Ch. 499 - The Exploration of the Grand View Garden

The Grand View Garden has five main doors, with bucket-tiled loach ridges on the top and finely carved fresh patterns on the door railings and window partitions below, all without any vermilion powder decoration, making it a low-key and luxurious example.

Sun Shaozong was chatting with Jia Baoyu on the white stone steps in front of the door. Seeing Jia Lian rushing over, he couldn't help feeling a bit embarrassed when he thought about last night's absurd behavior.

But Jia Lian remained calm and tight. As he approached, he fixed his gaze on Sun Shaozong and smiled, "Those two little hooves didn't disappoint Erlang last night, did they?"

***Cough…***

Although Sun Shaozong was also a thick-skinned person, he couldn't say lines like *”Your woman is very smooth,”* especially in front of Jia Baoyu. Therefore, he could only vaguely say, "Your kindness, I am ashamed of it, Second Brother."

Jia Baoyu beside him listened in a daze and asked, "What kind of riddle are you two brothers playing? Did something strange happen last night?"

Yesterday noon at the Yihong Courtyard, although Jia Lian had already forcefully promoted it, Jia Baoyu was already drunk and unwilling to bring up the matter, so he naturally had no impression.

Since Jia Lian took the initiative to mention this matter, he had no intention of concealing it in front of Baoyu. He immediately pursed his lips and smiled, "Of course, it's Ping’er and..."

***Cough!***

Sun Shaozong let out a dry cough, interrupted his words, and urged, "Since everyone is here, let's quickly sift through the garden to avoid any panic in your mansion."

As he spoke, he took a single sword with a sheath from his servant's hand and hung it askew at his waist. He led the curious Jia Brothers with more than a hundred servants and rushed into the Grand View Garden grandly.

Most of these people, led by various levels of management, rushed to various parts of the Garden for carpet-style screening to confirm that the thieves were not lurking in the park.

A small number of people, led by Sun Shaozong, began to investigate the bamboo forest where the thieves first appeared.

Sun Shaozong led his team to the bamboo forest next to the Fengyao Bridge. He first instructed the servants to surround the forest in a general manner and then led Jia Baoyu, who was in a state of excitement, and Jia Lian, who seemed to be feeling unwell and always blushing, to cut into the bamboo forest in circles.

"Second Brother."

He thought it was Jia Lian who didn't have much interest in solving cases. However, when they turned to the sixth round, Jia Lian still silently followed behind, but Jia Baoyu couldn't bear it anymore.

He urged, "Second Brother Sun, didn't you say those thieves set up a map in the bamboo pavilion? Why don’t we go to the Pavilion to see what's going on, but going circles here?"

"Maybe it's useful, maybe it's not."

Sun Shaozong said without looking back, "But we have to check before we know if it's really useful."

Jia Lian also spoke in a coquettish tone, "You just follow along honestly, why bother talking so much?"

Both of the older brothers had such an attitude, so Jia Baoyu had to bow down and learn from Sun Shaozong, wandering around aimlessly.

It was not until the ninth round that the three finally arrived near the open space deep in the forest.

Seeing the small pavilion revealing its shadows, Jia Baoyu anxiously stretched his neck, wishing he could step out of the dense forest and see what traces the thief had left in the pavilion.

At this moment, Sun Shaozong suddenly stopped and slowly squatted in front of a patch of weeds.

"What? What happened?!"

Baoyu suddenly regained his energy and squatted shoulder-to-shoulder with Sun Shaozong in front of the weeds, staring wide and carefully scanning.

"Eh?!"

Quickly, he let out a low shout and pointed to a piece of weed, saying, "This seems to be a mark cut by a sharp tool!"

Indeed, some of the leaves of the weeds were clearly cut off by sharp blades.

Sun Shaozong picked up two broken leaves from the ground and carefully examined the condition of the cut. After confirming that it was the mark left yesterday, he straightened up and looked around a few times, looking thoughtful.

"Brother Sun."

Jia Baoyu also stood up and asked curiously, like a baby, "Do these cut weeds have any special significance?"

Sun Shaozong shook his head first, then nodded. In the inexplicable gaze of Jia Baoyu, he casually took off the single sword from his waist, bent down, and aimed the blade at the weeds, sweeping it diagonally.

He then frowned and looked at the swaying grass. After a while, he handed the knife to his left hand and then made a diagonal cut like a gourd.

After observing, he finally hung the knife back to his waist with satisfaction and explained to the curious Jia Baoyu, "These cuts may not have any special significance, but as long as you are willing to study them carefully, you can still get a lot of useful information from them."

"For example, at least for now, it can be confirmed that one of those three thieves is left-handed and because he had a lot of emotional fluctuations at the time, that's why he vented his anger on these weeds and even cut three times in a row."

Jia Baoyu suddenly said, "No wonder you changed to holding a knife with your left hand!"

Sun Shaozong looked serious again and said, "However, these pieces of information are not important. What matters is that they are not specifically here to explore, but rather have some special purpose."

"Why would you say so?"

Jia Baoyu asked in confusion, "Is it also evident from these weeds?"

"That's right."

Sun Shaozong explained, "This place is closer to Fengyao Bridge. Whether chasing you or running away afterward, you probably wouldn't choose to leave from this direction - that is to say, this trace should have been left before they were startled by you."

"If you were a thief who seeks wealth and went all the way to the vicinity of Yihong Courtyard, now a garden that is unguarded, filled with valuable treasures and beautiful young women everywhere, would you have leisure in the forest, venting your emotions with these weeds?"

Jia Baoyu carefully considered it and shook his head vigorously.

"So, I guess they might have infiltrated the garden with other intentions, but they searched around and couldn't achieve their goals, so one of them lost control of its emotions for a moment."

Upon hearing this, Jia Baoyu's eyes were filled with admiration, and he couldn't help but ask again, "What exactly is their purpose?"

"Do you think I'm God?"

Sun Shaozong reached out and punched him on the shoulder, angrily saying, "With just a tiny trace like this, how can I analyze what their purpose is?"

As he spoke, he turned his head and took another step, saying, "Let's go and see if there's anything else we can see."

Jia Baoyu responded with a crisp voice and quickly followed suit. This time, instead of blindly groping around, he carefully searched for evidence, but he didn't see the clear gleam in Sun Shaozong's eyes as he set out again.

Although Jia Baoyu mustered up enthusiasm, no clues were found in the next two rounds.

Fortunately, the highlight of the forest was about to arrive, so Jia Baoyu was not too discouraged. Instead, he eagerly rushed to the bamboo pavilion and, like a treasure, surrounded the soil and stones that seemed like a map, flipping back and forth several times.

Sun Shaozong didn't follow him this time, but waited for Baoyu to see enough before coming forward and asking, "What's up? Are these things piled up according to your home?"

Although he has been to this garden more than once, when it comes to familiarity, how could Sun Shaozong catch up with Jia Baoyu who spends his days wandering inside?

"Hmm..."

Jia Baoyu hesitated as he squatted in front of the *”map,”* reached out his finger to pick up some of the stones, temporarily placed them aside, and pointed to the remaining part of the stones, saying, "If you only look at this part, it is similar to the layout near Qiushuang Pavilion, Nuanxiang Island, and Daoxiang Village, but there is a Lotus Pavilion in the middle."

Sun Shaozong immediately asked, "If we follow the pattern above, where should the Lotus Pavilion be located?"

Jia Baoyu's fingers swiped back and forth between several stones, firmly pointing to one of the open spaces and saying, "According to the pattern spacing, it should be around here!"

Without saying a word, Sun Shaozong immediately crawled to the ground and carefully pressed his eyes against the open space. After repeatedly checking for a while, he finally found two scratches that were even thinner than his hair.

He outlined the two scratches with a stone and drew a vague circle. The area was not far from where Jia Baoyu had just pointed out. He then got up from the ground and patted the dust on his body, saying, "It seems that there should have been a stone in this place, but it was accidentally or deliberately messed up by those thieves."

As he spoke, he suddenly had two more hands in front of him, and it was Jia Lian who came up and enthusiastically helped beat the dust.

Although Sun Shaozong felt a bit awkward, he felt embarrassed to refuse Jia Lian's kindness, especially since he was still begging Jia Lian at the moment.

Jia Baoyu frowned on the side and said, "Looking at the number of stones on the ground, the thieves may have already figured out the terrain inside and outside the garden."

"This..."

"Second Master, Second Master Lian!"

Sun Shaozong was about to speak up when he hurriedly ran into a family member outside and said in a panic, "Oh my god! The Old Lady said she was going to take Grandma Liu to the Garden, and now they are reaching the Grand View Garden. The Second Madam and other Masters couldn’t stop her. What do you think we should do?"

Jia Lian reluctantly withdrew his hand. Upon hearing these words, his face changed greatly and he stomped his feet anxiously, saying, "How could this be done?! It's being searched all over the mountains and fields now. If the Old Lady sees it, how can we still deceive her?"

Because Old Lady Jia was already frightened when she saw the stable caught on fire yesterday, no one dared to mention the incident of the Grand View Garden recruiting thieves in front of her at night.

Seeing Jia Lian's anxiety, Sun Shaozong reluctantly patted Jia Baoyu's shoulder and said, "It seems it's your turn to act again. Whether you're acting silly or pitiful, let's first drag the Old Lady back, at least until the entire Garden is searched, and let the maids and women return to their respective homes."

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