At the Duke of Cheng's mansion, Madam He had previously sent furs to Liu Yulian. She loved giving away the good things she received to Liu Yulian. She had also given gifts to the Crown Prince's wife and the eldest grandson's wife, but Madam Mo's gifts were not as numerous or as good.
Mrs. Mo wasn't jealous. What was there to be jealous of? Don't just look at how nice Madam He was to Princess Rongning. Previously, after the Liu family was raided, Madam He had even considered breaking off the engagement between He Xiyuan and Liu Yulian.
Madam He was currently treating Princess Rongning well, simply because she had saved He Xichen. Princess Rongning had done a favor for the Duke of Chengguo's family, and she even held the rank of Director of the Research Institute.
If it were me, I would also be nice to Princess Rongning.
"He should have gone to the Marquis of Jingning's Mansion." When Mrs. Mo came to Old Madam He, she heard her talking about He Xiyuan.
"That's right, we should go there." said Mrs. He.
"They have a good relationship." Mrs. Mo said with a smile, "Then you can rest assured."
"Why should I worry? I'm just worried he'll become a bookworm and won't know how to coax people," said Old Madam He. "He still needs to be a little sweet-talker and sincere."
Old Madam He wanted Princess Rongning to work outside, so Princess Rongning would definitely know a lot of people, and maybe others would be nicer to Princess Rongning.
"Very sincere," Madam Mo said. "How many men in this world would chase a woman, especially to a place like the Northwest?"
Mrs. Mo believes that the relationship between He Xiyuan and Princess Rongning is very pure, and it is good for them to be like this.
"That's what you said." Madam He said, "But isn't it because I want him to break off the engagement?"
Madam He still remembered this, she had not forgotten it. Even if she had forgotten it, it was impossible for others to forget it.
"Let's not talk about this anymore. It's almost Chinese New Year." Old Madam He sighed, "Wait two years, until Princess Rongning reaches the age of marriage. I hope they can get married soon."
"Yes." Mrs. Mo nodded.
In the northwest, the Cen family had been having a hard time recently. They had used the little money they had hidden away to build a house, but they had very little left. It was New Year's Day, and they didn't have much money left to buy new clothes, let alone some nice ones.
Miss Cen didn't have that many clothes to wear, so she could only wear old clothes.
"Mom, it smells." Miss Cen just felt that the clothes were not good-looking and asked her how to go out.
"What smells? Just wash it more." Mrs. Cen San was helpless. She couldn't always help her daughter wash clothes, and her daughter-in-law couldn't always help her daughter wash clothes. It still depended on her daughter herself. "Just wash it more."
"It's too cold." Miss Cen didn't want to touch the cold water. She washed clothes when the sun was out and washed them casually. She didn't want to wash clothes, but the other people in the family didn't help her wash clothes. She wanted her sister-in-law to help her wash clothes, but her sister-in-law had a lot of clothes to wash.
Once or twice was fine, but Miss Cen always asked her sister-in-law to help her with the laundry, which made her brother unhappy. Her sister-in-law was pregnant again, so she was lucky that she didn't ask her to help with the laundry.
The Cen family didn't have that much money, and they couldn't hire a maid to wash their clothes, so they had to wash them themselves.
Mrs. Cen San and her daughter-in-law also do some embroidery to sell, but their embroidery is not as exquisite.
Before, Liu's mother's embroidery was not that good. Her embroidery was not as good as Liu Yulian's, mainly because Liu Yulian embroidered and sold it for money.
The young lady basically knows a little bit of embroidery, but she is not as proficient as an embroiderer.
Fortunately, the embroidery skills of some people in the countryside are not that good, not as good as those of the embroiderers. However, they can't make a lot of money with their level, just a little money.
At least Mrs. Cen San and the others know some embroidery. If they can't even do it, it would be difficult.
You have to know that not everyone can make money copying books. Printing technology has been upgraded in recent years, and bookstores don't let people copy books for sale unless it's absolutely necessary. If they really hire someone to copy books, it depends on the ability of those scholars.
Some bookstore owners, seeing that some scholars were diligent in their studies and had good character, asked them to help copy books for sale. This was considered helping the scholars and being a favor to them. If the scholars became successful in the future, it would also benefit the bookstore.
Because of this, the Cen family couldn't make a lot of money by copying books. They didn't know that making money was not an easy thing before, and they didn't think much of spending money before. It was only when they were really poor and their lives were difficult that they realized how difficult it was to make money.
"Mom, aren't you going to burn charcoal?" Miss Cen couldn't stand the cold at home. Sometimes the wind blew in from outside, making it even colder.
"What charcoal do you want to burn?" Mrs. Cen San asked, "We don't have that much charcoal at home. If you're cold, just stay in bed and rub your hands."
Mrs. Cen San didn't have so many solutions. The family couldn't go up the mountain to chop firewood in the middle of winter. They hadn't prepared well before and didn't prepare enough firewood, so they didn't have much firewood to use now, so they had to save it.
They had just been exiled, and this was the first year, so it was inevitable that there were some things they were not prepared enough. By the next year, they knew they needed to prepare more things.
"How can there be no charcoal?" Miss Cen always has something to say.
"If it weren't for the past, our family wouldn't have had that much money to buy charcoal," Mrs. Cen San said. "You could just stay home and wrap yourself in a quilt, and you wouldn't freeze to death. The quilt isn't too thick, just wrap yourself up."
Their family's quilts were all cotton quilts, and Mrs. Cen San had even known to buy them. After all, she had been the head of a household before, so she knew quilts were much more practical than clothes. Quilts were also comfortable to wrap around, especially when it was cold, and they didn't go out to work, just stay at home.
When Mrs. Cen San looked at her daughter like that, she thought it was no wonder that everyone in the family wanted to marry her daughter off early. With her daughter's personality, many people looked down on her.
The matchmaker has come to the Cen family several times, but Miss Cen is not satisfied, and Mrs. Cen San is not satisfied either. The Cen family still hopes that Miss Cen can marry a better person, but it is not that easy.
When the Cen family falls even further into poverty, perhaps by then they will no longer care who comes to propose marriage, but will only think about who offers the highest betrothal gift.
“…” After hearing what Mrs. Cen San said, Miss Cen was very unhappy.
"Don't stand there, come over and help pick the vegetables." said Mrs. Cen San.
It’s okay if there are vegetables at home. Some families are so poor that they have no vegetables to eat. It’s difficult to find wild vegetables at this time, so they can only eat sweet potatoes and the like.
In Shiyuan Village, Liu Yanqing was in a good mood. They had a lot of things to celebrate the New Year this time. He didn't go out to gamble, mainly because the gambling houses wouldn't let him go, so he could only stay at home more, occasionally riding his bike out for fun.
As the weather got colder, Liu Yanqing rarely rode his bike out because it was too cold and he was afraid of catching a cold.
"They have returned to Beijing, and things are much quieter here." Liu Yanqing said. If those people returned to Beijing, then the people from the third and second houses would not come to him and ask him to take things to the first house, or for other matters.
Liu Yanqing thought that he didn't have much ability and just wanted to live a quiet life.
"Can't you just be quiet?" Lin Xiaowan said.
"It's good," Liu Yanqing said, "but I feel like something is missing."
"They returned to Beijing, but you didn't, so you couldn't see the hustle and bustle of the capital." Lin Xiaowan said.
"Yes, that should be the case." Liu Yanqing shrugged. "Who doesn't want to go to the capital? Everyone wants to."
Liu Yanqing said it was normal for him to have such thoughts. He wanted to go to the capital and wonder how those people were doing there. However, they didn't have that much money, so they decided to stay in the northwest.
They could still live a rich life in the northwest, but if they went to the capital, their life would not be as good as it is now.
"Don't worry, I'm not going to the capital. I really am not going." Liu Yanqing said, "What can we do in the capital? We can't do anything. We can just sit there and eat and drink. How much money will that cost? Who will be willing to play with me when we go back to the capital?"
Liu Yanqing thought that most of his former playmates would not play with him anymore. Those people must have thought that he had been separated from the Marquis' Mansion, and each of them felt that his status was not that high.
Many times, when those rich young men get together, it is because of their vested interests.
Liu Yanqing understood everything. "I'm just talking, I can't really go to the capital. Even if a rich woman takes me to the capital, I wouldn't dare go. That rich woman won't necessarily support me for the rest of my life."
How nice it would be to have a wife like Lin Xiaowan. They are married in a formal way, and Lin Xiaowan will take care of him for the rest of his life. They also have children.
Liu Yanqing thought it was better to stay with Lin Xiaowan, as no other woman was as reliable as Lin Xiaowan.
"I don't think you don't want to go. If they give you tens of thousands of taels, let's see if you will go." Lin Xiaowan said.
"That may not be useful." Liu Yanqing didn't think that women were so foolish. "If someone gave me that money, I would take it and give it back to you. I will go to the capital, and when I am abandoned, I will come to find you."
“…” Lin Xiaowan didn’t expect Liu Yanqing to say that.
"Think about it, if we work harder, how much money can we make? If we only make a few tens of thousands of taels, I'll be gone for a few years and I'll probably be gone soon." Liu Yanqing said, "Even if they want me, we won't lose out. We may not be able to make that much money in our lifetime. We have children, so it would be great to make more money."
"Go and light the fire and cook." Lin Xiaowan was too lazy to listen to what Liu Yanqing said.
At the Zhen family, Liu Fang waited until the day before the New Year, but she still didn't receive anything from the Jingning Marquis' Mansion.
"What's the point of sending things to the capital, to the Marquis' Mansion?" Liu Fang said, "It's all in vain."
"They may not accept it." Zhen Wenzhe thought that the people from the third house were in the capital. If the people from Jingning Marquis' Mansion didn't want to accept the things, they could just have someone send them to the third house.
Zhen Wen Ze didn't ask the gift-bearers to simply drop the gifts outside the mansion. He also said that if the people at Jingning Marquisate wouldn't accept them, they should send them to the third house. Zhen Wen Ze wanted to please the people at Jingning Marquisate, but if he couldn't, there was nothing he could do.
"Don't worry about wasting money. Your mother is still in the capital." Zhen Wenze said, "They should like it."
"You didn't give it to them specifically," Liu Fang said, "It makes them look like they're picking up discarded items."
"We also gave them some, but not that much." Zhen Wenzhe knew this. Naturally, there should be more things from the Jingning Marquis Mansion.
"You're just thinking about them." Liu Fang was dissatisfied. Couldn't Zhen Wenzhe be nicer to his brothers? What was the use of the Jingning Marquisate?
Only someone like Liu Fang, who came from a marquisate, would think this way. Zhen Wenze couldn't possibly share the same idea as Liu Fang. Zhen Wenze knew how unattainable the marquisate was, and there was no point in him marrying Liu Fang. This was mainly due to Liu Fang's bad temper and her frequent stupid behavior.
"If you're not thinking about them, who are you thinking about?" Zhen Wen Ze said, "I won't argue with you. You're pregnant, so just take good care of it."
"Do you think I want to quarrel with you?" Liu Fang didn't want to quarrel either. She just felt that Zhen Wenzhe didn't value her that much.
If Zhen Wen Ze valued her, then he shouldn't have done those stupid things and shouldn't have sent gifts to the Liu family's eldest wife. The Liu family's eldest wife didn't send them anything, and Liu Fang felt like her face was being rubbed on the ground, and those people had no intention of doing her family any good.
In the capital, Feng Guanjing's family moved out of the Feng family and lived outside.
The things that Zhen Wen Ze had people send to the Jingning Marquis Mansion were indeed all in the third house. No matter how stupid Feng Guanjing and his wife were, they could see that the things sent by the Zhen family were too many, and it was absolutely impossible for the Zhen family to send them so many things.
Then the Zhen family must have sent things to the Jingning Marquis Mansion, but the people in the Jingning Marquis Mansion didn't want them, so they gave them all to the third house.
Feng Guanjing didn't dislike those things. What was there to dislike? If those things were in their hands, they would spend less money.
"Has no one come from the Marquis' Mansion yet?" asked Aunt Chai.
"No." Feng Guanjing replied.
"Why hasn't anyone come yet?" Aunt Chai thought that they had just returned to Beijing, and this was their first New Year's celebration since their family was confiscated and they returned to Beijing. Why didn't the people in Jingning Marquis' Mansion let them return to the mansion to celebrate the New Year?
Aunt Chai still felt that she had not made much trouble recently and she thought she had behaved well.
"It's almost New Year's Eve," Aunt Chai said. "If no one comes, we'll have to celebrate it alone."
"I should spend the New Year alone." Feng Guanjing knew that Aunt Chai had been waiting for someone to come from the Jingning Marquis' Mansion, and Aunt Chai just wanted to return to the Jingning Marquis' Mansion.
"You two are really useless." Aunt Chai sighed, "You should get pregnant sooner. With a child, many things will be much easier to do."
Aunt Chai thought that if Feng Guanjing gave birth to a child, she could take the child to the Marquis of Jingning's mansion and let the Marquis of Jingning see his grandson.
Feng Guanjing didn't think that Marquis Jingning cared much about his grandson. Marquis Jingning already had a legitimate grandson, so he didn't care about a child born to a concubine's son.
He Xiyuan had already returned to the Jingning Marquisate. Liu Yulian only planned to make some cakes. She didn't have to worry about how the people at the research institute would make a living. They had salaries and a place to live, so they could celebrate the New Year on their own.
Everyone was eating public food, and Liu Yulian didn't spend any money to buy food for those people. Those people didn't work for her. If they did, she would give them bonuses, but that wasn't the case.
Anyway, those people can get bonuses if they produce research results.
Being an official in the court is different from working as an individual.
Liu Yulian doesn't have to worry about those problems, because those people know what to do.
"Making pastries again?" Princess Zhaoyang discovered that Liu Yulian liked to make pastries and other things in her free time.
"Yes." Liu Yulian nodded, "We have to make some."
"The cakes you make are indeed delicious, better than those made by famous chefs," Princess Zhaoyang said. "Jia Jie'er and the others all like your cakes. You don't have to pamper them too much and make cakes for them all the time."
Princess Zhaoyang thought that Liu Yulian had so many things to do and would not have enough time to make pastries for them.
"I like to do it too." Liu Yulian said with a smile, "I don't do a lot, just a few."
Liu Yulian thought that when they returned to the capital, they would definitely meet many people, and some would come to pay New Year's greetings. However, families like theirs usually made the cakes on the same day or the day before, and the chefs rarely made them many days in advance.
Some pastries are no longer as fresh or delicious if they are stored for a long time.
"Let's make some yogurt." Liu Yulian said.
"Okay." Princess Zhaoyang nodded, "I'll help you."
Liu Yanjing originally wanted to talk to his wife and cultivate their relationship, but she ran to the kitchen instead. When Liu Yanjing looked over, he saw Princess Zhaoyang and Liu Yulian together.
Well, his wife is with his sister, what else can he say.
"Why don't you come and help?" Princess Zhaoyang asked directly when she saw Liu Yanjing, "Are you just standing there waiting to eat the ready-made food?"
"Come here." Liu Yanjing said, "What are you doing?"
"Yam and jujube paste cake, and other things." Princess Zhaoyang said, "Do you see those yams? Grind them up a little."
Liu Yanjing had no choice but to take action and could not wait for Princess Zhaoyang and others to do these things.
There were some cooks in the kitchen, but when they saw that their masters wanted to do it themselves, they just helped out a little and did not stop their masters from doing those things.
It was almost Chinese New Year, but no one in the Ouyang family wanted Mrs. Huo to come home for the New Year. Mrs. Huo had stabbed Mr. Ouyang with scissors, and Mr. Ouyang didn't want anything to happen again during the New Year.
Da Huo was sent to the manor by the Huo family, and that manor also belonged to the Huo family.
Lord Ouyang and Mrs. Huo were still married in name only, but Lord Ouyang had no feelings for Mrs. Huo. After Mrs. Huo was sent away, Lord Ouyang had his first wife's two children return home, and he had a wet nurse take good care of Mrs. Huo's daughter.
It wasn't that Master Ouyang didn't want the old lady to take care of his little daughter, but because the old lady was old, and Master Ouyang was worried that she would teach his little daughter bad things, so he decided to let the wet nurse look after her. Then, he would ask about her every day to let everyone know that he cared about his little daughter and prevent the servants from bullying her.
The two children left by the original wife did not bully their little sister. They thought their little sister was also pitiful, because her mother did not care about her and her health was not good.
"Why is this child sick again?" Old Madam Ouyang felt that her little granddaughter was always sick, getting sick at any time, just like a sick cat. The child always looked listless.
"The weather is cold, you've caught a cold, you need to be more careful." Lord Ouyang did not blame the servants too much. They took good care of the little daughter, but the little daughter's condition was not that good. The little daughter was more likely to get sick than other children.
At the farm, Mrs. Huo was waiting for someone to pick her up to celebrate the New Year. She didn't want to stay alone in the cold farm, so she wanted to go to the city.
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