Chapter 97 Chapter 97 Update.
Since there is no one like Wang Ye in the outer courtyard, another possibility is that he is in the inner courtyard. However, Ji Xu has only been cooking for servants in the east kitchen of the outer courtyard these two days, and the superiors have not said that they want to eat mutton, so she has no contact with people from the inner courtyard for the time being.
On July 7, the Qiqiao Festival, their small kitchen also received two baskets of fruit.
There was a basket of plums that looked big and red, but tasted extremely sour when bitten, and a basket of half-rotten, half-good Lu oranges.
Ji Xu picked out the ones that were really rotten and had Zhui take them to feed the pigs. Zhui was the mute little girl from before. She was sold here and followed an old slave to feed the pigs. Because she could not speak, others did not know her old name, so they called her "Zhi".
"Zi, these are for feeding pigs."
She still put the rest in a basket, hanging it from a rope in the well water, and took it out at dinner time to share with everyone.
This plum is too sour, but the orange is sweet. I peeled it and took a bite, and the yellow juice came out.
Soon the good ones were picked up by the big slaves. The pigs couldn't squeeze through the big ones, so they always waited until everyone had left before coming out, eating some leftover rice and picking through the rotten fruits in the basket.
"Here, this is good."
Ji Xu grabbed a handful of three or four from the cabinet.
When eating here, there is usually nothing left if it is late. Ji Xu had just finished cooking during the hottest day of summer and had no appetite due to the heat. He usually wanted to eat slowly, so he would serve his own portion in advance.
She also kept six or seven of the Lu oranges. The plums were too sour and no one was vying for them, so she didn't take any. Now she shared some with the pig, and even gave her half of the bitter vegetable scrambled eggs and chicken offal she made today.
I thought that I might as well serve her portion in the future. It was so small, the same size as Jizhu, it was really pitiful.
She didn't know who had given her the bowl, and it had a crack in it. She took it to the big stone slab at the foot of the wall and knelt down to eat.
"The sun is shining right here. The rocks are all covered in heat. Be careful of diarrhea. Get under the shade."
Ji Xu pointed at the big banyan tree beside the well and called her.
She obediently came over with the bowl in hand. Feng and Zhu, who had eaten with the others earlier, were now helping wash the dishes and the iron pot by the well. When they saw her coming, they called her "Little One".
"Xiaoyao, how did you get here?"
"But that woman Xiao kidnapped you. Didn't that little bastard Ji Huhai go to Youzhou with you?"
Ji Feng turned his head and asked, his hands still working.
Zhui tilted his head and listened for a while, then gestured with his hands, but unfortunately none of them could understand.
Ji Feng said, "You'd better eat."
Zhu was very polite when eating. She also knew how to eat Luju. She would slowly peel the skin with her hands, put the yellow flesh into her mouth, and even spit out the core.
The man who had just taken a bite of the night fragrance had his teeth hurt by the core.
Feng and Zhu were eating it for the first time, and they kept the black core, thinking of taking it back home and growing it in the backyard one day. It would be so delicious to eat the sweet fruit, but no one grew it there.
The sun set and a gust of wind blew, rustling the leaves above my head and cooling my sweaty back.
Ji Xu ate his afternoon meal by the well, then knelt down to wash calamus roots, which the servants collected by the lake as clean water weeds. He carried them in large baskets to the next-door pen to feed the livestock.
When Ji Xu saw them, he asked them for some roots and rhizomes. These things were not worth much. Since they loved the food Ji Xu cooked, he gave them a big basket and said that if it was not enough, he would pick more for her next time.
The root of calamus is fat and big, like ginger, but it doesn't taste good at all. It is old and hard. Even cows won't eat this rhizome, let alone humans.
Ji Xu planned to pickle it and make it into calamus pickles. This was her first time trying it, so she didn't know if it would work.
There was a coarse earthenware jar in the corner. It should have been used by the small kitchen to pickle vegetables. No one had taken care of it for a long time and it had turned into smelly water. She washed it five or six times and boiled it in boiling water before she could clean it up.
Stuff the dried and salted calamus roots in it and add seasonings later.
While doing this, Feng and Zhu rolled a handful of calamus into a drum shape and kicked it in the air for fun.
"Little one, come play too."
Xiaoyao was watching from the side with her empty bowl in her hand, and Ji Feng said to her.
The grass ball kicked towards her in the air. Xiaoyao widened her eyes and wanted to kick it, but her kick missed and she fell on the ground.
"Are you hurt? Get up and let me take a look."
Ji Xu was washing calamus roots next to her. He pulled her up and asked her, but when she shook her head, he let her and her sisters continue playing.
But it wasn't long before the big slave who was in charge of the pigsty came to urge her to feed the pigs.
Ji Zhu was close to girls of the same age as herself and wanted to go with them to take a look. During the few days they stayed there, in addition to the servants' quarters, they could also walk around the surrounding livestock pens, and the farthest they could go was the orchard in the backyard, without disturbing the nobles in the mansion. It was not far anyway, so Ji Xu let her go.
Ji Feng held her back and whispered:
"Don't get too close to her, or you'll get some head lice that'll itch you. Sister had a hard time curing them for us."
Jizhu said she remembered and ran away, and the two of them held hands.
Ji Xu had a jar full of pickled calamus roots, and he and Ji Feng were sweeping up the roots and leaves on the ground when they heard a commotion coming from the big kitchen opposite.
"Is Mrs. Lai's adopted daughter precious? Is she the mistress? She asks for yellow apricots and lychees right away without even considering her own worth!"
From the voice, I knew it was Manager Zou from the kitchen.
Some of the fruits for today’s Qiqiao Festival are freshly picked from Wangjiashanze, and some are brought from other places.
It was said that the lychees came from the South China Sea and were a festival gift from the king. There was only half a basket of them, and they were first sent to the main kitchen. Manager Zou watched them more closely than gold, and no one was allowed to steal or eat them.
"I bought the fruit for Second Master's courtyard to pray for blessings, but you secretly ate so much of it and took it home, and now you're trying to limit me!"
Qingnu said anxiously with red eyes.
Ji Feng listened for a while, then chatted quietly with Ji Xu:
"It's all Second Master's fault. He organized a fruit case competition to see who could make the most money. Manager Zou's biological daughter also works in Second Master's courtyard. She holds a higher position than Qing Nu, serving tea and water. However, she's not as pretty as Qing Nu. They both want to be Second Master's concubines, so they're secretly competing with each other."
Ji Xu was shocked, firstly because of this matter, and secondly because Ji Feng described it in such detail.
"Where did you hear that?"
Ji Feng scratched his head and smiled, "The kitchen servant told me."
After she settled down here, she would hang out everywhere when she had nothing to do, chatting with people, asking about their monthly wages, and whether there was a shortage of staff anywhere.
Because Ji Xu was recruited into the mansion by Madam Lai, Manager Zou looked down on them. However, the servants under her had already told Ji Feng about her family background.
"It's a pity that I can't ask about the inner courtyard."
Ji Fengdao said that she also wanted to find out if there was a person named Wang Ye in the inner courtyard, but the servants had no way of knowing.
The slaves in the inner courtyard, including Qingnu, were superior to others and didn't like to bother with those who did the rough work in the kitchen.
"I'll pull out your tongue! When did I eat these lychees? There's only half a basket of them, and it's not enough for my master. I don't have your courage to keep asking for yellow apricot lychees."
"Where did your daughter get the lychees? Didn't you give them to her?"
"Second Master specifically asked her to set up a case and build a network, but you're just having fun. Do you really think you can pray for the blessing of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl? Besides, you're late, and the fruit has been taken away. If you want some fruit, go to the small kitchen and find some leftovers from the servants!"
There was a burst of laughter.
Qingnu ran out wiping her tears and bumped into Ji Xu. She searched everywhere but saw sour plums and rotten oranges. She was so angry that she wanted to complain to Madam Lai.
But Mrs. Lai was in charge of the slave compradors, and the fruit matters were not her responsibility. Besides, there were many adopted daughters in the mansion, and she was not the one who picked the best.
Mrs. Lai had already begged her several times to be allowed to go to the Second Master's yard to water the flowers and grass. Now disturbing her peace with the matter of karma would probably annoy her.
I could only swallow my anger and walk away with tears in my eyes.
"Since the competition is about who can make the most nets, if there are no good fruits, it doesn't matter if you use inferior fruits. In fact, it will make it easier to make a net."
Qingnu turned around and saw a woman by the well wearing a cloth skirt and a bamboo hairpin, a green cloth knee pad tied around her waist, and holding a broom. It was obvious that she was doing rough work in the kitchen.
I didn't believe it at first, thinking she was trying to comfort me. I looked at her a few more times and asked:
"Are you the cook who cooked sheep in the mansion that I brought in that day? If a cook says that, it means he has never seen the fruit plate for Qiqiao."
Ji Xu said: "I have seen it. When I was in the palace, the palace maids also used colored thread to thread needles during the Qiqiao Festival, set up fruit tables under the moon, and prayed to the Weaver Girl for blessings and marriage.
They didn’t have much good fruit, but after one night, the spider had woven more webs than the fruit in the concubine’s womb.”
Spiders weave webs on fruits, which is a revelation that the goddess Vega has descended. The more webs they weave, the more auspicious it is.
"real?"
Qingnu couldn't believe it. She only saw everyone decorating the fruit table. The better the fruit, the more nets they made. She didn't expect there would be such a thing.
"There are no good fruits left now. Why don't I try with the remaining fruit? If I can make a spider web like those palace maids, it will be a blessing."
"Forget it, putting the fruit case on is better than nothing."
What if I get lucky?
Qingnu thought about it and went back to the courtyard to bring the table. This table was a leftover one, with the paint chipped off. Ji Xu washed the sour plums and arranged them on it into two inverted cones, with a distance of a palm's width between the cones, which was very suitable for spiders to weave webs.
In the pile of sour plums, where they couldn't be seen, she put five or six Lu oranges. They had peeled the rotten parts, so most of them were only half left. In such hot weather, leaving them there overnight would definitely attract small flying insects.
A handful of fern was placed next to it. Its furry surface made it very attractive for small insects to climb on it.
"This bracken looks so messed up."
This was food for servants, too shabby. If she brought it back like this, she would be laughed at by the sisters. Qingnu wanted to take it down.
"When I was picking ferns in my hometown, there were often spiders weaving webs on the wild ferns in the ravines between the mountains," said Ji Xu.
Qingnu was the son of Tiannu from outside the mansion. He was sent to the mansion to serve since he was young. He didn't know what life was like outside. This was the first time he heard about it, so he stopped taking it for a while.
"Forget it, let's give it a try. If I can really make a net, I will show my face in front of the Second Master and I will definitely not forget you."
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