Red Mansion and Crimson Pearl

After arranging the books on one shelf, Xiao Hong began to think: "If I can make a code, like the accounts in the warehouse, it will be easier to find them."

Daiyu thought for a moment and said, "Try writing on the spine of a book." Seeing Xiaohong sitting there writing with the thinnest brush, Daiyu couldn't help but smile and said to Aunt Meng:

"In his early years, my father's favorite thing was to carve seals. I have several small seals with flowers, plants, poems and songs in them.

"Now that I see her writing like this, I want to get a book stamp. But unfortunately I don't have the ability to do it myself. My hands are not steady."

As he said this, he stood up and started to look through the bookcase. He took out a small box and opened it, revealing two Lantian jade seal embryos.

Aunt Meng took it and looked at it. She felt that it was warm to the touch and crystal clear in the sunlight. She couldn't help but praise the jade and said with a smile, "When we can go out, let's go to Gulou Street. There are several jade shops there with seal engravers. Let them carve it."

"People like that, I'm afraid they'll be vulgar." Daiyu sighed, staring at the two pieces of Lantian jade, and said softly, "This was specially found by my late father. I fell in love with it, so he gave it to me..."

"Miss, I learned needlework, so my hands are steady. I'm going to learn how to carve seals now. Whatever words you want, I'll carve them for you!" Qingwen appeared again, looking at Daiyu with bright eyes.

Daiyu burst out laughing: "You go and learn first! When you have learned well, I will find some materials and let you carve the four seasons and twelve months seal for me!"

Qingwen patted her chest and said, "It's not worth anything. Leave it to me!"

Aunt Meng and Lin Daiyu looked at each other and smiled.

How could seal carving be so easy to learn? Even if she learned it roughly, she would not want to waste such fine jade! But if she really learned it in the future, she could get some stones for her to practice.

Xiaohong didn't even raise her head as she wrote the characters stroke by stroke, oblivious to the hustle and bustle here.

Lin Daiyu looked back at her, smiled, and felt relieved.

At that moment, Zijuan came in and asked everyone with a smile to wash their hands and eat fruit. Xiaohong then rubbed her eyes and took a break.

In the afternoon, seeing Xiaohong still working diligently, Aunt Meng felt a little headache and asked Daiyu: "Have you ever seen such a girl?"

"A few years ago, I heard that when my second brother's Xiren first came home, it was like this. For this reason, she was first brought up to serve Miss Shi for two years, and then she was seen to be really good, so she was given to my second brother."

Daiyu smiled as she thought about it and shook her head, "However, there must not be too many people like this in this courtyard, otherwise I'm afraid there will be a fight."

Aunt Meng also laughed, thought for a moment, and said, "Forget it, I'd better find her something else to do, so that she won't be buried in your pile of books and go blind."

"What's the big deal? I only have a few books. My father left me a room full of books, but I just can't move them here."

Lin Daiyu glanced at it and looked down on her bookshelf. She snorted, "These are the books I got before, under the pretext that Baoyu likes to read them..."

Aunt Meng raised her eyebrows.

"When the girl was young, she loved to read all kinds of books. But my family doesn't like girls to read too many books. Look at the three girls in our family. The third girl got a few more books to read because she has a good relationship with the second master."

Zijuan came over at some point, brought a plate of cherries to the two of them with a smile, and explained for Daiyu, "The Lin family has a long tradition of scholars, and the late Master Lin was a book lover, so there are countless books in the house.

"When the girl came here, she was less than seven years old, but she had already finished reading the Four Books. But for so many years, these books are the only ones that have entertained the girl. Although I don't understand those articles, I know that the girl often gets impatient when reading them, and sometimes even curses.

"If our old lady didn't dislike it, I'm afraid our daughter would have made a lot of special notes and ridiculed these books!"

Aunt Meng chuckled and said, "Then just make your annotations! What's the big deal? These books are all yours. You're annotating your own books. Are you afraid of what others may say about you?"

"How can that be?" Daiyu looked at the three shelves against the wall with a look of disappointment. "Baoyu often comes to my place to look through books, but none of us sisters at home care about these things...

"These are said to be my books, but if anyone asks to borrow them, how can I refuse? Many of my ideas are absurd, how can I have the nerve to let so many people see them?"

Seeing the pretty girl blushing and shy, Aunt Meng felt so soft in her heart: "I have nothing to do anyway, I'll go write a letter to Supervisor Tao and ask Xiaohong to deliver it."

The next day, Xiaohong came back and smiled as she held a letter in her hands to Daiyu: "I ran into the eunuch again yesterday. He told me not to be so polite. If you want to read any books, just give him a list and he will find them for you!"

Daiyu was speechless and quickly unfolded the letter to read. Only then did she realize that Aunt Meng had told Tao Xingjian about what happened yesterday as a joke. Tao Xingjian was not willing to let Daiyu suffer such an injustice, so he immediately wrote a letter and asked Daiyu to list the books she wanted to annotate and the books she loved to read:

"...Books are tools, not divine objects. If you want to use them, you can't restrict your hands and feet. Whether you want to carry them with you or burn them in the future, it's all your business and has nothing to do with others."

Daiyu's eyes turned red.

Tao Jian doted on her even more than her father did back then, and he actually let her do whatever she wanted!

When Aunt Meng heard that Xiaohong had returned, she came over, took her own letter, glanced at it and read it, then smiled and said to Daiyu, "Tao Jian blames me, saying that you are you and the Jia family is the Jia family.

"You won't need these things anymore, whether it's clothing, food, shelter, or calligraphy and painting. You have your own money, buy them yourself. Just write an order for what you want, and he will buy it for you!"

Daiyu thought about it and realized that this was the truth. She burst into laughter and said, "If Xiaohong was not unavailable, my uncle wouldn't have to worry about me. Now I'm just annoying him!"

As he spoke, he quickly took out a pen and paper, and looked at his bookshelf. He recorded the books he liked, put aside the ones he didn't like, and finally added the ones he had heard of but not read. He wrote quickly and filled six pages with writing.

While Daiyu was writing the list, Qingwen pulled Xiaohong aside and laughed at her, "You worked in vain, didn't you? The young lady won't take these books with her! Even if you wrote the code and arranged the list, what's the point? They will all stay in the Jia family and gather dust, and no one will read them!"

"It's just right for me to practice with these. It will be much easier to organize the girl's bookcase tomorrow!" Xiaohong said with a smile. These two words made Qingwen so angry that she threw down her hands and left.

Zijuan was smiling beside her.

Seeing that she was indifferent, Xueyan couldn't help but pull her to her room, closed the door and asked her: "Sister, don't you want to think about what you will do in the future?"

"Wherever the young lady goes, I will go." Zijuan looked up at Xueyan and smiled, "The young lady knows what's going on, and so do I. You can think whatever you want, it's none of my business."