Hua Fushu waved his hand and said, "No thanks." Then he sat on the bench.
Yu Chisu surveyed this so-called inn. It was furnished with eight or nine square tables, all made of nailed-together planks, extremely simple. Each table was accompanied by four benches, seemingly several years old. Five or six of them were occupied, two or three people at each. Given the inn's remote location, it was a miracle anyone even came. She examined the tables and benches carefully. Though worn, they were remarkably clean, not a speck of dust visible. After inviting her uncle, Yu Xuanji, to sit down, she took her seat. Ye Zelin and Old Qiao also took their seats.
A sallow-faced woman in a duck-green cloth came over. She had her hair in a bun and wore a wooden hairpin. She smiled and said hospitably, "Ladies and gentlemen, what would you like to eat? Our inn still has chicken, duck, fish, meat, and vegetables."
Yu Xuanji asked, "Is there any tea? Bring me a pot of tea first."
The woman's face was a little embarrassed. "Sir, our shop is usually deserted. The person who came today is our only customer for the year. Even if we have tea, it's old tea from previous years."
Hua Fushu interjected, "We've come all the way here, and there are few villages and few people. This place is so remote, why did the shop move away?"
Hearing this, the woman's eyes were filled with a little sorrow, and then she sighed softly, "My lady, you don't know, we used to have more than ten families here. We weren't very rich, but we had enough food and clothing. A few years ago, a group of bandits came and settled down in Qingyun Mountain, which is less than fifty miles away. Those bandits harassed us several times, but Lord Cai was powerless because of their brutality and power, so he moved everyone away. My family has lived here for generations, and our ancestors' tombs are also here. We didn't want to move away, so we stayed here. We raise chickens, ducks, fish, and grow vegetables to make a living. Occasionally, some passers-by stay overnight."
Lord Cai?
Ye Zelin asked, "Madam, the Lord Cai you are talking about is Lord Cai, the governor of Dongting County."
The woman nodded, "Exactly."
Yu Xuanji asked the woman to boil a pot of water, cook two vegetables, and kill a chicken. When the woman was about to boil water, Ye Zelin stopped her and said sincerely, "Madam, my wife wants to drink fish soup. She is used to the cooking skills of my maid. Could you lend me your kitchen utensils to make some carp soup?"
The woman looked at Sanqiao and saw that she was holding a wooden basin with a carp in it. Thinking that the young man loved his wife so much and was sincere, she agreed to his request and asked Sanqiao to follow her to the kitchen. Sanqiao followed the woman to the kitchen with the wooden basin in her arms.
The woman boiled some water and brought it up to the ladies. Ye Zelin handed a bowl of boiling water to Hua Fushu, and the woman said, "Your maid is really fast at killing fish. She scales, guts, removes the gills, and takes out the internal organs all in one go, without blinking an eye. She's even faster than the one at my house, almost as fast as the fishmongers. No ordinary girl would dare to kill a fish."
Hua Fushu said proudly, "My Qiao'er is very clever. She is good at needlework and cooking, and she is very thorough. She is worth ten people."
"Sanqiao is indeed proficient in these things." Ye Zelin suddenly changed the subject and asked, "How much do you know?"
Hua Fushu's face immediately darkened. Ye Zelin knew very well that she was not good at cooking or needlework, but he still used it to make trouble, and in front of outsiders. It was obvious that he despised her and did not give her any face at all.
Before she could say anything, Yu Chi Su was already unhappy. "Second brother, I don't agree with what you said. I don't know those girly things either. Who says girls must know these things? You can't say that if you don't know these things, you're not a good girl. Some girls are well-versed in poetry and literature, some girls know needlework, and some girls can wield a knife. You can't expect all girls and women to learn needlework. Using the same standard to judge us women will only lead to a stigma."
Hua Fushu's heart blossomed. She loved what Yu Chisu said so much. She had originally considered Yu Chisu a love rival, but now she felt that Yu Chisu and she were completely like-minded. She gave him a thumbs-up to show her praise, and even called her sister to express her gratitude: "That's right, Sister Yu is right. Don't generalize."
She had just finished speaking when Yu Xuanji continued, "Susu doesn't like needlework, and I didn't ask her to learn it. She said she likes wielding a knife, so I found her a master. As long as it doesn't harm others or benefit herself, she can learn anything she wants."
Ye Zelin inexplicably felt that he was innocent. How could he have offended Yu Chi Su and Yu Xuan Ji? He just asked a question, but they made a lot of remarks. In the final analysis, no matter how they looked at it, they thought it was all his fault.
If you bring disaster upon yourself, you will end up burning yourself.
Ye Zelin, with his good upbringing, did not argue with them.
The woman had something to do, so she went about her business. Thinking of the bandits in Qingyun Mountain, Yu Xuanji took out the Luocheng feng shui map and determined his route for tomorrow. Luocheng was less than fifty miles from Qingyun Mountain, and the closest road to Luocheng passed through Qingyun Mountain, so he chose a route that avoided Qingyun Mountain while remaining relatively close to Luocheng.
Hua Fushu looked at the Luocheng topographic map that Yu Xuanji was looking at and pointed to a place on the map: "Uncle Yu, behind Qingyun Mountain is Xiangshui Town, so how far is it from Xiangshui Town?"
Yu Xuanji was slightly startled. Hua Fushu had been calling him "Sir" all along the way, so calling him "Uncle Yu" was new to him. He said, "Xiangshui Town is near the Xiang River, hence the name Xiangshui Town. It's about thirty or forty miles away from Qingyun Mountain. Why did you think of asking this?"
Hua Fushu said, "I've also been to Xiangshui Town, but I didn't know it was so close to Qingyun Mountain."
Ye Zelin asked Hua Fushu to trade seats. Hua Fushu initially refused, but after seeing that they would both sit on the same bench, she agreed. Ye Zelin asked Yu Xuanji about tomorrow's itinerary. Yu Xuanji put away the map and told him her route. The two then discussed gambling and agreed to play another round after everything was settled.
When the water became warm, Hua Fushu drank half a bowl of water and sat quietly for a cup of tea. Ye Zelin and Yu Xuanji were still chattering, from chess to poetry and songs, and they never looked at her from beginning to end. She glanced at Yu Chisu and Lao Qiao opposite her, wanting to talk to them to relieve her boredom, but the two of them looked like they didn't want to chat about family matters, so she gave up.
After being in Yuezhou for so long, Hua Fushu felt so obviously ignored for the first time. Yu Xuanji was also middle-aged, and could be considered half an old man. Ye Zelin was only in his early twenties, so how could she get along so well with him? Sometimes she didn't even want to talk to her father when she saw him, but she did the opposite when it came to Ye Zelin.
Being ignored, she felt very uncomfortable. She found a chance to politely interrupt, "Husband, Uncle Yu, you two are both very knowledgeable and know everything. I have a question I don't understand. Could you please answer it for me?"
"You say." Ye Zelin responded. She usually called him by his name, but today was unusual. Not only did she call him Brother Lin, she also called him husband. Somehow, she felt an inexplicable joy in her heart.
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