She immediately took out the ruby jewelry and tried it on Duan Xinqi. Xiangyun said beside her, "Ruby's color is noble and bright. It has always been worn by noble ladies to show dignity and grace. I didn't expect that the second young lady's outfit today would make the jewelry lively. It matches the dress very brightly."
"Is it too dazzling?" Duan Xinqi looked at herself in the mirror, her heart beating like a deer. Was the noble and bright girl in the mirror herself? She couldn't believe it. But she also had her worries. After years of being invisible, she was not used to seeing herself shining like this.
"It's fine if you want to be eye-catching. You are the only girl of this generation in our mansion, and you are at the age of marriage, so you should dress up beautifully."
Duan Xinqi was startled, and then her eyes slowly became moist. She was thirteen years old this year. Girls of this age among the nobles had indeed reached the age of marriage. After all, it was not so easy to find a suitable husband's family. Sometimes it was common to waste several years without finding one. Therefore, the ladies of her age should have started to expand their own network of contacts at this time. Only she, because no one took her affairs to heart, except for her mother who was secretly anxious, no one else thought about this for her. She knew that even if Madam and Madam Min occasionally thought about it, they would probably think "It's not a brilliant thing, just find someone of equal status when you reach the age to get rid of it." But she didn't expect that this sister-in-law, who seemed to only care about food on weekdays, had already planned for herself to this extent.
"Sister-in-law." Duan Xinqi leaned against Su Nuannuan and choked up, "How old am I? Why are you in such a hurry? When the time comes, I just want my sister-in-law to help me take care of the family. If I can't find someone I like, that's even better. I will stay at home as an old maid. With my aunt and sister-in-law, my eldest brother will have the final say in this family in the future, and my sister-in-law will definitely not chase me away."
"Of course. Our second daughter is so beautiful and has such a good character. If you can't find someone you like, even if Auntie is willing, I will not send you away to be ruined by that stinky man. Don't worry. Home is always home. It is your safe haven. But when I was chatting with your brother a few days ago, I heard that there are many young talents in the capital, and next year will be the year of the big competition. The outstanding young people in the world will gather in the capital, so there is no need to come up with such a helpless idea at this time."
Su Nuannuan fixed Duan Xinqi's hair, then looked her up and down, and took her hand to look at the pair of bracelets in a daze. Suddenly, someone outside the door laughed and said, "I thought my sister would be busy today, so I came here to help. I didn't expect that the second girl arrived earlier than me."
As they were talking, Aunt Jing walked in. She was now a frequent visitor to Chunfeng Garden, so the maids did not report to stop her.
Su Nuannuan saw her and smiled, "Sister is the best at dressing up, come here and help me take a look, I think everything about Second Sister is good. Only the bracelet doesn't seem to match, can you see how it should be turned upside down. Many noble ladies are coming today, so naturally we have to let the little girl shine."
Aunt Jing was startled at first, but after hearing the last sentence, she understood what Su Nuannuan meant. She smiled and looked at her carefully for a few seconds, then nodded and said, "It's rare that she is still in her prime, and she looks beautiful. She behaves and speaks in a dignified manner. Only the second young lady can wear this dress. The best thing is this set of ruby jewelry, which is sparkling and adds a lot of color. As for the wrist..." After pondering for a while, she smiled and said, "Yes, if the whole body is covered with rubies, it will be a bit tacky. But this jade bracelet is not good. A bracelet with red coral is not bad."
Su Nuannuan said: "I have never liked coral, so I really don't have any coral jewelry. Honglian, take the key and go to your grandfather's warehouse to see if there are any red coral bracelets..."
Before he could finish, Duan Xinqi said anxiously, "Sister-in-law, please don't touch my brother's private vault. This is already very good. How can it be so perfect?"
Aunt Jing also laughed and said, "It's too much of a fuss. If people know about it, they will start gossiping. Although I'm not afraid, I have to consider Aunt and the Second Miss. It just so happens that the necklace on my hand was given by Master on my birthday last year. Although I can't say it's very expensive, it's not bad. If the Second Miss doesn't mind, she can wear it."
After saying that, he rolled up his sleeves and took off the bracelet on his wrist. Su Nuannuan took a look and saw that the red coral was bright and lustrous, and it was obviously a very valuable and fine product. So she smiled and said, "Sister, you are too modest. How can I give you something ordinary for your birthday? Well, you can let your second sister wear this bracelet. If you like something later, I will let me give you another one."
Duan Xinqi was very frightened, but she heard Aunt Jing smile and say, "Wear it. Grandma is right. Now is the time for you to dress up. We are all outdated, so just dress up for the occasion." After saying that, she saw that the little girl was still refusing, so she stamped her feet and said, "Second sister is so unreasonable. Don't you see my intention? You have to force me to say that I just want to extort another set of jewelry from Grandma before you can accept it?"
This sentence made everyone laugh, and Duan Xinqi also relaxed a lot. Aunt Jing helped her put on the bracelet without saying anything, then looked around and said, "Is everything fine? Then let's get busy. By the way, Grandma, do you think the old lady likes the flower arrangement I gave her yesterday afternoon?"
"I like it, of course I don't like it. The old lady especially likes the flower basket. She also said that we two are very creative. I wonder how many people will envy us when we put the big flower basket in the main hall tomorrow."
"That was all grandma's idea. What does it have to do with me? Even the flower basket was made by someone else after you drew the pattern."
As the three of them were talking, they entered the kitchen. Seeing that only Honglian and Xiangyun followed them in, Aunt Jing said, "Sister-in-law, please be careful when making ice cream in the future. The second wife has come to my room several times in the past few days, and she has been talking about ice cream in her words. I feel that something is wrong, so I want to remind you."
"Don't worry, I know what's going on." Su Nuannuan dragged out two flour bags with a smile: "Let's make chiffon cake today. You must keep this secret recipe secret from me. If I can make money with these in the future, you will also benefit from it."
"Chiffon cake?" Even Aunt Jing's eyes lit up a little, and she smiled and said, "I really don't know where grandma got these wonderful ideas from. What is this chiffon cake? I've never heard of it."
"You will know later that I have many wonderful ideas. This is nothing." Su Nuannuan said, and poured dozens of kilograms of flour from the bag into several large basins. Duan Xinqi looked at it strangely and asked hurriedly: "What's the point of these two bags of flour?"
"One is flour, the other is starch. When mixed together, they become low-gluten flour. Cakes must be made with low-gluten flour to make them soft and delicious..."
Su Nuannuan explained while instructing everyone to prepare according to her instructions. In her previous life, she loved to read time-travel novels, so she often wondered how to make these snacks once she traveled back to ancient times. For this reason, she looked up a lot of information. Fortunately, although modern bubble powder and tartar powder did not exist in ancient times, there were substitute ingredients. It was just troublesome to make them, so she didn't start until Duan Tingxuan mentioned the birthday of Old Lady Fang. Su Nuannuan decided to give the birthday cake to the old lady as a birthday gift, not to please the old lady, but just to hope that she could have a happy birthday.
After a busy period, all the materials were prepared and everyone was confused. Suddenly, they heard Duan Tingxuan's voice outside, saying that the young marquis had come out of court and wanted to have breakfast.
The breakfast consisted of steamed buns and porridge, which were cooked by Honglian. The rest was fermented bean curd, pickled mustard and salted eggs. Su Nuannuan took a break from her busy schedule to fry some dried bean curd and eggs, which already touched the young marquis.
After a quick meal, the women got busy again. Duan Tingxuan also wanted to go into the kitchen, but was driven out by Su Nuannuan. She said, "You'd better stop thinking about this. What day is today? Why don't you go to help entertain the guests but hang around here? Do you have any sense of importance?"
Before he could finish his words, Cong'er outside said, "Master, the Third Master is here. He said that the Master knows you are here, but in this day and age, you don't need to supervise what the Grandmother does. Hurry up and go to the front to entertain the guests. Marquis of Jinxiang, Marquis of Changsheng, and Earl of Shouning are here."
"If life is not satisfactory, I will let my hair down and go boating tomorrow morning."
Duan Tingxuan sighed to the sky and left the house in depression. His wife's laughter could be heard from behind him: "Listen, he is still complaining about being dissatisfied. Under what circumstances did Li Bai write this poem? How can he compare with him? He is so greedy that he deserves to be struck by lightning."
Duan Tingfang happened to be standing outside the door. Just by looking at his expression, Duan Tingxuan knew that his third brother had heard everything his wife said. He couldn't help but feel a little embarrassed, and coughed and said, "Your sister-in-law is just like this, don't mind it."
Duan Tingfang's face turned red, and after a long while of grumbling, he finally couldn't help but say, "Why should I care? It should be Big Brother who should care."
"Third brother, are you so honest in school?" Duan Tingxuan glared at his third brother fiercely, but Third Master Duan just laughed: "How could it be? If I were so honest in school, I would have been beaten up by the crowd a long time ago."
The third brother's personality...seems to have changed a lot. Strange, he wasn't influenced by Nuan Nuan, how could he be influenced by the bad company?
Duan Tingxuan thought angrily, and he had never expected that the reason why Duan Tingfang would change like this was because of the fine writing brushes and inkstones he gave him from time to time. Although the Third Master Duan was aloof, his elder brother would often give him things and talk to him, and it was obvious that he did not take him seriously as before, so he naturally felt a little closer to him. After all, although he was aloof, he still longed for care in his heart. Fortunately, Su Nuannuan came through and let the young marquis intervene in time to change this when the boy's three views were not completely distorted. Otherwise, once the aloof and awkward personality was formed, it would be difficult to change it in the future.
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