The gate was locked in broad daylight. Meixiang knocked on the door and shouted, "Brother Ding!"
Strange, why would you lock the door in broad daylight?
"Brother Ding? Sister Jian Ning!" she called out a few more times.
After a while, Dabao came and opened the door, "Sister Meixiang." After opening the door, Dabao saw that it was her, greeted her, and then closed the door again.
"Why is the door locked today?" Meixiang asked.
"My dad tied it up."
"Where's your father?"
"Sleeping in the house with my mother."
Meixiang raised an eyebrow. Sleeping in broad daylight? She glanced at the main house, then at the courtyard. It was deserted. The dead cat that used to lie leisurely on the porch, squinting its eyes, would stare at anyone who came, staring at them like a thief. But now, it was nowhere to be seen. Who knew where it had gone?
Qiu Ge and those two silly girls weren't there either. She glanced at Da Bao and the fur ball following him. "Where are the others? Are you home alone?"
Dabao pointed towards the kitchen and said, "Sister Qiaofeng and my eldest sister are cooking. I'm going back to the room to read."
After he said that, he turned and left.
"Who is Qiaofeng?" she asked loudly.
"My mother's new apprentice."
Meixiang scoffed and walked towards the kitchen. Inside, she saw a slightly younger girl putting sweet potatoes into the pot while the older girl started the fire. She rushed forward and took the sweet potatoes Qiaofeng had put into the pot, saying, "How can you eat this for lunch? Is cooking a meal that hard? You can't eat several children. They're all growing up."
Qiaofeng had never met her before, so she didn't know who she was. But she felt quite disgusted by her self-possessed demeanor. However, she didn't say anything, only replying, "It was the teacher who cooked the sweet potatoes for me."
Meixiang rolled her eyes and said, "What does a man know? He can't cook. Let me do it. You go wash the rice. Four drums of rice will be enough."
"Four barrels of rice?" Qiao Feng suspected that she had heard wrongly. Last night, Jian Ning cooked white rice without any grains mixed in. It was the first time for her to eat fragrant white rice again after six years. She finished half a bowl of white rice without even asking for any dishes.
Her master is the mistress of this family. She thought that her master specially cooked white rice for her. Although her master's family has some property, they are farmers after all. How could they eat white rice every meal?
"What are you still doing here? You're a grown-up girl, is cooking a meal really that difficult for you? What if I can't order you around?" Meixiang turned around and saw that she didn't move, her finger almost poking her nose.
Qiaofeng's face turned red. Because she didn't know where she came from, she just stared at her without saying anything, but she also stubbornly refused to move.
"Sister Qiaofeng, let's go cook." The big girl came over and pulled Qiaofeng away.
"Who is she? Your aunt or your uncle?" Qiaofeng asked Da Niu softly when the two were washing rice in the backyard.
The girl shook her head. "Neither. Just call her Sister Meixiang like us."
Meixiang? Sounds like a maid's name. Qiaofeng rolled her eyes inwardly. She had thought Meixiang was the aunt of this family, but it turned out she was nothing.
She finished washing the rice. In the main room, Jian Ning woke up. She felt a tightness in her chest. It wasn't painful, but it was uncomfortable. She just sat up, clutching her chest, when Ding Youtian opened his eyes.
"What's wrong? Is it still painful?" He heard her sitting up and felt that something was not going well. He quickly put on his clothes and got off the bed. He came over and lifted the bed curtain. Seeing that her brows were slightly frowned, he said, "I'll call Uncle Wei to come and take a look."
"No, don't go and call them." Wei Dong used his internal energy to heal her and Guoguo, which was very damaging to their vitality. How could he trouble others again and again?
"Just take care of him slowly. He treated Guoguo and me today, so he probably won't recover for a while. Don't call him again."
"Okay, I won't go. Don't worry." Ding Youtian took the pillow he was using on the couch and placed it on her back. "Are you hungry? I'll bring you the rice porridge that Qiao Feng made this morning."
"I don't have an appetite right now. I can eat when I'm hungry. Go and put on your clothes quickly. Be careful not to catch a cold. If you catch a cold, I won't treat you."
"I don't believe you won't treat me." Ding Youtian tucked the quilt in for her and stood up. Seeing Guoguo curled up at the foot of the bed, she glanced at him half-closed, and couldn't help but smile, "You've turned a disaster into a blessing. Before I could even climb onto the bed, you got there first."
As he spoke, he walked over to the bed, put on his clothes, and saw that the crescent jade pendant on the pendant had turned completely white. He raised an eyebrow, pondered for a moment, and then took off the jade pendant and handed it to Jian Ning. "Before you went to bed, you said Xiu's name was Xinning. She must have escaped from this jade pendant. Is that spirit a memory of her childhood? Who trapped her soul in this jade pendant?"
Jian Ning looked at the jade pendant and searched briefly. Pavilions and towers, elegantly dressed noble ladies, and maids and servants who came and went like butterflies among the flowers flashed through her mind like a kaleidoscope.
To her surprise, she also heard a familiar name - Huo Jincheng.
She closed her eyes and searched carefully again. When she opened her eyes, Ding Youtian came forward and asked, "How is it?"
"You've made a fortune. She's not just any girl from a small family. She's from a military family and the eldest daughter. Her surname is Duan, and her name is Duan Xinning."
"but……"
"But what? Regardless of her status, she was my wife in the past. I have no intention of getting close to her father. Since you are not her, you don't have to take the initiative to acknowledge this relationship in the future. If they come to you and you take her body, it's up to you whether you acknowledge it or not."
"If it's that snobbish, then it's better not to acknowledge it."
"Look at you, what did I say? I didn't say her parents were snobbish. They're good people, but they have two concubines. That's why I said it's the most hateful thing for a man to have three wives and four concubines. It's not conducive to family stability and unity."
"Don't worry, I've promised you that no matter whether we are rich or poor, you will be my only child. I will never break my promise."
"Why should I be worried? It's still uncertain whether you can pass the imperial examination. Besides..." Jian Ning thought about it and decided not to say anything. Duan Xinning had already arranged a marriage with Huo Jincheng.
"I originally wanted to tell you that this memory only lasted from when she was three or four years old. The memories after that are still missing. Jian Xiugu was named by your father. He didn't spend a penny on her. He picked her up at the market. She must have been over seven years old at that time. Where did the memories from four to seven years old go? Did she lose part of her soul?"
Ding Youtian said, "Don't talk about that for now. Just tell me what happened to her before she was four years old and why she was imprisoned in this jade pendant."
Jane Ning searched carefully again but found nothing. All the newly received memories were in the general's mansion. She looked at it from a third-party perspective and did not find anything unusual.
"That's strange." Ding Youtian paced back and forth for a few steps with the comb in his hand, then said, "Since she's in this jade pendant and hasn't left the General's Mansion, that means the person behind her is in the General's Mansion."
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