Listening to Mingyue's gentle voice, He Caisheng scratched his head, his eyes revealing a clear determination, "If it's cooked thoroughly, it's edible; if it's undercooked, it'll cause poisoning."
Moreover, these mushrooms are not easy to find; he and Ruyi searched all morning and only managed to find a small half-basket.
Mingyue, "..."
That makes sense; the annual mushroom tasting event in a certain province is no joke.
"It's lunchtime, I'll take it to cook."
He Nian dared not try it. With such poor medical conditions, poisoning would be a matter of life and death. Only after picking out the poisonous mushrooms did she feel at ease taking them to the kitchen.
He Ruyi was young and shy around strangers, so she followed He Nian happily into the kitchen.
He Caisheng regretfully buried the small mushrooms he had thrown away, mourned for three seconds, and then returned.
"Sister, where did you come from? You are so beautiful."
He Caisheng solicitously brought Mingyue a stool and wiped it with his sleeve before letting her sit down.
"You're from the capital, would you like to visit sometime?"
Mingyue gripped the handle of the feather fan and calmly described the capital to He Caisheng: "The capital is more magnificent than here. Everywhere you look, nobles travel in carriages. There is no curfew at night, and every shop hangs candles, making the streets a sea of red."
“There are more opportunities in the capital. For example, if you work as a servant in an official’s house, you might only earn five hundred coins a month, but if you work as a servant in any household in the capital, you can earn five taels of silver a month.”
He Caisheng's eyes lit up when he heard this. The most silver he had ever seen was five taels, which was his family's food expenses for a year!
"Sister, I want to go to the capital to be a servant! I'm very good at serving people!"
Mingyue tapped He Caisheng on the head, her lips slightly upturned. "The best you can do as a servant is to eventually become a steward. You need to know how to make money with your wisdom, not your strength."
"Wisdom?" He Caisheng looked at Mingyue with a blank expression.
Mingyue hummed in agreement. She folded the feather fan in her hand, bent down, and wrote the three characters "He Caisheng" on the ground. "Do you know him?"
He Caisheng shook his head.
"He Caisheng, that's your name."
He Caisheng pursed his lips and looked at the three words on the ground again. He earnestly imitated Mingyue's earlier gesture and began to trace the words on the ground with his fingers.
The handwriting was naturally crooked and illegible, so He Caisheng erased it and rewrote it until the three characters "He Caisheng" were legible before stopping. "Sister, is this how it is?"
"Not bad." He's already doing quite well after only five repetitions; he has a natural talent for reading. "What will you give me in return when I teach you to read and write?"
Young He Caisheng racked his brains for a moment and said, "Hmm... I can serve you, for free."
"make a deal."
The two, one big and one small, reached a pleasant consensus. The courtyard wasn't big, and He Nian, who was busy in the kitchen, had no idea that He Caisheng had already sold her out.
Originally, they planned to have a simple lunch, but since someone came, He Nian killed a chicken, cut half of it into braised meat, and used the other half to make soup for dinner.
Then, a few more pancakes were placed on the side of the pot, and the enticing aroma of meat instantly filled the small house.
He Caisheng swallowed hard, but he was more interested in reading and recognizing characters that Mingyue had mentioned, so he stopped himself from going to the kitchen.
"Heaven and earth were dark and yellow, the universe was vast and boundless. The sun and moon waxed and waned, the stars and constellations were arrayed in the sky. Read this once."
He Caisheng, like a student suddenly called upon for a quiz, momentarily lost his train of thought, stammering as he read, "Heaven and earth were yellow... what primordial chaos, sun and moon..."
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