Yu Jiao smiled and said, "What if he doesn't make the top three?"
"Then my younger brother and we can come back from the capital earlier." Yu Fuling finished speaking, and then quickly spat, "Pooh, pooh, pooh! Don't say such unlucky words. My younger brother is so smart, he will definitely pass the exam!"
She gently pinched Yu Jiao's arm and said, "Don't talk nonsense anymore. As the saying goes, good things don't work, but bad things do."
Yu Jiao made a gesture of covering her mouth, clasped her hands together and said with a smile, "I won't say anything nonsense, please don't blame me, gods. I just said it without meaning it. May Yu Qizhe pass the exam and have a prosperous career. If I become rich in the future, I will definitely go to the Fahua Temple to offer more incense to the gods."
Yu Fuling was satisfied, "I'll go cook."
Yu Jiao also stood up and said, "I'll boil some medicine for Wu Dagui and the others." These guys were injured because of her, and Yu Jiao did all the treatment herself to help them. She had planned to give these guys more monthly wages as compensation.
It was rare for her to encounter thieves with knives, and these guys were willing to risk their lives to protect her.
Yu Jiao was a man of strong initiative. She had already planned to build a paper mill and an oil press first. She bought two plots of land of considerable size in Baiyi Village and Gejia Village, and found a nearby brick kiln and asked the owner to burn some green bricks. The owner of the kiln had never expected that he would receive such a large order after the disaster. After receiving the deposit from Yu Jiao, he immediately took his apprentices to dig soil to make bricks.
The rapeseed in the fields no longer needed to be taken care of. It only needed to be watered once in a while. The villagers hired by Yu Jiao had been idle recently. When they heard that Yu Jiao was going to build a paper mill and an oil press in these two villages, they all came to help spontaneously without waiting for Yu Jiao to say anything, and started working enthusiastically.
After the blue bricks were fired from the kiln, the kiln owner delivered them over on a donkey cart.
There is strength in numbers, and these people were all genuinely willing to work for Yu Jiao, so they all worked together. Before long, the paper mill had taken shape.
At the same time, several horse-drawn carriages from Qingzhou drove into the capital, passed through the streets and alleys, and stopped outside a large courtyard with four entrances and exits in Nanba Hutong.
Yang Jiyan was the first to get off the carriage. She looked up at the sky of the capital and took a deep breath. In her previous life, she was like a fish with a broken tail, rotting to death in the stagnant water of the capital. In this life, she would never go back to her old ways.
"Sister Yan, what are you looking at?" Madam Yang got off the carriage with the help of a maid. Seeing Yang Jiyan looking up at the sky, she couldn't help but laugh and said, "After you are settled, mother will take you around the capital. Chang'an Street is the most lively and prosperous in the capital, and there are many delicious and fun things to do."
Yang Jiyan came back to her senses and said obediently, "Mother, you are weak and tired from the long journey. You should rest well. Sister Shen will accompany me to visit the capital!"
"My sister Yan is becoming more sensible. Let Wanwan accompany you, and you two sisters can go out and have some fun together." Mrs. Yang said lovingly, holding Yang Jiyan's hand.
"Mom, I want to play with my sisters too!" Yang Xu, who had just got off the carriage, shouted when he heard there was something fun to do.
Madam Yang patted her son's head and said, "This child loves to play!"
In the courtyard, Shen Wan, who heard the news, came out with her mother, Madam Shen. Just hearing this, Madam Shen walked up quickly and said with a smile, "That's right, when you come to the capital, you should let your sister Wan take you out to play."
Madam Yang looked up, her face full of smiles, "Baojun, it's been a long time since we last met, you're still the same as before."
Madam Shen held Madam Yang's hand and said, "Sister Hui, you always said in your letters that you were not feeling well. I see that you are doing very well and you are still as charming as ever!"
She looked at Yang Jiyan who was standing beside her and said, "Is this Sister Yan? She has grown up to be so beautiful. I still remember the last time you brought her back to Beijing, Sister Hui, she was only in her teens. In the blink of an eye, she has grown into a big girl."
"Aunt Baojun." Yang Jiyan bowed and called out gracefully.
Madam Shen smiled and took her hand, praising Madam Yang, “Sister Yan has been brought up very well by you.”
Madam Yang also smiled and said, "You are interrupting me. How did you teach Wanwan to be so dignified?"
Mrs. Shen said modestly, "Her father usually likes to teach her to read, but I didn't do much." She looked at Yang Xu, who was only five or six years old, and touched his head, "This is Brother Xu, right? I haven't seen this child yet!"
Madam Yang smiled and said, "It's Xu'er. His grandfather has always wanted to meet Xu'er. I have not been in good health in the past few years, so I have not been able to bring Xu'er back to the capital."
Seeing Yang Yuanchen coming over, Madam Shen hurriedly said, "I was so busy talking that I forgot we were still outside the mansion. Let's go in and talk. I've asked someone to clean up the yard. Sister Hui, please see if there's anything missing."
The maidservant beside Madam Yang asked the servant to move the luggage. The group entered the mansion. Madam Yang looked at the flowers, plants and trees in the courtyard and said with some emotion, "When I left, I didn't expect that I would come back one day. I'm sorry that you took the trouble to buy this courtyard back."
When Yang Yuanchen was exiled to Qingzhou, the Yang family moved away and sold this yard.
Some time ago, Madam Shen sent a letter to Qingzhou, saying that she had bought the house back.
Mrs. Shen smiled and said, "The man who bought your house was a businessman from Jiangnan. It didn't take much effort. The businessman only stayed in this house when he came to the capital. I asked someone to find him and ask him a few days ago. He is very reasonable."
Several people sat down in the front hall. Madam Shen took out the deed from her sleeve and handed it to Madam Yang, saying, "This is the house deed. Keep it well."
"How much silver did you spend on it?" asked Mrs. Yang.
Mrs. Shen waved her hands and said, "It's not much. Sister Hui, please don't be polite to me. We haven't seen each other for many years, and I haven't prepared any New Year gifts for the two children. This house deed is a token of my heart."
"How can this be done? You have put a lot of thought into buying the house, you must accept the silver." Madam Yang said to the maid beside her, "Yu Que, go and get two thousand taels of silver."
"Sister Hui, you are too polite." Madam Shen stopped her, "How could you afford so much money? This house only cost 700 taels."
Madam Yang then ordered her maid to fetch seven hundred taels of silver.
Because they hadn't seen each other for a long time, Mrs. Shen and Mrs. Yang kept chatting endlessly. Yang Jiyan listened for a while and couldn't help but feel a little absent-minded.
She leaned over to Shen Wan and whispered, "Sister Wan, I received your letter. Didn't Yu Qizhe visit Uncle Shen at your house?"
Chen Guan shook his head. "No, he won first place at the Xinglou Poetry Contest and matched the couplet of the Princess of Changle County. He was quite famous, but he was very low-key. After winning first place that day, he actually rejected Miss Miwu's invitation and there was no news about him since then."
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