Chapter 134

Jiang Yanyi was afraid that Madam An would be embarrassed, so he helped her explain to An Yongyuan: "I heard that Yunniang had severe morning sickness a few days ago and couldn't eat anything, so I let Yunniang stay at the manor for a while. I didn't expect that it would cause General An to worry, so he asked General An to come here in person."

"Miss Chu, you are so kind." An Yongyuan clasped his fists towards Jiang Yanyi, "Miss Chu took care of me, and I would like to thank you here."

This sentence has a double meaning.

An Yongyuan has always been a man with poor words. It was thanks to Jiang Yanyi that Madam An's slanderous words against Madam An in front of the noble ladies could reach his ears. After dealing with the gossiping servants in the mansion, he tore his face with Madam An and talked things out, and waited for Madam An to return home.

Unexpectedly, he waited and waited but Madam An did not come back. The only thing he could think of was that Madam An was angry with him. After all, she was wronged during her pregnancy, but he did not notice it at all.

It happened that Qingming Festival was approaching, so he came in person on the pretext of taking Madam An back to worship the ancestors.

Now the war in Yuzhou was tense, and An Yongyuan had to be busy training soldiers. Although Jiang Yanyi invited them to dinner, An Yongyuan could not get away.

"There are still important things to do in the barracks. Yuzhou was trapped, and there was a shortage of medicinal materials in the city. The medicinal materials bought from the neighboring states were just a drop in the bucket. We had to send a batch from Xizhou."

The An family opened the largest pharmacy in Xizhou, and their network of contacts in purchasing medicinal materials was naturally wider than that of other places. This task fell on the An family, and An Yongyuan did not dare to be careless at all.

A carriage came and left in a hurry.

After seeing off the couple, Jiang Yanyi frowned unconsciously.

Food and herbs are all things related to human life in war.

Yuzhou straddles the north and south. The south is a land of fish and rice, and there are many herbs. On the other hand, the north is bitter and cold, and herbs are scarce.

An Yongyuan sent the herbs stored in the An family pharmacy to Yuzhou. If the Turks invade later, Xizhou will be the hardest to find medicine.

Seeing Jiang Yanyi frowning, Huo Jianjia asked, "Master, are you reluctant to leave Madam An? Now that we are back in the city, you can go to see the Madam every now and then." Jiang

Yanyi shook his head and said, "General An is a protective wife man. I'm not worried about Yunniang."

She sighed and asked, "The caravan should arrive in Xizhou soon, right?"

Yang Xiu had led the caravan out of the customs for more than a month, and a few days ago he sent a letter saying that they were on their way back.

When Huo Jianjia followed her father to run escort missions, she had been to most places in the Great Xuan Dynasty, but she had never been outside the border. She said, "My father said that if you leave Yangguan in the west on March 3rd, you will return home on September 9th. This time, I am afraid that I will not be able to return for a few months, but Xizhou City is at the border, and Uncle Yang and his friends have acquaintances to lead the way, so they should be able to return earlier."

Outside the border is a desert, and riding a camel is not like riding a horse inside the border, so the journey is naturally much slower.

Jiang Yanyi said, "Based on more than a month on the way there and more than a month on the way back, they will probably return around the Dragon Boat Festival."

Jiang Yanyi was not worried about the business outside the border, she wanted to use the caravan to buy a large number of medicinal materials from other countries outside the border.

Once a war breaks out, gold will not be as valuable as food and medicinal materials.

While Xizhou City is still stable, we should stock up as many medicinal materials as possible. During

the Qingming Festival, Jiang Yanyi and his sister returned to the Chu family to worship their ancestors.

They couldn't go back to the capital in the short term, so they couldn't go to the ancestral tombs to worship, so they only held the worship in the newly built ancestral hall.

The Chu family made Qingtuan, and Jiang Yanyi also made Qingtuan and wisteria flower cakes from the farm and brought them over.

The tradition of eating Qingtuan during the Qingming Festival originated in the prosperous Tang Dynasty in Jiang Yanyi's original world. The jade-green mugwort glutinous rice dumplings have spanned thousands of years and have been passed down from generation to generation in the hands of ancestors. They have their own charm.

Jiang Yanyi considered that the cook of the Chu family could make red bean paste filling, so she made salted egg yolk and pork floss filling.

Jiang Yanyi made the meat floss himself from cooked tenderloin. He didn't have modern kitchen tools, so Huo Jianjia used a stone scoop to mash the drained cooked meat into minced meat, and then chopped it up with a sharp knife. The

steamed salted egg yolk was mashed into a paste, mixed with the meat floss and kneaded into a new ball.

The green color of the green ball comes from the juice of young mugwort, but the freshly picked mugwort has a strong bitter taste, so it must be blanched in water before mashing the juice. The squeezed mugwort juice is mixed into the glutinous rice flour, and the kneaded dough is emerald green.

Roll the dough into long strips and divide it into portions. Fill it with salted egg yolk and meat floss filling like making glutinous rice balls, and steam it in a pot for half a minute.

The green rice dumplings just out of the pot are soft and chewy, fat but not greasy, with a light aroma of mugwort on the skin. The salty egg yolk and meat floss inside are more prominent against the light taste of mugwort and glutinous rice.

Old Madam Chu hadn't seen Jiang Yanyi and her brother for a long time, so she talked to them for a long time. When she saw the green dumplings and pastries that Jiang Yanyi brought, she smiled so much that wrinkles appeared on her face: "You come whenever you want, and you have to bring something every time. How can you be so formal when you go home?"

Jiang Yanyi said: "I'm often away from home for business, and I haven't been able to fulfill my filial duty by your side. I just made some snacks to honor grandma, but I'm not being formal." "

You are just a sweet-talker." Old Madam Chu held Jiang Yanyi's hand, trying to find some resemblance to her daughter on her face. At first glance, their eyebrows and eyes are somewhat similar, but upon closer inspection, she feels that she doesn't look like Madam Jiang at all. Finally, she said angrily: "Let's go to the ancestral hall to burn incense for your mother."

Jiang Yanyi responded and pushed Chu Yangui out of Old Madam Chu's room and went to the ancestral hall.

Chu Yangui had difficulty walking, so after he finished worshipping, Jiang Yanyi helped him put the incense in front of Madam Jiang's seat.

"Sister." Chu Yangui called her in a low voice.

The wind from the hall brought a cool breeze, and Jiang Yanyi turned around to look at Chu Yangui. Her dress fluttered lightly in the wind, and a strand of hair fell on her cheek. The pomegranate tree outside the window was in bloom, and the red flowers among the green were very eye-catching.

"I want to go out to study." Chu Yangui looked at Jiang Yanyi and finished the second half of the sentence.

Jiang Yanyi was stunned for a moment before he asked, "Traveling to study?"

"The teacher has four subjects: asceticism, art, traveling, and military science. I am extremely stupid, but the art of study satisfies the teacher. The teacher said that I have seen too little and am too obsessed with what I think. It would be better for me to go out and travel, see the various aspects of life, and then understand what 'the opening and closing of the four seasons to transform all things' means. Then you will have learned asceticism and traveling."①

Chu Yangui's tone was calm and soothing. On his face, which became more elegant and handsome as he grew older, one could see a bit of the calmness nurtured by the fragrance of books, paper and ink. However, there seemed to be something hidden in his black jade-like pupils, which was deep and secretive, making people dare not peek.

Although she had always lived under the same roof with him, Jiang Yanyi still felt that this young man had grown so fast that she felt a little unfamiliar. After thinking for a moment, she said, "You are devoted to studying, so I won't hinder you. It's just that the world is in chaos right now..."

"It is precisely because of the chaos in the world that I want to see how the people in this world live." Chu Yangui interrupted Jiang Yanyi calmly.

Jiang Yanyi knew that since he said so, he must have made the decision long ago. No matter what she said, she could not change his mind, but she was still worried: "What if I encounter danger?"

Chu Yangui said, "Don't worry, Uncle Zhong will go with me."

"Grandmother..."

"As for grandma, please help me keep it a secret and say that I am going out to study."

Mrs. Chu was a strong-willed woman, but her youngest daughter died, and her most capable third son was still on the battlefield. She would definitely not agree to Chu Yangui going out to gain experience and study.

After returning from the Chu family, Jiang Yanyi went to ask Duke Chen about Chu Yangui.

Unexpectedly, Duke Chen left a letter and

left without saying goodbye. In the letter, he said that he had taught Chu Yangui everything he could. There were 30,000 classics in the world, and he taught his disciples not to teach them to nitpick and pass the imperial examination. He was just a guide, and he led Chu Yangui to the right path, no matter which way to go and how far to go. The future depended on Chu Yangui's own luck.

Jiang Yanyi thought that Duke Chen had returned to Meilin Caolu and asked Bing Shao to go to Meilin, but he learned that Duke Chen had not returned to Meilin either. He really disappeared like a hermit.

After Chu Yangui went to study, Jiang Yanyi looked at the huge yard and felt that the house was more and more deserted.

A person who was not afraid of loneliness before, now he is a little afraid of loneliness.

Jiang Yanyi went to the pawnshop to buy two maids, hoping to liven up the atmosphere. However, the two little girls were good at eating but didn't like to talk. Not only were they timid in front of her, but they were also very afraid of Huo Jianjia.

Jiang Yanyi was quite helpless. Fortunately, the two little maids were diligent and responsible, and they were usually taught by Aunt Guo. They were very efficient, so Jiang Yanyi just let them do what they wanted.

When they first moved here last year, she and Qiu Kui saved a lot of pumpkin seeds. After the spring, they were all planted in the flowerbed near the wall. Now the entire courtyard wall is covered with pumpkin vines, and some have even wrapped around the pomegranate tree in the next yard.

The litter of kittens at home have all grown up. You can see cats dozing off with their eyes squinting everywhere, beside the pumpkin leaves on the wall, on the eaves, and beside the pillars.

Jiang Yanyi picked the male flowers from the pumpkin vines, coated them with flour and egg liquid, and fried them in a pan. She also broke off the tender tips of the pumpkin vines and fried them.

This is the dish that Jiang Yanyi's mother-in-law is best at. She used to go to her grandmother's house and wanted to eat pumpkin flowers, so she ran to the field to pick all the pumpkin flowers. Because she couldn't tell the male and female flowers apart, her grandmother often scolded her.

After the female flowers wither, small pumpkins will grow, but the male flowers will not.

The fried pumpkin flowers just out of the pan have a crispy skin, and the fried pumpkin flowers inside are very soft, glutinous, and sweet.

Because Jiang Yanyi often made some side dishes to share with the neighbors, Xie Chuji, who was not very approachable at first, would often come to Jiang Yanyi's place to sit because the two families were very close.

She liked to play chess. When Duke Chen was not at home, she learned that Jiang Yanyi could play chess. After playing two games with Jiang Yanyi, she became attached to Jiang Yanyi. The two often discussed the details of running a private school while playing chess.

Xie Chuji was a talented woman, and her grandfather was a great scholar of the time who was as famous as Lu Linyuan's father. With her as the living signboard of the academy, more and more families were willing to send their daughters to school. The number of talented people who volunteered to be teachers far exceeded the number of teachers recruited by the academy.

Jiang Yanyi had never received a love letter in her previous life, nor a love poem in this life, but Xie Chuji had received so many love poem writing papers that they could use them to make fire.

She occasionally teased Xie Chuji about this while playing chess, and Xie Chuji only raised his eyebrows and said, "The people who wrote these sour poems together are probably not as good as one finger of your future husband."

Jiang Yanyi realized later that Xie Chuji was teasing her in return.

She looked a little dazed, as if she hadn't realized that such a talented woman who was not worldly could actually make a joke.

Xie Chuji noticed that Jiang Yanyi's expression was not right, but he returned to his original indifferent and dignified expression.

Jiang Yanyi smiled and said quickly: "The look and tone you just said made me feel that you are a living person."

Seeing this, Xie Chuji relaxed: "My mother often said that I have never learned the trick of dealing with people, and I don't bother to learn the trick. I offended a lot of people in my early years, but unfortunately I didn't learn my lesson. Until now, I can't change this bad habit."

Jiang Yanyi said: "There are few people in this world who can live casually. You are lucky to be like this."

Xie Chuji smiled, and was quite self-deprecating: "You have such a mouth that you can turn anything into exaggeration."

When she turned her head to look out the window, she noticed a red scarf on the embroidery frame next to her, with a half-embroidered pattern of swimming birds on it.

Xie Chuji's eyes had something else in them: "Are you preparing your wedding dress? The veil is so beautifully embroidered."

She threw the chess piece in her hand back into the chess basket, and she lightly stroked the surface of the ceramic jar with water lilies planted beside her. A few goldfish were chasing and playing in the jar.

Xie Chuji's eyes were tired, as if she had completely let down her guard against Jiang Yanyi: "Do you have any wine?"

Jiang Yanyi went to get a pot of plum wine that he bought from Chen Guogong's winery a few years ago.

Xie Chuji smiled when she smelled the wine: "Is it brewed by Duke Chen?"

Without waiting for Jiang Yanyi to answer, she poured herself a glass and drank it. Her eyes slowly turned red: "That year, he and Duke Chen buried the jar of wine in the back garden of the Mu Mansion. I later dug it out, and it tasted like this."

It was just after Qingming Festival, and there were still people outing and sweeping graves everywhere. Jiang Yanyi guessed that Xie Chuji was moved by the scene and her emotions had been suppressed for too long. She was a loner and unfamiliar here. Now she could only talk to him a few more words, so her emotions exploded in front of him.

Jiang Yanyi comforted her: "You have helped the Mu family to redress their wrongdoings. The dead are gone.

Please accept their grief." Xie Chuji sneered, "He is still alive, but he just refuses to see me."

Jiang Yanyi felt goosebumps on her hands all of a sudden.

Xie Chuji half-lay on the table, her cheeks red from drinking, and it was unclear whether she was talking nonsense or a secret she had kept in her heart for many years: "They are twin brothers. He can fool others, but he can't fool me..."