138 Extra 1

◎Always hand in hand◎

Song Jinyi left and went to the Western Regions with her dreams and love.

Li He was left alone to deal with the affairs of Jincheng. When she returned, Tuoba Jun gave her a hundred fine horses from the Western Regions, and sent Sui Yun and seven or eight followers to take care of her and send her back to Yunzhou.

It was the first time that Li He had seen such a scene. A chestnut horse stepped over the boundary marker. The mighty horses were like a flowing ochre river. The sound of horse hooves stepping on the frozen soil was as dull as thunder, which scared away the crows roosting on the dead trees in the distance.

I don’t know if this can be considered a betrothal gift.

Along the way, these one hundred horses were eye-catching. Whenever someone came to ask the price, Li He always replied with a forced smile that she was not selling them. She always felt that Song Jinyi had exchanged these horses for them in Yuedu.

How could she bear to sell it?

If possible, she would like to exchange this horse for Sister Jinyi.

After a month's journey, she arrived in Yunzhou. The old year had already passed and it was the third day of the new year.

She divided the herd into two parts, gave one to Song Yunting, and explained Song Jinyi's plan, which aimed to expand the Song's brocade business to the Western Regions.

Song Yunting obviously didn't expect that his sister would bring back such great news after going out.

They were busy dispatching personnel and goods, preparing to form a caravan to the Western Regions after the Lantern Festival.

A few days later, there was a heavy snowfall in Yunzhou.

Li He went to Qiaoge Street, but when he arrived there, he found that the place where "Chayuan" was originally opened had long been replaced by a dim sum shop.

She came back empty-handed and asked passersby, only to find out that they had moved to the place where Zui Liuxia used to live.

She went around and went over there again. Zui Liuxia originally had three floors. Although Chayuan was moved there, the distribution was still the same as before.

The first floor is the lobby, the second floor is the private room, and the third floor has the reception room and the accounting office...

She stood under the eaves of the corridor not far away, looking at Chayuan from afar. A thick red felt curtain was hung on the door to block the cold outside. After watching for a while, she saw the waiter opening the curtain and respectfully seeing off the guests.

She looked carefully and saw that they were all unfamiliar faces. She wondered if Zhang Jinfei and Sister Ruolan were in the building at the moment?

She hesitated and didn't go over immediately. She felt even more timid as she was getting closer to home.

She was wearing a short jacket embroidered with cinnamon rabbits and a circle of white rabbit fur on the collar. The tiny snowflakes wet the tips of the fur as soon as they touched her furry neckband, and then melted into a sticky ball. She wiped the snow spots on her sleeves with her red hands.

He walked over slowly.

The waiter at the door treated her as just an ordinary tea drinker, greeted her with a smile, and welcomed her in.

The curtain was thick and heavy, separating the inside and the outside into two worlds. The hall was warm, and the snow that fell on my body melted and evaporated in an instant.

She looked around and saw the Empress Dowager - now she should be called the Grand Empress Dowager - hanging in the middle of the hall, with the characters given to her hanging neatly.

The waiter thought it was her first time and introduced the place enthusiastically. She then asked a few questions as if it was really her first time and ordered a cup of winter limited edition milk tea.

Soon, the original milk tea with a rich milky aroma was served. She sipped it in small sips, and the past memories came back to her.

A thin, lotus-colored mist rose from the blue brick floor, dampening the sun like a drop of water on an old, yellowed piece of paper. In the small tea shop on Qiaoge Street, they gathered around Song Jinyi, watching her make her own milk tea.

It was the first time she knew that tea and milk could be combined in this way, and she jumped up and down in excitement.

It was really lively at that time, everyone was...

As she thought quietly like this, the milk tea in the tea bowl was empty without her noticing.

She finished her bowl of tea, as if she had just finished a dream, and licked her lips reluctantly. She called the waiter and said she wanted to meet Shopkeeper Xu.

Things are different now.

Chayuan is no longer the small tea shop tucked away in a corner, but a chain brand of tea shops that have opened all over the country.

Xu Ruolan was no longer just a small manager, but the general manager in charge of dozens of branches in Jiangnan.

It's not something that outsiders can see each other easily.

The waiter tried to persuade her to look at it for a few words. If it were in the past, Li He would have jumped up on the spot and scolded him, saying that he couldn't even recognize her because he didn't open his eyes.

Now that he was a few years older, his temperament had become much calmer, like Song Jinyi. He said to the waiter, "Just call your manager. If she wants to punish you, I won't comply."

Seeing her firm attitude, the waiter had to go upstairs doubtfully and called Zhang Jinfei.

Zhang Jinfei went downstairs and recognized Li He at a glance. He quickly walked down the stairs and said happily, "Why are you here?"

While laughing, he led me to the third floor. "If the master knew you were here, he would be so happy!"

The waiter stood there in a daze. He didn't expect that this "new guest" was actually a regular customer of Manager Zhang?

Seeing him standing there in a daze, Zhang Jinfei introduced them, "The Li He that Master always mentioned to you, Madam Li, is this Mr. Li."

The waiter was so surprised that his mouth opened wide at first, because it turned out to be one of the bosses he had never met before. Then he was secretly glad that his tone was relatively gentle and he didn't make things awkward.

After they left, he breathed a sigh of relief, then thought again: "When these odd jobs came in, they heard the old people inside mention the beginning of this store.

But... he looked at the backs of Li He and Zhang Jinfei, feeling somewhat puzzled, and thought: This Madam Li has returned, but what about the legendary Madam Song?

Li He went to the third floor and reminisced about the past with Xu Ruolan and others, and talked about the things happening in Huaiyuan City.

After hearing this, Xu Ruolan said with emotion, "I didn't expect Wuyang... to become the king of Xirong, and Ajin followed him to Yuedu... Hearing you talk about this, it feels like listening to a story..."

It feels like a dream and it doesn't seem real.

A thin layer of snow was still drifting outside the window. The three of them chatted by the fire until late at night, refilling the teacups again and again, until the morning light shone through the window lattice, stretching the shadows in the room very long.

Li He stayed at Xu Ruolan's house to rest for a few days, and then went to Liuxiangju with Xu Ruolan to visit Cheng Xia and talk about selling tea to the Western Regions.

Cheng Xia's reaction was as Song Jinyi expected. He did not agree at first, but when he saw that the Song family's brocade was shipped to the Western Regions in batches, he became interested.

She asked Li He to write a letter for her, bought the remaining fifty horses from the Western Regions, and started to busy herself with the other business.

The flow of tea and silk, the two most profitable commodities, to the Western Regions inevitably attracted the attention of others.

The news spread like a fermented steamed bun, "bang bang" and spread not only in Hexi County, but also in Yunzhou and even Shengjing.

Some businesses close to Hexi County, such as cloth merchants, porcelain merchants, and even rouge and powder shops, wanted to establish connections with Song Jinyi and use her name to open up sales channels in the Western Regions.

*****

Li He was busy with business in Yunzhou for more than half a year. During this period, he received a series of urgent letters from Shengjing, so he had to bid farewell to Xu Ruolan and return to Shengjing.

Zhang Yao waited in Shengjing for half a year, only to see Li He come back alone. When she learned about what happened in Huaiyuan City, she immediately jumped up and declared that she would go to Yuedu to bring her master back.

It took Li He and Ru'er's persuasion to finally convince the man to stop.

Everyone in the Tao works hard,

The wind blows the same even across thousands of miles.【1】

Li He picked a fine day and went to the outskirts of Shengjing. It was already early autumn. The deserted place had been renovated after a whole year, with new buildings, courtyards, pavilions and halls built, making it look like the Peach Blossom Spring in a picture book.

It is built on the mountain and beside the water, which makes it very elegant.

The hot spring project was completed in early summer, but the person in charge could not come back, so the hot spring villa was left alone. Zhang Yao missed them and came to clean it from time to time, so the corners were clean and there were no weeds.

As the weather gradually got cooler, the timing was perfect for Li He to take over the business of the hot spring villa.

At the beginning, Li He was a little overwhelmed. She worried every day whether there would be situations that she could not handle well and whether customers would dislike this business model.

How to control the water temperature of the hot spring, how to set the menu, and even what to write on the plaque at the gate, she spends a lot of time thinking about every little problem.

Fortunately, this business model does not require her to spend too much effort. The unique environment and dishes have attracted many diners.

The guests walked in along the stone path and looked at the steaming hot spring pool and the clay pots on the edge of the pool. They all felt fresh and new - this was different from the common restaurants in Beijing. There were no complicated rules, but it was as comfortable as a farm stay in the countryside.

Some people gathered around the stone trough where hot spring eggs were being boiled, and when the eggshells were cracked open, the runny yolk rolled out, steaming hot. Some people ordered a whole table of hot spring dishes, with fresh fish and seasonal vegetables dipped in warm soup and a special sauce, leaving their mouths full of sweetness.

After a while, Li He was able to stand on his own and became the real "Shopkeeper Li". He also accepted an apprentice named Qiu'er.

The days passed quickly in the busyness, and the New Year was approaching in the blink of an eye.

Li He received a letter from Song Jinyi.

She hurriedly opened it, and familiar handwriting appeared on the paper: "Ah He, it's nice to see you in person... Business is good. I'm thinking of going to Dayuan further west. I heard there's a special printing technique there that I might be able to imitate...

"By the way, how's the hot spring villa you took over? I found several special spices here that Daxia doesn't have. They're sweet and delicious, maybe they can be added to the dishes..."

"I might be able to come back in the spring of next year and bring you something. Is there anything you'd like to see?"

Li He read the letter, and the corners of her mouth couldn't help but curl up. Outside the window, the snow began to fall again, landing on the red lanterns, spreading a warm red.

"In the future... I will go back." Li He read these words written by Song Jinyi in the letter over and over again, and his fingertips rubbed the edge of the letter until it became hairy.

At that time, she didn’t understand the true meaning of “later”. It could be a few days, a few weeks, or even a few years.

Days are like sand between your fingers, the tighter you hold them, the faster they flow away.

The peach trees planted in early spring have borne fruit, and new buds have sprouted after the fruits have fallen. In the blink of an eye, another year has passed.

The business of the hot spring villa has long been stable, but there is still no definite news about Song Jinyi's return date.

Li He would occasionally stand in front of the courtyard gate and look at the cars and horses passing by on the long street, always hoping that the next car would carry that familiar figure, but every time he would only wait for a gust of wind, blowing up the fallen leaves on the street, leaving him feeling empty.

【Author’s words】

【1】-"Presented to My Fourth Brother Ji"