Blessed Daughter

"But... but..." Xiumei struggled, "I don't match his status. He is now a general, and I am just a little maid. How can I marry him? What he wants is to match those of everyone. The lady is the one!"

"You are not allowed to say that you are just a little maid. I have never thought that you are just a maid. I guess Brother Xiaoyong and my godfather and godmother will not think so either." Wei Ruodao.

After Xiumei thought seriously for a while, she seemed to have finally figured it out. She raised her head and said to Wei Ruo solemnly: "Miss, I won't get married until you are officially married, so no matter how young you are, I don’t even consider whether it’s Brother Yong or Xiaobei.”

"Meimei, your life is yours, you can't be tied to me for no reason." Wei Ruo said seriously.

"No, from the day I served the lady, my life has been closely connected with the lady. When the lady lives, I live; when the lady is happy, I am happy too. I am what I am now because of you, lady. Therefore, I have to follow you when it comes to getting married. I have never heard of anyone who married a maid first before the young lady got married."

"But I, your lady, have already gotten married. I got married in a serious manner with three instructions and six etiquettes, eight carriages and a large sedan chair."

"That doesn't count. The prince is your brother, young lady, not your husband."

"Meimei!"

"Miss, you said it yourself. I made the decision on my marriage. Now I have made the decision." Xiumei said.

"Why are you so sharp-tongued now?"

"I learned it all from you, miss."

"Hey." Wei Ruo sighed helplessly and thought to herself, if Brother Xiaoyong knew that Meimei might not consider her marriage because she was thinking about her, I wonder if he would blame her.

###

In the afternoon, Wei Ruo still sent the selected portraits to Xu Zhengyong as planned. Xu Zhengyong pretended to look at them, then said that he didn't like them, and asked Wei Ruo to choose again. He preferred the more heroic ones. A woman, lively yet dignified.

When the servant passed the message to Wei Ruo, Wei Ruo hummed in his heart: You might as well just say you want Meimei!

But Wei Ruo still asked the matchmaker to ask for more portraits of women.

When it was time for dinner, Xiumei cooked a table of delicious dishes. Wei Ruo asked people to move the table to the yard, then went to the next door to call Wei Jinyi and Xiaobei over. In addition, during this period, he had been helping Wei Ruo in Prince Rui's Mansion. Uncle Xu and Mother Xu were busy, a total of seven people.

There was no concern about superiority or inferiority, and there was no defense between men and women. Everyone sat together and had a lively meal. The food cooked by Xiumei was unanimously praised by everyone, and it was said to be delicious in the world.

After dinner, Xu Zhengyong set off again.

He only has one day's rest, and he will appear in the military camp early tomorrow morning.

Wei Ruo said goodbye to Xu Zhengyong at the door and warned: "Be careful on the road."

Xiumei followed Wei Ruo's instructions and handed some packed things to Xu Zhengyong.

Xu Zhengyong took the baggage and said, "Thank you Meimei. I will definitely cherish what you gave me."

"This is what the lady gave me and it has nothing to do with me!" Xiumei quickly clarified the relationship.

"it's the same."

"It's different! Miss cares about you, but I don't care about you!" Xiumei said angrily.

"It's useless if you don't admit it. I know you care about me." Xu Zhengyong said firmly.

"You are shameless." Xiumei looked disgusted.

"Hehe." Xu Zhengyong smiled.

Wei Ruo watched from the side and thought to himself, no matter what, the two people's habit of bickering has not changed.

"Let's go quickly. It's getting late, and the journey is long. If we don't set off, we won't be able to reach the military camp at dawn." Xiumei urged.

"Okay." Xu Zhengyong shouldered the burden and got on his horse.

After Xu Zhengyong left, Xiumei said with some distress: "I spent most of the day on the road. Miss, it's such a hard work, please tell him not to come back next time.

"I can't be the master of this matter. It's not necessarily my sister that he wants to see when he travels back and forth like this." Wei Ruodao.

"Miss, don't tease me about that again." Xiumei stamped her feet.

"Okay, okay."

The two returned to Songzhuyuan talking and laughing.

At this moment, Wei Ruo didn't realize that this farewell meeting with Xu Zhengyong was actually like that.

###

In the days that followed, Wei Ruo was still busy planting potatoes. Prince Rui's Mansion had a lot of land in Jiliao, and planting it all would require a lot of labor.

In addition to the people Wei Ruo brought with him, Wei Ruo also needed to hire many people.

For this reason, Wei Ruo cooperated with the local government to hire and resettle the refugees near Jiliao City.

Wei Ruo has resources and planting technology, while Wei Jin also has power, status and manpower.

When all conditions were met, things went very smoothly.

In his spare time, Wei Ruo also drew a city planning map.

Today's Jiliao City is incomparable not only to the capital, but also to Xingshan County.

Apart from Prince Rui's Mansion and the two relatively decent buildings at the Magistrate's Office in the city, there are only a few scattered decent houses of three or five families.

There are very few shops on the street. There is a tailor shop, a blacksmith shop, and a tofu shop, just these three.

The so-called city does not have a decent city wall. There are fields and mountains just across two streets from Prince Rui's Mansion.

What Wei Ruo wanted was not just to build a city, but to repeat the same old trick of providing relief through work.

She paid them with grain and hired surplus labor to build the city, providing them with a source of income.

The ownership of the completed houses belongs to her. When Jiliao City develops, she can rent out these buildings to obtain income.

Of course, this is a long-term plan.

It is unrealistic to develop a lively city in the short term. The people need to have enough food and clothing first, and the population will grow. Then it is possible to develop trade and create a city.

The basis of all commercial activities is sufficient productivity. When no one has enough to eat and the things produced are not enough for their own use, there will naturally be no trade.

But she is not in a hurry to get immediate returns; she is willing to make such a long-term investment.

In this plan, Wei Ruo put road construction first. Wei Ruo drew several north-south and east-west avenues on the drawings, and among these avenues, the highest priority was the horizontal and vertical ones in front of Prince Rui's Mansion. The two main roads, after repair, will facilitate the subsequent transportation of materials for Wei Ruo himself and other people.

###

Time flies to April of the lunar calendar, and the weather has become noticeably warmer.

On the fifth day of April, Wei Ruo went out as usual, but saw Xiumei running over in a hurry.

"Miss, miss..." Xiumei's face turned pale and she looked very panicked.