Raiders of the Duke and Duchess

"later……"

The grandfather and grandson were covered with the same thin blanket, sitting in a room lit by charcoal fire, and recounted the past events in detail, "It's just that within two years, my mother gave birth to a younger brother, and gradually she stopped visiting me. And. I have also begun to reach the age of playfulness, and the role of mother has begun to become dispensable in life... You are right, the elders treat me quite well. In addition to studying hard, they don't do anything else. Don't worry about me. It was at that time that I met you, Grandma Wang."

At that time, the Ji family was ancient, mysterious, and powerful, but not rich. They were even a little bit strapped and had nowhere to complain despite pretending to be noble.They cling to ancient rules and customs that are incompatible with the outside world, hide in a secluded place, remain self-contained, and form a world of their own.

In this world, the direct lineage is extremely noble and has a supreme status that no one can challenge. The patriarchs, elders, and saints are all from this lineage, but they are not united. The two parties are competing against each other.However, the side branches are not sheltered by the clan. Instead, they have to work hard to earn a living to support their direct descendants.

The world outside is a man's world, and women can hardly move in this world.Therefore, for the branches that needed to be connected to the outside world, the law that women were respected was gradually blurred and diluted, and even men began to set up separate mansions outside to marry concubines and raise wives.

Grandma Wang is a descendant of a side branch. Her side of the family has many offspring, but her father's generation has not made much achievements. Her mother is an "outside woman". She does not even have the right to be included in the family tree and given the surname Ji, so she can only take her mother's surname. The surname is Wang.As a concubine, her status in her family was extremely low, and sometimes even the servants had a better life than her.At that time, Mrs. Ji met Grandma Wang by the frozen lake in winter. Grandma Wang saved her life that day.

"The lake was frozen, so I sneaked out to go skating. Who knows, the ice cracked..." It was a bit embarrassing to talk about childhood embarrassments in front of my grandchildren.She smiled and succinctly explained the fright she had experienced at that time, "It just so happened that you, Auntie Wang, went to the river to do laundry and saved me..."

In the ice and snow, a child about the same age as her grandmother struggled to hold a wooden tub that was too big for her. The tub was full of clothes, large and small, male and female, in different colors and styles. It was obviously the whole family. A person’s clothes are all on the inside, from the obscene garments to the outer garments.

That was another kind of hardship that the old lady, who was a saint at that time, could not understand, a kind of folk suffering that belonged to the weak.

She went to the nearby relatives to ask for him, but they refused to let her go at first. It was not until she got ten taels of silver that she told Aunt Wang with a smile to take good care of Her Highness the Saint.That face, even when I think about it now, still makes me feel sick and uncomfortable.

Hearing this, Ji Wuyan interrupted and asked, "The Council of Elders has no objection to you taking Grandma Wang with you?"

"Originally I wasn't allowed. But because of my cleverness, I learned everything very quickly, and I was used to saying good things based on people's expressions. Over time, they let me go in many small matters." Mrs. Ji laughed. Hehehe took a sip of tea and ate a piece of white jade frost cake that someone had sent over before. "Besides, I have been stubborn since I was a child, and I always eat soft things rather than hard things. If they really don't want to , I will naturally not cooperate with them obediently. If they cause trouble today and cause trouble tomorrow, they will still have a headache."

Ji Wuyan shook his head and laughed, but in this way, this Presbyterian Church was not completely unkind.

"Then why did you cause trouble in the Ji family and cancel the Presbyterian Council?"

"Later..." The old lady sighed softly, and put down the remaining half of the square cake in her hand. The last proud smile on her face disappeared... She said, "When I was ten years old, there were many things in my studies. I learned a lesson. The great elder said, if it were in the past, it would have been a lesson for saints and queens. I am the most outstanding among all the saints in history, so I was able to learn this lesson when I was ten years old. At that time, the great elder was really proud to say these words."

Ji Wuyan was startled slightly, and the fingertips holding the hand warmer trembled slightly, as if they had been burned.She had a hunch that this coursework was inseparable from the things in the secret room of the East Palace.Sure enough, she heard the old lady say, "The art of witchcraft."

The wind and rain have not stopped, and the wind blowing in through the half-opened window has washed away the warmth in the house. On a rainy afternoon in late autumn, for people who are accustomed to the Jiangnan climate, it feels like there is ice in the bones. .

The Ji family's secret techniques are basically to control people's minds. Most of them need to be supplemented by spices to control people when their will is weak. These spice recipes have been passed down from generation to generation of family heads and elders, and it is inevitable that they have been lost and incomplete. Some of them, and some others, were gradually forced to be shelved and abandoned because of the difficulty in finding raw materials. Therefore, in Mrs. Ji's generation, there were not many usable secret techniques left.

Who would have thought that there is another... witchcraft.

After seeing this, the old lady felt that she was too cruel and refused to learn anything. However, the Presbyterian Council, who had gotten along well with her over the years, was determined this time without any discussion, and directly confined her in the courtyard, including all the servants. Send them out and either study or starve to death.

She was really stubborn. She was really hungry for three days and three nights. She was so hungry that she felt light-headed and dizzy. She just lay on the bed and refused to let go.

"At that time, I thought, it is not easy for them to cultivate a saint. After all the hard work they have put in over the years, I will not really starve to death in the house. However, you, Grandma Wang, are sincere and sincere. Afraid that I would starve to death, he secretly brought me food in the middle of the night... Just in time, the people they arranged caught him, and justifiably arrested him. He was charged with bewitching the saint and wanted to be hung and burned to death... …hanging it at the door of my dormitory.”

"So, you compromised?" Ji Wuyan asked her.

The old lady didn't answer but asked, "If it were you, what would you do?"

On one side is the close friend who risked his life to deliver food to him who is about to be burned to death; on the other side is the witchcraft that has crossed the bottom line of human nature.The former is a critical moment, but the latter still has room for change. What's more, just because you have learned it doesn't mean you will definitely use it, right?I just took this opportunity to solve an urgent need.

Most people, at least most smart people, know what to choose.

But... whenever a person's bottom line is crossed once, it can be crossed a second time. The so-called "bottom line" has actually been in vain for a long time.What's more, this compromise also means that he will be manipulated in the same situation countless times in the future.

Presumably, it was at that moment that my grandmother had the idea of ​​disbanding the Presbyterian Church.

Ji Wuyan naturally understood and asked with a smile, "How long will the Presbyterian Church still exist after that?"