Chapter 1 Cousin, Yun Qiao
"Miss Qiao, you haven't woken up yet? Hurry up, Madam wants you to go to the front yard. She said she just arrived in the capital and wants to make some spring clothes for the girls in the family so that they won't be seen going out and people will think our Chen family is petty."
Yun Qiao then stood up and sat on the bed. It took her a long time to calm down and come back to her senses.
Nine years.
She always thought that when she woke up one day, she would return to the modern era.
Last October, she followed her uncle's family from Qingfeng County in northern Shaanxi to Beijing. It took more than a month to get there, and they finally arrived in Kyoto in mid-winter.
The head of the Chen family, Chen Ruhai, is the magistrate of Qingfeng County, and his family is from northern Shaanxi.
Yun Qiao is the daughter of Chen Ruhai's younger sister.
Chen Ruhai's sister married into the Yun family, a wealthy local gentry in northern Shaanxi. The Yun family had a son and a daughter.
In the eighth year of Beihe, there was a severe drought throughout the country. The Yun family suffered a great fire, and the once wealthy family was completely burned to the ground.
Yunqiao's brother and parents all died in the fire. Only six-year-old Yunqiao was left at home. She happened to be taken out to play by her wet nurse and maid, and thus escaped the disaster.
Later, seeing that Yunqiao was young and had no elders to raise her, Yunqiao's wet nurse, Feng, sold the Yun family's land and farm, and settled the tenants and the servants who died in the fire.
With the remaining money, Yun Qiao went to live with her uncle Chen Ruhai.
When Chen Ruhai was taking the imperial examination in Beijing, the ministers in the court saw that he was honest and good at studying, so they asked someone to match him up with Zhou Jia Sanniang, the concubine's daughter of Mr. Zhou, the Minister of the Supreme Court.
After Chen Ruhai passed the imperial examination, he originally worked in Beijing.
He was too honest and offended people unintentionally.
Later he was demoted back to northern Shaanxi to serve as a county magistrate.
It was also during these years that the Zhou family became powerful officials in the court, and Zhou Sanniang is now Madam Chen.
She asked the old lady of the Zhou family for help and finally got a chance for her husband.
In addition, Chen Ruhai had been in northern Shaanxi for fifteen years. His political achievements were not excellent, but not bad either. He managed the poor and backward small county town more than ten years ago, and made it prosperous, but not prosperous, so that the people could live and work in peace and contentment.
He spent all his family property and bribed people everywhere, and only then was he able to enter the capital and become an official there.
Now he is about to take up a position in the Honglu Temple, in charge of entertaining foreign guests.
The job is not easy, but it is not tiring.
It's a sinecure.
But no matter what, Chen Ruhai is now a Beijing official.
As Zhou said, he doesn't care whether the official is high or low.
If Zi were an official in Beijing, her two children, even if they were concubines of the Chen family, would be able to find a good family to marry into.
Now that they have finally returned to Kyoto, the happiest person in the family is Zhou.
This is her hometown that she longs for.
She married Chen Ruhai at the age of fifteen and gave birth to a son after marriage. However, only three years after marriage, she followed her husband to a small county town in northern Shaanxi and lived there for fifteen years.
After fifteen years, I'm finally back.
Zhou looked at the prosperous Kyoto and felt envious but also a little timid.
I envy those who get married and stay in Kyoto to enjoy its prosperity.
What was timid was that she had lived in northern Shaanxi for fifteen years and didn't know what changes had taken place in Kyoto over the years.
Her biological mother in the Zhou family had passed away, and the old lady had previously liked her.
In recent years, she has prepared generous gifts every year, and she would use the fine furs from northern Shaanxi, which she was reluctant to use herself, to support her parents' family.
This earned him a little bit of shallow friendship from Zhou's stepmother.
Zhou was thinking that she would have to take her children back to the Zhou family so that her daughter and son could recognize their grandmother.
The Zhou family's influence in the court is now at its peak.
Being close to the Zhou family will only benefit the son's future career and the daughter's marriage, with no disadvantages.
Only then did Zhou think of buying some clothes for her children.
Although Chen Ruhai is a dull person, he loves his niece Yun Qiao very much, and loves her no less than his own daughter Xiniang.
When Yun Qiao first came to the Chen family, Zhou looked down on her in every way.
Normally, she was asked to stay in the kitchen. She didn't bully her, but she allowed the people under her to bully her. However, she hid it very well and Chen Ruhai never knew about it.
One winter, Chen Ruhai was handling a case and came home late. He happened to meet Yun Qiao who was eating in the kitchen.
Only then did he realize that the niece he had entrusted to his wife for good care had actually been treated harshly by his wife, and had developed frostbite and nearly starved to death in the cold winter.
Chen Ruhai and Zhou fell into a cold war.
During this period, Chen Ruhai also took a concubine and gave birth to a son. However, the concubine was also very powerful and always opposed Zhou.
Zhou's parents' home was in Kyoto. She had no one to support her in northern Shaanxi, and her husband ignored her, so she suffered a lot of grievances.
Later, she took the initiative to show goodwill and told Chen Ruhai that she would treat Yunqiao well, like her own daughter.
It's not easy for Chen Ruhai to take care of his wife.
After marrying him, a beautiful girl from Kyoto had to accompany him to northern Shaanxi, where the sky was full of yellow sand and water was scarce.
He softened his heart, and since Zhou was crying and acting like a spoiled child at that time, he softened his heart and reconciled with her.
In the same year, the illegitimate son born to a concubine died of a serious illness.
It happened that Chen Ru was overseas on a case at that time and came back half a month later.
Zhou told him that the concubine fell ill due to grief over missing her son and died with him.
Chen Ruhai did not suspect anything, perhaps because he was too busy and had no mood to do anything.
He had been married to Zhou for more than 20 years. There were only his wife Zhou and three concubines in the family, no other women.
The power in the harem was entirely managed by Zhou.
Chen Ruhai only occasionally asked about Yunqiao's situation. Daily expenses and living needs were all arranged according to Zhou's arrangements.
Yun Qiao has lived here for nine years since she was six years old, so she naturally knows a lot about the Chen family's affairs.
When she first entered the Chen family, she tried to please everyone, thinking that since she was living under someone else's roof, she should always do more and talk less.
Later she realized that the only person in the Chen family who was kind to her was her uncle.
The kindness her aunt and cousin showed her was just superficial.
But she was already very grateful for this.
I am grateful for having a meal to eat in the Chen family.
I don’t know if she can really live a comfortable life after getting married in the future.
Yun Qiao sighed. When she first came here, she also wanted to roll up her sleeves and do something.
Later it was discovered that she almost starved to death in ancient times.
What are you doing? Just stay calm for now.
Besides, the status of women in ancient times was really shockingly low.
Especially for someone like her who has no parents or brothers to support her.
Even if I get married in the future, I will definitely not be able to find a wealthy family.
Yun Qiao stood up, smiling softly, "I'll go right away. I haven't been feeling well these past few days, so I've been sleeping a lot."
"Sister Zhu'er, go back and tell your aunt to make some for your cousins first. My spring clothes were brand new last year, so there's no need to make them every year..."
Zhu'er said lightly with a hint of contempt: "Miss Qiao, you should go. Madam has her reasons for doing this. Miss Qiao, just listen to her."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
