Chapter 138 Chapter 138 Returning Home
Xuanji Yunduotang shops are flourishing all over Dajin, and as the owner of the shop, Shen Xuan can't just ignore it.
Every year at the turn of spring and summer, Shen Xuan would inspect and take inventory of the top ten shops in all parts of Dajin one by one.
After Shen Xuan left the shop in Jizhou, he came to Lezhou.
He now comes to Lezhou once a year, and for convenience he has already bought a small house in Lezhou city.
The small house is not big, with only three entrances, just enough for him and a few others to stay.
However, the location of the house is very good, it is near Lezhou Academy and only a five-minute walk from Xuanji Yunduotang shop.
Having done business in Koi Street for several months, Shen Xuan was quite familiar with Lezhou City.
That day, after he had breakfast, he walked to the shop alone without taking his servants with him.
As soon as he walked near the shop, Shen Xuan saw a familiar figure.
The woman was not tall, thin and small. She was wearing a fine cloth dress and had her hair tied up. She was standing in front of the counter, holding a five-year-old child in one hand, queuing up to buy cloud candy.
"Little Sister Zhong?" Shen Xuan raised his eyebrows and recognized the identity of the woman in front of him at a glance.
After he met Zhong Ge'er in Southeast Asia, he asked someone to go to Lezhou to deliver a letter to Zhong Xiaomei when he returned to Beijing.
However, after the messenger found the embroidery workshop, he didn't find Zhong Xiaomei, so he had to give up.
Afterwards, Shen Xuan returned to Lezhou and went to the embroidery workshop to inquire in person. I just found out that Xiaomei Zhong stayed in the embroidery workshop for three years, and then she left on her own initiative. She didn’t return to Yunshui Village, and no one knew where she went...
Shen Xuan didn't expect to meet Zhong Xiaomei again after so many years. When Zhong Xiaomei heard someone calling her, she looked up and found that the young and handsome rich boy in front of her was Shen Xuan.
When she parted with Shen Xuan, although Shen Xuan had become rich, he was only a wealthy farmer. Later, she stayed in the embroidery workshop and heard little news about Shen Xuan, and she didn't know that he had been taken away by the Marquis' Mansion.
When I saw him suddenly today, I realized that Shen Xuan was wearing top-quality clothes and his temperament was better than before. I couldn't help but be shocked.
But thinking back carefully, Shen Xuan was out of tune with others when he was in the village, so it was not too surprising that he had the good fortune he has now.
Shen Xuan was considered Zhong Xiaomei's savior, and Zhong Xiaomei was excited when she saw him. He didn't even bother to settle the bill, and immediately took the child out of the team, came to Shen Xuan and said, "Brother Shen, I didn't expect to see you again!"
He patted the kid on the head and said, "Quick! Call him Uncle Chen! This is your mother's adopted parent. You must recognize him when you see him in the future and respect him as if he were your own uncle!"
Shen Xuan was delighted that he suddenly got a nephew for nothing. Instead, he casually took out a ten-liang ingot of silver from his sleeve pocket and prepared to give it to the child as a gift.
When Zhong Xiaomei saw this, she became anxious and quickly pushed it back. She said to Shen Xuan very earnestly: "Brother Shen, your gift is too expensive. My child can't afford it!"
"Besides, I've been married for the past few years and my life has been pretty good. It's all thanks to you, Brother Chen. I haven't paid off the favor I owe you before. It would be outrageous if I continued to owe you!"
"Okay, I was rude." Shen Xuan put away the silver and nodded.
He has been used to giving rewards in recent years, and he would just give a few taels of silver to the servants around him. He did not take into account that these ten taels of silver were not a small sum for ordinary people. If they were not greedy for cheapness, ordinary people would not be able to afford such a heavy gift.
However, it is not easy to give money directly, but some candies and snacks are fine.
Seeing that Zhong Xiaomei's child was still young and at the age of being greedy, Shen Xuan took out a food box full of Xuanji Cloud Candy and handed it to him.
"This! This cloud candy is very expensive! Such a big food box will cost at least three or four taels of silver. You can't use it!" Zhong Xiaomei tried to stop it.
"It's okay. This shop is owned by me. These candies are a gift from your cheap uncle. Don't refuse, little sister Zhong." Shen Xuan stuffed the food box into the baby's arms without hesitation.
The kid was already craving for candy, so when he took the candy box, he held it in his arms and was unwilling to let go.
Zhong Xiaomei really couldn't grab it. Seeing this, I had no choice but to give up. Only then did she know that this Xuanji Cloud Candy was originally made by Shen Xuankai, no wonder his outfit looked so impressive!
"Brother Chen, you are so capable that you opened such a big shop! You and Master Lin are both capable people!" Sister Zhong said admiringly.
Shen Xuan knew that she didn't know her background, so he didn't say much. She just smiled and said, "I see you're doing well. I wonder where you went after you left the embroidery workshop?"
When she heard Shen Xuan asking about her own affairs, Zhong Xiaomei began to talk about her experiences over the years.
She worked as an apprentice in an embroidery workshop for a year. After learning some simple needlework techniques, she started working for the workshop. By the third year, the embroidery skills had become very skilled.
Zhong Xiaomei has been working with rough hands since she was young, and her aesthetic taste is not very good as she comes from the countryside. She can neither design patterns nor embroider overly detailed patterns.
But she was diligent and quick, and according to the patterns provided, she could embroider at least four or five handkerchiefs with complex patterns a day.
Even if you only earn five cents for a handkerchief, you can still earn more than twenty cents a day!
When she works hard in a month, Zhong Xiaomei can earn more than 600 Wen. You can earn one tael of silver in two months, which means six or seven taels of silver in a year.
Not to mention in Yunshui Village, even in Lezhou City, Zhong Xiaomei's income is considered good. As an ordinary woman, she earns more than many grown men!
"The owner of the embroidery workshop treated me very well, and I also had a good relationship with the sisters in the workshop. I originally planned to stay in the embroidery workshop for a few more years..." Sister Zhong sighed and said, "But that day I went out to play on the street and was seen by an acquaintance in the village."
"Then they went back and told my parents, and they went to Lezhou to look for me the next day," said Zhong Xiaomei.
"You know my parents. They only care about my brother and never treat me as a human being. I heard from the villagers that my brother is lazy and greedy. He has a bad reputation in the village and can't find a wife at all."
"My parents turned their attention to me and wanted to bring me back to exchange me for my brother!"
Zhong Xiaomei had finally escaped from the wolf's den, so how could she be willing to go back? So she took advantage of the fact that her parents were still unable to find an embroidery workshop. He packed his bags and ran away overnight!
In order to avoid them, he even fled directly to Huangzhou, 200 miles south of Lezhou! It was not until he got married and had a child there, and his child was three years old, that he dared to return to Lezhou.
"My current husband is a bricklayer in Huangzhou Town. He may not be anything special, but he is young, hardworking and willing to work." When Zhong Xiaomei mentioned her husband, a shy look like a girl appeared on her face.
"He got a job in Lezhou these days, so I came with him. My husband and I are bricklayers and sewing workers, and we earn more than 20 taels of silver a year, so we live pretty well."
"Brother Chen, I never dreamed that I would be where I am today. It is also thanks to you that I was able to lead me out of Yunshui Village, so that I can live such a solid and good life today!"
Zhong Xiaomei was content with what she had. Although she saw the wealth of Shen Xuan in his gorgeous clothes, she did not feel that her life was so bad.
Shen Xuan was very comforted to see that she was now living a rich and smooth life. With just a little effort, he changed the fate of this woman's life, which was a good deed for him!
Compared with Zhong Xiaomei's open-mindedness and gratitude, Shen Xuan suddenly thought of her brother Zhong Ge'er. So he told Zhong Xiaomei that he had met Zhong Ge'er in Nanyang.
Unexpectedly, upon hearing that Brother Zhong was not dead, Xiaomei Zhong was not as excited as Shen Xuan had imagined. Instead, he said very coldly: "When he left, he should have thought that I would take his place when he was gone."
"Since he doesn't have me as his sister in his heart, there is no brother-sister relationship between him and me."
"After all, he has married someone in Nanyang, so he should just live a good life. We probably won't see each other again in this life, so we should just live our own lives well."
Shen Xuan sighed a little when he heard this, and no longer said anything about Zhong Ge'er's time in Nanyang.
Zhong Xiaomei then said goodbye and left with her child. Shen Xuan saw her walking towards a strong young man on the street from a distance.
The man was quite tall and strong, and should be only two or three years older than Zhong Xiaomei. Although his face is not handsome, he is quite energetic and is a good match for Zhong Xiaomei, who is her current husband.
After Zhong Xiaomei left, Shen Xuan suddenly had an idea and decided to go back to Yunshui Village to take a look.
The next day, he called a carriage to take him back to the village. When the carriage arrived at the gate of the Shen residence, they found that the owner of the house had changed again. A country gentleman named Du moved in, and even the plaque above the door had been removed.
Shen Xuan did not get off the car. He just lifted the curtain and took a look, then sent the driver to grab a villager to ask.
"The Wang family used to live in this Chen house, but for some unknown reason their sons had a fight and divided the family property, so they sold the house and moved out," said a villager passing by.
It turned out that after Shen Xuan left, the Wang family had not lived in peace.
First, after Wang Xiaolian got married, she couldn't stand the torture and went crazy, so Nanny Wang insisted on taking her back from her husband's home.
Later, Nanny Wang had a falling out with the two sons of the Wang family over the issue of taking in Wang Xiaolian.
Now the Wang family has been divided into three families, and the house has also been sold.
Nanny Wang took Wang Xiaolian back to the old house, and the other two families each took some money, bought a new small house, and divided the two acres of land to live on their own.
The Wang family originally had a lot of land in Yunshui Village and lived in a large house. But with such a small amount of land, each family only got a few acres of land, and no one lived very well.
The villagers of Yunshui Village felt that the changes in the Wang family were retribution for their past evil deeds.
Little did they know that the Wang family's property was actually obtained because Nanny Wang occupied the Shen family's property. They were not good at business to begin with, and their crops were mediocre. Now that they had eaten up all their savings, they were reduced to their original state.
Hearing this, Shen Xuan thought about it, asked the coachman to take him to the village chief's house, and asked him to introduce Mr. Du, who now lived in the house, and spent one hundred taels of silver to buy the house back.
Although the Shen family's old house is big, it is old after all and cannot be considered very good. One hundred taels of silver is a huge sum of money in the village, and there is still some left over to build a new house.
Mr. Du was willing to do so and transferred the Shen family's old house to Shen Xuan without hesitation.
Whether before or after the time travel, Shen Xuan had no good memories in this old house. However, this is the old house of the Shen family after all. For the sake of Duke Shen and his wife, Shen Xuan felt that he needed to redeem the house.
After getting the house, Shen Xuan thought about it and hired a team of workers to renovate the house. Even if he doesn't live there, he can still renovate the house as a souvenir.
Unexpectedly, after the workers had been digging for half a day, someone suddenly came to report that they had found several wooden boxes underground in the back garden, and they came to ask Shen Xuan how to deal with them.
Shen Xuan was startled, only then did he realize that there was something buried in the garden of his old house.
When he looked over, he saw that the wooden boxes looked black and had not decayed even after being buried deep underground for many years. Upon closer inspection, although the wooden box looked unremarkable, it was actually made of dark wood. The lock was also made of high-quality copper alloy and had not rusted for many years. I wonder what was buried inside?
“Wash these wooden boxes and move them into the room,” Shen Xuan said to the workers.
After they delivered all the wooden boxes to the room, Shen Xuan thought for a long time before he took out a piece of copper alloy metal from his arms and tried to insert the iron sheet into the keyhole…
This piece of metal was the amulet that Lady Shen Guogong hung around Shen Xuan's neck when she asked Nanny Wang to take him away.
Because it was not good-looking and not worth much, it was never taken away by Nanny Wang's family.
This amulet looks strange, and from the outside it doesn’t look like a key at all. But after it was inserted into the lock of the wooden box, it unexpectedly opened the lock with a click!
Shen Xuan was shocked, and tried the key on several other wooden boxes, and all of them matched.
He choked slightly and opened one of the boxes.
The box was filled to the brim with gold bars, all of which were pure gold, with the words "Duke's Mansion" cast on the back!
It turns out that the things in these boxes were all the treasures that Duke Shen and his wife had prepared for Shen Xuan! It’s almost more than one thousand taels!
In other words, Shen Xuan was too young at the time, and I don’t know whether he forgot what Madam Shen told him or he didn’t understand it. I didn’t even know there were so many boxes of gold in the old house! That’s why Nanny Wang didn’t take away all those boxes of gold!
In fact, with Shen Xuan's current wealth, this thousand taels of gold is nothing to him at all...
And because it had been so long, he almost forgot what Duke Shen and his wife looked like.
However, feeling their deep love for him, Shen Xuan couldn't help but shed a tear, and said secretly in his heart: Dad, Mom, I am living a good life now, and you and brother are in another world, so I can finally rest assured!
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