Chapter 28 A Little Manipulation: In a secluded spot outside the palace gates, servants and attendants from various households waited. The guards were all of martial arts background, and most of them…
In a secluded spot outside the palace gates, servants and attendants from various households waited. The guards were all of martial arts background, and most of the servants were leading horses while waiting, which made Chang Shun, who was waiting in his carriage by the wall, stand out even more.
"Master, you must be tired."
"I'm so tired. Why are you the one who came to pick me up? Where's my horse?"
"The eldest mistress didn't allow the horse to be brought over, saying that you must be exhausted after five days in the palace, so she sent me to bring the carriage to pick you up."
He thought that no matter how tired he was, it wouldn't stop him from riding home. But after sitting down in the carriage, Yu Lang realized that he was so tired that he couldn't even lift his fingers.
"I've been away from home these past few days. I hope everything is alright at home. I hope Mother didn't have any arguments with Second Aunt. And what about Grandma? She's new to our family, and there are many times when she feels awkward or embarrassed to speak up. Do you remember what she told you before she left?"
Chang Shun sat on the carriage shaft with a strange expression. He struggled to utter a coherent sentence about his master's question, only telling Yu Lang to go back and ask the eldest mistress himself.
As August arrived, an autumn rain fell and the weather turned cooler. A dog-skin rug was added to the main couch in the carriage, along with thicker and softer cushions and pillows.
Yu Lang, who had been lounging lazily on the pillow like a big cat, suddenly sat up and leaned out of the carriage when he heard Chang Shun's hesitant words. "Tell me, what's wrong?"
It's hard to say what exactly happened, since Shen Wanqing had already mentioned wanting to take over the household management in the main courtyard the day before Yulang even started his duties. However, no one took it seriously at the time, not even Yulang himself. He felt that this wasn't something that could be resolved in a day or two, and that he and his wife should at least discuss it when he got home.
Chang Shun glanced back at his master, flicked the horse's rump with his whip, and let the horse walk forward at a leisurely pace. He then turned back and quietly recounted in detail what had happened at home in the past few days.
"Actually, the eldest madam didn't do much. According to Qing Shuang, she just went to the west courtyard every morning to see how the second madam managed things, and asked the second madam about anything she didn't understand. She didn't mention anything else."
They haven't mentioned anything else, they're already blatantly blaming the second wife's family, what else do they want? Yu Lang frowned, wanting to say something but not knowing how, so he changed his question: "Where is Second Uncle? Did Second Uncle say anything? Did he go to the Old Madam's place?"
"The second master did not go to the old lady's courtyard. He rested at home for two days. On the morning of his first day on duty, he went to the main courtyard to pay his respects to the old lady. He stayed for less than a quarter of an hour before leaving."
Yu Lang knew his second uncle very well. The reason he wasn't arguing at this moment was definitely not because he was generous, but because what he wanted was not this.
As for what he wanted, Yu Lang couldn't figure it out and was too lazy to think about it. Lord Yu just wanted to hurry back and ask his grandmother what exactly she was up to.
With the Mid-Autumn Festival just one day away, the West Courtyard was extremely busy, and even the Niohuru clan and the East Courtyard had many people borrowed by the Shumulu clan to help.
With the Tongjia clan in attendance, the Hesheli family would gather in the main courtyard every Mid-Autumn Festival. They would first offer sacrifices to the moon, then have a meal, and afterwards admire the moon, watch lanterns, and guess riddles. It sounds simple enough—just a family gathering—but only when you actually start preparing does you realize how troublesome it is.
Mid-Autumn Festival is a major holiday. Masters have their own feasts, and the servants also receive holiday rewards. According to the family's old customs, in addition to receiving an extra half-month's salary, everyone except the servants on duty gets a small feast. It's like the master is paying for the banquet, and everyone enjoys themselves together.
The house has three courtyards and three teams of servants, totaling dozens of people. Preparing the feast requires a lot of ingredients, and cleaning them requires hiring many day laborers and workers from outside. The ingredients need to be fresh, so they can't be prepared too early. Not to mention the moon worship, moon viewing, and lantern watching. These things don't just appear out of thin air.
As the Mid-Autumn Festival approached, Shumulu became busier and busier, and she also grew more and more accustomed to Shen coming to her every morning to check in.
"Huamei, go and get the Nine-Bend Red Plum tea that the Commander's wife sent a couple of days ago. Didn't your grandmother say yesterday that drinking too much green tea is bad for her stomach? Get her a different one."
“Madam, the eldest mistress said yesterday that she wouldn’t be coming today.” Huamei didn’t dare to say that Shen Wanqing had also said yesterday when she left from the west courtyard that she wouldn’t come to upset the second mistress since it was a festival tomorrow.
Huamei has never seen anyone with such thick skin. Knowing that she is causing trouble for others, she still comes every day. And not only does she come, but she also speaks out so confidently about the trouble she causes.
"If you don't want to come, then don't come. It's best if you never come again."
That day, when Granny Zhang came to report on the matter of the monthly allowance, Madam Shumulu was also startled afterward. She was afraid that Madam Shen would glean something amiss from what she said, or use this matter as a pretext to make a scene before the old lady.
She tossed and turned all night without sleeping well. The next morning, Shumulu took out a few silver notes from her private savings, called Zhang Mama over, and personally gave her the silver notes, carefully instructing her to distribute the monthly allowance and bonuses as soon as possible.
Granny Zhang was in charge of all the servants and maids in the mansion. Since her monthly wages weren't paid on time, many people gossiped about her behind her back, as if she had embezzled the money. Now that Madam Shumulu had personally paid the difference, Granny Zhang was naturally overjoyed and left with the silver notes.
Shumulu was still uneasy. It wasn't until Shen Wanqing came to the west courtyard every day for three consecutive days, without mentioning the incident from that day or making any moves, that Shumulu gradually felt at ease. Today, Shen didn't come, and she inexplicably thought of what happened that day again.
"You said that when Granny Zhang came to report on the monthly allowance that day, Madam Shen shouldn't have suspected anything, right?"
"Don't worry, Madam. These past few days, apart from Granny Feng returning to the Shen family, not many people have even gone out from the East Courtyard. If they really suspect something, they should take some action."
"What if it's Granny Feng..."
"No, no, family matters shouldn't be discussed with my parents' family so easily; that would be too embarrassing."
Before Huamei could reply, Shumulu shook her head and rejected the correct option. In her view, once married, one was no longer considered part of the family, and no matter how close one's maternal family was, it was no longer one's own home.
No matter how messy her own family affairs were, she wouldn't easily tell her maternal family. Just like every time she went back to her maternal family, she would change into her most fashionable clothes and wear her favorite jewelry. No matter how much unspeakable bitterness she felt, when facing her mother, sisters-in-law, and brothers and sisters, she would always only report good news and not bad.
"Madam, please don't worry. After the Mid-Autumn Festival, we should have received our largest sum of money. After that, any money we receive will be small amounts. It seems that Master is really going to take up a post outside the capital. We will stop lending money out then, and even if others want to investigate, they won't be able to do anything about it."
Lending money at exorbitant interest rates is, of course, forbidden by the government, but that's only on the surface. Of all the banks and banks in the capital, those that don't engage in this business are a minority.
The only difference was that large banks lent out large sums of silver to wealthy or high-ranking clients, and even debt collection was conducted with decorum and propriety. Small banks, on the other hand, lent out much less substantial sums. One hundred taels was not a small amount, and five or ten taels were even less considered insignificant.
To get back such small sums of money, the methods used are far more ruthless. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that every single ingot of that silver is stained with blood.
Shumulu always kept her money in Guangyuan Bank, a well-known large bank that was also famous for accepting all customers. Anyone who entered Guangyuan Bank was considered a customer, but Shumulu was unaware of this and never thought to know it.
Right now, she only felt that what Huamei said made sense. As long as she got back the large sum of silver, she wouldn't suffer any loss. The remaining small change was not even worth the Second Madam's attention.
With her anxieties soothed, the thought of whether or not Madam Shen would come to the west courtyard for roll call naturally faded from her mind. After drinking the tea brought by the maid and calming herself down, she got up and went to the kitchen to check if everything for the Mid-Autumn Festival the next day was ready.
Meanwhile, in the East Courtyard, after being busy for five days in a row, Shen Wanqing was able to sleep in late, a rare treat. She didn't get up until Yu Lang returned from outside, and then she washed up and prepared to have breakfast with him.
"How was it?"
"What do you mean, how is it?"
Having been away for five days, Shen Wanqing instructed the kitchen to prepare a more lavish breakfast than usual. There was thick millet porridge, golden and crispy fried dough sticks, red bean buns, and soy milk made by Ningxiang from beans that had been soaked the night before.
"Yuqing Palace, is working in the palace different from before? How is the food? What do you eat?"
Before Yu Lang could ask her what she planned to do by targeting the West Courtyard like a wolf eyeing its prey these past few days, Shen Wanqing preemptively asked about Yuqing Palace and the Crown Prince with a curious expression.
She had no other choice. There was no way to get Yulang to leave Yuqing Palace now. If she wanted to speak ill of the Crown Prince at this time, she would be courting death. The most natural and reasonable thing to do was to pretend to be innocent and curious and ask some unimportant questions, and then plan for the future after Yulang got used to it.
"The job is alright, a bit more tiring than before. But the accommodation is better than before. It's supposed to be a three-person room, but it's really more like a two-person room at most."
"But the food is really bad. The dishes sent from the Imperial Kitchen are already half-cooled by now. The oil floating on the meat looks greasy. I don't know what we'll do when winter comes."
The guards were stationed outside the imperial city, and their duty rooms were located there as well. After their shift, if they wanted something to eat, they could simply ask a Sula to run errands and buy it for them; as long as they didn't drink heavily, nobody bothered them.
Yuqing Palace is different; it's right under the Crown Prince's nose, so who would dare to misbehave? The Imperial Kitchen certainly doesn't just cook for the masters; it's responsible for the meals of everyone in the palace—guards, maids, eunuchs, and officials on duty.
However, whether one cooks for the Emperor, the Crown Prince, or ministers and guards, the difference in status is like heaven and earth. As a result, the food that Yu Lang and the others eat is not only meat-rich, but also far from delicious.
"This soy milk is well made; we'll drink this again tomorrow."
After eating bland food and half-cold meat for five days in a row, a bite of savory pancake and rich, slightly yellow soy milk was something Yulang wouldn't trade for a thousand pieces of gold.
"Okay, I'll have Ningxiang soak the beans this afternoon."
After breakfast, Yu Lang thought it was time to talk about things at home, but Shen Wanqing pushed him to take a bath behind the screen in the west side room. Yu Lang wanted to say that he wasn't dirty, but when he took the scented soap that his wife casually stuffed into his hand, he instantly became obedient.
After taking a shower and changing into clean clothes, Yu Lang lay on his side on Shen Wanqing's lap, letting her loosen his braids and wipe his wet hair.
Now it was finally her turn to speak, but perhaps because the room was too quiet, it seemed as if the words she wanted to ask had already been spoken in her heart. In fact, in Shen Wanqing's view, the person had only murmured "Jiyun" to himself before falling into a deep sleep.
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