At the end of February, the snow and wind at the border gradually dissipated and the weather gradually warmed up.
"Whoa!"
A team of carriages stopped at the entrance of Liu Village in Yuehu Town. The leading driver was Zou Gui, who called out, "Mrs. Peng, please get in!"
Cuimei had been waiting for a long time. She trotted over with her bag on her back and asked energetically, "Where's the Madam?"
"In the first car."
Zou Gui smiled and asked knowingly, "Hey, why didn't Brother Rong come to see you off?"
Cuimei boarded the carriage and said, "He returned to the camp after eating Yuanxiao. He was just visiting his relatives. He couldn't have stayed at home for long."
"Hehehe, then you must be very reluctant to let go?" Several familiar drivers started to tease.
"Bah, you guys, stop being so frivolous!" Cuimei turned around, blushed and spat, then immediately opened the door curtain, bent down and got into the carriage, and called out happily:
"lady!"
Jiang Yushu smiled happily and raised her hand to greet her confidant, "Come, sit down."
Cuimei put her bag away and sat down, eagerly asking, "It's been over two months since we last met. Are you okay? Has the young master recovered?"
"Good, Ye'er has recovered." Jiang Yushu looked at him carefully and asked jokingly, "Huh? Your face is glowing. I guess there's no need to ask. Changrong has been taking good care of you lately."
"No, he is clumsy and doesn't know how to take care of people." Cuimei was still shy and blushed shortly after getting married.
Jiang Yushu smiled knowingly, thought for a moment, and asked with concern, "Are you pregnant? If you are, don't force yourself to follow me around."
"No, not yet." Cuimei subconsciously touched her abdomen and said vaguely: "My mother-in-law specially asked a doctor to take care of my body. The doctor said to let nature take its course and not to rush."
Jiang Yushu nodded and said, "Yes, you've just gotten married, you're young and healthy, so there's really no need to rush. Where's Xiaotao?"
"She's at the farm, taking care of some chores. When the young master returns from Tuning, we'll go to the county town together."
Jiang Yushu smiled and said, "Then she'll have to wait a month or two." After a pause, she asked seriously, "How is everything going on the farm?"
"The stewards are diligent and have managed things very well. So far, no major problems have occurred."
Jiang Yushu breathed a sigh of relief, "Well, very good!"
"Shall we go back home first? What shall we do next?" Cuimei asked excitedly. Although her in-laws were kind, she was used to it and preferred to go out and explore in her free time.
Jiang Yushu briefly explained, "It's on the way. I should go home and visit the old lady and the others. Then we'll go to the capital. Lord Liang and Lord Wei are already urging us to go. There's a lot going on over there and they're short on manpower. We have to hurry."
"Could something have happened in the government office?" Cuimei was worried.
"Nothing happened."
Jiang Yushu pondered for a moment and revealed, "Actually, I've always had an idea: It's common knowledge that potatoes don't store well, so we have to find a way to solve this problem. I've already decided that starting this year, we'll open a government-run workshop in Xicang Prefecture dedicated to making potato flour. In the future, as potato production gradually increases, governments and merchants across the northwest will simultaneously set up workshops to see if we can market potato flour!"
"workshop?"
"right!"
Cuimei was very interested. "Where do you want to push the potato flour?"
"Under the whole heaven!"
Jiang Yushu was full of energy and eager to get started. She said, "Most of the rice and other items sold at the market come from the south. From the north, the only things that can be shipped out are leather and a few medicinal herbs. It's very quiet."
"So, if potato flour succeeds, and can have even half the 'prestige' of flour, it will be worthwhile for merchants to take action. Then, the Northwest will become increasingly prosperous."
Cuimei clapped her hands in agreement. "Great! This will save people from laughing at the poverty of the Northwest."
Jiang Yushu sighed helplessly, "Right now, the Northwest is indeed impoverished, and outsiders are right to mock us. But it doesn't matter. As the saying goes, 'Fortunes change,' and the Northwest shouldn't remain impoverished forever. If we want to reverse this poverty, we must first solve the problem of food shortages. It would be strange if a place that requests aid from the imperial court year after year didn't attract ridicule."
"Hahaha~" Cuimei couldn't help laughing.
Jiang Yushu's mind was full of official business. She said confidently, "Sooner or later, the Northwest will no longer have to worry about food!"
The group hurried south. In early March, a late spring cold snap hit overnight. Suddenly, it was overcast and rainy, and suddenly it snowed lightly, and the cold was biting.
That day, the carriage stopped at a small inn in the town to rest.
"Hiss, it's so cold!" Cuimei jumped out of the car, stamped her feet vigorously, and reached back to support Jiang Yushu, "Slow down."
Jiang Yushu stopped, looked around, and said with emotion: "Look, it's this inn again! Oh, we've passed by so many counties, towns, inns, and so on on the official road between Xicang and Yongzhou. We're more diligent than the wandering performers and ointment sellers!"
"Yes." Cuimei carried her bag and sighed, "I can almost guess the taste of each place's special food with my eyes closed."
Jiang Yushu couldn't help laughing, "Hahaha, isn't it good to be knowledgeable and experienced?"
"Of course!"
The waiter came running to greet them, kindly led the horses and led the way, and the master and servants walked towards the inn one after another to rest and refresh themselves.
As she stepped over the threshold, Cuimei looked down at the road and, glancing around, she accidentally caught sight of two familiar figures. She pointed out in surprise:
"Huh? Isn't that Ping'er and Xiaomei? Why are they here?"
"What?"
Jiang Yushu turned her head in surprise, looked closely, frowned and said, "It's unlikely that there are two pairs of people in the world who are exactly the same. They are the ones."
Cuimei narrowed her eyes to identify them. "Strange! They have always been there to serve the Madam, so why are they in this small town?"
Jiang Yushu's heart skipped a beat, and she felt uneasy. "Could it be... something happened at home?" She immediately ordered the maid and the servant, "Go and ask them quickly. I hope those two aren't members of the Guo family."
"Yes!" The servants took the order and ran quickly towards the familiar person.
Jiang Yushu and others watched and waited, but found:
Across the street
The maid led the way closer and called out tentatively, "Miss Ping'er? Xiaomei? What are you two doing—Hey? Don't run!"
"What?"
"Why are you running? When you saw us, you acted like you saw a ghost. Tell me, what happened in the mansion?"
"Stop, the Second Madam is nearby and wants to ask you something!"
As the two sides met, the more the crowd shouted, the faster the two maids ran, as if they had seen a ghost, fleeing into the alley in the wind and snow. As a result, they panicked and ran into a dead end. They leaned against the wall, terrified, and watched Jiang Yushu and her group coming towards them.
Jiang Yushu walked hurriedly, feeling deeply uneasy. She looked at the other person suspiciously and asked first, "Ping'er? Xiaomei?"
"Second Madam..." The two maids' legs went weak and they fell to their knees, mistakenly thinking that their scandal had been exposed and that Wang had ordered an investigation. They were so frightened that their souls were gone and they begged tearfully, "Please spare my lives!"
"I am just following orders."
"At that time, the servants tried to persuade her left and right, but Madam wouldn't listen."
Jiang Yushu was confused. "So you two went out with my sister-in-law? What happened? Where is she?"
The two maids exchanged a glance, unable to hold back any longer. They kowtowed simultaneously, cowering and reporting: "This servant really doesn't dare to make the decision, and there is really nothing we can do. Please save our lady!"
"She, she... Sigh, she needs to see a doctor. If she delays any longer, there might be... two deaths."
One corpse, two lives?
"One corpse, two lives?" Jiang Yushu was shocked and stunned. When she came to her senses, she was dumbfounded and asked in confusion, "What do you mean by 'one corpse, two lives'? Is your wife pregnant?"
The two maids trembled with fear, but gritted their teeth and stammered, "Yes, yes."
"Counting the days, it's been almost six months."
"What?"
Everyone was stunned, looking at each other in silence for a long time.
Jiang Yushu felt obliged to do so. She forced herself to cheer up, waved her hand, and ordered, "We can't talk here. Take me to see her immediately! Later, you must tell me the whole story, otherwise, you will have to bear the consequences."
"yes."
"We will never hide anything." The two maids were eager for someone to make the decision, and hurriedly stood up to lead the way.
A few days later, Guo Mansion
The trusted old servant was guarding the door, and the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law discussed countermeasures overnight.
Wang Qiaozhen was lying on the bed, her face pale, her eyes red and swollen, and tears streaming down her face.
"You stupid, shameless thing!"
"How dare you do such a shameful thing behind someone's back? You've completely disgraced the Guo family!"
"You, you forgot about Hongyao and the rules of propriety. The Guo family can no longer tolerate you!"
"You kept saying you were going to Yongzhou to find Yushu and ask the imperial physician for treatment, but it turned out you were secretly trying to have an abortion?"
Wang couldn't believe it. Her face turned pale and she was filled with grief. She angrily questioned, "Over the years, whether as 'aunt' or 'mother-in-law', I have always treated you well. Especially since you took the initiative to remain faithful to your husband, you have been the most favored of the whole family, except for Yu'er and Ye'er. I have always tried my best to give you the best in everything. I never expected that you would repay your in-laws like this?"
"You shameless thing, you are willing to be humiliated. Just beat you to death!" Wang was furious. She picked up her crutch and hit the bed with it.
Wang Qiaozhen was extremely ashamed. She neither defended herself nor begged for mercy. She just instinctively curled up, covered her belly, and protected the fetus.
Jiang Yushu had no choice but to stop him. She quickly snatched the cane away, forced the old woman to sit down, and advised: "Old Madam, please calm down. The most urgent thing is to discuss countermeasures--"
"What is there to discuss?"
Wang interrupted the second daughter-in-law, shaking with anger, and took her anger out on her: "When you saw her that day, you should have beaten her to death on the spot. Why did you bring her home? You were afraid it wouldn't be embarrassing enough, right?"
In Jiang Yushu's view, although it was not glorious for her widowed sister-in-law, who was determined to remain chaste, to suddenly become pregnant, it was only a matter of morality and not a capital crime. She had neither the right nor the right to sentence Wang Qiaozhen to death.
Jiang Yushu calmed down and said calmly, "Old Madam, calm down and listen to my explanation first. When I saw my sister-in-law that day, she had just taken abortion pills and had fallen into a coma. I didn't fully understand the whole story, so how could I just stand by and watch her die? I had no choice but to ask a doctor to treat her. During the treatment, I accidentally discovered that my sister-in-law had taken abortion pills."
"As to why the medicine was wrong, it has not yet been determined."
"Also, the doctor said my sister-in-law was very weak, and a forced abortion would likely result in two deaths. At the time, she was barely breathing, and I thought she wouldn't make it. After all, human life was at stake, so I rushed home, thinking it would be safer to have Fang Sheng treat her; he was one of us."
Wang was furious. "Look at what she did. Doesn't she deserve to die? I shouldn't have saved her!"
Jiang Yushu took a deep breath and said, "You are both my aunt and my mother-in-law, you decide." If unfortunately there is two deaths, how should she explain it to the relevant relatives?
"Alas! Alas!"
After a long scolding, Wang burst into tears and warned, "It has come to this. I, I am at my wit's end. Yushu, write a letter to Honglei immediately. He is the head of the family. Let him make the decision."
Jiang Yushu thought for a moment and said, "Okay, I'll write a letter later."
Wang glared at her eldest daughter-in-law, gritting her teeth. "No wonder! Ever since last Mid-Autumn Festival, you've become incredibly lazy. Apart from burning incense, you've been hiding in your room all day. It turns out you're not sick, but you've been completely bewitched by a strange man and even gotten pregnant with a bastard!"
"Mengsheng is not a wild man." Wang Qiaozhen couldn't help but refute, choking up and saying, "He already has the honor of being a juren. Sooner or later, he will have a bright future."
Wang was so angry that she almost fainted. "At this point, you're still daydreaming? You idiot, you've been deceived!"
Jiang Yushu sighed and slowly explained, "Based on the clues you provided, I sent people to secretly investigate, but they couldn't find anyone named 'Zhou Mengsheng'. Also, I went to the county government office specifically, using the excuse of hiring a scholar for my third and fourth brothers. I carefully questioned my friends and did hear about a few successful candidates, but none of them had the surname 'Zhou', and they were all married, with the youngest already in their thirties."
"Sister-in-law, I guess you don't know. In fact, Juren are rare in Heqin and even in the northwest. There is no such person as 'surname Zhou, 25 years old, from a wealthy family, tall and thin'."
Wang Qiaozhen refused to believe it. Her hair was disheveled and she curled up in bed crying, shaking her head. "No, it's impossible. You must have missed something."
"Mengsheng won't lie to me. He will never lie to me."
Wang was furious, feeling very disappointed with her daughter-in-law. "You idiot, you idiot! Zhou is obviously a liar, he cheated people of their money and bodies and ran away after getting what he wanted. If he really cared about you and wanted to marry you, how could he have completely ruined your reputation?" After she finished speaking, she raised her hand and slapped her eldest daughter-in-law.
"Aunt..." Wang Qiaozhen covered her face and cried. She was so thin that her chin was pointed, the veins on the back of her hands were bulging, and she looked skin and bones.
Jiang Yushu had been running around for days and was exhausted. She tried to persuade him again, "Old Madam, please sit down and discuss this. Don't get angry. Take care of your health."
"Your sister-in-law, no! After this scandal, she is no longer the daughter-in-law of the Guo family."
Wang beat her chest and stamped her feet, then sat down dejectedly, pointing at her eldest daughter-in-law and scolding her: "Shameless fool, if you have any dignity, you should solve this problem yourself!"
"I know I deserve to die, but before I die, I want to see Mengsheng one last time." After months of torment, Wang Qiaozhen was emaciated, her eyes fixed, her speech incoherent, and she muttered, "We clearly agreed to go to the same place to burn incense on the first, fifth, fifteenth, and twenty-fifth of every month. Why did he break his promise?"
"We had an appointment in advance, why did he break it? What happened to him?"
Seeing this, Jiang Yushu hesitated to speak. Wang raised her hand and slapped her eldest daughter-in-law again, "Because he's a liar! He played you and cheated you out of your money. If he doesn't run away, are you waiting to be held accountable?"
Wang Qiaozhen sobbed and was in a state of despair. She refused to believe that she had been cheated of her money and sex, and murmured stubbornly: "No, it's impossible. Mengsheng is not a liar."
"you--"
The negotiation failed and the lesson lasted for a long time.
Jiang Yushu sighed deeply and suggested, "Old Madam, why don't you send someone to watch over my sister-in-law and her first, and then wait patiently for Hong Lei's reply? Anyway, things have come to this point, there's no point in rushing."
"well!"
Wang wiped her tears and racked her brains, but could come up with nothing to do. She could only nod and say, "Forget it. I'll do as you say. You make the arrangements."
"OK!"
Jiang Yushu then apologized, "The government office in the prefecture has urged me three times. I have a lot of official business to attend to, so I have to leave as soon as possible. If you are too busy to handle the housework, you can leave it to my third and fourth brothers. They are grown up and should help take care of the housework."
"Okay, you arrange it." Wang was exhausted. She stared at her eldest daughter-in-law in a daze, feeling extremely disappointed, with a headache and irritability.
At the same time, guest rooms
“Hahahaha~”
“Wonderful, wonderful!”
"Bitch, you deserve this day! You deserve it!"
Liao Xiaodie was putting on makeup in front of the mirror, with a vicious look in her eyes and a gentle smile, feeling extremely relieved.
So, after Jiang Yushu arranged her household chores, she set off quickly and rushed to the provincial capital without stopping. While paying attention to letters from home, she also took time to lobby and try her best to persuade the government, and witnessed the completion of the first government-run workshop with her own eyes.
After a busy day, it was June in a blink of an eye and the summer harvest began. Xiping Warehouse opened its doors again and carts of grain were moved into the warehouse.
On a summer morning, Jiang Yushu, wearing a veiled hat, walked out of her residence, walked quickly towards the carriage, and headed to the military warehouse as usual.
Unexpectedly, the sound of horse hooves suddenly sounded at the entrance of the alley. She looked up, her eyes wide with surprise, and asked in astonishment:
"Why are you here?"
Guo Honglei led a group of trusted men, dismounted from their horses, exhausted, and approached with great strides. He whispered, "We're here to arrest someone and take you home."
Jiang Yushu was unable to recover her consciousness and mumbled, "Well, the grain is almost harvested, and I plan to go home in two days." After she finished speaking, she suddenly recovered and asked hurriedly:
"Catch someone? Who?"
"Liar, Zhou Mengsheng."
Jiang Yushu held her breath, leaned closer and asked, "Did you catch it?"
Guo Honglei nodded. "After quite a bit of trouble, we finally caught him before he escaped from Xicang."
Jiang Yushu pursed her lips, "What are you going to do?"
Guo Honglei's eyes were heavy, and he suppressed his anger as he replied, "According to investigation, there should be more than one person involved, and they are working together to defraud. My sister-in-law... is certainly wrong, but the culprit deliberately deceived them, which is extremely despicable."
"How dare they deceive the Guo family? They are courting death. I will not forgive them!"
The author has something to say: Hi (*?▽｀) Nono little angel, it’s my first day back at work after National Day, and I’ve started updating again!
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