Chapter 29
Yu Ying didn't dare to run around with so much money in her pocket, so she went back to Wu's Restaurant first.
Before returning to Wu Ji Restaurant, she bought a pound of lychees, planning to make lychee jelly for tomorrow's serving.
When she went out today, she brought a bag of dried fruit seeds with her, intending to use the restaurant's kitchen to make jelly.
Seeing that there were no customers in the shop, she went to make jelly first.
The cook left the kitchen to avoid suspicion.
After Yu Ying made the jelly, she asked the waiter to hang it in the well and pull it out when selling it tomorrow. It would taste better.
Originally they were going to wait until the afternoon before returning, but since Uncle Chen only took the two of them to the county town, they didn't plan to wait until the afternoon and said they would go back after having lunch at the restaurant.
Yu Ying did not eat in the restaurant, but went to buy two steamed buns, one for each of her and Fu An.
The two of them were so tight-fisted, as if they had not earned any money. But only they knew that there were several thousand coins in the backpack.
When we returned to Lingshui Village, it was just 3:00 PM.
The journey back was smooth and uneventful, and Yu Ying felt relieved.
After saying goodbye to Uncle Chen, she went back with Fu An.
She was just nervous, but she wasn't so nervous that she would panic at the slightest sign of trouble. However, Fu An was different.
Yu Ying lowered her head to glance at Fu An, who was standing upright beside her and looking around cautiously.
She whispered to him, "Be natural, just as if we had never been to the inn today."
Fu An glanced around, but didn't see anyone nearby. Then he lowered his voice and asked, "Am I obvious?"
Yu Ying smiled and shook her head: "Forget it, it's okay."
Fu An was a child, and even though he was nervous, others just thought that she had bought something good for him, so he looked like he was guarding against thieves.
But she is different. If she looked like this, people would probably be suspicious.
Yu Ying took Fu An back home with a calm expression.
When Xiao Funing saw Yu Ying, he immediately went up to her and grabbed her sleeve.
Fu An called out to Luo Shi in the yard: "Grandma."
Yu Ying also called out to Mrs. Luo, then smiled at Fu Ning and said, "Come with me. I've bought you something delicious."
Although Mrs. Luo couldn't see, she knew that Liu Niang was busy from the first light of day, not even having time to drink a sip of water. So when she heard this, she said worriedly again: "Liu Niang, you should stop wasting money on snacks for the children. Just take care of yourself."
Yu Ying didn't explain too much and replied softly, "I saved it."
She turned to look at Fu An: "Come too."
As she spoke, she was about to walk towards her house with Fu Ning's hand when she glanced at the house where Fu Wei was.
The straw curtains on the window were rolled up. Yu Ying met Fu Wei's gaze behind the window, and the next moment, a bright smile appeared on her face.
In Fu Wei's eyes, that smile was brighter and more dazzling than the sun outside.
Perhaps it was because joy was contagious, the corners of Fu Wei's lips unconsciously curled up slightly.
Seeing her smile so bright, he knew that what she had tried so hard to do had been accomplished.
Yu Ying withdrew her gaze, planning to give the candied haws to Fu An and Funing first, then count all her property, and discuss the redemption with Fu Wei later.
In the past, her family was well-off and she never worried about money, so she never had the pleasure of counting money. But after arriving here, counting money has become her greatest pleasure.
Some time ago, every time she counted, even if there were only a few more copper coins, she felt that there was hope for the future.
After washing her hands and entering the house, Yu Ying took out the candied haws wrapped in oil paper from her backpack.
Little Funing didn't know what was inside the oil paper, he just stared at it curiously with his big eyes.
His sister didn't know, but Fuan knew what it was. Thinking of the red fruit, he felt his saliva was about to overflow from the corners of his mouth, and he quickly swallowed.
Fuan had never eaten candied haws before, and had only seen Aunt Cuilan's youngest son eat it once.
At that time, he really wanted to know what candied haws tasted like, and he even dreamed about candied haws.
But he knew the situation at home, so he never asked his grandmother for anything, and he even warned himself not to think about the candied haws anymore.
However, the thing he dared not think about anymore was now right in front of him, and he was so nervous that he didn't even dare to breathe.
Yu Ying slowly pulled aside the oil paper, and two strings of red candied haws appeared before their eyes.
Fu Ning looked at the candied haws, his eyes widened, and he was stunned for a moment, then hurriedly pulled his brother's clothes and kept pointing at the candied haws. Although he didn't say anything, his little actions said it all.
It seems to be saying - Brother, brother, look, it's a candied haws!
Yu Ying felt a little sad when she saw the excited expressions of the brother and sister.
Fu Ning is a child, and so is Fu An.
Yu Ying gave each of them a string of candied haws and told them, "Eat it at home. Don't let outsiders see it. Got it?"
The two of them held the candied haws in their hands and placed them in front of their eyes, staring at them intently, almost making eye contact.
Fu An came back to his senses from the surprise of the candied haws, and remembered that the money earned by his aunt must not be known to others, so he nodded quickly: "Ningning and I will eat it secretly and will never let anyone see it."
Seeing that Fu An knew what was going on, Yu Ying asked them to take it out and eat it.
The brother and sister went out with the candied haws. Yu Ying turned around and looked at the small thatched hut that could be seen at a glance.
Most of the firewood under the wall is gone, and we have to go chop it later.
Fu An mentioned that the firewood for the family was chopped by Uncle He, and sometimes he would help fetch water to fill the water tank.
His eyes moved away from the small pile of firewood and fell on the only piece of furniture in the room.
Each straw bed was less than three feet wide and only reached her knees.
She still had a place to lie down, but the grandparents and grandchildren only had to sleep on a straw mat on the ground.
The weather is hot now, so sleeping on the ground is fine, and sleeping on straw is even finer, but it is only temporary.
But I don’t worry about anything else. I’m just worried about snakes, insects, rats, ants, centipedes and scorpions appearing after the rain. That’s not all. In addition, the moisture on the ground will also be increased by the rain.
It had rained when she first arrived at this place, and fortunately there were no poisonous creatures around.
But after the rain, the three generations of grandparents and grandchildren seemed to have caught a cold. In addition, their bodies were already weak, and there was miasma in the mountains after the heavy rain, so they kept coughing for those days.
The bed was a problem, even a bamboo bed was better than sleeping on the ground or straw.
Now I have some money left after redeeming Fu Dalang and his wife, so I will definitely solve the bed problem now.
The money has to be spent before it even warms up. Thinking of this, Yu Ying breathed a sigh of relief.
Just as she was about to take the silver out of the basket, Fu An's voice suddenly came from outside: "Aunt, can you come in?"
Fu An changed his previous hedgehog-like attitude and now included her in his circle, his attitude was completely different.
Yu Ying put down the package for a moment and said, "Come in."
After a while, Fu An and Fu Ning came in from outside. Fu Ning was holding a bowl and a string of candied haws with only two fruits left in his left hand.
Fu Ning brought the bowl in front of Yu Ying, looked up at her with his little face, and handed the bowl to her.
Yu Ying looked into the bowl and found three candied haws inside.
"For me?"
Fu Ning nodded heavily, then looked at his brother.
Fu An said: "Three for my aunt, three for my grandmother, and two each for me, my sister, and my uncle."
Yu Ying was stunned for a moment, then took the bowl and said, "Okay, I'll try it too."
As she spoke, she picked up a candied haws and put it in her mouth.
To be honest, this candied haws is not very delicious. It is just red plums soaked in sugar water but not coated with syrup, and the sugar flavor is very light. Fortunately, the fruit is still sweet.
Seeing her eating the candied haws, Fu An Funing also took a small bite of the candied haws.
After taking a bite, both of them smiled, as if the candied haws, which didn't taste very good, was a delicacy to them.
After the brother and sister left the house, they stood outside and savored the candied haws they had eaten for the first time.
After looking at the two innocent children for a while, Yu Ying put the bowl aside, took out the heavy package from the backpack, and placed it on the bed.
Then he poured all the silver and copper coins in his purse onto the bed, and finally dug out the 140 coins hidden under the bed.
After all, there are 5,000 copper coins in five strings of cash. I don’t know how long it will take to count them all, and I may not be able to count them all smoothly.
She put the five strings of cash, the one hundred and forty coins, and the small change aside, and then counted the scattered copper coins.
Finally, after adding the copper coins and exchanging them for silver, the total amount was about nine taels and seven hundred coins.
Although it only costs more than seven taels to redeem Fu'an and Funing's parents, we may need to take care of other things, so we have to keep eight taels for the time being, so we still have more than one tael and seven hundred coins left.
One tael and seven hundred wen...
Yu Ying pondered for a long time, and counted out one or two hundred coins to do other things, or to keep for emergency use, leaving only more than two hundred coins for daily expenses.
After counting, Yu Ying took twenty coins and strung them into a small string, then wrapped the five thousand coins and three taels of silver with two pieces of cloth.
After Yu Ying finished all this, she called Luo into the house.
After Luo came into the house, she gave her twenty coins.
Luo Madam carefully felt the object in her palm and found it was a copper coin. Her face turned panicked: "Sixth Mother, what are you doing? Take it back!"
She hurriedly reached out to grab Yu Ying's hand, but couldn't find it.
Yu Ying took a step back and said, "I've made quite a bit of money selling medicinal herbs. I'm giving you twenty coins so that you can use them if you need anything urgently when I'm not home."
"No matter what, I can't take your money. You've helped our Fu family enough. If I ask for more money from you, I'll become a blood-sucking leech..."
At the end of the words, Luo's voice choked with sobs.
Yu Ying said slowly, "I can be good to you, but the premise is that you are good to me, and it is mutual. This kind of kindness is not about money, but about the trivialities of life."
The Fu family's grandparents and grandchildren, including Fu Wei, were not treating her well because they were afraid that no one would help them after she left.
Yu Ying can distinguish between sincerity and insincerity.
Luo said, "We are good to you, but that is all because of you being good to us."
Yu Ying reached out and closed Luo's palm, letting her hold the twenty coins. She said, "If you don't keep it, I'll give it to Ningning. Ningning is young, what will happen if she loses it? So you should keep it."
After Yu Ying persuaded her like this for a while, Luo Shi had no choice but to put it away. She secretly told herself to keep it and return it to her when she wanted to leave the Fu family.
After Luo left, Yu Ying collected the other copper coins, and then carried out a bag of silver weighing about thirty pounds from the house. Seeing Fu An looking at her, she put her finger to her mouth and made a soft "hush" sound to him.
Fu An was stunned for a moment, then he reacted and nodded.
Yu Ying reminded Fu Wei outside the house before entering the house carrying the package.
Fu Wei watched her come in.
Seeing the heavy bag in her arms, a hint of suspicion appeared in his eyes.
When he saw her looking out cautiously, he probably guessed what was in the package.
"Did you bring the silver?"
Yu Ying paused for a moment and looked at him in surprise: "How did you know there was silver in here?"
Fu Wei: "When you brought the Polygonum multiflorum in yesterday, although you were mysterious, you were not as cautious as you are now."
Upon hearing this, Yu Ying didn't keep the secret any longer and said directly, "I'm not always in the house, so I can't be there all the time. I'm always worried about something unexpected happening. Besides, I don't have a good place to hide it, so it's safer to leave it with you."
Fu Wei looked into her clear eyes, was silent for a moment, and said, "Will you feel at ease leaving her with me? Aren't you afraid those thieves will sneak into my house?"
Yu Ying thought for a moment and replied, "That's better than no one. If a thief comes in, just shout loudly to scare him first. Maybe he'll run away when he gets scared."
"Let's not talk about the thieves, just talk about this silver. Do you trust me that I won't embezzle it?" he asked.
After hearing what he said, Yu Ying silently looked at his legs.
Fu Wei saw her gaze and reacted.
Just for a moment, he seemed to have forgotten his situation. He thought too highly of himself, a cripple.
After a moment of silence, he asked, "Where do you want to hide?"
Yu Ying put it directly on his bed: "That's it, you can stare at it every day when you open your eyes, so it can be considered as having something to do."
…
Fu Wei Yi Mo
What kind of job is this?
Yu Ying sat down at the table, took a breath, and said, "As you said, Polygonum multiflorum can only be exchanged for 880 grams of silver. After redeeming your elder brother and the others, there won't be much left."
Fu Wei was not surprised at all, and said calmly, "This is how Yu County is."
Yu Ying asked in surprise, "Have you been to Yu County?"
Fu Wei shook his head and said, "Cangwu County is the most remote county in Lingnan, and Yu County is the most remote county in Cangwu County. You can imagine the situation."
Hearing him say that, it seems to be the case.
"Oh, right. Inside that package is five thousand strings of cash and three taels of silver. Although the ransom is over seven taels, I'll have to keep some extra for bribery. Besides bringing the silver, I also came to discuss with you when we should redeem your brother and his wife."
There was still about a month left before his elder brother got into trouble. If she made arrangements in the next few days, she could go and redeem the property, but she was not familiar with the process.
Fu Wei lowered his eyes and pondered for a while. After a moment, he looked up at her and asked, "Are you going to the quarry?"
Yu Ying nodded: "Who else will go?"
Fu Wei's brows gradually furrowed. "The quarry is full of mixed people, from innocent people to extremely vicious ones. You can't go there."
Yu Ying was also clear about what Fu Wei said, so she didn't try to be stubborn and say she wanted to go alone: "So I came here to discuss this with you."
She frowned and thought for a moment, then said, "How about asking Uncle He and the others if they want to go visit He Erlang together?"
Fu Wei pondered for a moment and then shook his head. "That's something we need to discuss separately. After all, if you go together, my eldest brother and his wife will also come back. His son will be doing hard labor in the quarry, and he will naturally feel bad about it. I'm afraid there will be resentment in the future."
At this point, Fu Wei added, "Although Lingshui Village is a remote and impoverished place, there are still cases of frame-ups and false accusations, and there are even cunning villains. If you make friends with the villagers, even if there are villains who frame you in the future, you will have more people to help you, which will be beneficial rather than harmful."
When Yu Ying heard him say that it was a false accusation by a bad person, she thought of the real young man who was taken away by mistake.
She asked worriedly, "Then again, you said the news of the Fu family's amnesty must have spread to Wuling County. That..." She thought for a moment before saying, "Will that person come to Lingnan in person to check on you?"
Speaking of the three words "Wuling County", Fu Wei recalled the man he had met a few times, and his eyes became more indifferent.
"Now that he's left this place, he'll never want to come back, and he doesn't want anyone to mention his past. Besides..."
Fu Wei paused for a moment before speaking coldly, "His biological father would never allow his son to be useless. After he became the son of the prefect, he had so much to learn that he couldn't spare the time to deal with me."
"He might be concerned about my situation and worried that I'm not doing well, so he sent someone to investigate."
"If I'm doing well, he'll have people continue to torture me. If I'm not doing well, he won't have the energy to deal with me. Maybe after a year or two, he'll forget about me. If he does think of me occasionally, he'll think I'm useless and unworthy of his memory."
Although he had met him several times, Fu Wei could probably see through that person's character.
Although that person was not cunning, after meeting him a few times, I knew that he was not a decent person. He was narrow-minded and petty.
Hearing this, Yu Ying secretly breathed a sigh of relief, but then she worriedly said, "According to what you said, you won't be able to walk for a year or so. Otherwise, if he finds out that you've healed your legs, he'll definitely send people to break your legs over and over again."
Fu Wei nodded slightly. This was something he had known about early on.
But he didn't know what he was thinking about, so he added, "It's just a facade. Just avoid outsiders. You can still do the work you need to do."
Yu Ying wasn't worried that he couldn't help, but she always felt that something else was wrong.
He frowned and thought for a long time, and finally thought of the key question: "What if I bring your eldest brother and sister-in-law back? Wouldn't he know that the Fu family is living a good life?"
After all, anyone would be suspicious if you took out so much silver to ransom someone all at once.
Fu Wei seemed to have thought of this long ago, so he remained calm and said in a steady voice: "So if there is still time, don't rush to the quarry, wait a while."
He looked out of the yard, his eyes deep.
Yu Ying followed his gaze and looked outside, but found nothing. She asked suspiciously, "What are you waiting for?"
Fu Wei withdrew his gaze and looked at her, then spoke slowly, "Wait for him to come and get the information. Once that person leaves, we can redeem him."
After saying this, he lowered his eyes and calculated the distance from Wuling County to Yun County. After a moment, he continued, "The amnesty was issued a month ago. He will definitely spend some time investigating whether the Fu family is on the amnesty list. This will deduct seven or eight days."
"It takes half a month to travel from Wuling County to Yun County. If nothing unexpected happens, someone will come to check on my current situation and that of the Fu family in the next few days."
Yu Ying looked out the window at the kitchen and said, "What about my two newly built thatched huts? Are there any problems?"
Fu Wei said calmly, "For people from prosperous places, even ordinary people, what difference does one shabby thatched hut make between two shabby thatched huts?"
Yu Ying shook her head. "That's right. That person wouldn't mention all the thatched huts the Fu family originally had. People who come to investigate would definitely not pay attention to them."
At the end of her words, Yu Ying suddenly remembered something and said, "No, how do you know if the spies from Wuling County have been to Lingshui Village?"
Fu Wei tilted his head to glance at her and slowly began to speak, "When have you ever seen a stranger in Lingshui Village?"
After saying that, he looked out the window.
Yu Ying paused for a moment, then reacted, clapped her hands, and said with a smile, "I understand."
Lingshui Village is such a remote place that even beggars don’t come here. Who would come here on weekdays?
Moreover, even the smallest incident in the village would quickly spread throughout the village.
As long as Fu An walked around the village more often, she would go back to Aunt He's house every day and chat with her for a while, so she could find out if any strangers had come to Lingshui Village.
Thinking of this, Yu Ying couldn't help but look at Fu Wei on the bed again.
After half a month, although his diet has not yet caught up, his face has gradually regained its color due to proper conditioning, and even his eyes are no longer lifeless.
At this moment, a faint sunlight was shining through the window and falling on his face. His facial features looked particularly deep and handsome, so handsome that it was pleasing to the eye.
Fu Wei not only has a good appearance, but also has a smart mind.
Even though he never leaves the house, he can take care of everything. It is hard not to admire him.
Fu Wei noticed her gaze and turned his head. Just as their eyes were about to meet, the voices of Uncle He and Mrs. Luo suddenly came from outside, interrupting their eye contact.
"Sister-in-law, I just heard from the elders in the village that there might be a hurricane in the next few days, so I thought of coming here in advance to make two bamboo doors for your house."
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