Pei Yan looked at Yu Tang, his eyes sparkling, and smiled softly.
When his family's Atang becomes the head of the family, everything will have to follow Atang's rules, and the Pei family will definitely experience another big shock.
As for now, let’s just follow the rules set by his mother before!
He stood up, pushed Yu Tang back to sit on the armchair, and said, "Then don't bother yourself. Calculate the account to see if there is anything wrong. If there is nothing wrong, just hand it in like this."
Yu Tang was furious.
I feel like this won’t work.
But this was Pei's family affair after all, so she couldn't blame them too much. It would be better for her to listen to Pei Yan and calculate the numbers on the account.
Pei Yan seemed to have seen through her thoughts and said gently, "You are right to listen to me! As for your worry about what Old An's intentions are, you don't have to take it too seriously - if you understand, then do it. If you don't understand, then what can you do?"
After he finished speaking, he spread his arms, looking particularly shameless, but Yu Tang felt inexplicably at ease and reassured when he saw it.
She couldn't help but smile.
Pei Yan couldn't help himself, and reached out to touch her smooth black hair, thinking, you just have to bear with it for now, and when you marry me, you can do whatever you say.
It was the first time that he showed his love for Yu Tang so obviously. Yu Tang was a little shy, but more of a happy person.
She simply pretended not to see what he did, took the abacus and started to do the math.
The black abacus beads and the snow-white slender fingers made a clear distinction between black and white, making the ordinary wooden abacus appear rougher and the jade-like fingers appear more delicate. In addition, Yu Tang's movements were skillful, and those cold abacus beads under her fingers were like tamed children, crackling and dancing with a melodious rhythm. It was a delight to watch them from the side.
The more Pei Yan looked at it, the more he liked it. He couldn't help but stand there and stare at it for a long time. When Qing Yuan brought the fruit over, Pei Yan came back to his senses. He took the fruit plate from Qing Yuan's hand and whispered "I'll do it" as if afraid to disturb Yu Tang.
Qing Yuan didn't dare to raise his head and walked out quietly.
After a while, Yu Tang had calculated all the items in the entire book.
Pei Yan smiled and asked her, "How is it?"
Yu Tang stood up, flexed his wrists, and said, "If the account books from the accounting office are still wrong, then your accounting office will have to be replaced."
Pei Yan smiled and nodded, then brought the fruit plate to Yu Tang: "Try it, it's grown on our farm."
Yu Tang took a closer look and found a few golden loquats among the cherries and plums.
She happily took a loquat and asked Pei Yan while peeling it: "Why are you here? Is there something wrong?"
Pei Yan hesitated for a while, and finally decided to tell the truth - lying was too troublesome, and he would have to keep covering up for it.
"Let me see what you are doing." He sat down next to Yu Tang, peeling loquats with him, and said, "How have you been these days? When can you finish reading these account books? Do you need my help?"
Yu Tang looked at the peeled loquat in his hand, wondering whether he should be polite and let Pei Yan taste it first. He looked up and saw him peeling the loquat seriously with his eyelids lowered. He looked handsome and elegant from the side. He felt a little embarrassed, so he took a small bite of the loquat himself and told Pei Yan what happened in the villa in the past two days.
Seeing that Yu Tang seemed to like eating loquats very much, Pei Yan asked Qing Yuan to bring in a small plate, put all the peeled loquats on the small plate and handed it to Yu Tang.
Yu Tang felt a little uncomfortable, and felt that the opportunity to let Pei Yan do work was too rare. After thinking for a while, he still smiled and thanked Pei Yan. While talking to Pei Yan, he ate a few loquats that Pei Yan had peeled.
Although there was only whispering in the mansion for a while, the atmosphere was warm.
Qing Yuan and others were laughing quietly outside.
When Mrs. Pei heard this, she also smiled quietly and told Aunt Chen, "Send some mung bean soup to them. Send it secretly, don't let anyone see it, or Mrs. Yu will be shy and uncomfortable in front of me."
That's a bit biased.
The mung beans had just been harvested and were not yet available in the market, so Second Madam didn’t have any yet, but she started cooking them for Miss Yu.
Aunt Chen responded with a smile and went downstairs to cook mung bean soup.
Unfortunately, Mr. Pei's mung bean soup had not been delivered yet. Miss Pei Si and Miss Pei Wu grabbed a bunch of wild flowers and ran into the back building excitedly, interrupting the interaction between Pei Yan and Yu Tang.
"Third, Third Uncle!" The two little girls stared in amazement at Yu Tang and Pei Yan who were sitting side by side, their faces full of helplessness.
Pei Yan frowned, not knowing whether to blame the two girls for being too reckless or the maid serving outside the door for being incompetent. His face looked very ugly.
Yu Tang's face turned red, and he stood up suddenly, and said in a panic and guilty manner: "I, we are checking the accounts..." Then he quickly calmed down and took the initiative to say, "Why are you here? Didn't you say you were going to the back mountain to pick wild vegetables? Why did you pick a bunch of wild flowers? What kind of flowers are they? Is there anything special about them?" He pointed to the embroidery stool next to him and said, "The weather is so hot, sit down and have a cup of tea? I have the best chrysanthemum and West Lake Longjing before the Qingming Festival. What do you want to drink?"
No matter what they drink, they dare not sit and drink with their third uncle Pei Yan!
The fourth young lady muttered to herself and glanced at Yu Tang, indicating that she should take Pei Yan away.
Pei Yan wanted to leave without her telling him.
These two little girls only grow in height but not in mind. Now that they are here, it is impossible for him to have a private conversation with Yu Tang, and there is no atmosphere at all.
He simply stood up and said, "Then I'll leave first. Since you're not in a hurry to hand in the accounts here, don't rush to sort them out. Just check a little bit every day and finish them by the deadline."
Of course, Yu Tang couldn't keep him.
He lowered his head and saw Pei Yan out.
The two girls were overjoyed when they saw this. As soon as Pei Yan left, they immediately went up to Yu Tang and hugged her arms, one on each side, and pulled her to the small garden outside the building, saying, "Sister Yu, we have something urgent to talk to you about."
Yu Tang didn't want to spoil the two girls' fun, so he just smiled and followed them to the rattan chairs under the camphor tree in the small garden, asked Liu Xu to pour tea, and asked them, "What's the urgent matter that made you two come to me so eagerly?"
The fifth lady was still a little shy, but the fourth lady was like a lark, surrounding Yu Tang and chattering: "Sister Yu, do you know that Sister Gu's brother, Lord Gu Chaoyang, is going to marry Miss Yin, the sister-in-law of Sister Xu?"
This is old news.
Of course, this is also relative to Yu Tang.
Come to think of it, Yu Tang had personally participated in this matter.
She went to decorate the new house for the Yin family.
"I know!" Yu Tang smiled and told the Fourth and Fifth Miss what he knew.
The two little girls' eyes lit up when they heard this. One of them asked, "Does Sister Yu know that the Gu family is quarreling?"
One said, "It has nothing to do with Sister Gu! It's the eldest master of the Gu family and Sister Gu's father, the second master of the Gu family, who are arguing!"
Yu Tang had never heard of this matter.
She was a little surprised.
The fourth young lady spoke before the fifth young lady did, "We heard it from Miss Yang, and she heard it from her cousin. Her cousin married into a branch of the Shen family, and her sister-in-law is a girl from the eldest branch of the Gu family."
The aristocratic families in the south of the Yangtze River are indeed complicated and intertwined, and they are all relatives.
Yu Tang pricked up his ears to listen.
The fourth young lady said, "It is said that Lord Gu and the Yin family are engaged, but they agreed with the Yin family that Miss Yin's dowry would be managed by Miss Yin herself. If Miss Yu does not have a child in the future or dies before Lord Gu, Miss Yin's dowry would have to be returned to the Yin family. The people of the Gu family were furious when they heard this, especially the second master of the Gu family, who went straight to the eldest master of the Gu family and started a quarrel without caring about their dignity."
Yu Tang knew about this matter. When she first found out, she also thought it was a bit excessive, but this was only excessive compared to the status of the Gu family. In Jiangnan, people like to marry off their daughters with a large dowry, and there are many agreements that are more excessive than this.
She felt that this was a matter of mutual consent, so she said in a somewhat conciliatory manner: "The Yin family must have their own concerns. Their daughters are famous for their generous dowries."
There was once an incident in Jiangnan where a woman was murdered for the sake of her dowry.
The Fifth Miss waved her hands repeatedly and said, "No, no. Sister Yu, you don't know that Sister Gu's father, the second elder of the Gu family, gave Sister Gu's mother's dowry to greed. Everyone in the Gu family knew about this, but they were afraid of being embarrassed, so they kept it a secret from outsiders. Lord Gu's father used the same old trick again and embarrassed himself in the capital, so he made such an agreement with the Yin family, and the eldest elder of the Gu family personally came forward to propose marriage to Lord Gu. But now that the second elder of the Gu family has made such a fuss, this matter is like paper cannot cover fire, and everyone knows about it."
"The Gu family has been pushed to the forefront again and has been talked about." Miss Wu said sympathetically, "I don't know how sad Miss Gu will be if she finds out. Especially Auntie, who is a person who cares a lot about her reputation, I don't know if she will dislike Miss Gu."
"Probably not." The fourth young lady said, "My eldest cousin is a reasonable person. Even if my eldest aunt has something unpleasant to say, my eldest cousin will protect Sister Gu. Sister Gu will just listen to some idle words and let them go in one ear and out the other. Besides, Sister Gu will not marry us for a while, so even if my eldest aunt wants to say something, she won't have any way to respond!"
The Fifth Miss said, "I just feel a little sorry for Sister Gu. She has a stepmother like that, and now the Yin family dowry issue has been exposed. Although it's not her fault, it's still uncomfortable to be pointed at by others."
"Who said it wasn't?" The fourth young lady agreed, "So I say that this matter should be told to my eldest cousin. Let my eldest cousin send someone to pass on a message or something, so as to comfort Sister Gu. It's a pity that Sister Gu is going to marry into our family, otherwise we could invite her to live in the other courtyard for a few days, so that she can relax."
The Fifth Miss giggled and clapped her hands, saying, "Fourth Sister was wrong this time. If Sister Gu had not wanted to marry into our family, she would not have met my aunt. If she had not met my aunt, she would not have needed my eldest cousin to comfort her. You have to admit defeat this time, right? Hurry up and give me the Maitreya Buddha that you have been offering on your mirror table."
"You just want my things." The fourth lady said, and immediately changed the subject. "You can just look at anything I have."
Yu Tang sat there and listened to their quarrel with a smile on his face, but he was muttering in his heart, could it be that Pei Yan had someone spread this news?