Chapter 103 Chapter 103 Shen Xuan and Xue Fenglin are in the Marquis’ Mansion…
Chen Xuan and Xue Fenglin stayed in the Marquis' Mansion for three full days. On the morning of the fourth day, Xue Fenglin took him to the Ye family. After that, he went straight back to Shen Xuan’s own residence and never went back to the Marquis’ Mansion.
Xue Fenglin didn't like living in the Marquis' Mansion, and Shen Xuan naturally felt that he was more comfortable living in his own home.
Although the house outside has only three courtyards, it doesn't even have a garden. But it was more than enough for Shen Xuan and Xue Fenglin to live in, and it was also much more comfortable to arrange for the servants.
Xue Fenglin directly asked Wuxin Wuwang to move all the dowries out of the Xue family's warehouse and store them here at Shen Xuan's place.
After Lord Xue found out about this, he got very angry again. Bai was even more angry and went to Lord Xue and said a lot of bad things about Xue Fenglin.
But according to the laws of the Great Jin Dynasty, Shen Xuan's dowry was his private property. Even Lord Xue had no right to interfere, let alone his stepmother Bai.
This incident only brought the relationship between Lord Xue and Xue Fenglin, which had originally become a little closer, back to square one, and did not hurt Xue Fenglin, who was about to leave for Sarawak to take up his post.
After Shen Xuan knew about this, he specifically asked Xue Fenglin why he was so anxious to transport the dowry out of the Marquis' Mansion?
After all, in addition to his private property, a large part of the dowry was Xue Fenglin's private property. It was previously kept in the Marquis's Mansion, so there was no need to move it out in such a hurry.
Xue Fenglin said to him, "If I were still an official in the capital, I wouldn't have to rush to move the dowry out. We can just wait until we set up our own residence and then move out with a legitimate reason."
"But we will leave for Sarawak in a few days. Without me watching over him in Beijing, who knows if Bai will instigate my father to do something again? It's better to be safe!"
Xue Fenglin had been dealing with the Bai family for so many years, so he naturally knew this opponent better than himself.
After hearing what he said, Shen Xuan quite agreed. So he ordered Suyun and Suyue to sort out and register the dowry one by one and put it into the warehouse.
This time he was going to Sarawak to take up his post with Xue Fenglin, so naturally not all the servants in the mansion could go with him.
Chen Xuan only planned to take Jinzhi and Jingui with him, while Suyun, Suyue and the others would stay in the mansion to look after the house.
Su Yun and Su Yue were originally attendants sent to him by the Ye family. If anything happened in the capital, it would be more convenient to ask them to go to the Ye family to ask for help.
Shen Xuan is going to Sarawak, so it will not be so convenient to manage the two shops in Beijing.
However, he had trained them well before, and the employees in the shop had always done their work conscientiously, so it didn't matter if he just let them do it.
Just to be on the safe side, Shen Xuan also specially entrusted Secretary Ye to help him supervise the account books. He only needed to help him check the account books handed over to him every month and look at the income and expenditure of the farm, and he would get a dividend of one hundred taels of silver.
After Ye Mi married into the Wang family, she had been in charge of a lot of the properties from her dowry. She was a good housekeeper, so this matter was no problem for her.
What's more, he could earn an extra 100 taels of silver per month, which means 1,200 taels of silver per year, which is comparable to the profit of a good shop! It is also a good income for him, so why not do it?
After settling all affairs in the capital, the day of departure approached.
A few days later, the document for taking office was officially issued from the court. After Xue Fenglin brought Shen Xuan to the palace to meet the emperor, they set off according to the plan and headed towards Sarawak.
The capital is far away from Sarawak. They first took a carriage and then took a boat when they reached the seaside. The journey took more than half a month.
Due to the limited number of carriages, it is not convenient to carry too much luggage on the road. Apart from gold and silver jewelry, Shen Xuan only picked out some necessary clothes, bedding, etc. to take with him.
Apart from Jinzhi and Jingui, Xue Fenglin also brought only Wuxin and Wuwang with him. Also, because they were worried that they would not be able to get used to Sarawakian cuisine, the two men discussed and decided to bring Cook Huang along as well, and let the rest of the servants stay at home.
They first took a car eastward, traveling during the day and resting at night, and finally arrived at Dazhou, a big city on the coast of the East China Sea four days later. Afterwards, we boarded a passenger ship to Sarawak with the car and people at Dazhou Pier.
This passenger ship is the Baoge, one of the largest sea vessels in Dajin, and has been traveling along the southeastern coast of Dajin. It is very famous for receiving guests and transporting goods along the way.
The ship has three floors, with the bottom floor being the cargo hold and the cheapest third-class cabins. The second floor is the second-class cabin, and the top floor is the first-class cabin.
Xue Fenglin asked Wuxin Wuwang to arrange the cabin, only to find out that the first-class cabins on the top floor had been fully booked! Only the second-class cabins on the second floor were left.
If you want to sit in first class, you have to wait until the Baoge returns from its round trip before booking, which means you have to wait a whole month!
There are six first-class cabins on the top floor, each with an annex for servants, a bathroom, toilet, study and kitchenette, and is fully equipped. I don’t know who booked them all at once, so Xue Fenglin and Shen Xuan couldn’t book any.
The first-class compartment was expensive, costing twenty taels of silver per room per day. It would take them at least ten days to travel from Dazhou to Sarawak, which cost four hundred taels of silver!
Such a price can only be afforded by the famous families in Beijing and the wealthy business families. It seems that the person who booked the entire cabin must be from a wealthy family.
The conditions of the second-class cabins are of course worse than those of the first-class cabins, but the rooms are still clean and tidy.
Shen Xuan specially asked someone to take him to see the second-class cabin. In addition to a small kitchen and a study, the cabin was also fully equipped with an annex room, a bathroom, and a toilet.
In addition to two beds, there is also an octagonal table for dining, which is enough for living for a few days.
"Just stay in the second class cabin. It's just for a few days. There's no need to waste too much time in Dazhou." Shen Xuan said to Xue Fenglin.
Xue Fenglin agreed with Shen Xuan's words. He and Shen Xuan had once shared the woodshed in Yunshui Village, so it was not impossible for him to stay in this second-class cabin for a few days.
So he asked Wuxin Wuwang to book two second-class cabins and parked the two carriages at the bottom of the warehouse.
Wu Xin Wu Wang specifically asked the captain to arrange them at the head of the second-floor ship's side, with an open deck in front of them. It was not close to the stairs leading to the ship and was also quieter.
The second-class compartment at the head costs five taels of silver a day, and two compartments to Sarawak will cost one hundred taels of silver. After all, things are valuable because they are rare. If you want to live comfortably on the Baoge, you can't save money.
After Shen Xuan and Xue Fenglin checked in, they waited for a long time until the boat was about to sail. Then I saw a group of people on the shore boarding the ship and heading towards the first-class cabin on the top floor.
In front was a young man in white and brocade clothes, surrounded by beautiful concubines, and behind him were several men of the same age. They were the ones who had booked all the cabins on the top floor of the Baoge.
After listening to the sailors' discussion on the boat, Shen Xuan realized that the young man in brocade clothes who was surrounded was Zhou Yang, the son of the prefect of Dazhou, and the three men of the same age behind him were the sons of wealthy businessmen in Dazhou.
They agreed to travel together on the Baoge along the southeastern coast of Dajin. In order to stay comfortably, the four of them paid to book an entire first-class cabin.
Shen Xuan saw that they were not very old, probably only about twenty-five or twenty-six, but their faces were already tainted with a lot of alcohol and sex.
Moreover, when the group boarded the ship, in addition to the personal servants and maids, they also brought beautiful concubines and dancers. Their behavior was even more flamboyant than the princes and kings in the capital.
He turned his head to look at Xue Fenglin, and saw that he was also looking at the young dandies with a frown on his face, with a look of disapproval, so he took the initiative to reach out and shake his hand.
Xue Fenglin then turned around and looked at Shen Xuan and said, "He is just the son of a prefect, but he is so arrogant. It shows that these local officials are usually far away from the emperor and there is no one to supervise them. They are all arrogant and don't know how high the sky is and how deep the earth is."
Xue Fenglin was also a prefect, but he was the prefect of Sarawak. Sarawak was a poor place, and the conditions were far worse than those in the developed Dazhou.
However, in terms of rank, he is on the same level as the prefect of Dazhou. Coupled with his status as a prince, his status is probably even higher.
The Baoge officially set sail only after all the playboys were on board and settled.
After hoisting the sail, the ship quickly sailed away from the shore. Before Xue Fenglin arrived in Sarawak to take up his post, he had some accumulated documents and materials that needed to be sorted out, so he started working at the eight-immortals table in the cabin.
Shen Xuan helped him grind the ink for a while, and seeing that he was concentrating, he was afraid of disturbing him, so he simply went to the deck to enjoy the scenery.
However, the Baoge was far away from the shore in the ocean, surrounded by endless sea water, and there was not much scenery to see. The only thing you can see is the various people on this ship.
Shen Xuan sat on the second deck of the ship, watching the people moving around on the deck below. He saw that the lower deck was much more lively than the second deck. In addition to those who were out strolling like him, there were even people doing small businesses directly on the ship.
Some people simply set up stalls and sold snacks and sugar paintings, which attracted a group of children to gather around, making the scene very lively.
There was also a wandering man who performed acrobatics directly on the deck, which again drew applause from the crowd.
Among them was a girl with a sweet face, about fifteen or sixteen years old, wearing a pink dress, who performed her unique skill of balancing bowls on her head on the spot.
She was dressed in pink, standing on one foot on tiptoe on a large wooden ball, swaying as she bit a bamboo pole. She also held a bamboo pole in each hand, with several porcelain bowls on the top of each pole.
The girl controlled the rotation of the wooden ball with one foot and jumped high into the air with the other foot, with a spinning handkerchief on her toes. She added more porcelain bowls one by one amid the cheers of the crowd. It was obvious that she had been trained in this skill since childhood.
When the performance was over, the girl shook her body, and all the porcelain bowls fell together and were held steadily in her hands.
With a kick as light as a swallow, she somersaulted onto the deck, which again drew cheers from the onlookers, who threw coins into the bag of the old woman who was collecting money next to her.
When Shen Xuan saw that the people who performed acrobatics to make money were actually a mother and daughter, he felt that their survival was not easy. He took out a ten-liang silver ingot and asked Jinzhi to help him deliver it to the mother and daughter.
But Jinzhi had just walked downstairs and had not had time to hand the reward to the mother and daughter. But I saw a few tall and strong guards approaching the mother and daughter, and said to the acrobatic girl with a frivolous look: "Girl, your blessing has finally come today. Our young masters like your performance very much, and asked you to pack up and stay in the first-class cabin."
"You should accompany the young masters to have fun these few days. As long as the young masters are happy, you will definitely be rewarded. If you can earn a few hundred taels of silver, you will have no worries about food and clothing in this life!"
Upon hearing this, the girl glanced at her mother beside her and took a step back, with a hint of fear clearly on her face.
The middle-aged woman stepped forward, stopped her behind her and said, "My daughter is not yet of age, she is still young and ignorant, and cannot please the young masters."
"Please go back and tell them that we are living well down there and we won't be going up."
"You are shameless!" The guards' expressions changed when they heard this.
He surrounded the mother and daughter, pointed at the girl and said, "You are lucky that the young masters like you. There are many low-class people like you in Dazhou, and the young masters are too lazy to even look at you. It's only on this boat, where there is nothing interesting around, that the young masters like you."
"I advise you to be sensible and not end up with nothing. It won't do you any good if you offend the young masters!"
Seeing that the situation was becoming tense, the guests who were originally watching dispersed one after another to avoid being involved in any trouble.
Seeing this, the middle-aged woman hugged the girl more firmly and said word by word: "Although my daughter and I are low-class people, we are also from an honest family. How can we tolerate your bullying? So what if you are rich? The Great Jin Dynasty also has its own laws. Don't go too far!"
Chen Xuan saw this on the deck and said to Jin Gui beside him, "Go down and call Jin Zhi and the mother and daughter up, and tell them that I want to see the girl perform the bowl-balancing performance again."
"Brother Chen?" Jin Gui looked at Shen Xuan in surprise, then immediately nodded and said, "I'll go now."
Chen Xuan asked him to go down and call people up at this time, which was obviously intentional, just to help the mother and daughter.
Although Jin Gui was a housewife, when he saw this kind of bullying, he seemed to empathize with the mother and daughter, and felt very sympathetic to them. He immediately trotted away.
Sure enough, the guards were still in a standoff with the mother and daughter. Jin Gui walked over directly, pulled Jin Zhi and said to the mother and daughter: "My brother wants you to go to the second floor and perform a bowl-balancing show for him. If you perform well, you will be rewarded."
When the woman heard that it was a boy and that he came at such a time, she immediately understood that this man might have sent his servants to help her and her daughter escape because he saw injustice. How could she not respond?
They immediately followed Jin Gui and Jin Zhi and headed towards the second deck.
The guards were unable to react in time and tried to stop it. But when he saw that Jinzhi and Jin Gui, who came to deliver the message, had decent looks, clean temperaments, and their clothes were exquisite and neat, better than those of ordinary people, it was obvious that they were not servants of ordinary families. Suddenly, I didn't dare to stop it.
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