Behind the red gates, meat and wine go to waste; on the roads, the bones of those frozen to death lie.
There are many wealthy families in Nanxi, but no bones of people frozen to death can be found by the roadside.
Because the Southern Liang Dynasty was a prosperous and powerful dynasty, the emperor and his ministers were diligent and conscientious, and the common people lived in peace and contentment.
With a stable political situation, commerce flourished in the Southern Liang Dynasty.
Among them, the South China region was the most prosperous commercial center.
The four south directions are Nanxi, Nancheng, Nanyun, and Nanli.
Nanxi had four prominent merchant families: the Zhou, Wu, Zheng, and Wang families. Women from all four families were sent to the palace and became noble ladies.
Having connections within the palace also made the businesses of the four families even more prosperous.
The Wu family ancestral home is a large mansion with five courtyards. According to the workers who were fortunate enough to enter it, it has everything from artificial hills and flowing water to winding galleries, flower ponds and gardens.
The maid Cuiliu entered the Wu mansion through the back gate, passed through several hanging flower archways, and entered a courtyard.
Upon entering the courtyard, a gray brick path leads directly to her small courtyard.
The courtyard gate consisted of four dark red doors, with the two middle doors slightly ajar.
The wooden windows with floral patterns on the side corridor were open, creating a clean and bright atmosphere.
A rattan chair and a rattan table were placed in front of the porch, and three feet away from the rattan table, the flowers and plants were in full bloom.
The once desolate courtyard now appears more vibrant and rustic thanks to the flowers and plants.
From the tall trees outside the wall, a few startling bird calls occasionally rang out. Although the wall was mottled, its simple and elegant style could still be seen from the small brick windows and the surrounding decorations.
The roof has relatively few eaves, which is the style that was popular among craftsmen in Nanxi a few years ago.
"Rongrong, Rongrong! The second young master is insisting that you go to him!"
With her rosy cheeks, pink lips, and bright red lips, her peach-blossom eyes were incredibly alluring.
But when she pushed the door open and went in, the girl sitting at the desk looked even more charming.
Upon hearing this, she turned around, her almond-shaped eyes slightly upturned, which made her otherwise indifferent face appear more lively.
"Didn't he forbid me from going out with him?"
Wu Banyao had just had a fight with her today. According to the usual rules, shouldn't he be angry with her for at least three days?
Cui Liu rolled her eyes, a mocking smile on her face: "Generally speaking, the Second Young Master should indeed ignore you for a few days. But who made Young Master Zheng bring a little maid who speaks eloquently, making the Second Young Master extremely embarrassed. So, he thought of you, the little genius."
Hua Rong raised an eyebrow, his eyes flashing a few times: "The Zheng family?"
Cui Liu poured herself a cup of tea and drank it down before nodding vigorously: "That's right, that little maid was picked up by the roadside when Young Master Zheng went to Nandu. Although I'm illiterate, I think the poems that little maid recited were better than the poems and lyrics written by the Second Young Master."
Hua Rong put down the book in her hand, coughed twice, and then asked in a slightly hoarse voice, "Is that little maid named Cao Wan?"
Cui Liu was taken aback, then looked surprised. She walked to Hua Rong's side, her eyes sparkling, and said, "Rongrong, you're amazing! How did you know her name?"
Hua Rong smiled enigmatically: "Then did I guess right?"
With her peach-blossom eyes blinking, Cui Liu said, "I don't know either, but I did hear Young Master Zheng call her Xiao Wan."
That's it.
Hua Rong remained silent.
Unexpectedly, the female protagonist, Cao Wan, only truly appeared after ten years in this world.
The original owner's name was Tang Huarong, a name given to him by the village chief who had some schooling, meaning a life of wealth and prosperity.
She has lived with her grandmother in a small mountain village since she was three years old.
The grandmother and granddaughter lived a very hard life. Her parents, who worked as doctors, fell off a cliff and died while collecting herbs in the mountains.
The reason they risked going up the mountain was to gather herbs to cure the original owner's illness.
The original owner was born prematurely, at eight months, a condition known as "seven months alive, eight months not alive." It was a miracle that she survived, yet she still needed to take medication constantly.
When she was five years old, she became the child concubine of Wu Banyao, the second young master of the Wu family!
When Wu Banyao was a child, he was weak. According to a wandering Taoist priest who passed by, Wu Banyao was like this because he had weak yang energy. He needed to find a woman with a strong yang body, born in a yang year, yang month, yang day, and yang hour, to ward off evil spirits in order to get better.
Wu Linyu, the head of the Wu family at the time—who was also Wu Banyao's father—naturally preferred to believe it was true rather than not. After searching for half a year, he finally found the original owner in a remote corner.
To compensate the original owner of the body, Master Wu personally ordered that once she came of age, Wu Banyao would take her as a concubine...
After the original owner arrived at the Wu family, Wu Banyao's health... naturally did not improve.
However, he endured it for twenty years, so the original owner stayed in the Wu family for twenty years as well. Later, Wu Banyao died, and the original owner also committed suicide for love.
Hua Rong transmigrated when the original owner was five years old. The first thing she knew upon transmigrating was that the original owner was not destined for a long life.
Women are inherently Yin, and when Yang energy is excessive, Yin and Yang cannot be in harmony, resulting in a weak body and a short lifespan.
However, Wu Banyao's body had some kind of genetic defect, but thanks to her years of treatment, it has been completely cured.
Thinking of Wu Banyao, Hua Rong also felt a headache coming on.
When she first arrived, she planned to leave the Wu family.
Although this body cannot practice martial arts, she still possesses medical and poison skills, enough for her to live peacefully in the world until she leaves.
She never imagined that the poison techniques she had studied out of curiosity while learning medicine would come in handy in this world.
After all, this was the first time we had encountered such a weak constitution.
However, on the very night she left, a sneaky "thief" broke into her room.
The thief tiptoed onto the bed, lay down beside her, tucked her hands into his bosom, and wrapped his legs tightly around hers.
He muttered to himself, "Rongrong, don't worry, I'll treat you well from now on! I won't get married, so you'll be the oldest person in my courtyard, even older than me..."
Hua Rong couldn't describe how she felt at the time, but once she came to her senses, she knocked out Wu Banyao, that little thief.
She knew he would come inside because she was frail and sensitive to the cold.
The ten-year-old child didn't understand much; he only knew to warm her with his own body heat.
Then... Hua Rong didn't leave.
She stayed in the Wu family as Wu Banyao's child concubine, a position she held for ten years.
All she knew was that the male protagonist of this world was Zheng Peiyu, the heir of the Zheng family, one of the four great families of Nanxi.
Zheng Peiyu was poisoned and murdered by a villain when he was a child, leaving him unable to walk properly for the rest of his life.
Later, in the business wars, together with the intelligent heroine Cao Wan, the Zheng family rose to a higher level amidst numerous conspiracies and schemes, becoming the number one business family in the world.
The plot is fairly normal. This time, the original owner only had a few encounters with the male and female leads and didn't have much interaction with them, so she can barely be considered cannon fodder.
However, based on her detailed analysis of her memories, Hua Rong can be fairly certain.
She wasn't cannon fodder, but the Wu family was.
The Wu family became an important stepping stone for the Zheng family, to which the male and female protagonists belonged, to rise to power.
Before the original owner died, the head of the Wu family at that time, Wu Er, Wu Linlian, was courting death by making an enemy of the Zheng family.
Hua Rong could only...heh.
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