Chapter 14 Chapter 14 Miao Xiaoniang
Seeing that Jinniang did not refuse the young lady's fan cover, Qin Shuang'er waited until Chunxing left and then pretended to joke, "How come you are so familiar with the people in the young lady's room?"
"I don't know either. I haven't been to the eldest girl's place, so I can't figure it out." Jinniang smiled, also looking confused.
Qin Shuang'er was so angry that her teeth were itching. You, Wei Jinniang, are not following the eldest girl to be a maid and a companion, so why are you trying to take my place? But she is the kind of person who rarely expresses her anger even if she is angry.
Jinniang and the others were busy making clothes, and they just had to do a little more work, but no one beat or scolded them. Jiang even said that they worked hard and asked them to add an extra dish, so the treatment was still good. Shanjie was in a terrible situation. When they were having lunch in the sewing room at noon, they saw her running back and were very surprised.
"Sister Shan, why are you here at this time?" Jinniang quickly put down her bowl and asked, "Have you eaten? Do you want to eat something? I'll ask Xiaohe to go to the kitchen and add some dishes for you."
I haven't seen Duanduan for a month. Sister Shan's face looks pale and bloodless. She used to be a very eloquent person, but now she just cries.
Sister Jiang Shan sobbed and sat down: "No, really no."
Jinniang and Fang Qiaolian looked at each other in bewilderment. At this time, Qin Shuang'er had gone out for something, and Chen Niang was not there either. They were afraid that Shanjie had something to do with Chen Niang.
Unexpectedly, Sister Shan lifted up her trouser legs and said, "Look, I knelt all night yesterday, and my knees are almost broken. She doesn't hit us in the face, but if we do something that doesn't please her, she makes us kneel on the porcelain tiles in the room. Yesterday, I got up a little late to fetch water, so I was punished to kneel. In fact, I know that she was unlucky yesterday, so she was looking for bad luck with us."
Jinniang frowned: "Do you want to tell Madam Chen?"
"Yes, you should go find Madam Chen." Fang Qiao Lian also thought so.
Sister Shan shook her head: "It's useless. The master hasn't hit us in the face yet, who will stand up for us? Not to mention Madam Chen, even my own parents can't intervene in this."
Jinniang was surprised again, "You are a needlework maid, why are you responsible for her getting up at night?"
"My aunt always drinks water at night, saying that her heart is burning and she has to urinate constantly. It takes two or three people to serve her at night. I have to keep making clothes, underwear, and panties during the day, and even have to do her menstrual work. She has had her period for more than ten days this month, and she also asked me to wash her bloody ones. Other families get a reward of one or two cents for having a child, but I have nothing. She often complains that I don't cook well. She even asked me to pick up the lotus seeds that accidentally fell on the ground in the Tremella and Lotus Seed Soup she ate and eat them." Although Shanjie's family conditions were not good, she was self-sufficient as an embroiderer and had never suffered such humiliation.
Before, it was just her dignity that was trampled upon, and now she has to kneel on porcelain pieces. No wonder Sister Shan’s life is so difficult.
Jinniang and the others were very angry when they heard this. Qin Shuang'er happened to come back and also heard everything, but everyone got different insights from this incident.
Sister Shan couldn't stay here for long, so even though her knees hurt, she ran away like the wind. Jinniang thought that the old lady was also a person who would oppress others based on the person they were. It would be fine if she angered everyone, but she would only give a little bit of punishment to the maids born in the family, but would make a lot of trouble for the maids bought from outside. The two sides could not unite and it was difficult to fight against them.
What a cunning and cruel guy.
Jinniang told all these to Madam Chen when she arrived. Madam Chen thought, "Since they were only forced to kneel in the room, it means she is still afraid that people will know that she is humiliating others. In this case, her life will not be in danger. It doesn't matter. When we want to embroider something big, I will take the opportunity to tell the Madam."
Only then did Jinniang let the matter go and started to do her own work. Seven or eight days later, when Shanjie came over, she told Shanjie about it, and Shanjie was relieved.
Then Qin Shuang'er said, "Don't worry, we are all from the same hometown, so why wouldn't we help?"
Jinniang was speechless. This Qin Shuang'er really loved to take advantage of others. Last time when she told Chen Niang about Shan Jie's matter, she didn't say a word. Now she was waiting for others to thank her, but she was taking credit for it.
She would not indulge Qin Shuang'er, so she looked at her with a half-smile: "Last time when I helped Sister Shan to talk to Chen Niangzi, you didn't say a word. Now you are talking about whether you can help or not. Aren't you ashamed..."
"I said it in private, and you don't know." Qin Shuang'er narrowed her eyes.
Jinniang rolled her eyes and was even more speechless towards this freeloader.
**
The spring breeze was blowing gently. Jinniang came out to deliver a fan case to the eldest girl. On the way, she met a woman who was wearing a silver-red silk blouse with gold prints, a waist-length pleated skirt with a diamond-patterned floral pattern, and a sash of the same color. She had her hair in a small bun, tied up with a red silk ribbon, and wore a gold-inserted comb with a peony pattern, and a silver-gilt flower hairpin. She looked pretty, delicate and gorgeous.
After she left, Jinniang asked the maid on the corridor who this was. The maid smiled and said, "It's a pity you don't know her. This is Miao Xiaoniang. She has been taking care of her baby and rarely goes out."
So this is Miao Xiaoniang, the fourth girl’s biological mother. No wonder she is so beautiful.
Thinking of this, she hurried to the eldest girl's place. The eldest girl had just returned from Old Lady Han. She came there specifically to deliver Buddhist scriptures. When she saw Jinniang coming, she thought to herself that in terms of figure and appearance, Qin Shuang'er was much more decent.
People are like this. They think that good-looking people are kinder.
But Jinniang, with her hair in a bun and grey clothes, looked a little shabby.
However, I was amazed when I saw the fan cover she sent me. The pink glossy satin was embroidered with pink cherry blossoms of the same color. The cherry blossoms were like a waterfall, but not complicated, and instead seemed full of spring.
"I've heard people praise your embroidery work a long time ago, and today I see that it's really true." The girl liked it very much and immediately asked someone to put the gold-dust fan in.
Jinniang smiled and said, "As long as you like it, young lady."
The eldest girl continued, "You are so smart. When ordinary people embroider cherry blossoms, they embroider them on a white fan cover, but you embroider red against red, and it doesn't feel complicated at all."
"I remembered that there was a poem by Ouyang Jiong in the Five Dynasties called "Beautiful Spring", and there was a line that said 'After the rain, the mountain cherry blossoms are as red as blooming', so I embroidered it like this." Jinniang said.
The older girl was a little surprised: "You've been educated? And you know Ouyang Jiong's poems."
Jinniang nodded: "My parents at home just asked someone to teach me a few random words."
She could read and embroider, and her speech was flawless. The girl was very happy and said, "Well, why don't you stay and have a cup of tea, and we can talk."
"I would like to accompany you to relieve your boredom, but I have a lot of work to do and have to go back, so I won't waste your tea." Jinniang didn't dare to show off here. After all, the maids in her room were not easy to mess with.
The eldest girl was a little disappointed, but she gave her a pair of golden lychee earrings as a reward and instructed her, "Come over and talk to me often in the future."
Jinniang smiled and replied.
Coming out of the eldest lady's place, I ran into Yanhong. Seeing Jinniang, Yanhong breathed a sigh of relief: "The eldest lady went to the old lady's place, and the maids all went there. Someone happened to deliver fruit, and those who were not careful ran away. I was just looking for someone to deliver something to the second lady's place, can you help me deliver it?"
"Oh." Jinniang also wanted to move more. She was almost getting moldy from staying in the sewing room every day.
The second wife lived in the west courtyard. After passing the old lady's yard, she reached the front garden with tall flower stands and rugged rockery. When she was passing through the rockery, she heard two people talking and quickly hid in the rockery.
Through the stone hole, I saw that the person who was talking was actually the Miao girl I saw in the morning. She was talking to a maid, "You are also unlucky. Your daughter finally became a concubine and was favored by the eldest young master, but now the eldest young master is about to fail."
"My daughter was forced into marriage by a bully. Thanks to you, she went to the eldest young master and won his favor. It was really her misfortune." The old woman wiped her tears.
Miao Xiaoniang sighed: "If your daughter has been childless for so many years, what will she do when the young master passes away?"
The old woman looked up at Miao Xiaoniang and said, "Please help me, little lady."
"Then you have to do as I say." Miao Xiaoniang waved to the old woman and whispered.
Jinniang couldn't hear clearly what they were talking about, but after they finished talking, one of them walked hurriedly to the east, while the other walked leisurely towards the main house.
To be on the safe side, she stayed there for another cup of tea. Only when her feet were numb did she go out from the rockery, feeling very scared. Although she has written some scripts, real life is completely different from the world in the script. If you really encounter someone who is scheming and scheming in reality, who wouldn’t be afraid and who wouldn’t want to stay away from him?
With such a mood, she couldn't wait to send it to the second room and come back, but she didn't expect that the second lady, Mrs. Wu, was actually very kind. Maybe it was because she was wearing gray clothes today, so she specially rewarded her with a light white jacket, a green and blue embroidered skirt, and a pair of satin shoes.
"Thank you very much, Second Madam, for your reward." Jinniang thanked her sincerely.
It’s not good to wear too thick clothes in spring, but it’s still a bit cold to wear a padded jacket at night, so a thin jacket is fine.
Looking at where Wu lived, the half-open window with hibiscus pattern was inlaid with colored glaze, the floor was covered with a velvet carpet with tortoise-back pattern, a string-patterned vase was placed on the rosewood ivory table, and a few peach blossoms were inserted diagonally in the vase. In the middle was a small eight-immortal table covered with a tablecloth with a long and prosperous pattern. It was truly luxurious.
Mrs. Wu didn't take it seriously and asked her to go back and report. Just as Jinniang turned to leave, she saw a young woman hurrying over.
This woman was the wife of the second wife’s eldest son Zhou Duzhi, also known as Grandma Du.
She came in and said to Wu: "Madam, the eldest young master, he is dead."
This is something that everyone already knows. When Wu first came into the family, she had a good relationship with her stepson. Later, after she gave birth to a child, her stepson became alienated from her. She has been suffering from a serious illness since last year, and her condition has worsened in the past six months. She didn't expect that he would pass away like this. Wu felt sad.
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