Chapter 8: The Fu Family with Large Land and Small Population
This breakfast shop is located in a small village at the foot of a high mountain in Youzhoutai. Xie Zao Zao ran hundreds of kilometers at lightning speed and arrived directly at the door of the Fu family.
There were quite a few people in the breakfast shop, which is a time-honored brand in Youzhoutai. Their signature wontons were made with thin skin and large fillings, and the soup was salty and delicious. One bite filled your mouth with fragrance.
Therefore, even if a young man with a pale face and covering his mouth came in from the door, making retching sounds as he walked, it did not affect Xie Zaozao's appetite.
The young man was Shuyue. He looked left and right, up and down in the air until he vomited and returned home dejected. He sat at the table for a long time before recovering and said to his servant Ah Xing, "That man definitely did it on purpose. He was afraid that others would track him down, so he scattered his spiritual power so that no one could find him."
"That's too mean. Even you can't stand it. How crazy is the spiritual power dissipation?"
As the two were talking, Xie Zaozao walked past with the sixth bowl of wontons. Shuyue was startled, but soon became depressed again.
"What's wrong?" Axing asked.
"I seemed to feel that person's spiritual power again just now..." Shuyue felt like vomiting when she smelled this smell, "Ugh..."
"You've said this at least eight times since I helped you here. You should get some rest."
Shuyue ate a few bites pitifully, then felt so nauseous that she wanted to vomit. In the end, the two of them turned around and left without touching much of the food on the table.
Shuyue's pitiful voice came from afar: "Master said that the person who drew the talisman is a talent. It would be great if we could find him. I am such a loser..."
Ah Xing consoled him, "What if he comes to the Fu family on his own one day?"
Xie Zaozao was completely oblivious to the conversation between the two and was concentrating on eating wontons.
A few young girls were sitting at the table next to them, gently biting the sugar-coated pancakes and muttering to themselves.
"The Fu family used to recruit a group of maids and servants every year, but in recent years, they haven't recruited any new people. Instead, many of the old ones have been dismissed. It's really strange."
"What's so strange about that? The head of the family has changed. Before, it was Mr. Fu Wenqiong, and now it's his nephew Fu Yanzhi. This young master is really eccentric. He said that it's not the number of servants that matters, but the quality of the servants. When demons were rampant, all the sorcerers formed an alliance to protect the people. Other families would send out at least three or five people, and sometimes dozens of people. But Mr. Fu went out alone. Later, his personal attendant followed him no matter what. It seems that this was because his master would starve if he went out alone."
"Is that really an exaggeration? These days, sorcerers are incredibly valuable. I heard that the third young lady of the Wei family in Linqiao has twelve maids, and even has someone dedicated to tending the hand basin. And Mr. Fu only has one person with him?"
"In fact, we don't need that many people, but warlocks are all about appearances. Look, if there was a quarrel in my family, and I had a choice between two warlocks, one with twenty servants and the other with only two, I would definitely choose the one with the first one."
"So Mr. Fu must be dissatisfied with his nephew's lack of style, so he has started looking for a new person."
A few girls chatted for a long time, then got up and left in a hurry after dinner, saying that they were going to queue up to compete.
Xie Zao Zao slowly finished his wontons, paid the bill, and headed in the direction the girls indicated.
The system teased Xiao Lihua cheerfully, "We're so lucky."
But this feeling only lasted until the gate of Tingshui Pavilion in Fujia Villa, and then came to an abrupt end.
To be exact, it didn't even see the gate. It only saw a dense crowd of people, like a group of hungry ants suddenly smelling sugar and rushing out.
There is such a plot in the original book. After the Fu family changed its head, they did not recruit any new people to Tingshuixie for five years, and the old people were used less and less. What's more, Tingshuixie was built on a huge land, and without enough servants, the whole villa would look very weird.
The Fu family has more than 200 servants in total, and there are more than 60 children who come to study at the Fu family. They all live in the school on the mountainside, and nearly half of the manpower is used to manage them.
Tingshuixie is so huge that it can be said that the entire mountain belongs to the Fu family. Apart from the school, places for practicing rituals and making props, there are more than a hundred courtyards for people to live in.
In some uninhabited courtyards, there is not even a person to do the dusting, and in the other courtyards where people live, there are only two people in each courtyard.
It's okay during the day, but it's over once you're on duty at night.
One of them was asleep, while the other was guarding the courtyard gate. The master woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't see anyone. After shouting for a long time, the door creaked open. The servant or maid on duty said like a ghost: "Master, you're awake..."
Mr. Fu Wenqiong was almost frightened to death in the middle of the night one day.
The reason was that he was in a daze and thought the boy who pushed the door in was a demon. He slapped eighteen pieces of talisman paper on his head but it had no effect.
I thought the Demon King was coming! I even took out the Qiankun Mirror.
After trying for a long time without any response, he swung his hand and hit the boy on the head, giving him a stiff neck. He had to rest for seven or eight days before he recovered.
During this period, there were few people in Mr. Fu's courtyard. For example, if he wanted to drink some sweet soup and soak his feet after dinner, he would have to wait for his maid to bring the food, collect the dishes, and then go to make soup and bring the footbath water...
After a day's work, the delicate little maid still had to keep watch at night. After a few days, her eyes looked like they had been punched by two fists. She was so tired that she would sit on the ground and cry, as if her whole family had died.
Mr. Fu collapsed.
He was a leading sorcerer, after all, so how could he live like a pack of rats guarding an empty granary? The basement was filled with so much gold, silver, antiques, jade, and gems it was practically covered in cobwebs. His nephew still ate porridge and side dishes every morning. The entire Fu family was incredibly slender, running themselves dry without any oil or water!
So he scolded his nephew severely, saying it was so outrageous!
Fu Yanzhi had no idea about these things. If someone wanted to stay, they would stay; if they didn't want to stay, they would leave. He never tried to keep them and was obsessed with metaphysics all day long.
Once there was a little maid who came here excitedly, wanting to be Fu Yanzhi's personal maid. However, she ran up and down the mountain every day, but she didn't see Fu Yanzhi for three years. Finally, she became discouraged and went down the mountain. On the way, she encountered bandits. The bandit leader opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, the little maid ran away and disappeared in the blink of an eye.
More than a dozen burly bandits with knives chased for a long time but failed to catch up.
Mr. Fu Wenqiong was so angry about this that he broke his walking stick, and Fu Yanzhi also agreed to expand the staff.
This is how the current grand occasion came about.
Xie Zaozao had no interest in these things. She simply wanted to complete the task, and in order not to cause unnecessary trouble, she also collected all her spiritual power.
The girls in the team were chatting quietly, but suddenly someone exclaimed, "It's the Fu family disciples from the academy."
Everyone turned their heads.
I saw a few disciples of the Fu family's mysterious arts masters walking over from a distance, three men and two women. The men were handsome and the women had beautiful features.
They all wore a white base shirt with a smoky gray outer robe, and the Fu family's unique yin-yang pattern was embroidered on the hem with silver silk thread. It was the unique clothing of the disciples, which made them look more noble.
Most of the people queuing here were wearing coarse cloth clothes. Except for a few who were good-looking, the rest were ordinary people. They were either fat or short, or had a bad figure, or had a bulbous nose. In short, they looked like the kind you wouldn't see on the street.
The two lines on the left and right were standing very close to each other, but at a glance, one could tell that they were clearly divided into different classes and were not from the same world.
The people around him looked at him enviously and whispered, "That's great, he's a disciple of the Fu family. I heard that once you join the Fu family, even if you're not a proper mystic, you'll be respected outside."
"That's great. I want to go too. I heard the disciple selection will also be held in these few days."
"Give up on this idea. You can't even pass a spiritual power test. Just be a good servant."
The maids around showed envy on their faces as they looked at these disciples of the Fu family. Fu Yanzhi and the others would definitely not meet them, so it would be great if they could establish a relationship with these disciples.
"How can they look down upon people like us..."
Xie Zaozao also followed the crowd's gaze and saw a familiar face among the group of disciples - Song Qiaoyue.
She was looking at the group of people applying for maids and servants, her face full of disdain: "Let's stay away from these people, they are all dirty."
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