The Jade of the Red Chamber

In April, Yangzhou is full of grass and warblers flying, and green water surrounds the flower wall.

Zhenyu was beside Jia Min, telling her Aunt Zhou's letter, saying: "Mother, don't worry, Mother said that the second wife treated her much closer, and she was not harsh."

Jia Min sighed, thinking that she had the best relationship with Zhou Hui when she was in her boudoir, Zhou Hui was the maidservant of the old lady, she had protected her from so many tricks and schemes of the Wang family overtly and covertly, it was rare that she had poetry but Quiet and unassuming, the two chatted in private, and I respected her very much, and she came from a good family, and I only hoped that one day I would be able to get rid of this servant's skin and reunite with my brother in a dignified manner.But she didn't want the old lady to see her being elegant and elegant, and she pointed out that she was the second brother's roommate. She strongly opposed it, but at that time she was about to get married, and Zhou Hui was not her maid, so she was dismissed.Jia Min made the next best thing and wanted Zhou Hui to go to slavery and start as a good family. After all, Zhou Hui was originally from a good family, and his father was an official.I didn't want the Wang family to be too poisonous to make the old lady dissatisfied with Zhou Hui, but nothing happened in the end.

Jia Min has always felt guilty towards Zhou Hui. Zhou Hui offended the Wang family for her a lot that day. After becoming Wang's concubine, she knew how much she would suffer. She also respected her character and talent, so she let Lin Zhen Yu privately calls her "Mother" and calls herself "Mother".

Jia Min touched Lin Zhenyu's big soft earlobes, and said with a smile, "That's good. Today, the housekeeper sent a maid who teaches good manners. You can choose some by yourself later."

Zhenyu now has two nuns, Yan Shi and Du Shi; a first-class maid, Xue Que, who used to be by Jia Min's side; Pulled out; there are also a few little maids and mother-in-law who are rough envoys.

Lin Zhenyu said: "No need, I have enough people there, let's not add more." Jia Min smiled, waved the maid back and said in a low voice: "My son, you are a child, you don't understand , How can those who become monks on the way have the one who is right next to them? Just talking about loyalty is not enough! Besides, although our family is not a noble family, it is also a master of poetry and calligraphy. You must have what you should have by your side After two years, when you are older, I will pick some suitable servants to accompany you!" Lin Zhenyu was moved, and said: "At that moment, mother should help her son hold his eyes, so as not to choose those who are not worry-free. go!"

After a while, Lin Fu's family led a group of people to the main courtyard, stood in two groups, and saluted.

When Jia Min saw them, he looked at the meeting and left a dozen or so, and ordered the rest to be taken away.Jia Min pushed Zhenyu and said, "Choose it."

Zhenyu looked at it, one side was a child born at home, and the other side was bought from outside, Yin said: "Tell me what you will do." A large group of little maids peeped at each other, puzzled.Lin Zhenyu just ignored her, pointed at him and said, "Let's start with you!" Jia Min looked at her with a smile and said nothing.

Some of the little maids said "know how to needle and thread", some said "literate", some blushed and said "no", some cleverly said "knows everything, but not good", and some nervously murmured Sentence...

Lin Zhenyu called the nanny who was in charge of disciplining them, checked and picked five.The older one who knows how to cook is bought from outside, about eleven or twelve years old; the four younger ones, six or seven years old, are all born at home, two are good at embroidery, one knows flowers and plants, and the other is a father It is the person who manages the fish and birds in the mansion, and can take care of small animals.These few were all honest and well-behaved, and Lin Zhenyu, who was literate, clever, and had a high self-esteem, was not selected.

Seeing this, Jia Min nodded appreciatively, and picked a few to make up for the gaps around her. The rest were arranged where needed or taken away. Among them, one of the most beautiful girls who looked like a fairy concubine was also dismissed. When I went back, the girl was fourteen or fifteen years old, and she was the biggest one in this wave. Although she saluted and greeted her well, she had an air of aloofness.

When Sister-in-law Wang saw that the girl was not selected, her expression changed a couple of times, she finally said nothing, she saluted, and took all the dejected little maids away.

Seeing this, Jia Min sneered and remained silent.Instead, he smiled and touched Zhenyu's small head and went into the inner room without mentioning it.The big servant girl Xuehe said: "Okay, let's all go down, you guys, follow me."

Sitting on the couch by the window, Jia Min said to Lin Zhenyu, "Zhenyu, let the nanny watch over these girls first, if there is something bad, you don't have to go back, I just ask Mother Liu to throw them out." Pointing again Xue Que said: "Lead your uncle there, be more careful." Xue Que said "Yes!" Then he said to Lin Zhenyu: "Go, come as you want."

After Zhenyu left, Jia Min dismissed the maid, leaving only Mama Liu, and said bitterly: "Where is the master loving Zhenyu, I'm so impatient!"

Grandma Liu was also angry: "This hand is so stretched out, it even dares to intervene when entering the mansion! Uncle is so young, what's the point of arranging them in?"

Jia Min had a cold face and sneered: "That one has a good plan! If Zhen'er is really like that ordinary three-year-old child, seeing that girl is beautiful, bright and gentle, I might really choose it. No one in this house knows that the master likes it. Zhen'er, you can see the master by Zhen'er's side, right?"

Grandma Liu was dumbfounded: "I can't stop? Why would the master fall in love with the maid next to my son?"

Jia Minhan said in a cold voice: "Zhen'er is still young, so it's not difficult to find a reason to ask." After thinking about it, he sneered again and said: "If it really doesn't work, then Zhen'er..., maybe I will be appointed at that time." Did you leave with a broken heart?"

Ms. Liu gave a piss, and said: "She is really a poisonous woman! Fortunately, the uncle is early wisdom. It's just that I saw Wang Lun's family look a little bit wrong today?"

Jia Min said: "I still don't understand this? It must be that Wang Lun's family let that girl in."

Mother Liu looked gloomy, and said: "Eat the inside out! She was brought by my wife from her mother's house! Just waiting for me to clean her up!" The straight-faced mother Liu's face turned pale, and suddenly she looked serious: "The one from Wang Lun's family won't Does it have something to do with the second room?"

Jia Min sat up straight suddenly, stared at Liu Mama and asked, "Nurse, do you see something?"

Grandma Liu thought slowly and said: "When I went back to Beijing to visit relatives, I heard my goddaughter talk a lot about the tricks of the second wife, it's really..., I remembered that Mrs. Wang was originally an old lady who cared about you. The one sent by the steward, Tete, can be used for writing, not the companion we brought from Jia's house!" He said again: "Could it be the second wife...? Look at the normal behavior of Wang Lun's house, All day long, she said that her relatives in Jia's family are the old lady's nuns, and she also begged for grace to use the family's famous post to send letters to her relatives during the New Year's Eve!"

Jia Min recalled in a daze: "There is such a thing. I saw that she was pitiful that day, and the relatives were only agreed to by the old lady. Besides, the post station of [-] miles and [-] miles is for the imperial court, and the [-] miles is for the imperial court. The [-] li and [-] li are available to all officials and their families with the grace of the Holy Grace, and the [-] li is also available to ordinary people’s families.”

Jia Min stood up abruptly, gritted her teeth and said, "Hello, Mrs. Wang! You've reached out to my Lin family!"

……

In the next few days, Grandma Liu inspected the back house of Lin's mansion, and found many lazy and slippery people with dirty hands and feet. His wife sold them all together!

In the room on the left side of Xuetao Courtyard, the back residence of the Lin Mansion, a beautiful woman in her twenties, wearing a brocade blouse with pink peach blossoms and colorful clouds, tore her handkerchief, her face full of resentment.There was an old nanny standing next to her, anxiously saying, "Auntie, madam is making such a big move! If she knew our plan, would she...?"

Aunt Bai said: "That bitch actually uprooted all the people I had planned so hard to install inside and outside! Hmph! That girl Caiyue is also useless. It was a waste of me spending so much money to bribe Sister-in-law Wang. A three-year-old doll can't even fit in, and she was kicked down without even entering the door!"

She cried again: "I have a pity that my Zhengfeng aunt has to squeeze into the same courtyard with these common house girls! The master used to be not good at sex, but Yueyue came several times, and now I can't even see her face! Master Madame has Master Zhen, and it hurts like her eyeballs, so she wants to cut me off?"

Aunt Bai said sadly: "Who says it's not? My wife can't give birth, so naturally she treats the adopted one as a treasure, but the master... Sigh! It's not your own, how can you treat him so well?"

"Master is too partial, let that bitch detain us in this courtyard, hum, don't ask for your peace! This kind wife is afraid that we will see the master!"

At that moment, Aunt Bai said angrily again: "I don't know what's wrong with that good wife? Wasn't she sick in the past and didn't care about family affairs? The one who hurts spring and autumn, recites poems and paints all day long, tricks the master into treating her as a treasure It seems that now she has become more majestic, and she no longer takes the shape of that sick Xi Shi?"

The old mother persuaded: "Don't talk about those useless things, Auntie, what do we think we should do?"

Aunt Bai said angrily: "What else can I do! The master tells people, 'Stay in the yard only, don't wander around! If anyone violates it, send it straight away!' After Shangjing arrived in Yangzhou, Gou's heart and eyes were all about her, and the maids in the connecting room stopped serving in the room and rushed to the Xuetao Courtyard." After a while, Fang said helplessly: "Stay here for now. Let's talk about it after a while, I don't believe that the master will always be the only wife!"

Aunt Bai and a group of aunts in the Xuetao courtyard all had toothaches from the master's orders that seemed to restrict their feet, and they were so angry that they scratched their hearts and livers.In fact, this is just a beautiful misunderstanding. Even if Lin Ruhai and Jia Min are in harmony again, he won't worry about the trivial matters in the back house. It's just that Lin's mansion is about to live in a distinguished guest, and he is afraid that those aunts and maids will disturb the wind and rain. It's just an order that offended the distinguished guests.

Besides, that day Lin Zhenyu picked out the maids and went back to the house. Those maids came up to pay a visit. Zhenyu pointed to the one who knew how to cook and said, "Let's call it Ai Ye. It's a second-class example." Pointing to the four The little girl said: "Agarwood, angelica, poria cocos, beeswax, the third class." Then she said to the snow magpie, orange chrysanthemum, and orange grass: "The sisters were originally given by the wife, but the first class in the wife's room must be given by the first class." "Snow" starts with "Green" for the second class, and "Orange" for the third class, so we simply changed it to save confusion." Pointing to the snow magpie, he said, "My sister is only called aloe." "Orange chrysanthemum, orange grass two One is Mint and Coptis chinensis." The maids thanked them.

At this time, in Lin Zhenyu's room, there were first-class maids Aloe Vera, second-class maids Aiye, mint, and coptis, third-class maids Chenxiang, Angelica, Poria, Beeswax, mothers Yan and Du, and women who did rough work in the yard. The prince and grandson are not bad either.

Lin Zhenyu didn't say much to the maid, anyway, after a long time to see people's hearts, if it's not good, just throw it out.

Jia Min listened to the names that Lin Zhenyu bestowed on the maids, hugged Zhenyu in his arms, and said with a smile: "My son, do you know so many names of medicines for such a small person?"

Lin Zhenyu nestled in the arms of the beautiful woman, very embarrassed: "Mother laughed at me."

Lin Ruhai strode in with a smile, only heard the last sentence, because of a smile, he said: "Tell father, what did your mother laugh at about us Zhenyu?"

For a while, Qiwu Courtyard kept laughing.

After eating, his face was red like the sea, and he was quite proud.Jia Min and Zhenyu who watched were very curious. You must know that Lin Hai is a real celebrity, and he is very romantic, and rarely has such an obvious expression of complacency.

Lin Hai stroked his beard, waved away everyone and said with a smile: "In two days, we will have a distinguished guest at our house."

"An honored guest?" Jia Min asked suspiciously, "What an honored guest?"

Lin Hai caressed Zhenyu's little head, and said, "Zhenyu, you can't tell others what your father told you now, do you understand?"

Lin Zhenyu nodded, hesitantly said: "Then the son won't listen?"

Lin Hai laughed loudly and said, "It's okay not to listen, and you will help father take care of the distinguished guests when the time comes."

Jia Min pushed him: "Don't be a fool."

Lin Haidao: "It's the son of an old friend of mine. This old friend is a great official, but his house is uneasy, and he has no time to take care of the youngest son. He entrusted me to take care of one or two." No matter, it was involved in the matter of seizing the heir. The old friend had no choice but to step up the purge, and let the child be kept secretly in our house for a while. The child's brother is also a good one with the ability to protect himself. The child is still young, so..."

Jia Min breathed a sigh of relief, and said, "It's not worth it, it's just that our family doesn't want to get involved in those bad things."

Lin Hai nodded and said: "You don't know, my old friend is very capable, and he is very kind to me, and this matter is only good for us. Just keep it secret, I heard that his wife and concubine in the backyard are very difficult .”

Touching Lin Zhenyu's little head again, he said with a smile: "Zhenyu and that elder brother should get along well. I invited a very talented Confucian to be your teacher, okay?"

Lin Zhenyu nodded obediently, thinking that it must be the trouble of some court official, it is really pitiful, the house is uneasy, and the embarrassment is thrown to an old friend's house, no wonder his father didn't mention it.

In fact, Lin Hai is beautiful in his heart. Although he has always been and will only be a pure minister, it is very good to have some relationship with that person through this incident. After all, the situation and the emperor's attitude clearly indicate that the general will be in power.

The change of Fengyun in the past two years in the capital is probably about to stop, but the momentum before this will be bigger.