"These boxes of rouge are fine, there's no poison involved. Perhaps we're overthinking it," Zhu Lin said calmly.
"It would be good if you were just overthinking it, but I'm afraid of the worst-case scenario, so we can't be careless." Xingxing breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that the boxes of rouge Zhong Daya had used were fine, but she still had Zhu Lin check her pulse earlier and found no problems.
Over the next few days, the doctor who came to the shop tested all the rouge from Hengjia Rouge Shop and found no toxic additives. To ensure that nothing went wrong, Xingxing secretly sent her bodyguards to investigate the women and noble ladies who had bought Hengjia Rouge.
Finally, Xingxing found the long-lost Madam Zhang and asked her to spread the word among the ladies of the city that the Heng family's rouge might be adulterated with poison. Madam Zhang herself was in the rouge business.
That day, Madam Zhang invited two close noblewomen to perform a play, which was very successful. Now, almost all the women in the city know that Hengjia Rouge might be poisonous.
For a time, the doctors in the prefectural city were all extremely busy. Today they went to this house to examine a lady, tomorrow they went to that house to take the pulse of another lady, and sometimes they had to rush to several places in a single day.
However, no problem was found in the end. The ladies wondered if Madam Zhang was deliberately framing the Heng family for the sake of her own rouge shop's business.
"Stop making wild guesses. My brother-in-law works as a clerk in the government office. He mentioned to my husband that the man surnamed Heng isn't from the Heng family at all. He's actually surnamed Hengshan and is a Japanese. Regardless of whether there's a problem with the rouge right now, just look at his Japanese identity. Do you think he has any good intentions?" This was inside information that a noblewoman in the prefectural city had gathered.
Although the Heng family's rouge business was shut down by the government, the reason was not explained, nor was the true identity of Madam Heng and her daughter mentioned. Apart from those in the government who had connections and could find out the truth, the general public did not know.
That day, the guards went to chase after Yokoyama and her two daughters, but they lost them and failed to capture them. The city gates were closed, and the entire city was searched, but they still couldn't find them.
"Half a month has passed in the blink of an eye, and there's still no trace of Hengshan. I reckon he's already escaped from the city. Let's ask the prefect to keep an eye on things, and we won't worry about it for now." Xingxing wasn't so keen on catching Hengshan anymore; she just wanted to go back to the county town to find girls for her brothers.
The palace kept sending letters urging her to return to the capital, because in three months it would be her coming-of-age ceremony, which the Emperor and Empress valued highly, and naturally they would not allow her to still be outside when she turned 18.
Logically, she should have headed to Beijing by now, but Xingxing was preoccupied with finding wives for her brothers, and she couldn't leave until that was settled.
So she didn't have the energy to deal with Hengshan right now, since the other side couldn't cause any trouble anyway. She pulled Zhu Lin, her parents, Ruru and others back to the county town.
Zhao Guizhi's family also returned to the county town this time. They had been too busy with their restaurant business in the prefectural city to spend time with their sister's family. Upon learning that Zhao Guihua's family was going back to the county town, they left the restaurant business to their trusted manager and went to rest.
"My nephews are getting engaged, and as their aunt, I have to help them find someone suitable. If they don't have anyone they like in the prefectural city, we'll go to the county towns and cities to look for someone. We're sure to find someone." Zhao Guizhi was particularly concerned about the marriages of her brothers.
"Isn't it a bit inappropriate to be so picky? Other people's daughters are precious too, we shouldn't be too critical."
Chen Shunping felt that Fu Ge's attempt to find a girl to get engaged was like choosing a concubine. Although marriage is a major life event, it is necessary to choose someone who is agreeable and pleasing to the eye.
However, if you keep failing to find a good match, it's easy to offend people, which isn't good for your reputation. People will say you're mean, arrogant, and disdainful of others.
"What do you know? We're not arranging for the girl to meet face-to-face. We're looking at her secretly, and no one else will know," Zhao Guizhi said reproachfully.
"How can we secretly watch?" Chen Shunping looked blankly at Xingxing and the others, who covered their mouths and chuckled.
Zhao Guihua glanced helplessly at Xingxing and Ruru, and laughed, "So it turns out that my husband and I also had a matchmaker introduce us, and then we would arrange a time and place to meet each other, like a teahouse or a temple, just to pretend we were going out for fun. It wasn't a formal meeting. If we liked each other, we would make a deal; if not, we would just pretend it never happened."
They hadn't found anyone they liked yet, and then all the Fu brothers went to Anyang Prefecture. When they returned this time, Xingxing and Ruru got involved, and the method of finding a match completely changed.
These two young girls spent some money to buy information about which girls on the list went out, such as to see a play, shop for jewelry, or go to a cloth shop.
At this point, Xingxing and Ruru would step forward to get closer and show goodwill. After chatting for a while, they would reveal their identities and intentionally or unintentionally mention that they had an unmarried older brother at home.
Although the two were dressed modestly, their clothes were made of brocade or fine cotton. They wore few pieces of jewelry, but the few that did were quite valuable. Moreover, the girls were quite fond of them because they heard that the other party was a relative of the manager of Meizhoulou.
Bi Meizhou Lou is very famous in the city, and many noble ladies love to drink its fruit wine.
However, upon hearing that Fu Ge's parents were farmers in the countryside, most people were dissatisfied and left after offering a few perfunctory words.
"It's no wonder the girl won't agree to your marriage proposal so abruptly. Marriage is a major life event, and it's understandable that she wants to choose a family with a good financial background," Chen Shunping said succinctly.
"The girls on our list all come from families that are reasonably well-off, but not particularly wealthy or powerful. Their parents are worried that if the families are too poor, the girls won't adapt well after marrying into the family, which could lead to resentment."
Xingxing shrugged nonchalantly, "It's a pity that those girls from seemingly humble families have such high aspirations. They look down on families like ours. They've made it clear, both openly and subtly, that we must have a house in the prefectural city, a blacksmith's livelihood there, and that we can't go back to the countryside after marriage."
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