Jiang Muyu looked over and blinked: "What's wrong?"

"It's okay." Qingsi quickly picked up the chopsticks on the ground.

"Don't use it if it's dirty, Yunyan, get him a new pair of chopsticks."

"Yes." Yun Yan immediately went downstairs and brought a pair of clean chopsticks.

Qingsi placed the chopsticks he had picked up neatly on the table and asked her, "Your Majesty, please tell me what you want to say."

Jiang Muyu picked up the bowl and ate, saying, "It's not too late to talk after we finish eating."

He had no choice but to wait for Yunyan to bring him chopsticks before continuing to eat from the bowl in front of him.

After Jiang Muyu had eaten and drunk his fill, he put down his chopsticks and simply rinsed his mouth. Yun Yan then cleared all the dishes off the table.

Jiang Muyu supported his head with one hand, tilted his head slightly, and looked at him across the table, his eyes fixed.

Qing Si felt a little uncomfortable being stared at by her, he lowered his eyelashes and dared not look at her, and asked in a low voice: "What do you want, Madam?"

She stood up and found a small altar and two white porcelain wine glasses from the cabinet by the wall.

She came back and sat down, opened the bottle, poured two glasses of light pink wine, and placed one of them in front of him.

"Try my new peach wine."

The pale pink liquor was set off by the white porcelain cup, and the aroma was mellow and tempting. But he did not move, and said, "Your Highness should drink less, so as not to lose your sense of proportion."

Jiang Muyu shrugged nonchalantly: "I'm not in the capital right now, so why should I be afraid of losing my composure?"

She picked up the wine glass and drank it all in one gulp. The wine slid down the corners of her lips and dripped onto her collar, creating a pink peach blossom on her plain clothes.

Fine wine and beautiful women, gorgeous colors and charming.

He stared at her, opened his mouth, and hesitated to speak.

However, before he could say anything, Jiang Muyu put down his wine glass and suddenly said seriously: "I came to you today to ask for a favor."

Qingsi nodded: "Your Highness, please feel free to speak."

"I need silver."

"How much do you need?"

Seeing his expression of "You name your price, I have plenty of money", Jiang Muyu raised an eyebrow: "Whatever price I want is fine."

"All right."

She stretched out a finger and said, "I want 10,000 taels... of gold."

"Sure." Si answered without hesitation.

Jiang Muyu was quite surprised: "Don't you need your master's consent first?"

Qingsi nodded again and said, "I can decide for this small amount of money."

Ten thousand taels of gold is considered small money?!

Jiang Muyu pouted and said sourly, "I really can't stand your upstart face!"

He raised the corners of his lips slightly, almost unnoticeably.

"When does your Majesty want it?"

"How about tomorrow?"

"Can."

Jiang Muyu looked at his nonchalant look and suddenly felt that she was asking for too little. It seemed that Liang Qingchen, that heartless guy, was so poor that he only had money left. She wanted at least one hundred thousand taels!

Qing Si tilted his head and looked at her: "My Lady, is there anything else you want to say?"

“No more.”

"So..." He was about to say goodbye, but was interrupted by Jiang Muyu as soon as he opened his mouth.

She said: "The business is over, but I still have some worries."

"Hmm? Please speak, Madam."

"The day after tomorrow is New Year's Eve. It's a bit lonely not being able to celebrate with my family this year. Can you come over and have a New Year's Eve dinner with me?"

He was stunned for a moment, his drooping eyelashes trembled slightly, and whispered: "Why me?"

She smiled and said, "Maybe it's because you saved my life, so I feel a sense of familiarity with you. And you are also his subordinate, so you can just accompany me on his behalf, okay?"

Qingsi opened his mouth, but couldn't say no. Finally, he nodded and said, "Okay."

Jiang Muyu poured himself another glass of wine, clinked it with the glass in front of him, and said, "I'll drink first as a sign of respect, you can enjoy as you please."

Seeing her drink another glass, he also picked up his glass and drank it all.

"It's getting late, you should go back early." After saying that, she put down her wine glass, stood up and walked inside.

His eyes followed her, and through the pearl curtain of the moon door, he saw her untie the belt around her waist, take off her outer robe, and walk to the bed.

He clearly felt his breathing becoming a little faster, and he immediately stood up by the table and fled out of her bedroom.

Behind him, Jiang Muyu walked out slowly, barefoot and wearing only an undershirt, leaning against the door, watching his hurriedly escaping back and smiling faintly.

This person... is really interesting.

…

Just after noon on the second day, two carriages stopped outside the courtyard, and twenty masked men in black walked in, carrying ten large boxes.

Yun Yan and Nanny Huang were both stunned, only Jiang Muyu was eating his snacks calmly.

They placed the boxes neatly in the yard. One of them walked up to Jiang Muyu and said respectfully, "Your Majesty, all the 10,000 taels of gold are here. Do you need to count them?"

"No need, I believe in the efficiency of Qingsi."

Jiang Muyu asked them to move all the boxes into the room and stack them neatly.

After they left, Yun Yan came forward and asked, "What does your Majesty need so much gold for?"

"Business." She chuckled and said, "In fact, I only wanted 12,000 taels of silver, but your master had so much money that he had to give me gold. I had no choice but to accept it."

"Uh..." Yun Yan was speechless for a moment.

How did she remember that it was the Empress who asked for it herself?

Jiang Muyu walked into the house, opened the box, and looked at the neatly arranged rows of glittering gold ingots. She smiled from ear to ear: "Madame Huang, we are rich now. We can at least kill a pig for the New Year."

Madam Huang also laughed cheerfully and said, "If your Majesty wants to eat, I will prepare a whole pig feast for you."

"Tsk tsk - I really like Madam Huang's idea. Yunyan, tomorrow you go to Zhou the butcher in town and pick out the fattest pig, and then hire a few people to help Madam prepare a whole pig feast."

"Okay."

All three of them were very happy and ordered two more dishes for dinner.

The next day was New Year's Eve. Yun Yan went to the town to pick up pigs early in the morning according to Jiang Muyu's instructions, and hired a few young and strong men to carry the pigs to the bamboo forest outside the yard to kill them.

The yard where they lived was on the hillside behind the town, with no other houses around. Not far from the yard there were several vegetable plots connected to a stream flowing down from the top of the mountain. In addition to the dense bamboo forest within a few miles, there was also an apricot grove and a plum grove on the top of the mountain. Now was the time when the plum blossoms were in full bloom, and the scenery was very pleasant.

Jiang Muyu was wearing a bright red long gown with a front opening and wide sleeves embroidered with plum blossoms today, and a red fox fur cloak with white edges on the outside, which made her skin look whiter than snow and as rosy as a peach blossom.

The young men from the town had never seen such a beautiful woman before. She looked like she came out of a painting.

However, when they saw Jiang Muyu take off his cloak, roll up his sleeves, and skillfully wield the butcher knife to cut a pork chop into pieces of similar size, they all felt disillusioned.

The sight of her chopping meat with an expressionless face was truly terrifying.