Chapter 53 Douzhu Leather Material
The year ended with the sound of firecrackers, and the spring breeze brought warmth to Tusu. Thanks to his clever tricks in obtaining the jade bracelet, his adoptive father had earned considerable respect with Shao Yanei, and the Xue family grew increasingly friendly, inviting them to numerous banquets. Yanru's first New Year after marriage was filled with extravagance and ease, guzzling fine wines and feasting on plump chicken and roast goose from the first to the fifteenth day of the lunar month. Even after picking her teeth thoroughly, the lingering taste of braised pork could not be shaken off her lips.
There is a lot of joy in the cave of gold and silver. Holding a jade cup and using ivory chopsticks, after eating and drinking, Yanru looked at Xue Jia charmingly and vaguely, and felt more and more that her choice back then was so correct.
Although, these good things did not belong to the Xue Mansion, but were enjoyed by other people's families.
But what does it matter? Being able to use it is already a great thing - it's at least greater than Zheng Sirui. Yanru has been immersed in the wine cups of the famous and prestigious families for a long time. She has gradually looked down on Zheng Sirui's insignificant official position and has been reluctant to interact with her old friend for a long time. However, there are few good places to have fun recently, and today happened to be Zheng Sirui's birthday. Yanru reluctantly agreed and temporarily lowered her status. She sat in the hall of Zheng's house and looked at everything inside and out with disgust: "Ruirui, is your stand made of bamboo? No, you haven't seen the Jijin lattice in my new garden. Although it is also bamboo, it is made of Xiangfei bamboo. You know Xiangfei bamboo, it is very expensive; well, this set of tea sets is beautiful, but it's a pity that it is not purple clay. It's a shame. You should get a better set; oh! Why are you still displaying your old books? It's not noble and decent at all. Throw them away and buy a hardcover bookstore like me."
Zheng Sirui was a little unhappy about her dislike: "There are my previous annotations on it, why throw it away? Besides, I can recite it by heart, why buy a new one?"
Yanru seemed to have become a well-informed expert, immersed in the pleasure of being superior and giving advice, and did not notice her friend's strangeness at all: "That's impossible! Look at you, you may not hold a high position now, but you are still an official appointed by the court. The furniture you use is either bamboo or ordinary wood. There is nothing to put on. You should at least hang some paintings. Look, the only nice thing is the screen of the reclining chair you are sitting on now - it looks nice, yes, but who painted it? There is no seal on this screen, and paintings without seals are worthless! Look, you are an official appointed by the court, but you don't have any valuable ornaments in your home. Then when others come to visit you, you won't have anything to show them. They will laugh at you."
"It doesn't matter. I'm in the government office every day, and few people are late." Zheng Sirui didn't care, playing with the tea set in her hand. "After deducting expenses from my salary, I have to send part back to Nanjing to help my parents build a house. If I spend the money on decorating the house, I won't be able to save a penny. Appearance is not as important as substance."
Yanru said, "You don't save what you should, and you spend what you don't need. After you passed the imperial examination, many gentry in Jinling were eager to curry your favor and buy you a bigger house. It's because your family didn't want it, otherwise we could have saved a lot of money."
"If you take something from someone, you'll be grateful. No one is a bodhisattva. If you accept such a generous gift for no reason, the consequences will surely be several times greater than the gift itself. I just want a quiet and happy life," Zheng Sirui said. "Anyway, I spend four or five hours a day at the Ministry of Revenue doing accounts, and when I get home, it's all sleep. I'm alone, and I only have four or five servants at home, including laundry and cooking. Why waste time on empty things? It's better to plan for the day when you have time than to think about the day when you have no time. I'd better save it. I'll feel at ease when I see and touch the heavy silver in my pocket."
Yanru remained silent and asked, "Why do you always say you're doing the accounts and reconciling the accounts? I heard that such trivial matters are usually handled by clerks, aren't they?"
Zheng Sirui lamented, "It's hard to put it into words. Those bastards especially dislike me—not me personally, but women. They either complain that women can't endure hardship or hard work, or they say, 'Oh, don't learn from you female officials. You'll be getting married in a few years, so it's useless to teach you.' In short, they're too lazy to teach me many things. They don't want me to touch or take on key positions. They just throw me into the warehouse to check the records and last year's account books, and I'm busy with the abacus every day." She complained, and suddenly realized that she had been talking too much and describing the affairs of the government office in too much detail. She changed the subject and said, "It's even more annoying lately. Do you know who my new boss is? Lu Zhiling!"
"Ah?!" Yanru exclaimed, "Why is he here?"
"I don't know either." Zheng Sirui smiled bitterly. "It's already annoying to reconcile accounts, and I have to see him all the time. It's really uncomfortable. He's annoying too. We've been married for more than two years, and our son should have started to learn to plant rice in the fields. Even if our colleagues don't know, we should still avoid suspicion. But he took the initiative to talk to me and asked me how I've been these past two years. It's bad luck! If it weren't for the rules, I would have set up a brazier in the Ministry of Revenue so that I could rush over and step over him whenever I see him."
"How despicable! Looking for trouble!" Yanru scolded Zheng Sirui bitterly. She was always lenient with herself and strict with others, and she couldn't help but feel thankful: Xue Jiayi had never had another lover before. Although he wasn't gentle with me, at least he only had me in his heart. If he had ever had a love affair in the past, like me and Liu Lang, or like Zheng Sirui and Lu Zhiling, and had fallen in love, I would have killed him!
As she was muttering, Zheng Sirui touched the coat she was wearing and said, "Hey, the material of your coat is so special, like wool, but not wool, and it's curled like beads."
She finally noticed my nice clothes! Yanru said proudly, "Isn't it? It looks good, right? This is a good thing that Xue Jia just got. A few days ago, I wore this when I went to Tiekan Temple with those ladies to burn incense. Among the women in the group, my clothes were the most expensive."
Zheng Sirui said, "It's indeed noble. Not only noble, but also a little...old-fashioned?"
Her words hit Yanru right in the heart. The dress was made of blue crepe, a large black mass, and looked old-fashioned for someone their age. This was not hers at all, but her stingy mother-in-law had asked Xue Jia to find it for her, Wang Xianyi, to wear. Yanru was jealous and even threw a tantrum, begging Xue Jia not to give it to her mother-in-law so that she could wear it to her heart's content. Fearing that someone would question her, she avoided the question and instead asked knowingly, "Do you know what this leather material is called?"
Zheng Sirui shook her head: "How would I know that? Tell me."
What a poor family! Yan Ru was very proud and shook her shoulders from side to side. "This material is called Yidouzhu, also known as pearl wool. It's expensive, but it's not hard to get. You just need to slaughter a ewe when she's about to give birth, remove the lamb from her belly, peel off the wool, and stick it on the wall. Once it's dry, you can make it into a mature hide. Then you can get this wrinkled material that looks like a ball. It's very easy, isn't it?"
Zheng Sirui shuddered, her arms covered in bumps beneath her winter coat. She rubbed them for a long time but couldn't get rid of the soreness. "Oh my god, you, you actually wore all that and went to Tiekan Temple to burn incense and worship Buddha?"
Yanru's smile was sweet, innocent and charming, but it was shrouded in an inexplicable, eerie aura. Unaware of anything amiss, she asked, "What's wrong? It's so cold up there, you should dress warmly, right?" This made Zheng Sirui suspect something was wrong with her, perhaps she was overreacting. She turned away, not daring to look at her material. "Nothing, maybe I'm just sick."
A bronze mirror, half a person's height, was installed in the hall, used by Zheng Sirui to adjust her attire when attending court. Yanru's legs, numb from long sitting, rose and walked toward the mirror. She assumed a swan-like stance, stretching her arms and gracefully spinning, twisting left and right. She felt increasingly impressed by her own rosy cheeks. Even in her mother-in-law's frumpy gown, she was still more toned than Xi Shi, more charming than Diao Chan, more graceful than Zhaojun, and more delicate than Yang Fei. Her beauty was effortless, yet breathtaking.
Such a beautiful woman, if she doesn't go out more often, instead of staying at home for Xue Jia, a stupid and ugly thing, to look at her, is simply a waste of natural gifts. On the fifteenth day, she will go back to Xue Mansion for dinner, and this Douzhu gown must be given to Wang Xianyi. She must wear it as many times as possible and show it off as many times as possible during these days to make it worth it. So, when she returned to Dai Garden, Yanru immediately rushed to Xue Jia, ignoring that he was tapping his feet, and hugged her husband's arm and said coquettishly: "My husband, I haven't gone out to play for a long time. I'm so bored."
Xue Jia thought it was outrageous: "You just came back from Zheng Sirui?"
Yanru said, "Her house is full of books, it's so boring. I want to go shopping, or go play with Shao Yanei and the others. My dear, your wife has been either in the pawnshop or in Daiyuan these days. She's so bored."
Xue Jia said impatiently, "There's nowhere to go, stop arguing. I need to rest. I have to get up early tomorrow. There's a new horse ranch opening in the west of the city, and my adoptive father wants me to go there on his behalf."
Yanru screamed, "You said you had nowhere to go! Xue Jia, you lied to me!"
Xue Jia said, "There's no place you can go. Why would you go to the horse ranch? You can't ride a horse, you can't play polo, and you can't shoot arrows. It's useless to go. You'll just sit in a corner by yourself, and I won't be able to have fun. It's better not to go. You can just wander around Dai Garden."
Yanru's face was as thin as a fried dough stick, and she refused to give in, crying, making a scene, and even threatening to go along. Xue Jia ignored her and simply blew out the lights and went to sleep. Yanru was furious, so she just threw herself into bed, kicking Xue Jia from time to time and stabbing him with her elbow. This annoyed Xue Jia so much that she cursed him fiercely: "Fuck you, bastard, okay, okay, I'll take you, don't bother me anymore! Go to sleep!"
Success! Yanru was overjoyed and finally let Xue Jia go. She turned over and thought carefully about how to amaze everyone tomorrow.
[Random Thoughts]: Hey sisters, this story has developed to the point where the couple does evil things, which has caused me some internal friction, so I've opened a new, lighter-style modern novel to participate in the long-form rally. I want to write a different (immoral) story and create a character who is entangled and hesitant. Everyone is welcome to give me some advice~
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