Sister of the Treasure of the Red Chamber is quitting

On the day of Laba, Baochai brought Ying'er, Bailu and several women to urge the kitchen to put the thick porridge that had been boiled all night into food boxes, and put some chestnut cakes and fresh snacks to the full. Someone mentioned it to Mrs. Xue.The person who came back said that the wife nodded, and then according to the old rules, the relatives wrote the sign and put it in, and a few clean, decent, smart-speaking women wore plain clothes and sent them to each house.When the servants went to run errands, she took care of the daughters-in-law who were still busy in the kitchen: "Mr. .After you finish your work, you will change shifts to eat, and you still have important things to do later.”

After Laba is the new year, and it is not appropriate to break ground during the New Year's festival, so the coffin of Master Xue was only deposited in the family temple after the dark period, and was buried in the ancestral grave of his hometown when he chose an auspicious day in the coming year. Sacrifice is particularly important.Baochai first went to the main courtyard to have a bowl of Laba porridge with his mother, and after eating some small dishes, he said he was full and put down the bowls and chopsticks.

The family temple and ancestral hall are in the old residence of the Xue family, and the tribesmen who offer sacrifices to the side houses of each branch gather here to salute every year.Mrs. Xue led Baochai and several sisters-in-law passed the sacrificial plate neatly behind. On the other side of the screen, Zhaomu was divided into primary and secondary, and Zhaomu worshiped gradually according to the singing of the ritual officer.After all, it is a merchant's house, and it doesn't have to be as imposing as the Ning and Rong houses. All the clansmen just kowtowed according to the ritual, and then scattered away after sharing the sacrifices.We all know that the direct branch died this year and was the head of the family, and there was only a widow in the family with a son and a daughter to live, and no one could stay and make trouble, so they only sent their daughter-in-law to trouble them on the right day, and they went their separate ways.

This winter, Xue's family had no fun at all. One was to keep their filial piety, and the other was that the only uncle who could make trouble was so hard to turn over by his wife. Without this leading overlord, the entire Jinling The city is quiet down.After going back and forth, the rumors about Xue Pan's various unscrupulousness gradually faded away. It is only said that the Xue family is now doing good deeds, self-denial and simplicity. up.

Since Baochai took over the power of the big kitchen, he has slowly found a way to get rid of all the tricky ideas, leaving some exquisite craftsmanship and not too corrupt. .The money spent by the public is not returned to the accountant every month. She only decides to reward the surplus money with hard work or clever thinking to figure out fresh food. For a while, everyone is grateful to Dade, even Xue The wife also found that there were a few dishes on her dinner table that could be stuffed into the dowry to add color, so she went to ask her daughter.

Baochai was watching Bailu in the yard planning to calculate the money needed to be spent in the kitchen during the New Year's Eve, when suddenly she heard the little maid outside said crisply: "Miss, Madam is here to see you." She got up quickly and walked out to the door, Yinger , Bailu followed behind to meet Mrs. Xue, and Huamei took the teacup away from the table and replaced it with a new, thick osmanthus tea.

"On the other hand, you rack your brains all day long to think about something to eat and drink, and you never eat properly. You look like a kitten." Mrs. Xue came in and smelled the sweet-scented osmanthus and knew it was her daughter's new fried tea. Fang Zi sat down and took a sip, and her teeth and cheeks were fragrant, and then nodded her head with a smile: "I'm here, one is to tell you that the nanny you wanted earlier has been found. This time it's up to you My natal family's old relative, that is, the Zhen family of the wealthy family in Jinling City. It is said that it is a long-term nanny who was bought out from the palace. After a lot of trouble, she begged to come to our merchant's family, just for someone to give her to the elderly. One for you, one in your brother's yard, how to arrange it is up to you. Two, I heard people complaining that there is too much work in the kitchen?"

Baochai thought straightly that he was afraid that the second matter was the right one, so he didn't panic, and took a sip of tea before distinguishing: "According to the old practice, in our kitchen there is a leader of the red case and a white case. A group of daughters-in-law and girls. But I looked at it coldly for a while, who didn’t come to eat together with the red case and the white case? You can’t just eat vegetables and not eat, or just eat and not eat vegetables, so I mentioned two craftsmen. The mother-in-law is the head of the team, and they each arrange the red and white cases by themselves, which also allows people to take a breather. Because of this point, I found that many people didn't know what they were doing in the kitchen, so they I told them to go back and rest first. I feel refreshed immediately after dismissing this item. The two groups of people stared at each other to find out the shortcomings of each other, which saved me a lot of energy. Theoretically speaking, it would be a bit tiring to have too much work in this way. But the rest of the money purchased every month is still sent back to them as an encouragement. Wouldn’t it be that the money that I didn’t understand before was passed away and given away to them? It’s better than sipping it into the pocket of the sneaky trickster, so I went back earlier The eyes of the resting people want to spit fire out."

She pursed her lips and smiled, two dimples appeared on her tender face: "I thought, after my father left, only my mother, my brother and I were left to guard the foundation. I can’t raise them, so in the old year it was said that anyone found involved in gambling should be kicked out. Now, after a little calculation, I found that there are hundreds of times more servants than the master, and I don’t know whether the people living in this house are masters or slaves, so I thought Letting a group of people out is considered to be a good deed. I don't know what mother wants?"

Hearing what she said, Mrs. Xue did some calculations and felt a sudden shock in her heart.The son is young and shows signs of being unmotivated. The rest of her and her daughter are weak women and children.Previously, there was a nanny and a girl who co-operated to seduce their sons. If they don't clean up, they will be more concerned about raising them. It can be seen that in the dream of the head of the family, she asked her to let her daughter take care of the housework.At that moment, she straightened her thoughts and said: "In a family like ours, there are always buyers and no sellers. It doesn't matter if you let them go free, and we will stop giving people the excuse of being born."

The mother and daughter stopped discussing, and asked the housekeeper to take the list of servants and go through them one by one. If it was found that the whole family was cheating and cheating, or that the children did not learn well, they would be checked out, and the two housekeepers were appointed. The housekeeper's mother-in-law goes to catch one.A lot of things from Xue's private treasury were accidentally copied from that room, because the family was an imperial merchant, many of them were useful or would be brought into the palace. Enough to lose an errand.Mrs. Xue was so angry that her chest was tight and her sides hurt, and she couldn't breathe. Baochai hurriedly helped her mother to rest, and asked the maid to boil a bowl of water with uncaria thickly and drink it, and then went to ask the doctor for a consultation.

She only said to Mrs. Xue: "Mother, if you don't worry, I will leave the rest of the matter to the two housekeepers, and I will help to watch over it. If you have any doubts, you can go back and forth." Mrs. Xue had no choice but to listen to this matter Something, hurriedly nodded in response, went to the bed and let the daughter go to work.

Here, Baochai won the power, first ordered the housekeeper to return these personal deeds, sorted out the confiscated things, and sent all the locks that hindered his family's future to the prefect of Jinling, and the rest only said to the family: " In the past, you only thought that your master's oily water was easy to touch, but you didn't know that some things would kill you if you touched them. Now you have a gentleman who has been to the Golden Temple at home, and you just secretly go to ask what the crime of "typing" is? I think you are committing ignorance for the first time. For ten days, I ordered someone to put two wooden boxes in a secluded place in the southeast corner. I put things I shouldn’t have touched into them in the middle of the night when people couldn’t see them. If something happens again, don’t blame me, the Xue family, the whole family was sentenced to hard labor before, so who else can come down the salt mountain after going up the salt mountain?”

Sure enough, all the servants secretly took the benefits of food to ask Mr. Wan, but Mr. Wan was not annoyed, and took the opportunity to explain the "Law" to Xue Pan again, which scared the devil king so much that he was sweating all over his back—— If it wasn't for the fact that I was young and there was no thorough investigation by the higher-ups, the whole family would have been sent to jail for a few rounds. This law is not a joke.

Baochai also ordered Huamei to secretly take a piece of two-color silk and put it in the box when no one was looking. Sure enough, the huge box was packed to the brim the next day.There were also some gold, jade and pearls piled up and placed outside the box, and the wives gathered up the deliberately broken jade wares and returned them to Baochai. She just said: "Go to our shop and recruit some apprentices who can work by themselves I took these scattered jade wares to them for processing. You don’t need to bother the master craftsmen for such trivial matters, just tell the small workers that if you can sell them, you will share the money with them according to the number of pieces.”

It's March, the peach blossoms are in full bloom, and the people in the family are refreshed.Sending out to No. [-] idlers, the housekeeper’s hands trembled when he held the ledger to Yueyin—without him, the expenses that could not be saved after years of racking his brains were cut by more than half, and the family had nothing to lose. Even if things were delayed, I had to praise and praise that the eldest girl was born to be a good manager of housekeepers.When everything was over, Baochai ordered someone to take the directory and account books back to Mrs. Xue, and bring back more account books.It turned out that Mrs. Xue was not good at managing money. Seeing that her daughter was suddenly revitalizing the family business, she simply pushed out all the miscellaneous things in the shop regardless of her age. Hehe became the "Old Fengjun".

After all, she still cares a little, she is the daughter of the Wang family anyway, needless to say the brothers, the eldest sister married the son of the second house of the Rongguo Mansion, and now she is married to a merchant, it is hard to get over her feelings.So what if the royal merchant?During New Year's festivals, they can't even wear a formal dress, just wear a jacket over the homely clothes. It's so boring, so I don't want to reach out for any business that has anything to do with the word "Shang".

Baochai has figured it out by herself.In her previous life, she was as busy as her mother and wanted to get rid of the word "shang". First, she entered the palace to run for election, but after failing to be selected as a servant, she followed her aunt's plan and set her sights on the position of Second Grandma Bao.Then step by step, he fell into the quagmire. It seemed that he had won, but he didn't know that he was also a loser.Now everything is starting from scratch, so what if business is not business?This court can't help the sons of merchants from taking scientific examinations. As long as their lives are easy, it doesn't matter whether they are high-ranking or low-ranking.If you have money in your pocket, even those poor officials have to beg for it!

But these words can't be said to Mrs. Xue all at once, and she doesn't have to be frightened and angry.So Baochai just smiled and didn't speak. Anyway, "reducing expenditure" is a plan for the moment, and slowly taking over the power of housekeeping before thinking about "opening up the source", it is best to support the family's business.I heard that my uncle recommended a strict teacher to my elder brother. I don't know how well he is studying, but I have hope. I will restrain my elder brother from going out to play cats and dogs all day long. I hope it can wear him down. All the problems have been corrected.

She was talking about Xue Pan, but there was a lot of fun over there.

It turned out that Mr. Wan really had a trick. After closing the courtyard door, he left a book boy outside the study room, and reached out to take it. It was a good beating.He didn't hit the stomach or the face, he just picked up the thick flesh and hammered it until the student crawled on the ground begging for mercy before he picked it up and said, "I'll let you loose, and you can do a disciple salute to see."

Xue Pan was terrified of being beaten, and bent over his back with his buttocks in his hands like a listless cat.As soon as Mr. Wan stretched out his hand, he was so frightened that he quickly covered his head and face and closed his eyes, but he heard the teacher laugh loudly: "I still think you are a temperamental person, why are you cowardly? Come again!"

"I won't come, I won't come, sir, I was wrong." He felt good, and when he met someone who was more violent than himself, he met him and begged for mercy in a few voices.Seeing this, Mr. Wan shook his head: "How can you do this? I heard that you still have a sister? If your sister is wronged in the future, can someone like you get her justice?" Xue Pan slapped his mouth: "My sister is smarter than me, I'm afraid she will ask me for justice."

Mr. Wan couldn't help but spit out a sip of water: "What about your future! Your family is pointing at you to set up a door, how can you push on a woman? If you talk nonsense like this, you will be beaten!"

"Don't beat up, don't beat me up, I'm just joking." Xue Pan held his head again, and saw Mr. Angry and funny: "I'll just say you this time, you study, not for yourself. Nearly, it's for you Mother, your sister, and the whole family of the Xue family in the distance, do you know?!"

Xue Pan thought about this, but he didn't dare to talk back to Mr. Wan, so he softened his mind and obediently, and learned a page of the Three Character Classic.Helpless, except for a few words, every one of the gentlemen who came to sit in the library before was driven away in anger, so Xue Pan might not read as many books as his sister.After a few simple questions, Mr. Wan knew that this was a guy who didn’t have a drop of ink in his belly, so he could only bite the bullet and start from elementary school——children of serious scholars should start to teach "Poetry" and "Poetry" when they are eleven or twelve years old. book".He doesn't recognize the ligature here!

Seeing the student humming and looking around, Mr. Wan put down the notebook in his hand and said, "Go out and play for a while, and come back after tea time. If you don't come back, try!"

Xue Pan jumped out of the study like a dog chasing after his buttocks, called the servants and ran to the main courtyard to find Mrs. Xue to complain, but there was no one there. The servants said that the master went to see the girl, and he was in a hurry here again I ran to my sister's yard.This time he stood still for a while, and the waiter just raised his voice to announce, he lifted the curtain and went straight to his mother's arms, rubbing his hips like twisted candy.

"Oh, dear mother! That gentleman is so good, he beat me up the first day I saw him, and his face was so big!" Mrs. Xue was startled when she heard that, and hurriedly turned her face to look at him under the light. I checked... There were no injuries, and I asked my mother-in-law to look under his clothes in the wing room... Yeqiu was not injured, and his face turned black for a while, pointing at his son and scolding: "You bastard who doesn't learn well, God! Come out again and again, that clever mind is all used in crooked ways, and you don’t have any backs when you tell lies? You said that your husband beat you, and there is not even a finger mark on your face, thinking about your mother and me It's a fool!"

Xue Pan was dumbfounded, drooping like a leaking urine bubble, and dejectedly took the boy back to the study. He looked up and saw Mr. Wan was looking at him with a half-smile: "Is it fun to play outside?" He didn't dare Too much talk, honestly sat on the stool and learned another page, until I saw my head was big and my neck was thick before I asked to let it go.

Mr. Wan unhurriedly left the homework that was posted and recited, then he raised his hand and touched his head and said, "This head is not a pumpkin either. Today, on the first day, I learned two pages, and tomorrow I will learn another two pages." All the words of the sages add up to that much. Three years of filial piety, more than 1000 days, you can learn and recite it. At that time, you can write a few articles, and let you go freely if you can get a scholar in the end. How about it? "Anyway, when the time comes, you will get the benefits and you will want to go further, and you don't need to be urged.

Xue Pan thought this way in his heart. First, he fooled his mother and husband honestly. After these few years, as long as he has enough money to go to the exam, there is nothing he can’t get. When the time comes, he will quickly ask this husband to leave, and he will be happy. .So he nodded nervously, not knowing how strict the imperial examination was.It's not that his family can't come up with some evil methods, but it's a pity that his sister Baochai will be the one who decides in the future, how can he ask his family to leave such a big and bright handle for others to catch?

The two of them thought about it for a while, but they made such a "gentleman's agreement" out of irony.

From this day on, Xue Pan did not arrive late or leave early any more. He followed Mr. Wan to study two pages a day and then went back to do his homework, which saved a lot of trouble.Mrs. Xue was so happy that she didn't know how to be happy. She ordered the servants to eat, drink, and make clothes to keep Mr. Wan and his wife close. For a while, the host and Mr. Sitting were very happy, but Xue Pan was alone. Suffering and counting the days looking forward to filial piety.

This year passed quickly, because it was not easy to hold any lively banquets during the filial piety, only a family of three and Mr. Wan and Mrs. Wan had a reunion dinner at the same table, and they changed their clothes according to the seasons, flickering around under the window Buds bulged on the branches of winter jasmine.

Because the master of the Xue family died, all three members of the family were wearing heavy filial piety and it was not easy to visit relatives and friends. After the hot filial piety, they only made some clothes in the color of moon white and stone blue to replace the previous clothes. It's over.