The Ninth Concubine died just as we went in?
“Sir, what time that night did Immortal Maiden Xu pass away?” I asked.
The Old Man said it had been eleven, exactly eleven o’clock, the start of Zi Hour.
I was stunned again.
At that time, Seventh Master and I had been trying to leave the unfinished hotel at the construction site. We failed to escape, his own lightning blasted him, and then we fell into the pit and lost consciousness.
We had not checked the time, but we must have fallen and blacked out at around eleven.
In other words, the Ninth Concubine died the moment we lost consciousness.
My heart trembled. I asked, “Sir, has the Ni… has Immortal Maiden Xu been buried? Why don’t we see a funeral taking place in the village?”
The Old Man said, “She only died three nights ago. How could she be buried already? We perform seven days of funeral rites here. Immortal Maiden Xu was our village centenarian, so every household has to pay its respects and help with the arrangements.”
“But we’re not allowed to make these things too visible because we’re next to a tourist site. They worry it might affect the attraction and frighten visitors. So whenever we hold a funeral, we do it at the far end of the village.”
“If you want to pay your respects to Immortal Maiden Xu, go there.”
He pointed us toward the far end of the village.
I thanked him and prepared to enter.
Assistant He was with us, but we had no idea how long we would be inside, so I told him to look around the tourist attraction instead of growing bored.
But he said he should remain with us for safety. He could also record whatever we learned, since he would need to show it to Boss Lin later.
So the three of us entered together.
The village was large, with densely packed homes, which suggested a sizable population. Yet we saw almost no one. Most residents were probably attending the Ninth Concubine’s funeral at the far end.
It took us a long time to reach it.
A large canopy had been erected as a mourning hall. Many people were present, men and women, young and old.
I suspected the entire village had come, which showed the Ninth Concubine’s seniority and prestige there.
A crowd had gathered around one area, apparently contributing condolence money.
Since we wanted to ask questions here, we needed to make a contribution before it would be convenient to approach anyone.
I joined the line and gave five hundred yuan.
Noon was approaching, which meant it was almost time for the funeral banquet.
We wandered through the crowd, searching for an elderly person to question.
After circling for a long time, we still did not know whom to approach. There were simply too many old people in this village. Every one of them looked eighty or ninety, yet every one remained full of energy.
So this was a village of longevity.
Just then, I noticed an elderly man sitting alone outside the crowd. He looked sorrowful.
I thought he was probably a member of the Ninth Concubine’s family, or someone who had been close to her. He was also quite old.
I led Anning and Assistant He over.
He watched us approach from a distance. When we drew close, he asked, “I don’t recognize your faces. You don’t seem to be from our village. Who are you?”
I quickly offered him another pack of cigarettes and said we had come to ask about something.
“Ask about something?” He looked at me. “What do you want to know?”
I said I wanted to ask about Immortal Maiden Xu.
“You want to ask about my grandaunt?”
The elderly man immediately became wary.
I was surprised too.
The Ninth Concubine was his grandaunt?
Then his father had to be her male cousin.
“We want to learn about Luo Mansion a hundred years ago. Immortal Maiden Xu also lived there for a long time. I don’t know whether you’ve heard of Luo Mansion.”
I asked him directly.
Since the man was a relative of the Ninth Concubine, any lie would seem insincere and might arouse suspicion.
He studied me. I could not tell whether he was wary or thinking about something else.
I took another five hundred yuan from my wallet and handed it to him. “Sir, we aren’t bad people. We only want to understand what happened at Luo Mansion. If you know anything, I hope you’ll tell us.”
The money worked. The elderly man accepted the five hundred yuan and said, “The Luo Mansion you’re talking about belonged to a prominent household during the early Republic, didn’t it? It was here in our region.”
I nodded quickly. “Yes. Immortal Maiden Xu seems to have spent a long time in Luo Mansion.”
The man nodded too. “A long time ago, my father told me about it when he was drunk.”
Assistant He had already taken out his notebook and begun recording.
I listened closely, ready to hear the inside story.
His father and the Ninth Concubine had been cousins, so he surely knew a great deal. Perhaps we could uncover the entire truth today.
“The first person from our family to marry into Luo Mansion was actually another grandaunt of mine. She and the grandaunt who just passed away were biological sisters.”
The man’s words lifted my spirits.
Exactly. This was just as Seventh Master and I had guessed. His other grandaunt had to be the Seventh Concubine!
“My Eldest Grandaunt was named Xu Miao. Our family was very poor back then, so poor we couldn’t afford food. Eldest Grandaunt went to work as a maid in a wealthy household.”
The man sighed. “Being a maid in those days meant being a servant without human dignity. But there was no other choice. The family was too poor to even eat a full meal.”
“A maid didn’t earn much either, barely enough to feed Eldest Grandaunt’s family. Then one day, she suddenly sent home a huge sum of money. It frightened everyone. Poor people like us could never earn that much in a lifetime.”
“Think about it. How could a maid possibly get so much money?”
This elderly man had no sense of what mattered in a story. Why not simply say his Eldest Grandaunt had risen from a branch and become a phoenix?
At this rate, he would still be talking at nightfall. I finished it for him. “Did your Eldest Grandaunt marry the master of the household and become one of his wives?”