Yining was at a loss for words. She asked someone to add a lock to her cabinet, and she could finally sleep peacefully.
Yi Ning went to the main room to wish Lin Hairu a happy new year and received a large red envelope. A moment later, Luo Shenyuan arrived. Yi Ning also bowed to him and wished him a happy new year. Luo Shenyuan actually pulled out a red envelope from his sleeve and gave it to her. "Your shop has been very profitable this year, so I'm taking twenty taels from it and giving it to you as a red envelope."
Luo Shenyuan explained calmly.
Yi Ning wanted to strangle him, after all the money was hers.
But Yi Ning accepted Luo Shenyuan's red envelope, and at the end she said unwillingly, "Thank you, Third Brother."
This stingy guy, there are three hundred taels in Lin Hairu’s red envelope!
Luo Yilian brought Xuan Ge'er to wish them a happy new year. Lin Hairu also took out a red envelope, which was much smaller than the one she gave to Yi Ning. When it was Xuan Ge'er's turn to wish Luo Shenyuan a happy new year, he simply didn't even take out a red envelope.
He is stingy and doesn't want to spend a penny, but he is not without money. Now half of the expenses of the second house are in his hands.
Yining thought silently in his heart.
After Luo Chengzhang arrived, the second wife's family went to the main hall. The Luo family wanted to worship their ancestors together, and the eldest aunt hosted them for dinner. Although there was a bit of a fight when the family property was divided, life still had to go on. As if nothing had happened, Chen gave each of the second wife's children a red envelope of 20 taels and chatted with Lin Hairu for a few words.
Chen was worried about Luo Huaiyuan's marriage. He was already eighteen years old, and it would be too late to get married after observing the mourning period for another three years!
But at the latest, I have to wait until the mourning period is over. Not only that, I can't take part in this year's Spring Examination, which is really troublesome. I will need to study hard for another three years.
The same is true for Luo Shenyuan.
Luo Chengzhang and his uncle decided to send them to the capital to find a teacher of high moral character and prestige. Luo Chengzhang's former teacher, the Imperial Academy's Attending Scholar, Lord Sun, had long admired Luo Shenyuan and had repeatedly written to him, urging him to go to the capital.
Luo Chengzhang had already made up his mind to let Luo Shenyuan go after the New Year.
Inside the ancestral hall, Yining burned incense for her grandmother and stared blankly at her grandmother's ranking.
She couldn't change a person's coming and going, all she had to do was face it.
If Grandmother knew about this, she would be relieved. She had previously kept it to herself because of Grandmother and her elder sister. Now that she was the legitimate daughter of the second wife, she would not let anyone who dared to use these evil and spooky tricks go unpunished.
Yining wiped off a bit of dust from the ranking.
Yining received a reply letter from her elder sister the next day. She read it with Lin Hairu and was extremely happy after reading it.
A few years ago, my eldest sister gave birth to the Dingbei Marquis's eldest son, a plump, fair-skinned boy weighing over eight pounds. The Marquis's wife was delighted and gifted my eldest sister a complete set of red gold and gem-encrusted headpieces and over ten rolls of kesi silk fabric. In her letter, my eldest sister also asked how Concubine Qiao was doing recently and whether Yi Ningke was still well-behaved.
Yi Ning wrote back: "I'm well, don't worry. I wonder if my nephew looks like my sister or my brother-in-law?"
After she replied to her elder sister's letter, Luo Shenyuan had already found a new teacher for her. Before he left, he had to find someone to discipline Yi Ning. The new teacher was a retired old man with a white beard from the Hanlin Academy, and he was very prestigious in the capital. Chen was also very moved when she heard that Luo Shenyuan could actually invite such a man! She simply squeezed her two daughters in as well. After Aunt Qiao found out, she also went to Luo Chengzhang to talk for half a night, saying softly that Luo Yi Lian should not be left alone.
Mr. Guo’s teaching objects increased from one to four.
After his third brother went to the capital, the number of people Yining wrote to increased from one to two.
The eldest sister liked to tell her about "Little Master Yu'er"—Yining's nickname for her nephew. He'd grown teeth, could walk, and could even babble for "Mom." He also liked to chew his toes, and it took a long time to correct his behavior. Recently, he'd even been able to correctly pronounce "little aunt." Yining wrote to her eldest sister: "Today, my fourth and fifth sisters had a fight. My sixth sister went to mediate, but was accidentally injured by my fourth sister, leaving her with a black eye. My eldest aunt brought my two sisters to apologize to my sixth sister."
Yining was quite keen on observing the lives of her three sisters, and later wrote: ...Liu Jing passed the imperial examination, ranking 33rd in the second class. When the fourth sister found out, she was so proud. My eldest aunt praised everyone she met, saying that the old lady had good taste. She burned a lot of paper money for my grandmother and sent me a lot of food, from dried longan to peanut candy, beef jerky to pickled goose feet.
The gift left Yi Ning baffled. Later, she realized it was probably some kind of hush money. After all, beneath Luo Yiyu's glamorous appearance lay a festering scourge: Cheng Lang.
She asked about her elder sister Cheng Lang, and her elder sister only told her that after Cheng Lang won the third place in the imperial examination in spring, he served as an editor in the Hanlin Academy for a year and was later promoted to Langzhong in the Ministry of Personnel.
The speed of promotion is too fast. It usually takes three years. For example, Liu Jing is still observing politics in the Ministry of Industry. If he wants to become an official, he has to wait another two years.
Luo Yiyu somehow also knew about this. Liu Jing still couldn't compare to Cheng Lang. She thought she was getting closer, but in fact, she was still far away. That day, when they were entering school, they had another argument. Luo Yixiu was so angry that she ran to Yining and didn't come back.
Yining told all these things to her elder sister.
As for her third brother's correspondence, he noticed that Yi Ning's handwriting had improved significantly since she began writing to him. He wrote back three or four times a month, often about trivial matters: "...You can't go to the mountains behind with Yi Xiu to play in the water anymore. You can't eat sweets before bed, and you can't eat them at Mother's house." After a long list of "don'ts," he finally asked her, "Have you grown taller?"
Sometimes he would also talk about things at Lord Sun's place: "...Old Master Sun also raises turtles. I've got some turtle-raising tips for you. They're in the envelope."
During the two years that Luo Shenyuan spent in Beijing, Yining's cabinet was filled with letters from him and his elder sister.
Yi Ning had to deal with two people alone, and the story made her feel like she had no desire to live.
She cleared out the letters from the past two years. Gazing out from the latticed windows of her study, the snow had melted in early spring, the crabapple blossoms were in full bloom, and the vines in her yard were growing beautifully. But when she calculated carefully, she realized she hadn't seen her third brother in two years.
Since he started studying in Beijing, he has been so busy that he has no time to come home.
Yining rested her chin on her hand, feeling sleepy and dozing off a bit. They say spring brings sleepiness and autumn brings fatigue, and it turns out it's true.
After the mourning period ended two days ago, Chen had begun to intensively prepare for Luo Huaiyuan's marriage. Her third brother and Luo Huaiyuan were finally coming home, and how could they get married without him? She finally didn't have to write letters anymore.
She stood up from the stool, took a long breath and said, "Xuezhi, send this letter."
Finally, this is the last letter.
Yi Ning looked at her shadow on the ground. She had barely begun to resemble a young girl. She had finally shed her slightly plump figure and was now in the standard range. She had also grown quite a bit taller. Her resolute refusal to force Lin Hairu to learn over the past two years had paid off.
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