It was obvious that Aunt Zhang hadn't been on such a trek in a long time. She no longer cared about her manners or decorum. Her hair was a little messy, and her chest was heaving violently as she gasped for breath.

In fact, at the beginning, Aunt Zhang was still sitting upright in the carriage - as if she had undergone the most rigorous etiquette training.

However, this is not a straight loess road or even a cobblestone road in a pipeline or town. The mountain road is not only rugged, but also often has imperceptible bumps or potholes.

As a result, the shaking of this carriage is comparable to the electric rocking cars that modern children ride.

Children would laugh excitedly when sitting in this kind of toy that swings left and right, up and down, but for Zhang Ma's old bones, it was a torture, and it almost shook her whole body apart.

So the carriage had been traveling for less than a cup of tea when Aunt Zhang had to get off and follow Su Qingluan, supported by two little maids.

The two maids and the groom were fine, as they already worked hard from morning to night. This was just helping someone walk, which was no big deal compared to the usual heavy labor.

However, as a maidservant serving the old lady in the Xie Mansion, Aunt Zhang was able to be ordered to come and take care of the food this time. Although it was a bit hard, it was enough to show the master's trust in her.

But this "trust" is really "heavy" in many ways for Zhang Ma now - she hasn't walked on such a rugged mountain road for a long time. Even the shoes on her feet are luxurious and soft, but they are silk shoes that are very uncomfortable on the mountain road.

Su Qingluan originally wanted to walk slower and wait for the people behind her, but she didn't expect that her speed was comparable to that of an outing. The three people behind her were as weak as Lin Daiyu. Before they had taken a few steps, Aunt Zhang began to sigh and groan.

Su Qingluan rolled her eyes in front of him, but thinking about the other person's identity, she couldn't be sarcastic, so she could only calm down and ask, "Auntie Zhang, do you want to take a break?"

As soon as Su Qingluan turned her head and asked this, Aunt Zhang nodded immediately and asked the little girl to sweep the nearest smooth stone: "Why don't you rest here for a while?" Then she sat down panting and instructed one of the little girls to go back to the carriage to get some water.

Su Qingluan turned her head to look at the carriage - wow, they had been walking slowly for nearly half an hour, but when she looked back, she realized that according to their usual pace, it would only take a quarter of an hour to go back and forth!

The corners of her mouth twitched involuntarily: It was already noon, and compared to the distance to today's destination, this short journey was basically no progress at all, and could be considered standing still.

Although Su Qingluan was prepared to spend the entire day with Zhang Ma and her group picking wild fruits, she had no intention of leading this group of wealthy servants to sleep in the open air!

Su Qingluan thought for a moment, then stepped forward, suppressing her complaints. She bowed and said to Aunt Zhang, "Aunt Zhang, the journey ahead is not easy. There are often snakes, insects, rats, and ants in the mountains. Aunt Zhang is serving the nobles. If something goes wrong, the host family will suffer."

As she spoke, Su Qingluan glanced up at Aunt Zhang. Seeing she didn't refute, she continued, "From what I've seen, since Aunt Zhang has placed such high regard for those two sisters, their character must be beyond reproach. How about sending one of them to follow me into the mountains, while the other stays with Aunt Zhang in the carriage to rest?"

Mother Zhang agreed to the proposal without much thought.

So, Zhang Ma asked Liu Yue, one of the two maids, to go to the mountains with Su Qingluan, while Fu Feng stayed behind to serve him. As for the coachman, he naturally had to stay and take care of the horses and carriage.

Without Zhang Ma, the serious and rigid old woman, Liu Yue was just a little girl of fifteen or sixteen years old.

Obviously, judging from her plain clothes, Liu Yue was not a particularly useful maid in front of her master. However, perhaps because of this, Liu Yue did not have any idea of ​​being a "seventh-rank official in front of the prime minister" and treated Su Qingluan as if she were a little sister, lively and easy-going.

Although Su Qingluan is an adult in terms of mental age, since she traveled through time, she first had a younger sister who was three or four years old, and then had a group of friends like Tian Xing'er and Liu'er, as well as a girl named Liu Yunniang. In short, she is very experienced in dealing with teenage girls.

So one of them wanted to make friends, and the other was not on guard. After a few interactions, the two of them were soon chatting and laughing as if they were not out to do serious business, but just out for a leisurely outing.

Su Qingluan didn't mean to deliberately take advantage of the girl - that would be against her conscience and would have no practical significance.

However, she was still careful to keep the conversation focused on the nobles' usual taste preferences, and thus found out a lot of useful information.

For example, although the middle and lower classes generally had a sweet tooth in this era, and it could be said that "sweets were justice", that was precisely because ordinary people ate too little sweet food, and sugar was a very luxurious item in this era.

Even as a condiment, a considerable number of people cannot afford it, let alone as a raw material for making snacks?

But it is completely different for the upper wealthy class.

The reason why sugar became a food ingredient with sky-high prices was not only because of industrial and technological reasons that made it impossible to produce it in large quantities, thus becoming a "high-end product" where "scarcity makes things valuable", but also because of human factors - the aristocracy wanted to monopolize sugar, salt and other valuable industries such as iron ore, and restricted the flow of these items into the public.

Under the double pressure of objective factors and human factors, sugar has become a food ingredient with sky-high prices.

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