Encounter with the Four Great Talents

Mrs. Xu sighed, as expected.Tang Yin was smart and smart since he was a child, and he wanted to marry his daughter because he took a fancy to him that he might be promoted to be an official!Tang Yin was still young, so he could afford it, but his daughter was going to be fifteen soon, so how could he afford to wait.It would be fine if I could make an engagement first, but judging from the meaning of this letter, I don't even want to be engaged.

Judging by the way my sister looks, this meaning is not her own, it should be the meaning of the men of the Tang family.The whole Tang family, her brother-in-law Tang Guangde knew that he had no idea.And this idea doesn't seem to come from Tang Yin, so the most likely one is Tang Shen.

Mrs. Xu was not very impressed with Tang Shen. After all, she had already moved to Changzhou when Tang Shen was not very old, and she had never seen him these days.But although the child in my impression is like a monkey, he is a very stable person and not lively.Although his appearance is not as good as Tang Yin's, he is also delicate and comely, with a light smile, not very warm.

From my sister's letters over the years, it can be seen that this child is not only stable, but also intelligent.The Tang family now has a lot of property and rich fields. It is said that they have produced some interesting products, and they have won awards from the county for their achievements in farming.These are all Tang Shen's ideas, from which we can know that even if this child has no fame in the future, he will definitely make the Tang family live well.

After thinking about it, I couldn't think of anything more, so I had to ask a few wives: "You go, have you met the second master of the Tang family? How is he?"

The women looked at each other, and one of them said: "The second master of the Tang family should be in his teens now, but he is taller and thinner than our fifth master. He is quite handsome. He looks very stable and doesn't speak well. There are many, but the sentences are decent. Grandma Tang seems to be a little different to him, Grandma is willing to listen to what the second master says."

"anything else?"

"Grandma Tang showed the things we sent over to the second master, and the second master said some words of thanks. Grandma Tang specially showed him the gift that the fifth master gave him, and the slaves saw... the second master frowned. Eyebrow. And the second master took a look at those things and then ignored them, didn't touch them, and didn't even say to take them back to the room, it seems that he doesn't like those things."

Mrs. Xu sighed, those things were given by her son on a whim, so she couldn't give them away.Tang Shen has been motivated since he was a child, and he is such a capable person, how could he fall in love with those playthings.That's great, just giving this gift will make Tang Shen prejudice against his family, and it will make his younger sister have a reason to refuse the marriage between the two families.

It seems that for the sake of his son, he will have to find an excuse to give Tang Shen another gift in a few days.

I and my sister have no other brothers and sisters, and the children of the two families can only rely on each other. If this becomes a feud, it will be over.

After thinking about it, he couldn't help shouting: "Where is Fifth Master? If you don't go to study at this time, where are you going?"

A few servants knew that Madam was in a bad mood, so they hurriedly coaxed a few words, and sent someone to find the fifth young master who was playing somewhere.Mrs. Xu compared her sister's son for a while, seeing her son's fat head, big ears and heartless appearance, she was so worried that she didn't know what to do.Mrs. Xu, who has always been gentle and considerate to her son, was really irritated today. She scolded her son bloody, and frightened the fifth master of the Xu family who had never been wronged, crying to the sky.In the end, it was Xu Xin who came to coax her mother.

Mrs. Xu held her daughter's hand and cried: "My son, one of your aunt's children has passed the examination of scholar and will soon be admitted to Juren, and the other is capable and shrewd at home in charge of family affairs. But your younger brother can't do anything except eat, drink and play. What if I am bullied by those bastards in the future."

"Mother, don't think about these things. Let's not say that my brother is still young. It's okay to like to play. The younger brothers of the sisters I know are not playing in mud. And even if the younger brother does not succeed in the future, he How can a son-in-law be inferior to those concubine brothers?"

"My son, how do you know these ways? It will be better if you don't separate the family in the future. If you separate the family, your concubine brothers have already started to go into the shop to help your father manage it. It is also true that your younger brother wants to get back these properties in the future." It's not easy. And he looks like that, it's fine if he doesn't study, if he doesn't know how to do this business, how can he live."

Touching her daughter's pretty face, Mrs. Xu wiped her tears and said: "I think your two cousins ​​have a bright future, so I want your cousin to marry you. He has fame, and his younger brother Tang Shen is even more capable." The result... oh..."

It was only then that Xu Xin knew that her mother wanted to marry Tang Yin for her, and that was nothing. What made Xu Xin unacceptable was that she was rejected!Xu Xin has always been proud and arrogant, and her face turned red when she heard this. "Mother, don't be sad! My daughter's family background is afraid that she won't be able to get married? Why do you have to marry their Tang family? It's hard to say whether a young scholar can be admitted to Juren in the future! We can find the high school Yes, my daughter should not marry into the backcountry of the Tang family!"

Xu Xin's words were also a little angry, but there was no other way, so Mrs. Xu nodded and said a few words of comfort, and let the matter go.

She didn't mention it here, but the Qiu family couldn't bear the Tang family over there.If it were her, she would also hope that her daughter would marry such a person.It's just that I couldn't miss my son's affairs in the end, so I had to find other opportunities to apologize to my sister.

As winter was approaching, Tang Shen didn't know what happened. He didn't sell much of the agricultural products, and most of them were stored.Tang Guangde was a little strange, but he had always believed in this child and let him go.Tang Shen not only saved food, but also saved a lot of cheap cloth, firewood, medicine and other things. Little by little, he piled up the warehouse at home. The rest of the family was puzzled by it, but the few who knew secretly admired it.

After everything was ready, the first snow just entered the winter.

Mrs. Qiu put her feet by the stove, looked at her son who was sitting next to him reading a book, and couldn't help but ask, "Shen'er, did you do that to prevent this snow?" Wu County is in the south, and it is rare for winter to be so big. of snow.It has been snowing for three days in a row.The two children had no choice but to come back and read by themselves. Even Tang Guangde's restaurant had no business and closed early.

"Well, my son often goes to the countryside to look at the fields. Several old farmers told me that there will be heavy snow this year, so I want to save more things for the winter."

"Oh, I really want to miss them. When the snow stops, do you want to send them some food and cloth?"

"I've delivered it early, mother, don't worry." Tang Shen turned a page of the book, rubbed his hands that were numb from the cold, and continued to read.

After embroidering flowers for a while, Tang Chen also stood up and moved around, his body was about to freeze.Pass the embroidered flowers to mother: "Mother, look here, what color should I use? Pink is too vulgar, but rouge color..."

"Well, indeed." The mother and daughter sat by the brazier and warmed up the fire, while discussing the issue of color matching.

At this time, the cotton curtain was lifted, and a gust of cold wind entered. The two shrank back from the cold, and looked up to see Tang Yin walking in.

Tang Yin took off his fur windbreaker, rubbed his face and stomped his feet, ran to the brazier to roast for a while, and drank a cup of hot tea to stop chattering teeth.Qiu quickly sent another bowl of ginger soup, for fear that he would get sick from the cold.

Tang Shen looked up at him: "Brother just came back from Master Zhang's residence?"

"Yeah, with such heavy snow, where else can I go? I just came back after eating."

Tang Chen asked with a smile: "Brother, what delicious food did you eat? As soon as you came in, you could smell the smell of alcohol."

Tang Yin also laughed, nodded and said: "But I ate something good. Mr. Zhang got a large piece of smoked venison, and it was quite lively with other dishes." After talking, he introduced some dishes during the banquet. The two women listened to it with great interest, but they lived in the inner house, but they didn't have such a chance.

After finishing speaking, Tang Shen asked, "What did Master Zhang say?"

"As you guessed, it snowed heavily for three days, and some places in the city have already been damaged. Many people's houses have been damaged, and they are renting everywhere. Shen'er, should our family take in some of them?"

"Not for now." Tang Shen opened the window a little and looked outside. The cold wind blew in, making Tang Chen sneezed, and he quickly closed it again. "If the snow stops, it won't be considered a disaster. Every year when it snows heavily, it won't crush a few houses. Mr. Zhang is just saying hello in advance. I hope everyone will not be too stingy."

Tang Yin took the ginger soup handed over by his servants and drank it in one gulp. After sweating, he finally felt at ease.Sit across from him and read his book.Unlike others, Tang Shen likes to write his own annotations and reading experience on the book. His books are always as clean as new.But if you ask him about the contents of the books he has read, he will draw inferences from one instance and tell a lot, and his memory is excellent.

Tang Shen rubbed his hands. His health is not very good. Although he doesn't often get sick, his hands and feet are always cold throughout the year. Now it's severe winter, which makes it even harder. "It's very honorable for elder brother to be invited by Mr. Zhang today. Mr. Zhang didn't invite father and let you go alone. I think you understand the meaning of it."

Tang Yin nodded: "I understand, I will study hard."

"Brother, it's good that you understand. Since you ate so many hot pots at noon, let's eat lightly at night. I also want to try if the dishes I think can be used, so everyone will help to taste them together." Try it."

"Okay, but what have you prepared?"

"If there is a real disaster in the future, our family should stockpile some food anyway, and donate some porridge and vegetables for relief. It's just that if all the rice is used to make porridge, some will be wasted, and it will not be easy to be full. Using poor rice , I can’t afford to lose that person. So I added some sweet potatoes and other things to cook together. It’s delicious and filling, and it’s cheaper than clean rice porridge.” There are not many people who win.Especially in the south, rice is the staple food, and even noodles are rarely eaten.Some people even feed sweet potatoes to pigs, but there are not many ways to eat them.

"This is a great move!" Tang Yin clapped his hands repeatedly, "My brother can always come up with some useful and good methods."

"This is also a helpless move. Our family is not a wealthy family, and we don't know what will happen this winter, so we have to save some money."

In the evening, it was indeed sweet potato porridge. Sweet potatoes were grown on the stalks in the Tang family's fields. They were highly productive and could be used as a staple food, so a lot of them were planted at that time, and some bad fields were also planted, and the yield was extremely high.Let it cook with rice, warm and delicious.Tang Yin also enjoyed eating an extra bowl.

Tang Guangde also nodded: "Originally, you have no other way to eat this food except steamed food or fried food, but it tastes better with porridge today."

"After all, eating this food will make you feel a little bloated. It doesn't taste too much." Tang Shen said with a smile: "When it's in the dish, eat a little less, just improve the taste. If you really eat it as a staple food, then Don't you want to fart for a day?"

Tang Guangde thought that the literati in the restaurant were farting one after another, and it really wasn't a good idea, so he nodded repeatedly: "That's right." But he still ordered another bowl.

Tang Chen's appetite is much smaller now. He ate a bowl and then two pieces of sweet potatoes and stopped eating. He just said: "This food is delicious and sweet. Compared with simple porridge, it's easier to get full. It's really good. In my opinion, if there is a disaster, it is better to use this kind of food as the staple food for the victims. Moreover, you can steam the sweet potatoes and ask them to take one back to other relatives and friends, even if they are hungry. You can eat some, after all, the disaster victims may not be able to encounter cloth porridge every day."

"What my sister said is very true." Tang Shen immediately nodded and wrote it down.Tang Chen smiled and patted his head.

Tang Guangde picked up a piece of sweet potato with his chopsticks. This sweet potato hardly needs to be cared for. It is usually planted in the field stalks. Except that it cost a little money to buy it, but all of them cost almost nothing. It is really a good deal.He said: "If this thing really comes in handy, it will probably become very popular next year. We also need to save some seeds."

"Yes, my child understands." Tang Shen nodded.He had prepared it long ago, and the seed part would never be given away for relief.

Qiu Shi likes the pickled side dishes of wild vegetables, which are crispy and delicious, and they can be eaten with some coarse-grain steamed buns, and the taste is even better.I couldn't help but praised: "I often see how much money you have collected some wild vegetables from the countryside, just to dry them and not use them for other purposes. You also think that you are doing good deeds by earning a little money for the children in the countryside. It turns out that for this purpose."

"My mother is right, but at the beginning I just wanted to do some good deeds. Seeing that those children had nothing to do and their families were poor, I asked them to dig some wild vegetables, thinking about finding time to cook some delicious side dishes and put them in the restaurant Let people eat for free, and giving them some silver rewards can be regarded as helping them a little bit of household, but today I remembered that it could be used here, so I let people take it out and use it.”

Qiu was moved, and praised his son for his kind heart, and he ate a lot with a good appetite.