Chapter 95 Chapter 95 Is it time to grow teeth?
Xuan Jinyu nodded and gave her a shy smile. "Grandma, we were so happy yesterday when we found out we could go out. How could we sleep?"
It had been a long time since she heard her young granddaughter-in-law acting coquettishly. Old Madam Su felt a warm feeling in her heart and tears were about to well up in her eyes. She quickly lowered her head to wipe them away.
"Then you should rest for a while later." She patted Xuan Jinyu's hand.
Hearing this, Xu Yu Niang, who was obsessed with holding her granddaughter, turned around and said, "It will take an hour to get back to the house from here. Jinyu, you should sleep in the carriage for a while! The mountain road is bumpy, let Zhang hold you." Anyway, the two of them were already very familiar with this routine when Xuan Jinyu was pregnant.
"Sister Lan, your grandmother and I will take care of her," Xu Yu Niang added.
So, on the way back to the city, Xuan Jinyu was forced to sleep in the carriage by Old Lady Su and Xu Yu Niang. When Lan Jie'er was hungry and wanted to ask her mother for milk, she was stopped.
Xu Yu Niang took out the meat paste she had made early in the morning and boiled it on the copper stove very skillfully.
Worried about waking Xuan Jinyu, she lowered her voice and explained to Su Guanzhang, "I'm worried it might get spoiled in the heat, so I'm keeping it cool with ice."
"Can Sister Lan eat this?" Xu Yu Niang was still a little worried when she placed the small bowl on cold water to cool it down.
Some babies have delicate stomachs, and eating chilled food can cause stomach upset even if it is reboiled.
She was worried that the same thing would happen to her granddaughter.
Then we have to wake up Xuan Jinyu who is sleeping soundly and feed her.
Su Guanzhang didn't know that Xu Yu Niang was thinking this way.
If he knew, he would probably be too embarrassed to explain to his mother that when Lan Jie'er needed to drink milk at night, there was no need to wake Xuan Jinyu up at night. He could just unbutton her clothes and let his daughter drink.
At this time, Su Guanzhang reached out and felt the temperature of the small bowl, picked it up, and nodded when he heard Xu Yu Niang's question, "It's edible."
Sister Lan has been in very good health since she was born.
There was only one exception.
During the heaviest snowfall of the winter, the cave was sealed with ice and snow, and the residual heat from the hot springs behind the mountain wall was unable to dispel the severe cold that had seeped into the cave.
That night, Lan Jie'er kicked over the quilt, and Su Guanzhang was a step late to cover her up, so she caught a cold the next day.
However, because Sister Lan was sleeping on a stone bed with her parents at that time, there was a constant flow of warm air from the stone bed to the person sleeping on it, so her cold symptoms were not serious.
At other times, Sister Lan never got sick.
She is not picky about food. Although she likes meat and fish puree, she also accepts vegetable puree, rice porridge, etc. and eats them happily.
"That's good." Xu Yu Niang was relieved.
When Xuan Jinyu woke up, she found herself sleeping in an unfamiliar bed.
"Awake?" Su Guanzhang was worried that she might not be able to adapt after waking up, so he carried her in and stayed with her until she opened her eyes. He whispered, "This is the house that Third Brother bought a while ago."
Although he only took a quick look at the courtyard they lived in when he carried Xuan Jinyu in, he already knew that this courtyard was the largest and best one.
Moreover, looking inside and outside the yard, the flowers and plants are in order and everything is clean. It is clear that even though they cannot come back for the past ten months, this place has been well taken care of and it is definitely not just started yesterday.
Their families outside the mountain have been waiting for their return.
Xuan Jinyu buried her head in his arms and said, "Let's go find grandma and mother!"
When she heard Su Guanzhang's words, she didn't feel sad for long and calmed down. "We are back. We must accompany them well in the future," she said.
Su Guanzhang responded and kissed her forehead.
Lunch time was approaching, and Xu Yu Niang and Old Madam Su also took Lan Jie'er to tour the entire house.
"Dear Lanjie, mom and dad will be here soon, don't cry!" Xu Yu Niang coaxed the little granddaughter in her arms with heartache.
Just now when Su Guanzhang carried Xuan Jinyu away, Lan Jie'er was fine. She listened to her father and played obediently with her great-grandmother and grandmother for a while.
But she was a little unhappy because she hadn't seen her parents yet after touring the house.
Since she was born, she has never experienced such a long period of time without her parents being under their eyes!
Sister Lan felt extremely aggrieved, with tears in her eyes, but she refused to cry out loud. She just pouted her little mouth, neither wanting to cry nor not wanting to. This made Old Madam Su and Xu Yu Niang very distressed.
They thought about Xuan Jinyu and Su Guanzhang who were trapped at the bottom of the cliff for ten months, and they also waited for Lan Jie'er for ten months.
Now that they finally saw and held this little person in their arms, they couldn't bear to see her so sad.
"Grandma will take you to find daddy, okay?" Xu Yu Niang turned around and walked towards Su Guanzhang and Xuan Jinyu's courtyard.
She had to call her son out.
But when Xu Yu Niang and Old Lady Su turned around and took a few steps, they saw Su Guanzhang and Xuan Jinyu also walking towards them.
Seeing Sister Lan crying, Su Guanzhang said something to Xuan Jinyu and quickened their pace.
"Sister Lan, why are you crying?" He held his daughter in his arms and wiped her tears with a soft handkerchief he carried with him. "Didn't Daddy say he'd be gone for a while and let you play with your great-grandmother and grandmother?"
Sister Lan couldn't understand what he said at all, and even if she could understand, she couldn't listen to it at this moment.
Finally seeing her father, she buried her little head in Su Guanzhang's shoulder, her little hands tightly hugging his neck, looking very dependent.
"So this is what Zhang will be like after becoming a father." Xu Yu Niang covered her heart, feeling the emotion there, and her eyes couldn't help but become wet again.
Xuan Jinyu walked over and took her hand, "Mother, don't cry." She said with a smile.
Xu Yu Niang said, "Oh," and then she said, "I'm just happy."
Lunch was quickly served on the table.
The Su family advocated frugality, and this meal was only for the four adults, so even though it was to celebrate Xuan Jinyu and Su Guanzhang's escape from the bottom of the cliff, there was not much extravagance.
There were only eight dishes and one soup on the table, four meat dishes and four vegetable dishes, and considering Xuan Jinyu's health condition, the meals were relatively light.
"Try it quickly." Xu Yu Niang reluctantly moved her eyes away from Lan Jie'er in Su Guanzhang's arms and called Xuan Jinyu, "This mutton was delivered by Bai Falcon last night. It's still fresh." She said.
Madam Su sat down at the head of the table and smiled, "This steamed pork ribs is also good. The pig was raised in the mountains by your three brothers and the guards!"
"Eat more fish. These are raised in our own pond."
"And these vegetables are all grown by us, so eat more."
Madam Su and Xu Yu Niang introduced several dishes one by one.
The dishes on the table were all home-cooked meals, no different from the meals in the homes of the wealthier people nearby, and they were cooked either by steaming or stewing.
It is obvious at a glance that the Su family has completely integrated into the life of Huaizhao County in the past year, and there is no trace of the luxurious style of an aristocratic family.
Xuan Jinyu and Su Guanzhang heard Madam Su and Xu Yu Niang saying "I raised it myself" and "I planted it myself" respectively, and they knew that their original guess was not wrong.
If the locals hadn't been so ostracized by them, the Su family wouldn't have had to rely on themselves for all the ingredients for their dishes. It would be fine if they just grew some vegetables themselves, just to pass the time.
But meats like pork, fish, chicken, duck, and goose can all be bought with money, and they don't lack that little money. Moreover, if all else fails, hunting in the mountains is also an option!
Why should I raise them all myself? My three brothers and the guards don't spend their time on things like this!
Xuan Jinyu was very sad, but she didn't want to show it, for fear that the two elders would see it and recall the days when she was ostracized, which would only make her sad.
It’s such a wonderful day for reunion, but we can’t ruin the mood.
More importantly, the Su family has kept their mouths shut for nearly a year; they couldn't say for sure that it was Xuan Wensheng who revealed a clue in the letter, allowing them to piece together the truth.
The hand that Su Guanzhang was not holding Lan Jie'er with was originally hanging on his leg. Now he reached out and gently held Xuan Jinyu's hand, then quickly let go.
Xuan Jinyu lowered her eyelids. Based on the tacit understanding they had developed from raising a child together, she instantly understood what he meant.
"Coincidentally, we also have a flock of sheep at the bottom of the cliff." She said nonchalantly, and laughed. "It seems that if we are not from the same family, we will not marry."
Such witty remarks immediately made the atmosphere light-hearted.
Speaking of raising sheep, Old Lady Su and Xu Yu Niang immediately became interested and asked Su Guanzhang to talk about how he raised them.
How strange!
Their grandson/son, who they have raised for more than 20 years and is as cold as a jade sculpture, is now not only skilled in taking care of and coaxing children, but is also an expert in raising sheep.
How could they have imagined that this day would come?
Su Guanzhang looked at his grandmother and mother helplessly. He could see the mockery in their eyes, so he had no choice but to satisfy their curiosity and explained it briefly.
Su Guanzhang raised the sheep on the grassland near the cave and in front of the cave, and later built a sheep pen.
There were originally more than ten ewes and lambs in the sheepfold. After the spring, the pregnant ewe gave birth to three lambs.
Before Xuan Jinyu finished her mourning period at the end of May, mutton was mainly provided for Bai Falcon to eat.
The white falcon is now an adult and is much heavier than last year. Perhaps because of its adulthood or greed, its food intake has almost doubled.
But no matter how much the white falcon eats, it cannot consume so many sheep.
By June, Xuan Jinyu and Su Guanzhang began to resume their normal diet and no longer avoided meat and fish. Only then did the number of sheep in the sheepfold slowly begin to decrease.
Because it was not just the couple and Bai Hun who ate together, every time Su Guanzhang slaughtered a sheep, he would ask Bai Hun to deliver some of the mutton to the house.
At the beginning, the Su family, Xuan Wensheng and the young couple at the bottom of the cliff shared the mutton together. There were too many people, so they had to kill two sheep each time.
Later, the Su family returned to Beijing in accordance with the imperial edict, and Xuan Wensheng went with them. In fact, they only needed to kill one sheep each time.
But Su Guanzhang still killed two sheep every time, and the extra ones would be distributed to the secret guards guarding the house and the guards who went up the mountain every day and searched hard outside the mountain.
It is worth mentioning that Su Sheng, Su Guanyu and others also searched for more than ten times. After confirming that the place where Su Guanzhang and others were trapped was indeed inaccessible from outside the mountain, they gave up this idea.
Later on, the guards still went into the mountains every day, not just to confuse the world, but to train soldiers in the mountains.
Su Guanyu and the two brothers Su Guanwen and Su Guanwu were divided into three groups and went into the mountains with the guards to train these Su family guards according to the way the Xuan family's secret guard camp trained their secret guards.
After nearly a year, the Su family guards' fighting power has greatly improved, especially in team combat.
Although they were still no match for the secret guards who practiced hard every day, their casualties were definitely much lower when they encountered the assassination attempt on the cliff last year.
"How are the sheep in the sheepfold?" Xu Yu Niang asked Su Guanzhang. She had just served a bowl of mutton soup for Old Madam Su.
The mutton was delivered by Baishun yesterday. It was kept chilled in the kitchen when I received it. It tasted not much worse than fresh mutton when I ate it today.
Su Guanzhang had also prepared mutton soup for Xu Yu Niang and Xuan Jinyu, and was filling his own bowl when he replied, "We've already eaten all the sheep. The sheep that were sent later were all caught by me in the mountains that day."
There were only more than ten sheep in total. The white falcon ate them first, and then killed them two by two. It was not enough for them to consume.
Xuan Jinyu always had plenty of milk, and she insisted on feeding Lan Jie'er herself; Su Guanzhang's original intention of raising sheep was for goat milk, and after the sheep in the pen were eaten, he stopped raising them.
Lan Jie'er, on the other hand, was agitated for a long time when she first saw that there were no sheep left in the pen. Later, Su Guanzhang used his Qing Gong skills to take her on a flight, and she finally calmed down.
But since then, Sister Lan has loved the feeling of flying in her father's arms.
When she saw the white falcon spread its wings and fly away, she no longer envied him. She just grabbed Su Guanzhang's clothes and shouted "Ahhh" happily. Su Guanzhang then knew how to coax her.
After lunch, the dishes and chopsticks were cleared away, but the family still sat in the dining room.
"Oh, my great-grandmother's good great-granddaughter, Sister Lan." Old Madam Su held the child tightly in her arms and liked her more and more the more she looked at her.
Xu Yu Niang stared at her granddaughter eagerly, and when she noticed that her saliva was constantly flowing, she patiently wiped it for her again and again.
"Are you about to grow teeth?" Xu Yu Niang teased Lan Jie'er, "Be good, open your mouth for grandma to see."
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