Seeing that Du Rushong highly praised her embroidery, Lin Dan's serious little face finally showed a little smile. She waved her hand and was about to jump off the wall to go home for dinner, but she saw Du Ruyan rushing in waving a horsewhip, sweeping the flowers and plants on both sides as she walked. Her beautiful face was tense and her eyes were full of anger.
"What's going on?" Du Rushong frowned.
"Brother, I'm almost mad at you today!" Seeing the person closest to her, Du Ruyan, who had been holding back tears for a long time, finally shed two lines of tears and said aggrievedly: "In half a month, Faxing Temple will hold a Buddhist meeting. Taking advantage of the Buddhist meeting, all the young talents in Lin'an Prefecture will gather. You also know that I'm so old. If I don't get married, I will become an old maid. Don't I have to socialize more?"
Du Ruyan was originally the daughter of a marquis and should have had no trouble finding a husband, but she had an aunt who was deposed and her mother was divorced. With such a background, how could she be worthy of a young master from a wealthy family? So naturally, her fiancé broke off the engagement with her and married someone else. She is now nineteen years old. If she were a girl from another family, she would have given birth to several children by now, but she is still wasting her time.
Recalling the past, Du Ruyan felt even more bitter in her heart, and gritted her teeth and said, "In order to attend the Buddhist meeting, I want to make a new set of clothes. Today, I saw a piece of silk with lotus flowers on it in Meng's Embroidery Shop. The lotus flowers on the satin are swaying and colorful. It was embroidered by Meng Si herself. I immediately took out money to buy it, but it was snatched away by Li Jiarong who arrived later. I said that I came first and paid first, and the silk should be sold to me, but the shopkeeper ignored me, returned the silver to me, wrapped up the embroidery cloth, and sent it to Li Jiarong's carriage. When Li Jiarong left, she kept mocking me for being a phoenix with feathers shed, and I pinched my palms until they were broken before I didn't whip her out to teach her a lesson. Brother, my temper has changed for the better, and I didn't cause you any trouble this time."
Having said that, Du Ruyan stretched out her hand and let Du Rushong look at her palm. Sure enough, there were many bloody crescent marks on it, which were mottled and shocking.
Du Rushong's eyes were dark and his face showed pity.
Du Ruyan wiped her tears and continued, "The cloth was taken away, so I wanted to buy another one. I asked the shopkeeper if he had any cloth embroidered by Meng Si himself. The shopkeeper told me that their young lady now only embroiders screens, not clothes. I asked him what Li Jiarong took away just now. The shopkeeper said that unless I was also the daughter of the governor, I would not be able to wear the clothes embroidered by their young lady. He also said that their young lady now only embroiders clothes for nobles, so who am I?"
Du Ruyan raised her head, her eyes full of unwillingness: "Brother, could you have imagined that we would have this day? Could you have imagined that on this day, we would be pointed at and called good-for-nothings by others?" Having said that, she slowly lowered her head and covered her face, so as not to let her brother see her almost collapsed expression.
Du Rushong held his sister, who had lost a lot of weight, in his arms and patted her caressing her. His face was still calm, but his heart was turbulent and he couldn't calm down for a long time. After all, it was because he was too incompetent that his mother, aunt and sister suffered such humiliation. What's the point of joining the army or risking his life? As long as he can gain power and protect the most important people in his life, he is willing to do anything.
After listening to the gossip, Lin Dan tentatively asked, "Miss Du, do you still need embroidery cloth?"
Du Rushong's eyes lit up and he immediately said, "Of course I need it."
Lin Dan rubbed his hands, feeling a little excited, but he didn't show it on his face. He said seriously, "Then you should give me five taels of silver as a deposit. I need to buy embroidery thread and fabric. After embroidery, I can also make ready-made clothes for you directly, but the price will be a little higher."
"Five taels of silver? No problem." Du Rushong immediately took out a silver ingot from his purse and handed it to the little girl sitting on the wall.
"Here's ten taels." Lin Dan weighed the silver ingot, jumped off the wall without saying a word, climbed into the Du family's small garden, picked up the big knife that Du Rushong had thrown aside, and split the silver into two halves.
Du Ruyan was frightened by her brother's desperate attempt to seek medical treatment for his illness and Lin Dan's brutal behavior. She forgot all her grievances and stopped shedding tears. She just stared in amazement at the little girl holding a big knife in one hand and silver in the other.
"Don't," Du Ruyan hurriedly grabbed her brother's sleeve and said embarrassedly, "I'll find the fabric myself, don't bother Miss Lin." To this day, she still remembers Miss Lin's "amazing work", but she dared not wear that kind of thing on her body.
Du Rushong ignored her plea, took the half of the silver ingot with a smooth cross section, and said with a smile: "Miss Lin, please measure the size for my sister. You can decide what pattern to embroider, and we can discuss the price."
Lin Dan waved his hand generously: "When the clothes are made, you can decide how much to pay. If you are not satisfied, give less, and if you are satisfied, give more. Anyway, this is my first time taking a job, and I am not very familiar with the market price. It's okay as long as I don't lose money. When I become famous in the future, the price will increase."
Du Rushong had long been accustomed to Lin Dan's personality of speaking his mind. The coldness on his face slowly faded away, replaced by ease. He could get along with this little neighbor without any burden, nor did he need to guess the motives behind her words, let alone deliberately keep a distance between them to avoid getting into trouble. It was a good decision to settle here.
Du Ruyan was shocked by her brother's decision. She wanted to shout, "I don't want it, please let me go," but she didn't want to hurt the little girl's self-esteem. Never mind, isn't it just a waste of some money? When the finished garment is finished, she will just put it at the bottom of the box. The little girl has been working very hard to learn embroidery in order to support the Lin Family Embroidery Shop, and she cannot dampen her enthusiasm.
Thinking of this, Du Ruyan had no choice but to compromise and let Lin Dan measure her size with a wooden face. After her brother and Lin Dan teamed up to make trouble, her resentment and resentment faded away unconsciously, leaving only a mixture of laughter and tears.
"I will definitely send the clothes over before the Buddhist meeting." Lin Dan silently noted down Du Ruyan's size, then climbed up to the top of the wall and flipped over, with his movements as smooth and efficient as possible.
Du Ruyan was stunned and reminded him, "Brother, you're just going to let her climb over our wall at will? If this continues, won't our house become her backyard, where she can come in and go out as she pleases?"
If someone else dared to do this, Du Rushong would have broken the other person's legs long ago. But at the moment, he just smiled lightly and waved his hand nonchalantly: "It's okay, Miss Lin knows her limits."
Du Ruyan looked at her brother for a long time, then walked away while shaking her head.
…………
This was the first business Lin Dan received, and also the first step in reopening her embroidery shop. Naturally, she did not dare to slack off. After getting the deposit, she sneaked out of the house with Cuilan to buy embroidery thread and fabric. But any slightly better fabric on the market was very expensive, and five taels of silver could only buy some scraps.
"Miss, our family still has some good fabrics stored in the warehouse. They were left for you as a dowry by your wife. You can use the fabrics at home and ask Mr. Du to pay for the clothes after you make them." Cuilan suggested.
"Okay, let's go." Lin Dan put a large bundle of white embroidery thread into the backpack. She has now become accustomed to buying and dyeing her own thread, as the colors of embroidery thread on the market are too limited for her to display.
Halfway through their walk, Lin Dan changed her mind and said, "Why don't we go to Faxing Temple and take a look?" You can wear whatever you want at home, but when you go out, you have to dress according to the occasion. She had to see with her own eyes what Faxing Temple looked like so that she could find inspiration for embroidering clothes.
Cuilan also wanted to go and have some fun, so she nodded and said, "Okay, Faxing Temple is not far from here, and it only takes 35 minutes to walk there."
The two of them came to Faxing Temple, visited it inside and out, gave some incense money, and returned reluctantly when the sun was about to set. With the guidance of the young monk, Lin Dan knew that on the day of the Buddhist meeting, the young talents of Lin'an Prefecture would hold a poetry meeting in the garden behind the Main Hall.
Lin Dan didn’t remember how majestic the Buddhist temples were, nor how compassionate the Bodhisattvas were. She only remembered that she walked into the garden where autumn was gradually taking over, and at first sight she was captivated by a giant ginkgo tree that had lived for a thousand years. According to the young monk, this ginkgo tree was planted by the Qin emperor thousands of years ago. It has experienced the baptism of wind and frost and the change of dynasties, but it has always been lush and green and stood tall. The trunk is as thick as five people can hug together, and the huge crown rises into the sky, blocking out the sun.
The autumn wind dyed it a brilliant golden color, and the beautifully shaped ginkgo leaves fell like raindrops. Looking up, you can see dazzling colors everywhere, with the blue sky and star-like sunlight dotted between the branches, as if you are peeking into another world through a kaleidoscope. The scene can only be described as breathtaking.
Lin Dan was stunned at the time, and it took him a full quarter of an hour to come back to his senses from the magnificence of nature. After leaving Faxing Temple, her mind was filled with golden ginkgo leaves, some swaying on the treetops, some circling in the air, and some spread on the ground in layers, so dazzling.
When she finally got rid of the shock in her heart and returned to reality, she was already close to home. Zhang Hui was holding a feather duster and glaring at her fiercely: "Where have you been today? You've just been well behaved for a few months, but now you're acting stubborn again, right? I told you to be lazy and disobedient!"
Zhang Hui chased after her daughter and beat her, feeling both sorry for her misfortune and angry at her for not fighting back.
Lin Dan hugged her head subconsciously and explained as she ran: "Mom, don't be upset yet. I took an embroidery job today and went out to buy embroidery thread."
"With your mediocre skills, how can you take on embroidery work? Who would look up to you? The Third and Fourth Aunts praised you in front of me today, saying that you have talent and you will be successful if you work harder. But in the blink of an eye, you disappeared and even the embroidery frame is empty! You are so lazy after just learning a little bit. How can you support this family in the future? Look at Meng Si, she has learned embroidery for more than ten years and her skills have reached the pinnacle, but she still practices diligently every day! Compared with them, who are you? Do you have the qualifications to be lazy?" Zhang Hui was so angry that her eyes were red, but she could not do anything about her daughter. She couldn't bear to hit her too hard, but her daughter wouldn't remember if she hit her too lightly. If she had known that the Lin family would end up like this, she shouldn't have spoiled her daughter so much and raised her to be the willful and lazy person she is today.
Lin Dan ran into the main hall, hid behind the two concubines, and explained: "I am not lazy. This is my embroidery. Please take a look at it first. I think I am ready to be a master, so I took the embroidery job."
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