boudoir

Chapter 70
"Qian Changsheng's family went to interrogate Cuiying's parents?"

"I've tried." Huanhua nodded, "But I didn't find anything useful. In short, the deaths of Cuiying and Tian'er may become unsolved cases. Later, my mother also regretted that she gave the golden butterfly to her when she was very angry. She was a hidden danger for no reason, and once wanted to ask her to take it back, but Cuiying died not long after, until the day you took it out in public. At that time, I saw her face was calm, but her fingers were turning white. So I dragged you out to tell you to be careful."

Liuli was speechless.This incident seems to be closer to the truth, but in fact it is even more confusing. The Qi family wanted Cuiying to do something terrible. Cuiying knew it was dangerous, so she offered something as a condition to exchange with her, but the Qi family did not allow it. , and even threatened to kill her, Cuiying felt the danger, so she deliberately asked her for this branch of Huasheng, so that she could have an excuse if something happened in the future, but she was killed by Tian'er or someone soon after, And Tian'er died of "suicide in fear of crime", and the murderer was not the Qi family... Could it be that there was really another person involved in the whole incident as she had guessed before?

Watching Huanhua's master and servant go up the small bridge, Liuli lost the desire to visit the garden, so she went back to Xiaokuayuan to watch the maids tie up lanterns.

It was the fourteenth when the lanterns were tied up. On this day, I suddenly heard the sound of firecrackers and cheers from the front yard. It turned out that Guo Xia, the female teacher of the girls, was officially welcomed in the mansion. In three days, people were sent to tidy up the East Indus Courtyard as her living and teaching place. They also made four new desks and chairs for the four daughters who were born on the same day. , not to be considered careless.

At noon, Liuli was flipping through ancient books, and wanted to write two more unique riddles to add to the lanterns, when suddenly a message came from the main courtyard, asking her to go to the main courtyard after breakfast tomorrow to say hello.Not long after, Rui'er inquired about the news again, it turned out that the four daughters-in-law will be worshiping teachers in the main courtyard tomorrow morning, which has nothing to do with the daughters-in-law, so naturally they are spared from going there.

Liuli was not in the mood to join in the fun, and asked Haitang to come over with two tied up lanterns, ready to write lantern riddles and send them over.

Looking at the lantern, it is a pair of octagonal lotus lanterns. The cover cloth is made of bright red and silver silk satin, with twelve golden tassels hanging from top to bottom.Based on the experience of staying in the He Mansion for several years, Liuli reckoned that she could be regarded as a leader.After thinking about it, he said to Haitang: "Keep these two and hang them in our small courtyard tomorrow. You can make two simpler carp lanterns." Haitang didn't understand what it meant, but she also went happily.

In the evening, Haitang sent two more carp lanterns. Although it was much simpler, Liuli still looked a little eye-catching, but it was too late to do it again, so he just counted on it.When she was about to write riddles in the blank space around her, she suddenly stopped writing, remembering that the mansion said that the girls were asked to tie up lanterns and write riddles to add to the fun, and most likely it was for Yuhua and the others to show off their talents in front of Mrs. Guo. There's no point in showing off the limelight.After a pause in his heart, he wrote two common folk songs in small script.

After finishing writing, she handed it to Haitang: "Take this when you get the food."

Haitang was ordered to leave quickly.

In the first month, due to the busy customers, the time for eating was postponed for half an hour. Liuli was growing up, and she was not hungry, so she picked up the hundred quilts on the embroidery frame and embroidered while waiting for the meal.

After the first lunar month, it was time for Min Hua to get married. According to the rules, Liu Li didn't need to give any makeup gifts, but as a "sister", she couldn't justify her without getting something.Just a while ago, under the pressure of Nanny Li, she embroidered a lot of pillowcases, shoes and socks. She thought about giving a pair of mandarin pillows, two pairs of embroidered shoes, plus a bed of white quilts, and two sets of embroidered clothes. It's up to her to see it.

Just as she was embroidering seriously, she suddenly heard Haitang Yuegui shouting that dinner was coming, Liuli was waiting to get up, Ruier suddenly opened the curtain and came in, whispering: "Girl, the day for Hongxiu to go out of the city has been fixed. It will be tomorrow night."

Liuli said, "Really?"

Rui'er nodded: "It's absolutely true! Just now when Haitang went to the big kitchen, I heard Caiqin and Chen Manjia talk about it. She also said that the one who took over Hongxiu was a lame old butcher, and she sighed that Hongxiu's life is miserable."

Liuli thought wrongly: "Why would Caiqin casually tell people about this?"

Rui'er said: "Young lady, I don't know, the daughter of Chen Man's family is Qiluo, the maidservant next to Mrs. Fourth. With this kind of relationship, how can there be any doubts? If you don't believe me, I will go to Hongxiu again tonight to inquire about it." Yes."

Liuli nodded, just as Haitang and the two brought in the rice, they stopped.

At night, Rui'er took advantage of Shuangxi's opportunity to go to the main room to answer the conversation, and went to Hongxiu's house.Sure enough, the news that Haitang had heard was true, Hongxiu's father had found an old butcher whose wife had died in the south for her, and after marrying, he was in a hurry to have a son for him.

Rui'er thought she was going to cry again, and was thinking of how to comfort her, but when Hongxiu got the news, she just sneered and said: "Outsiders only say 'actors are not affectionate', but they don't know that the parents' affection will become weak. Even ten opera singers can't compare!" Then he poured tea for Rui'er very calmly, as if looking down on the world of mortals.

Rui'er thought of her prestige when she was by Yu Shi's side, when she said she would curse at someone, she would beat someone when she said she wanted to beat someone, her arrogance was as high as half of her master's, but now she has come to this end, she can't help but sigh the ups and downs of life, and can't help but Take care of yourself.

But who is to blame?She relied on the Yu family to show off her martial arts in the mansion, even if Liuli did not cure her, she would have retribution sooner or later, but it might be another result.

Hongxiu asked her: "I don't know if Miss Nine told you when 'over there' will pick up the sedan chair?"

The daughters were a bit shy when they mentioned these things, but she has been with the Yu family for a long time, and she is different from the twists and turns of those little children, so she is very open when she asks this question.

Rui'er nodded and said: "Tomorrow when you walk outside the city gate, there will be a small sedan chair waiting there. There are four people in total. The leader has two beards and claims to be a local snake named Wang Erhu. , will rob you into a sedan chair, and then send you to a small courtyard for two days. Then a woman will send you to Jia Fu’s home to get married. These are people we have arranged, there will be no mistakes, you just Go with ease."

Hongxiu remembers one by one, remembering that after this catastrophe, there will be another day waiting for her after tomorrow, her heart is surging, she looks at Rui'er with stern eyes and says: "I made up my mind to die, so I will die." It was because of a mistake tomorrow that my dream did not come true, at worst I would die again. As long as I don’t marry and go to that remote place to give birth to the old butcher’s son, I don’t have any complaints.”

Rui'er couldn't bear it anymore, and reached out to hold her hands: "I'm going to live again soon, don't say such stupid things. There will be no mistakes in the things arranged by Miss Nine."

Seeing that she was firm in what she said, Hongxiu couldn't help but feel a little more confident.Then he took a breath and calmed down, and said with a smile: "I really envy you for following a good master. When I led the people to clean up Cuiying Tian'er's belongings, I saw that Miss Nine actually applied medicine and wiped your body for you. I don’t know how shocked I was, but the funny thing is, at the time, I thought she was a person who was afraid of things and had no idea, but now it’s all thanks to her for helping me out of the sea of ​​suffering.”

Rui'er felt a little guilty for Liuli when she heard this, Hongxiu didn't know that Liuli had designed her into such a situation, if she knew, it might not be so.At that moment, she felt a little reluctant, so she had to say: "Yes...Ninth Miss treats the slaves sincerely."

Hongxiu thought that her unnaturalness was because she still cared about hitting her at that time, and wanted to apologize, but felt that it was useless to say too much at this time, so she sighed: "You will have a good life in the future if you follow her. I will never fall into such a situation..."

"Good day to come?"

Rui'er's expression suddenly became dazed, and the smile on the corner of her mouth became more and more forced, even a bit sad and bitter.

The next morning, Liuli was awakened by the sound of firecrackers one after another.Last year's great victory at the border crossing, regained several lost lands of our court, Long Yan was overjoyed, and allowed the people to revel in wanton carnival, and specially shortened the curfew by two hours on New Year's Eve and the two days before and after the Lantern Festival. Before dawn, people in and out of the city couldn't hold back the joy of the Lantern Festival and set off firecrackers.

After Liuli had breakfast, she was holding Mo Tuan'er in the yard to bask in the sun. It happened that Ju Guo'er also came and brought her two huge sesame oil fruits made by herself, and a small exquisite lantern the size of a palm.Liuli tasted the sesame oil fruit, asked Yuegui to grab two handfuls of candies from the mansion festival, and gave him only one of the orange fruits, and put the rest in a bag.

The two got together to play backgammon for a while, Liuli saw that the sky was about to noon, guessed that the apprenticeship ceremony was over?Then prepare to enter the house to dress up and change clothes.When Ju Guoer heard that she was going to the front yard, she pulled the hem of her clothes and whispered in her ear: "That Mrs. Qian is a bad person, you need to stay away from her."

Liuli also whispered, "Why?"

Ju Guoer said: "I heard people say that she took money from the dead." He opened his eyes seriously and looked at Liuli with his chin tightened.Liuli became curious, and was about to ask, when Shuangxi walked over, "Girl, it's time to go to the front yard." Shuangxi was usually serious, and Ju Guoer was a little scared of her, turned around and ran away.

Liuli went into the room and changed her clothes, beckoning Ruier to follow.In the other girls' rooms, the maids who guard the door, waiters, starchers, and sweepers all have divisions of labor. There are few people in her room, and she takes whoever is free when she goes out on weekdays. That's why Mammy Li offered to follow her She went to the front yard to say hello.

There was an outsider here today, so Shuangxi was supposed to be with her, but Shuangxi was completely unobtrusive, making it impossible for people to catch any weaknesses. It would be too dangerous to be tricked by her on such an occasion.

Arriving at the main courtyard in a while, the long red carpet spread from the entrance to Anxi Hall showed the specialness of the visitors. Quiet, not even the sound of laughing and joking.Except for Biyun Qingshang, the maids were all waiting under the porch, standing straight, but they couldn't help but look inside curiously once or twice.

(End of this chapter)