The Wen family now lives on the East Street of Yuanbao Town. They were originally sent to Raozhou City by Deputy Captain Chen and his soldiers. They learned that if they wanted to settle down in Raozhou City, they would need one hundred taels of silver per person. There are about thirty people in the Wen family from old to young, and Mr. Wen has many descendants. They can afford more than three thousand taels of silver, but a house with five courtyards in Raozhou City is not cheap. If you want to live in a good location, a house with five courtyards will cost at least two thousand taels of silver.
Although the Wen family was not raided at the beginning, they still secretly took a lot of money to make arrangements.
Before he was exiled, the officials swarmed like locusts and robbed him of most of his property.
In fact, before the concubine entered the palace, Duke Anping was only the Earl of Anping and had no family property. Later, the concubine entered the palace, and gradually became a concubine, and then the queen. During this period, he was respected and accumulated a lot of family property. But the new emperor and Concubine Fu would never let him take all of these family properties away. So the guards took away almost all of his family property at the order of the higher-ups. Old Master Wen didn't dare to say anything. By the time he was exiled, the entire Wen family's property was only worth ten thousand taels of silver.
He spent several hundred taels on travel expenses and the ten thousand taels of silver notes. When he arrived in Raozhou City, he learned that the settlement fees and the money for buying a house were not cheap, so he was reluctant to settle in the city.
Old Master Wen knew the principle of living beyond one's means. His family had no shop or business now, and the whole family had no income. No one in the family knew how to do business. The servants in the family and the shop owners in the capital could not go with him. All of them were sold or dismissed. If he really had to stay in Raozhou City, the few thousand taels he had left would not be enough, so he chose Yuanbao Town.
I also thought of taking it slow. It only costs ten taels per person to register in Yuanbao Town, and the five-story house next to the government office is half the price of Raozhou City. So in the end, I chose to register in Yuanbao Town, which is closest to Raozhou City. After registering, I bought a house, and then bought some land and shops to see what kind of business I could make.
If you make a lot of money, you can move your business to Raozhou City in the future.
Even though merchants are the lowest class among the four classes of scholars, farmers, artisans and merchants, Mr. Wen has no intention of giving up business.
He knew that without money, even a scholar would have to starve and live a miserable life. It would be better to earn more money so that at least he would have enough food and drink and a group of servants.
As for studying for the imperial examinations, the Wen family and the lineage of Prince Shu have not allowed the imperial examinations for three generations, so studying is unlikely to be possible.
Even Old Master Wen was thinking of letting his granddaughter Wen Yunling enter the palace to be the new emperor's concubine. He was confident in this. Among Old Master Wen's unmarried granddaughters, Wen Yunling from the eldest wife was the most beautiful. However, the border town was thousands of miles away from the capital, so how to send the granddaughter to the capital was still a problem, and everything had to be done slowly.
When Wen Yunling came out today, she was followed by another illegitimate daughter of the eldest wife, Wen Yunxiang, who was also Wen Yunling's illegitimate sister. Naturally, her dress was not as good as Wen Yunling's.
Xu Qinyu remembered that the other two teenagers seemed to be Aunt Bai's two grandsons.
Aunt Bai is another concubine of Old Master Wen. She gave birth to a daughter and a son. The daughter was naturally married long ago, and the son was Old Master Wen's third son, also a illegitimate son, who had already married and had children.
Aunt Bai was a girl from a good family. She was favored by Old Master Wen at the beginning. As Bai's parents had already passed away due to illness, her brother and sister-in-law arranged for her to be given to Old Master Wen as a concubine.
Concubine Bai was born beautiful. Old Lady Wen was afraid that Concubine Bai would be favored alone, so she gave the maidservant around her to Old Lady Wen as a concubine, who was Concubine Gui, Wen's biological mother.
There was nothing wrong between the two concubines, and they had been getting along well over the years. Because of this, Old Lady Wen looked down on Concubine Gui. She felt that since Concubine Gui was the concubine she had raised, she should join her in suppressing Concubine Bai. It was not until Wen entered the palace and became a concubine that Old Lady Wen dared not be disrespectful to Concubine Gui anymore and treated her with respect.
It was precisely because of the respect he had shown her over the years that when the Wen family got into trouble and was exiled, the Wen family was also implicated and exiled. Old Lady Wen hated Concubine Gui and bullied her even more cruelly.
Xu Qinyu was not quite sure whether the girl and two boys following behind were the concubine of the first wife and the two from the third wife.
Because the Wen family has so many descendants. When she thought of the descendants of the Wen family, her head started buzzing because there were so many people.
I heard that Old Master has two legitimate sons and one illegitimate son, so it's easy to tell them apart.
But these two legitimate sons married wives and concubines and had children and grandchildren.
Only the third illegitimate son born to Aunt Bai only married a wife and was unwilling to take a concubine. Because he married a wife late, he also had two sons and a daughter, none of whom were yet of marriageable age.
It seems that these two young men are the two sons of the third wife and the grandsons of Aunt Bai.
Because of the dispute over the big rock to avoid the rain when they were on the way to exile, Wen Yunling wanted to bring people to fight her. These two young men were not there. They stood in the distance and looked at Wen Yunling as if she was a fool, so Xu Qinyu had some impression of them.
Because there were too many people in the Wen family, Xu Qinyu only knew them from her original body's memories. She couldn't tell them apart, and the one who left the deepest impression on her was Wen Yunling, because Wen Yunling was always causing trouble during his exile and was particularly annoying.
Xu Qinyu didn't understand what she was thinking. Her family was in trouble, so why did she still like to stir up trouble? She must be mentally ill.
Seeing Yunling coming over, although he said hello, his tone sounded a little complacent.
Xu Qinyu didn't give her any face at all, and sneered, "A good dog doesn't block the road."
When Pei Jianing saw Wen Yunling coming, her face turned unhappy. She hated Wen Yunling and didn't want to deal with her. But when she heard what her fourth sister-in-law said, she couldn't help but burst out laughing.
As expected, it was the fourth sister-in-law who went up and slapped him in the face.
Wen Yunling glared at Pei Jianing, and then she heard two more chuckles behind her. She turned around and saw that it was her two half-brothers from the third room.
Wen Yunling was so angry that he shouted, "Wen Shuncheng, Wen Shungong, are you two crazy? Didn't you see that this guy was bullying me? Why are you laughing? And she said a good dog doesn't block the road. You followed me here, so in her eyes you are also dogs. What are you laughing at? Are you pigs?"
"It's actually quite funny." The two brothers muttered.
No one knew what Wen Yunling from the eldest house was thinking. She was wearing such a flamboyant outfit and putting on such glamorous makeup to go out for a stroll. They didn't want to go out at all, but the old lady told them to follow her. She said, "Our Yunling is so beautiful. People from such a small place don't have much knowledge. I'm afraid they might have bad intentions to bully Yunling. You should also come with her to protect her. If Yunling gets hurt, I'll hold you responsible."
There are dogs, so what? In the Wen family, their third branch is just like a dog.
The two brothers' eyes darkened a little, but they restrained their smiles.
After Wen Yunling finished venting her anger at her two half-brothers, she turned back and sneered at Xu Qinyu, "I was just saying hello out of kindness. I thought that since we've all ended up here, and our two families are such close relatives, we should naturally work together. There were indeed some misunderstandings during our exile. At that time, everyone was in a bad mood, so it was inevitable that there would be some arguments. But now that we're all in Yuanbao Town, we should at least support each other. Fourth sister-in-law, aren't you going too far by saying this? You should apologize to me, and I'll forgive you."
Xu Qinyu felt that even if she wanted to establish ties between the two families, she had ulterior motives and was motivated by personal gain.
So he ignored her even more. "Are you kind or do you have ulterior motives? I can see clearly. You are just a weasel paying New Year's greetings to a chicken. You have no good intentions."
What she said was essentially calling Wen Yunling a weasel.
Wen Yunling was the legitimate daughter of a noble family. That was not the way she would argue with people in the capital. It was like a dagger hidden in a cotton ball. How could she just call someone a weasel? She didn't know how to argue like that. She didn't know how to refute for a moment. She was so angry that her face turned pale and her hands trembled a little.
She screamed, "Xu Qinyu!" She even stopped calling her fourth sister-in-law.
Xu Qinyu glanced at her and sighed, "Don't scream so loudly, I can hear you. I'll leave first."
She really didn't want to talk to Wen Yunling.
Seeing that she refused to budge, Wen Yunling turned and left, becoming even angrier.
She now had a half-sister who was constantly feeling uncomfortable, and two half-brothers who she didn't get along with. She wanted them to go beat up Xu Qinyu, but she didn't think they would help her. She had no intention of beating anyone up herself. She was wearing a rabbit fur cape and bright makeup, so why would she pull someone's hair out in the street? It was too embarrassing. She was better at commanding others to help her.
Besides, she couldn't really fight with Xu Qinyu.
She was indeed out for a stroll today, and running into her aunt's family was purely accidental.
But she did have some thoughts, her own little thoughts.
She knew the current situation of the Wen family, and also knew that her grandfather chose Yuanbao Town instead of Raozhou City to settle down because he was afraid that he did not have much money. That was why she chose Yuanbao Town. At first, she was not very willing to live in the town and wanted to live in the city, but later she figured it out and decided to stay in the town as long as she could find a job that could make money.
But it has been almost three months since I came to the town, and my family has been living off their savings and has no income at all.
My grandfather bought two shops on East Street, but they were empty. They didn't know what to do for a living, so the two shops had to remain empty for the time being. The daily expenses for a family of more than 30 people were huge. Not only my grandparents were worried, but she was also worried that they would have no money to spend and live a hard life in the future.
In order to save money, the family now does not buy slaves.
All the housework in the house is done by people from the third room, even concubine Gui and concubine Bai need to work.
There is also her aunt. Her aunt washes clothes at her house. She also knows that her aunt comes to her house to wash clothes because she wants to be with Concubine Gui and take care of her. In fact, she doesn't care whether her aunt works at home or not. Maybe her grandmother feels that she suffered a lot when her aunt was the queen, so now letting her aunt stay at home to wash clothes can also vent her anger.
When she went out to see Xu Qinyu this time, she thought of what she heard the two brothers Wen Shuncheng and Wen Shungong secretly say two days ago.
The two brothers hid at the back door and said that there were delicious fish and meat dishes for sale on South Street, and it seemed that it was the business run by Aunt Wen's daughter-in-law.
The two brothers, one was thirteen and the other only eleven, still teenagers, muttering to themselves, recalling how they had lived in the Wen family since childhood. Although they were always scolded by the old lady when they were in the capital, they had no worries about food and drink. But now they were even worried about food and drink. The first and second wives could still eat well, but they, the third wife, only had bean porridge and cooked vegetables because their grandfather told the old lady to be frugal.
Knowing that Fourth Sister-in-law could earn money by cooking, she couldn't help but express envy, and said that she also wanted to go out and find a job to support her family.
So Wen Yunling knew that Xu Qinyu probably made her own food and set up a small stall, but she didn't know what she sold specifically.
She remembered that the food Xu Qinyu cooked for the officers and soldiers on the way to exile smelled really fresh and fragrant, and an idea came to her mind.
She stopped Xu Qinyu just to make peace with her and try out the food she cooked. If it was really as delicious as she told the two brothers, she wanted to open a restaurant with her. She would let her mother provide the money and Xu Qinyu provide the cooking skills. She also thought that this would be a bargain for Xu Qinyu. Once the restaurant was opened, she would let her be the chef and give her twenty taels of silver a month.
She had no idea that Xu Qinyu could easily earn twenty or thirty taels a month from the food she was cooking. This was all she did by herself. If she really opened a restaurant or an inn, she wondered how much she could earn.
Unexpectedly, Xu Qinyu ignored her completely and even called her a weasel!
After scolding him, he ran away!
When he saw Xu Qinyu, he turned around and left without even looking back.
Wen Yunling was furious and annoyed. She immediately turned around and ordered her two half-brothers, "Wen Shuncheng, Wen Shungong, stop her!"
The two rolled their eyes and ignored her.
Then Wen Yunling was so angry that she started crying, and tears fell down her cheeks. She was mainly angry at Xu Qinyu, and when she saw that her half-brother did not help her, she became even angrier and could not hold back her tears.
Seeing her crying, Wen Shuncheng and Wen Shungong ran away, planning to sneak back home after dark at night. Otherwise, if they came back during the day, Wen Yunling would complain to Old Madam Wen, and they would be punished to kneel for half a day. It would be better to sneak back at night and run away during the day. They would not be home for a few days and see how the old madam would punish them.
Wen Yunxiang, the concubine of the eldest wife who stayed behind, said weakly, "Sister, please don't cry."
Wen Yunling cried so much that her makeup was a little smudged. Seeing people pointing and talking around her, she stomped her feet in anger, covered her face, turned around and ran home.
Wen Yunxiang sighed and slowly followed.
Xu Qinyu didn't feel bad when she met Wen Yunling. She didn't care about the Wen family.
She just didn't expect that Old Master Wen would let the whole family settle down in the town. She thought they would stay in Raozhou City. She had thought that if all the Wen family members stayed in Raozhou City, then her mother-in-law's biological mother, Aunt Gui, would also have to stay in Raozhou City. It would be extremely difficult for her mother-in-law to see her, not to mention that the Wen family would not treat Aunt Gui well. Now that she knew that the Wen family was all in Yuanbao Town, she had some other ideas.
Aunt Gui is my mother-in-law's biological mother. The blood relationship is thicker than water and cannot be severed. My mother-in-law must be thinking about her every day.
But it’s different here than in modern times. If you don’t want to live together, or have no feelings for each other, or if you are being abused or bullied, you can file for divorce.
It's difficult to divorce here. Even if Concubine Gui is a co-wife, it's just a nice title. In the final analysis, she is still a concubine. It's extremely difficult for a concubine to divorce or go to the yamen to sever ties, unless Old Master Wen is willing to write a letter of release.
On the way back, Xu Qinyu couldn't help thinking about this.
Wen has been absent-minded since he met Wen Yunling, and he was always distracted on the way back.
When she got home, Xu Qinyu put aside the scraps of clothes, fabrics and furs and prepared to fry melon seeds and peanuts.
She has no idea about Concubine Gui's affairs, and she is not sure whether Concubine Gui is willing to leave. After all, the thoughts of many women in ancient times are completely different from those of modern women. It is also due to the general environment. People like Concubine Gui cannot be blamed, just like Mrs. Luo's daughter-in-law Lin.
Xu Qinyu planned to fry the melon seeds and peanuts first.
She fried the five-spice melon seeds in an iron pan with salt and a little spices. The fried melon seeds were salty and delicious.
When she was frying melon seeds, she asked her family to peel the peanuts they had bought.
She bought dried peanuts in shells, which cost eight cents per pound. There are also special peanuts for sale, which are more expensive. It is more cost-effective to buy them in shells and peel them yourself.
She plans to make peanuts into five-spice peanuts, which are more delicious.
The ordinary fried melon seeds and peanuts here are not salted or spiced, and have no taste at all, so they taste very natural.
But the spiced ones are definitely tastier.
Five-spice peanuts are more difficult to make.
Soak the peeled peanuts for 15 minutes to soften the surface.
Then it was time to cook. She didn’t waste the spices from roasting the melon seeds, and used them to cook the five-spice peanuts.
Cook peanuts with spices until they are 70% cooked, remove from the pan and drain the water. Then stir-fry the five-spice peanuts that have been cooked until 70% done. When the heat is almost right, pour in the salt used to stir-fry the melon seeds. Use the salt to thoroughly dry out the moisture in the peanuts, making them crispy and fragrant.
The fried five-spice peanuts were scooped out with a colander. She fried a lot in one pot, so there was not much salt left. She was reluctant to throw away the remaining salt, so she filtered it clean and used it for her family's cooking.
The fried pork belly peanuts taste fragrant and crispy, suitable as a snack or a side dish for drinking.
After giving each of the two children one, Xu Qinyu repeatedly warned them, "Feng'er and Yan'er, be careful when eating peanuts. Eat slowly and chew them for a while. Will they taste better?"
Both children are three or four years old, and they can eat some granular foods, but we must still be careful.
The two children nodded and asked Xu Qinyu for a few more.
Xu Qinyu brought it to Wen, her fourth brother, and Ning Jie'er, who all tried it and said it was delicious.
She fried a lot this time and stored it well. It would be enough to eat for a few days, and she could also send some to Xia's sister-in-law and Xu Kongmu's family.
In fact, if these five-spice melon seeds and five-spice peanuts are sold on East Street and West Street, and they are sold at a higher price, they can probably make a lot of money during the New Year holidays. Xu Qinyu is very tempted.
But I heard Fourth Brother suddenly say, "Yu Niang, please have a good rest these few days. Your body won't be able to bear it."
Xu Qinyu glanced at her fourth brother, who seemed to see what she was about to do. But he was right. She was indeed worried that her body wouldn't be able to handle it. Health was the capital of revolution! Only with a healthy body could she think of other things. Since she was exiled here, she had been working non-stop and had hardly had a good rest. She was also thinking of taking advantage of the New Year to rest for a few days.
Forget it, don’t think too much about it, just have a good rest for these ten days.
You can make money at any time, there is no end to making money!
Oh, if only she could find a few talented apprentices, she could teach them how to fry peanuts and sell them for money.
None of the Pei family members were good at cooking. Sometimes, when she was too busy, Wen and Pei Weixuan also took over the cooking.
She clearly taught me everything by hand, watching me adjust the heat, ingredients, and seasonings, but the food still didn't taste very good.
Roasting peanuts is a technical job. If you really fry them, you are afraid that the taste will be bad and they will not sell well, which would be a waste.
She also knew a way to fry salted dried peanuts. It required fresh peanuts that had just been pulled out of the ground, washed, boiled with the shells, and then dried. This was done in August or September, which was also the peanut harvest season. These salted dried peanuts could be preserved longer, so there was no need to rush.
At noon, Xu Qinyu made some stewed rice.
In the afternoon, I was busy making egg cakes, mung bean cakes and date paste rice cakes.
To make date paste rice cake, you need to steam the red dates first. There is no food processor here, so it is impossible to puree the date flesh with the skin removed after only the pits are removed. The date skin will affect the taste, so the task of peeling the dates and making the date paste is given to the Pei family.
When kneading glutinous rice flour and white flour, she also added some brown sugar to make it taste better.
After the dough has been proofed, knead it and roll it out flat. Spread a layer of jujube paste on it, roll it up, cut it into pieces, and steam it. The house is filled with sweet aroma. The steamed jujube paste rice cake tastes sweet and sticky.
Pei Weixuan ate several pieces in a row. It seemed that his fourth brother actually preferred sweet food.
But the freshly-cooked rice cake with jujube paste was really delicious, sweet and sticky. Xu Qinyu also ate several pieces.
When Zhuzi came to serve Shao Ge'er's dinner in the evening, Xu Qinyu packed two bags of five-spice peanuts and some rice cakes with jujube paste for Zhuzi, and asked him to take them back to let Xia's sister-in-law try them.
After dinner, there is nothing to do. Tomorrow I will make some fried radish balls, fried fish, fried lean meat balls, and lotus root cakes for the New Year, and then there will be nothing to do.
Xu Qinyu naturally didn't have to do the spring cleaning; it was done by her mother-in-law, sister-in-law and step-husband.
After dinner, everyone stayed in the kitchen, waiting for water to be boiled for washing and chatting.
Wen suddenly said, "Yu Niang, Xuan Ge'er, Ning Jie'er, I have something I want to tell you."
Xu Qinyu said, "Mom, please tell me if you have anything to say."
Wen clenched her palms and mustered up the courage to speak out.
"Actually, these days, I've been washing clothes at Wen's house."
She knew that her family didn't want her to have anything to do with the Wen family, but Aunt Gui was her biological mother, the one who gave birth to her and raised her. She couldn't ignore her closest relative, who was thicker than blood.
At first she went to East Street and West Street to look for a job.
Only the people who live there are willing to hire someone to do the laundry.
She saw a notice outside a house with five courtyards recruiting laundry workers, so she knocked on the door. Unexpectedly, the person who opened the door was the elderly Concubine Gui.
Only then did she know that the Wen family had also come to Yuanbao Town and had asked Aunt Gui to live in the side room of the house as a gatekeeper.
She was so angry that she wanted to stay in the Wen family to see if she could find a way to make Aunt Gui divorce her father.
How could Concubine Gui really want to stay in the Wen family? Even though she was a maid of Old Lady Wen and was promoted to a concubine, she never thought of being the old master's concubine. Later, when her daughter entered the palace, she also got a contract to sell herself and was no longer a slave of the old lady. After that, she was exiled and continued to be tortured when she came to Yuanbao Town. She didn't want to stay in the Wen family even more.
But Old Lady Wen kept her just to torture her and was not willing to let her go at all.
She knew that her hope of leaving the Wen family was slim, and she didn't want her daughter to stay in the Wen family and be bullied by Old Lady Wen, so she asked Wen to leave and not stay in the Wen family to wash clothes.
The Wen family really doesn't care.
Seeing that Yu Niang was busy and unable to think of any other way to take Gui Yi Niang away, Wen Shi washed clothes at the Wen family for more than two months and accompanied Gui Yi Niang every day.
Xu Qinyu really didn't know that her mother-in-law went to Wen's house to wash clothes.
Because before today she had no idea that the Wen family was also in Yuanbao Town.
But given my mother-in-law's personality, she probably told them this only when she had no other choice.
Xu Qinyu didn't think it was a big deal. Now she was just trying to find a way to get Aunt Gui out of the Wen family.
But how can we get Old Lady Wen to release the person?
In fact, it was still Old Lady Wen who was unwilling to let him go.
Mrs. Wen sighed and said, "Actually, Aunt Gui is not a born daughter of Old Lady Wen. She was abducted and sold to a pawnbroker. Later, she was chosen by Old Lady Wen's family and bought to be a maid for her. Old Lady Wen is not an easy person to get along with. Even when she was a girl, she had a bad temper and often beat and scolded the servants." So Aunt Gui suffered since she was a child.
Aunt Gui was only four or five years old when she was abducted. How could she remember many things? After being moved to so many places, she couldn't even remember where her hometown was. She only remembered that she was abducted, and everything else was vague.
Xu Qinyu couldn't help but sigh when she heard this. There were more beggars in ancient times than in modern times.
But no matter what era it is, human traffickers deserve to die!
Xu Qinyu was trying hard to think of a solution. Just as she was thinking, she heard Sister Ruan, who was sitting by the stove watching the little white snake, suddenly cough.
Xu Qinyu suddenly had an idea and looked at Pei Weixuan with an immature idea.
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