The second wife, while serving the old lady in the main room the other day, jokingly suggested that they, the second wife's family, should be separated from the main house.

The old woman was startled and patted her hand, "What nonsense are you talking about?"

Zheng Jin could tell from just one sentence that the old lady was unwilling, so he laughed it off.

But she was anxious. She really wanted to separate the family, to separate the second branch of the family, and then to separate the three brothers, Gu Jing, Gu Ting, and Gu Yan, as well.

That way, when the Anbo family settles scores with Gu Ting, her two sons won't be affected. Don't be fooled by how happy the other members of the second branch are now.

However, Zheng Jin's worries lingered. She always felt that the Anbo family would not suffer such a loss so easily.

Especially after exchanging the birth charts a couple of days ago, Xu Shaoqing said something nice: he was adopted by the Earl's third brother because the Earl felt sorry for his brother and wanted him to have both a son and a daughter.

But she always felt that the Earl's family couldn't swallow the anger of being schemed against by Gu Ting and Xu Shaoqing, which is why they kicked their daughter out.

Ever since Zheng noticed this trend, she has been causing trouble in every way possible. She seems to care nothing about Gu Ting's wedding arrangements, and not only that, she has also made things difficult for him at every turn.

She wasn't unaware that doing this would bring her a bad reputation; the servants in the manor all spread the word that although she seemed kind, she was actually not someone to be trifled with.

But Zheng Jin did not stop it at all; on the contrary, he hoped that the rumor would spread further.

Besides the old lady and the old marquis, the household also held them in high regard. The marquis's wife, needless to say,

The Marquis had long been annoyed by his younger brother, the Second Master, who was always causing trouble.

Zheng was not unaware of this, so she never dared to be competitive or ambitious, and was always very well-behaved.

But the second master is too troublesome. Last time, he smashed up the Jingzhao Yin's office, which made the Marquis very angry.

If it weren't for the old lady persuading the Marquis, he might have really given up on him, and it was clear that the Marquis was losing patience.

With such incidents piling up, how could the Zheng family not be panicked and terrified! Alas!

……………………………………

As the weather grew hotter, Lady Hou began to suffer from the summer heat, and Aunt Sun and Wang Yan pondered what delicious food to make to whet their appetites.

You should know that if you can get your wife to eat, the reward they receive will be quite substantial.

Aunt Sun has been frequently making soy milk and bird's nest for her wife lately, which adds a delicate fragrance of soybeans to the dish.

Seeing the soy milk delivered from the main kitchen, Wang Yan had a sudden idea: why not try making a cold noodle dish with iced soy milk?

Boil the iced soy milk in a pot, add salt, plenty of sesame paste, and white sugar.

The broth is soaked in ice for an hour, then cooked noodles, a soft-boiled egg, and some shredded cucumber are added. A few pieces of crushed ice are then specially chiseled out and added.

The flavor is very unique, both refreshing and rich, with the crispness of iced soy milk and cucumber, and the rich aroma of sesame paste. It's perfect for summer.

Wang Yan ran back to the small kitchen to get some jasmine flowers that had just been picked that morning and some green tea that had already been brewed.

With a clever idea, I brewed a cup of green tea iced jasmine soy milk in a large bamboo cup, and also put a few pieces of ice that had been chiseled into it.

Grandma Sun handed them over as well. A little while later, Qingping took a purse, opened it, and found two one-tael gold ingots inside.

This surprised and delighted the two of them. How could someone have given them so much?

Little did they know, Gao was suffering terribly from the summer heat and hadn't been eating properly for the past few days. He ate this bowl with great comfort and pleasure.

This practice quickly became popular throughout the household, and the key was that Aunt Su could get a copy of the recipe from her, so the whole household benefited.

After the two sisters, the Fifth Miss and the Eighth Miss, who lived in separate rooms, learned that the iced soy milk noodles came from the small kitchen, they brought over a basket of lychees and asked Aunt Sun to cook some delicious dishes.

This gave Aunt Sun a real headache. How could she cook fruit? Wang Yan went home again and could only offer kind words of advice to get rid of the two young ladies.

However, he promised to cook lychee dishes for the two ladies next time. The two nodded and then asked if they could drink lychee iced jasmine.

Chunxi knew how to make this, so she took the two of them to the small tea room and made two cups of it.

I also packed two new iced green tea soy milk jasmine drinks. Half a cup of green tea, half a cup of soy milk, and a few jasmine flowers on top.

The two left satisfied. Aunt Sun rummaged through the basket and found a few fresh lotus pods, which she gave to Chunxi.

Chun happily took the lotus seeds back to Granny Hua's room and peeled a plate of lotus seeds for Granny Hua and Zhixue to eat.

Zhiju wasn't in the house; it wasn't her turn to be on duty. She was doing embroidery in the front yard.

Recently, Zhiju has become much more reserved, although she still keeps a straight face and doesn't greet people when she sees them.

However, based on observation, they did not resort to any underhanded tricks, and it seems they have temporarily stopped framing the people in the courtyard.

Therefore, the maids of second rank and below in the courtyard have recently stopped being on edge, afraid of being schemed against.

They were relieved, but Zhiju had a really tough time lately.

Chun Cui's father was originally one of the accountants in the household. He was quite influential and could speak with all the managers.

Otherwise, Chun Cui wouldn't have been able to get back into the inner courtyard to work so quickly after being kicked out last time.

Seeing how quickly she had turned her life around, Zhiju had two reasons: first, she wanted to befriend her; second, she had given Chuncui advice when she stole things last time. Now she didn't want Chuncui to talk about it.

So he agreed to Chun Cui's request to try to transfer her back to the main courtyard, but the position in the main courtyard is one person per position, so it's not going to happen for the next three or four years.

She originally intended to test the waters with a few third-class maids, but to her surprise, not only did they not fall for it, but Wang Yan's madness also frightened her.

Chun Cui was getting annoyed because she hadn't received any news for a long time, so she kept asking people to pass messages to her these past few days.

At first, Zhiju tried to coax her, but after being contacted several times, she became really annoyed, and the two had a fight yesterday, which completely ruined their relationship.

Although she no longer had to worry about being scolded or punished for causing trouble in the courtyard, Chun Cui had completely offended them, and she had been living in constant anxiety these past few days.

Chun Cui was furious. If she hadn't kept it a secret and hadn't implicated Zhi Ju, would Zhi Ju still be able to work in the courtyard now?

But now, even if you go to complain, no one will believe you.

Just wait and see. If she can turn things around on her own, Zhiju won't get any credit!

………………………………

The next day, when Wang Yan returned home, she saw this basket of lychees and thought, "Let's make some lychee meat."

Peel the lychees one by one, remove the pits, crush them to extract the juice, and filter the juice through fine gauze.

Pound the pork hind leg meat with a knife, cut it into small cubes, add two eggs, and mix well.

Add salt, lychee juice, ginger slices, and starch to the meat and marinate for 15 minutes.

Heat oil in a wok, fry the marinated meat until golden brown and crispy, remove and let cool, then fry again for a second frying.

Next, prepare a sweet and sour sauce: heat sugar, rice wine, and white vinegar until boiling, then pour it over the sauce. A delicious sweet and sour lychee pork dish is now ready.

You can also sprinkle it directly with Sichuan peppercorn and plum powder for a slightly numbing, sour, and fragrant flavor.

Not only did the two young ladies find it delicious, but the lady also praised it. The lychee flavor was rich and refreshing, and the meat chunks were sweet and sour, making it very appetizing.

But the two young ladies got so engrossed in the food that they each took a purse and started whining that they hadn't seen any lychees in the dish, so it didn't count.

Qingqian personally led the two young ladies by the hand to the small kitchen in the backyard.

Grandma Sun and Wang Yan both laughed, and could only make another dish with large lychees in it.

Lychee-flavored chicken wings: Take four chicken wings from the main kitchen and remove the bones.

Add ginger slices, salt, pepper, and lychee juice, mix well, and marinate for 15 minutes.

Pitted lychees are chilled on ice for 15 minutes. Then, marinated chicken wings are stuffed with whole chilled lychees.

They took out the charcoal grill used for brewing tea around the stove, roasted the tea leaves until both sides were charred and fragrant, and gave two to each of the two young ladies.

I also had a cup of jasmine soy milk, and left completely satisfied. I even carried two more cups of jasmine iced soy milk with me when I left.

Grandma Sun smiled broadly as she saw the two off, and received two small purses filled with more than a dozen silver peanuts.