Chapter 231: Immoral Troublemaking
The captured person was finally taken away by the secret guards sent by Zhao Lan, and it was unknown whether anything could be pried out from him. Su Ruojin returned to his parents, reporting only good news and not bad news. He did not mention a word about the assassination on the road, and only told Su Yanli the good news.
"Dad, in a few days, the young prince will bring the winter wheat seeds here."
Su Yanli was very happy that the seeds had been planted. As if he did not notice the secret look from his wife, he kept praising his daughter for her ability and did not ask her why she was so close to the young prince.
Seeing that her husband didn't say a word, Cheng Yingzhen could only worry.
At night, when she went to bed, she couldn't help but pinch Su Yanli. He grimaced in pain and quickly begged for mercy, saying aggrievedly: "Isn't it a mother's job to talk to her daughter about this kind of thing? How can a grown man like me talk about love affairs?"
Cheng Yingzhen was not stupid either. She snorted coldly, "You mean you play the good cop and I play the bad cop, and you want me to be the bad mother?"
Cheng Yanli, who was exposed, smiled guiltily, "I didn't mean that." Seeing his wife angry, he quickly hugged her and comforted her, "Don't worry, your daughter understands everything. She is a good and sensible child. Don't worry."
Cheng Yingzhen was coaxed by her husband, but she still had some anger, she just sighed, "If the Jin Palace doesn't agree, our daughter will be too close to the young prince, which will affect her marriage."
That's true.
What Su Yanli hated the most was having many wives and concubines. Because he was born out of wedlock, he suffered so much grievance, so he never thought of taking concubines at home and keeping mistresses outside like other men. He only wanted to have one person's heart and stay together until the end of their lives, so he also hoped that his daughter would marry a good man who only had one wife.
No matter whether the man was a small prince or an ordinary man, as long as he could marry only one wife and live together until old age like himself, he would agree.
After the assassination, Su Ruojin seemed to be fine when she came back, but she still had some sequelae. She had a nightmare that night, had a fever the next day, and actually fell ill.
Originally, Cheng Yingzhen wanted to find an opportunity to scold her daughter, but when she saw that her daughter was sick from overwork, she didn't care about anything else. She felt so distressed that she personally fed her medicine and food.
Su Ruojin was so embarrassed that she didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "Mom, my little sister doesn't even want you to feed her anymore. How can I, as her elder sister, put my face aside?"
In Su Xiaomei's eyes, her elder sister was a capable person who knew everything and could do everything. She didn't expect that she would be so sick that she couldn't get up. She looked haggard and her face turned pale with fear. When she heard what her elder sister said, she quickly crawled to sit beside her elder sister, "Sister, let mom feed you quickly, get better soon!" She even stretched out her mouth to blow on the cold air for her.
Su Ruojin: ...
She was really touched by the sweetness of this mother and daughter couple, and felt particularly happy.
What's the point of losing face? A child who is fed by his mother is simply a treasure. She took a gulp and opened her mouth to eat the eight-treasure porridge that Cheng Yingzhen sent.
Cheng Yingzhen smiled and said, "That's how good it is." Being needed by her daughter makes her act like a mother.
Su Sanlang and Su Silang knew that their elder sister was ill, so they hurried over and asked, "Sister, what's wrong with you?"
"It's okay, it's okay." Seeing the two younger brothers rushing in like the wind, Su Ruojin quickly replied, "It's just that I caught a little wind on the way and caught a cold. I drank some ginger soup and ate the eight-treasure porridge that mom fed me, and I'll be fine after a good sleep."
"Yes, yes, go to sleep quickly." After feeding her daughter, Cheng Yingzhen got up and drove her two strong sons away, telling them not to disturb her daughter's rest and to go out quickly.
Su Xiaomei refused to go out, saying that she wanted to sleep with her sister.
Su Ruojin was afraid of passing her illness to her, so she finally coaxed the person away. After eating and drinking, Su Ruojin actually felt sleepy and fell into a deep sleep.
Su Yanli has been having a hard time recently. Although he has the help of Master Pei and Chief Clerk Hu, the chief clerk and the county magistrate who took refuge in the mountains have returned, and although the court has dismissed them from their posts, they are after all the local tyrants here, with intertwined family power. They use local connections to hinder Su Yanli, making it impossible for him to carry out his work. He is helpless, as food, salt and other things related to people's livelihood in the market are not only scarce, but also too expensive, and ordinary people can't afford them at all.
Mr. Pei stroked his beard and said, "As the vegetables in the fields are harvested one after another, the little money that ordinary people can earn will soon be gone. The wheat we planted cannot be harvested until next spring. If there is no food for such a long time..." There will be another riot.
Su Yanli sighed, "We can still hold out for another ten days or so in Wei County, but the people from the surrounding counties are flocking to us, and that's what's giving me a headache."
Mr. Pei has suggested to Su Yanli that he open the city gates late and close them early, but this still cannot stop people from the surrounding counties from coming to Wei County in search of opportunities for survival.
The county town is so big that in addition to the two big families of the chief clerk and the county magistrate, there are also some ordinary merchants. Under Su Yanli's advice, they would put out some food to sell every day. However, due to many natural disasters and man-made disasters, the small shops do not have much goods in stock. Once they sell out, they will have nothing to eat at home.
Mr. Pei said, "I have contacted my old friends. If we can find a big grain merchant and let the small grain merchants get food from him, we can still survive this winter."
Su Yanli quickly bowed and said, "Sir, you are so kind. I am sorry for the trouble you have caused me."
"It's my duty." Looking back, Pei Qixu wrote another letter and asked the courier from the county government to deliver it to him.
It was three days after Su Ruojin's illness that she felt relieved. She knew that the fever in her body had subsided.
He happily got up from the bed and washed himself. He had been sick for three days and had not washed himself properly. He always felt sweaty. Regardless of Cheng Yingzhen's attempts to stop him, he changed the bath water twice before he cleaned himself up.
Standing in the corridor, looking up at the sunset.
Finally alive.
Cheng Yingzhen and Su Xiaomei came over with lunch boxes.
Su Ruojin was in a big headache, "Mom, I won't let Sister Ya tell you, I'm ready, I'm going to the kitchen to eat."
"You kid..." Cheng Yingzhen saw her daughter was wearing thin clothes and kept shouting anxiously, "Hurry up and put on another layer of clothing in your room. Can't you see that the wind in the corridor is strong? What if you get sick from the wind?"
As he spoke, he pushed her into the bedroom.
Su Ruojin was helpless because of her nagging. Why did she feel such a happy distress?
After pushing the person into the house, Cheng Yingzhen opened the lunch box and let her daughter eat dinner.
Su Ruojin didn't want to eat in the room, "Mom, when will Dad come back? I'll go to the side room and eat with him."
Cheng Yingzhen said, "Shu Tong came back and said your father went to the street."
"What are you going to do?"
"It seems that a grain store was surrounded by common people, and a dispute and quarrel broke out."
There is a food shortage in Weizhou County. No, there is a food shortage everywhere.
"Has Mr. Pei gone?"
“Yes.”
Su Ruojin said, "Then wait for dad to come back and eat together."
Cheng Yingzhen asked her not to wait, and Su Ruojin anxiously turned over to show her, "Are you all right?"
Cheng Yingzhen: …
My daughter actually somersaulted like a kid, “You…” She stammered in shock.
Su Ruojin giggled, "Mom, I often go out. Since I came to Weizhou County Office, our family often hasn't eaten together."
Su Sanlang, who followed over, said, "It's not that the whole family didn't eat together, it's just that you didn't eat with us."
Su Ruojin: ...This kid deserves a beating, right?
She swung her punch, but the boy didn't dodge, so he avoided it.
She was stunned and suddenly found that Su Sanlang was taller than her. He looked like Cheng Yingzhen, quite delicate, but full of strength. At first glance, he didn't look like a martial artist at all, but more like a weak scholar.
"Dad is going to deal with the conflict, why don't you go over and help?"
Su Sanlang said in surprise, "I don't know!" Then he turned around and ran towards the street.
Su Ruojin: ...This kid is so reckless, is he going to help or make things worse?
She lost her composure and quickly followed him out.
As soon as Su Silang arrived at his sister's yard, he found her running out, so he ran after her.
Cheng Yingzhen and her daughter Su Xiaomei looked at the food on the table.
"Ah, these kids, each one of them is a worry."
Weizhou County was a medium-sized county town with not many streets. After a while, they ran to the grain shop on the main street.
Compared with the surrounding shops, the grain shop was quite large and was surrounded by ordinary people.
As Su Sanlang was running, he was tall and thin and very agile, and in the blink of an eye he had merged into the crowd.
Su Ruojin was stunned. Looking at the solid wall of people, she tried to squeeze in!
As if realizing that he was running too fast, Su Sanlang squeezed out again, "Sister, I'll clear the way for you."
Su Ruojin: ...It feels so good to have a younger brother.
Su Ruojin looked happy as she followed her brother into the crowd, but her face instantly darkened when she saw the situation in front of her.
The shop assistants and the yamen runners were getting into a fight. They said they wanted to fight, but no one was hitting them. They were just pulling each other.
Mr. Pei was fighting face to face with a middle-aged fat man. Su Ruojin listened for a while and understood that the largest grain shop in Weizhou, Ma Ji Grain Shop, was selling coarse flour mixed with sand today, and the price was still 150 wen per catty.
It's simply a sky-high price.
The common people were dissatisfied and went to the government office, asking Su Yanli to take charge and punish the corrupt businessmen.
Probably after a round of scolding, her father Su Yanli's face turned blue with anger. If Shu Tong hadn't pulled him back, he would probably have joined Mr. Pei in scolding the fat man.
Su Ruojin looked at the crowd. It was very noisy. If she hadn't been standing in the inner circle, she wouldn't have been able to hear the quarrel between Mr. Pei and the fat shopkeeper.
The Ma family must be unscrupulous merchants, and mixing sand into grain is an act that will wipe out their descendants. However, in the face of huge profits, businessmen do not believe that there are so many unscrupulous merchants in the world, so it is a coincidence that he will be wiped out of his descendants.
Su Ruojin did not go to Ma Ji's grain store, but found a yamen runner and asked him, "Where is the commoner who reported to the officials?"
The yamen runners were trying to stop the common people from pushing their way in. When they heard the county lord's daughter asking questions, they quickly found the old man hiding in the crowd and pointed at him, "That's him."
Seeing someone pointing at him, the old man shrank back again.
He was old and dressed in tattered clothes, looking like an ordinary old man, but his dodging eyes made it clear that he was a slick, low-level rogue.
Su Ruojin looked at the onlookers again, and they were all pointing at Su Yanli.
"If an official doesn't serve the people, how can he have the nerve to stand in front of us and let us admire his power?"
"How many officials care about the people? They just go to different places to make money and run away when they have made enough money, which only makes us ordinary people suffer."
"Who said it wasn't true?" someone said, "I originally thought that selling vegetables could earn me a living, but I didn't expect that the shop was opened by the county magistrate with a lot of money. They took our vegetables and resold them to the capital. I heard that they made a lot of money from the resale."
"That's right...that's right...I've heard about it too. No wonder the county magistrate dared to grow vegetables in the wasteland. So this is his idea..."
…
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