[Red Mansion] A little chef came to the Grand View Garden

It is said that the Xue family was quite tempted by the marriage that the trustee of the Xia family mentioned, but later Baochai gave up the idea after inquiring about the Miss Xia's simple behavior.

But this time, the in-laws surnamed Wen, who was solemnly hired by the Xue family, are also imperial merchants, but they are in the business of writing, ink, paper and inkstone.

It sounds like they are well matched with the Xue family.

Before Xue Pan married Miss Wen Jia and passed through the door, rumors had been circulating in Jia's mansion that this Miss Wen Jia had a quick mind and outstanding literary talent.

Daiyu just smiled lightly when she heard these rumors.When Liu Mei heard about it, she felt a "head" in her heart.

The Wen family is a family of merchants, and Miss Wen's family is naturally shrewd when it comes to money, but this Miss Wen's is also proficient in writing and ink, has a talent for poetry, and she has all the sourness that a literati should have-how can such a girl be with her? People like Xue Dafool ​​are harmonious?

But just thinking about the current situation of the Xue family, one can roughly understand the reason why the Xue family nodded to this relative.

The Xue family urgently needs a housewife who can be the director of the family and preside over the central government. Similarly, they also urgently need an in-law who can support each other in the business field.If these two points can be satisfied at the same time, whether Xue Pan's husband and wife can get along with each other is naturally second.

So the Xue family rejected the Xia family's marriage proposal, and now that they have changed to the Wen family, they are actually just following the "general trend" to make the best choice.

Liu Mei thought about it, and felt that Mrs. Wang must match the "golden jade match", which is actually the same reason.

Yuanchun wanted to gain power in the palace without the support of his family behind him. With his hereditary title, the Rong Mansion could barely support him for a while, but the Jia Mansion only accepted one visit, and the money was wasted like running water.Therefore, Mrs. Wang considered this aspect more than Baoyu's marriage.

Leaving Chai and Dai aside, the Xue family's wealth is exactly what the Jia family needs; and although Daiyu's background is noble, there is no one in the Lin family, so it can no longer bring benefits to the Jia family.

In this era when the family is bigger than the individual, the individual is involuntary - they call all kinds of external reasons "general trend" and "fate", but in fact they just have to do it, and they have no choice. .In the future, if Baochai is hired for Baoyu, Mrs. Wang will think that she has done the right thing, just like now, Aunt Xue and Xue Baochai consciously chose a good marriage for Xue Pan.

This time Xue's family married a wife and held a three-day feast.

Now Aunt Xue recalled that Mother Liu's skills had improved, so she asked Mrs. Wang specifically, and borrowed Mother Liu to go to Xue's house to help for a few days, cooking rice noodles.

Liu Mei secretly wondered why Baochai didn't just let Xie Xiaochuan, who had been living temporarily, to host the Xue family's wedding banquet.After thinking about it for a long time, I finally figured it out, and realized that this "suspended residence" was probably not Xue's property, but Baochai's private property.Naturally, Baochai didn't want her property to be used in her brother's marriage, so that no one would worry about it in the future.

A few days later, Mother Liu came back from Xue's house on business.After returning to the small kitchen, Liu's mother secretly told Liu Mei, "Looking at the way the Xue family's grandma looks like, the life of the Xue family really doesn't seem to be able to live well."

Liu Mei hurriedly grabbed a handful of melon seeds to listen to her mother's gossip.

Mother Liu described the situation of the Xue family in detail, and Liu Mei knew that the situation of the Xue family was roughly similar to what she had guessed: that Miss Wen family was quite talented and learned, and she was proud and arrogant. The mud on the wall made me feel angry, but I couldn't regret it.

However, Miss Wen Jia grew up in a large merchant family, and she is extremely careful about money, silk and property. Within three days of their wedding, Xue Pan has coaxed Xue Pan to control all the property, account books, and housekeeping of the Xue family. In his own hands, and has begun to complain about the dowry property that the Xue family specially left to Baochai.

In addition, Miss Wen Jia was very dissatisfied with Xue Pan's room with Xiangling, a beautiful concubine who had been serving her for many years. She heard that Xiangling could still read and even compose poems, so she was naturally jealous.In words, he was very sharp towards Xiangling, and even Daiyu, who had taught Xiangling to compose poetry, was slapped with a few words by this Miss Wen Jia.

Liu Mei: Is that okay? ... Daiyu was lying on the gun, so distressed.

It's just that the most depressed person in Xue's family in the future must be Baochai herself - she has been planning for a long time, opened her eyes and looked again and again, and finally picked out such a person for the widowed mother and brother Han.But it was her Xue family's own decision, so no one else could be blamed.

After Liu's mother returned to Jia's mansion from Xue's house, her superiors kept silent and asked her to help in the big kitchen.So the mother and daughter of the Liu family have been nestling in the small kitchen of the garden, happy and quiet.

The place where they sleep at night is in the two rooms next to the small kitchen stove, very close to the corner gate on the edge of the Grand View Garden.Not far from the corner gate is Jia Lianfeng's yard.

One night, Liu Mei fell into a drowsy sleep, and suddenly heard a scream, woke up from the dream, and quickly put on her clothes and sat up.

She listened carefully again, but there was no movement outside again.

So Liu Mei wondered if she was just having a nightmare.

But mother Liu got up and knocked on Liu Mei's door: "Mei'er, did you hear that?"

Liu Mei hurriedly lit the lamp, and when she came out, she saw Mother Liu had her clothes neatly dressed, holding a lantern in her hand, as if she was about to leave the garden to find out.

Liu Mei called out: "Mother!"

Mother Liu said, "It's Lian Er's grandma's yard. In the past, she was kind enough to support our mother and daughter, but now... Mother is really worried."

Liu Mei knew that her mother had always been grateful for Sister Feng's kindness in bringing her up from Lixiangyuan, and knew that if it hadn't been for Sister Feng's decision back then, their family would not be like this now.She knew that she couldn't persuade her mother, so she quickly stretched out her hand, slipped it into the sleeve of the outer robe, nodded and said: "Mother, I will go with you."

So the mother and daughter came to the corner gate of the Grand View Garden together.

The corner gate of the Grand View Garden had been closed early, but the woman who guarded the gate was also woken up by the sound just now. Seeing Liu Mei and her daughter come out with pale faces, she said, "You can go out and have a look...it sounds like... ... Second Master Lian's second wife's grandmother... Alas!"

Liu Mei heard that it was Second Sister Long, so she quickly lowered her voice and asked, "Tell me, has anyone visited this grandma today?"

The mother-in-law nodded and said, "Two days ago, the second grandma of Erfanglong complained that Guishui hadn't come. I'm afraid it's a happy event. During the day, a doctor came in to have a look, but he didn't listen to Lian Erye's yard. The good news comes out, it can be seen that it is not happy..."

Liu Mei was speechless, and tugged at Mother Liu's sleeve, indicating that this was probably the matter of the second-bedroom grandmother and had nothing to do with Sister Feng.

Mother Liu hesitated for a moment, and she probably knew that this was probably the secret of the inner house in Sister Feng's yard, which a petty person like her would not want to mess with.

At this moment of hesitation, the gate of Sister Feng's courtyard opened again with a "huola" on the other side of the alley opposite the corner gate.

Liu Mei and her daughter saw that it was Ping'er with a woman who showed her head from the courtyard gate.

After two encounters from a distance, Ping'er saw that it was the Liu family's mother and daughter, and waved his hands from a distance to indicate that there was nothing wrong.

Liu Mei understood immediately, pulled her mother's sleeve, and the two retreated back to the corner door together, Liu Mei said to the woman on the corner door: "It seems that there is no movement at the moment. Mother," she turned to look at Liu mother, "it's strange." It's cold, let's go back!"

Mother Liu didn't understand, so she turned around immediately, closed the corner door, and said, "Yes, Mei'er, you'll be busy with Grandma Lan's breakfast when you wake up tomorrow, go to bed early!"

The mother-in-law went in without knowing it, but seeing that the corner gate was closed, she was happy to lock the gate and went back to sleep by herself.

When I got up the next day, the rumors in the garden had become uncontrollable—Miss Long Er was just a month old, and it was said that she had lost a male fetus that had already formed.It was rumored in the house that Jia Lian was so angry that he was jumping up and down, and wanted to arrest the doctor who was open to the second sister's consultation yesterday and send him to the official.However, when I went to look for the doctor this morning, I found that he had fled overnight.

The servants of Jia's mansion rumored this, and they were all rejoicing that Sister Feng of Jia Lian had such a son-in-law as Brother Hu, "Otherwise, the couple of Second Master Lian would not know what to expect!"

He also said that Sister Feng had been hiding in the second yard by herself for too long, even though the two concubines' rooms in the front yard were making a mess of smoke, and now she has moved her children. "This kind of thing has already happened, Lian Er|Grandma should come out and take care of it!"

But Liu Mei secretly felt that this matter may not necessarily have nothing to do with Sister Feng, otherwise they would not have seen Ping'er bring someone out last night.

She rubbed the space between her brows, thinking: These things are strictly following the track of the original book.I'm afraid that this Second Sister Long will be cannon fodder soon.It's just that this time Sister Feng seems to have done it more cleanly and without traces, and no one else can point out her mistakes.

What happened later proved that Liu Mei's judgment was correct.

After Second Sister Long lost her son, she recovered her combat effectiveness in a short period of time. I don't know where she found the news, but she found out that the male servant of Jia's mansion who had been invited to treat her that day, He is the nephew and son-in-law of Qiutong's cousin's family.The Second Sister Long was not willing to give up, she slammed on Qiutong's door, tore Qiutong's hair and rolled out together, and beat her up while everyone in the yard watched.

Qiutong was caught off guard, and was preempted by the second sister Long, who pulled her hair and suffered from the boss.

But she was never idle with her sharp mouth, she immediately spouted obscenities, revealing all the dark history of Second Sister Long.

She said that Second Sister Long was not a good person when she was an aunt in the nunnery.The nunnery is not clean, it's just a place where prostitutes gather and gamble.It's just that when Second Sister Long came out of the nunnery, even though she had broken ties with her former benefactor, when she was living in Xiaohuazhi Lane a while ago, someone came to her door smelling the smell.Even after she moved to Jia's mansion, someone went to the back door of Jia's mansion and asked secretly.

That's why Qiutong kept saying that the boy Long Er lost, God knows if the surname is Jia.

Second Sister Long was able to grab Qiutong's hair, so she couldn't free her hands to block Qiutong's mouth.For a while, there was a commotion in the courtyard.

At this time, Sister Feng was not in her yard.

She was in the Rongxi Hall, listening to the bad news brought by Nan'an Concubine to the Jia family.