Priceless: A widow with a baby asks the prince to marry again

Of course, Liu Rusi put all her energy into building the clinic and no longer had many concerns about Chu Shiyu.

On the way back to Prince Duan's Mansion, she asked Caiyun to go riding because she was discussing with Chu Shiyu how to make a flushable toilet...

"Aren't we going to build a wash basin? The wash basin is 1.2 meters... that is, 3.5 feet. We can build a one-foot-deep water reservoir underneath, and use bamboo pipes to drain the water to the toilet for flushing..."

"Mom, I think we can just build a pool in each room... or just make some square water tanks, reserve round holes at the bottom, and connect a bamboo pipe directly to the upstream of the tunnel, so that each room can be flushed independently!" Little Qin Hao waved his hands and gestured.

"Put a small rope-pulling mechanism in the water tank so that it can be used by pulling the rope." Chu Shiyu further improved Xiao Qinhao's idea.

Liu Rusi's eyes became brighter and brighter. The flush toilet of this era was about to be born!

"Rusi, if this method is feasible, then should the toilet in the East Garden be built like this?" Chu Shiyu felt that all useful things should be used, and in the future the toilets in Prince Duan's Mansion could also be modified.

"Great! The eaves of the corridor over there are very long. Why don't we get some half-split bamboo tubes to collect rainwater and build a small water tower to store the rainwater. This way, we don't have to carry water to flush the toilet during rainy seasons." Liu Rusi also started thinking.

Chu Shiyu thought about it and said disapprovingly: "That won't look good. The servants can just fetch water every day."

They were definitely from the feudal "landlord" class. Liu Rusi paused and said, "Speaking of which, can the eight people the emperor awarded be returned? I don't need so many guards."

"The rewards given by decree cannot be returned..." Chu Shiyu thought of the three concubines. If they could be returned, he would not have taken them. However, keeping them could also be a hidden danger, so he had to find a way to deal with it.

"Eight guards are not too many. You can keep them. Your house has six servants' rooms. Usually two or three people live in each room. Some demanding families even have four or five people living in one room."

Liu Rusi sighed inwardly. Those rooms were about 12 square meters each, and two people in one was actually a bit crowded.

But… in fact, there are such people in every era. For example, she herself would rent a shared house during the winter and summer vacations after she turned sixteen. Each room was three or four square meters, and besides the bed, there was only space for shoes…

Because of this kind of life, she never had much luggage, so the things she left behind after her death should be very few.

The carriage stopped outside the gate of Prince Duan's Mansion. Chu Shiyu suddenly found that this place was not as good as Liu Rusi's new house. This place was too big, and Liu Rusi didn't like riding in a sedan chair. It took her at least a quarter of an hour to walk in from the main gate every time.

"Don't get off the carriage yet." Chu Shiyu held down Liu Rusi who was about to get up, and told the driver outside: "Go through the west gate, and the carriage will stop outside the back house after entering the mansion."

Liu Rusi was too lazy to guess what he was thinking. Her mind was full of things needed to open a clinic. Medicinal herbs were needed, and all the medicines in the twenty-two prescriptions had to be there.

"Do you know where I can buy medicinal herbs in bulk?" Liu Rusi chose to ask the local tyrant directly.

"Well... I have to ask too." The local tyrant Chu Shiyu doesn't know everything.

Liu Rusi nodded and continued to think about the next question.

"Greetings, Your Majesty, Madam Liu!"

As they got off the carriage, a servant came running over with a letter and said, "Princess Taihua sent someone to deliver an invitation to the Prayer Feast to Madam Liu."

Liu Rusi came back to her senses and took the letter with hesitation. Unexpectedly, Chu Shiyu directly took the letter away and said, "No need to go. Those women's banquets are very troublesome."

"If I receive an invitation and don't go... won't people feel that I am being neglectful?" Liu Rusi didn't really want to go, but she would be leaving Chu Shiyu's protection in the future. If she harbored any grudges now, it might turn into trouble in the future.

Chu Shiyu was willing to go along with this kind of ambiguous matter to put her at ease. He opened the letter, took a look at it, and said, "I'll go with you at 5 p.m. the day after tomorrow."

"You'll go with me?!" Liu Rusi took the letter and looked at it again, staring at it and asked, "Doesn't it say that only female guests are invited?"

Chu Shiyu raised his eyebrows and smiled, "I'm going, can you still not let me in?"

That really makes sense... Liu Rusi nodded slightly in agreement. She would indeed feel a little uneasy going alone. After all, she did not belong to this class, and there might be many rules that she did not know about.

But now that she has entered the social circle's sight because of Chu Shiyu, she has to deal with it. It should be easier with Chu Shiyu. She only hopes that in the future, after leaving Chu Shiyu, she can slowly fade out of this circle.

The next morning, Liu Rusi slept soundly as usual and woke up refreshed.

There was one less person at the table in the morning. Chu Shiyu had said last night that he was going to court, and Liu Rusi also thought that he should go.

But... when she was eating breakfast with milk and eggs, she felt a little uncomfortable. It turned out that it had been four months since she left Dongshan Village, and since then, Chu Shiyu had been with her for three meals a day.

However, after finishing her meal, she quickly put her inexplicable thoughts behind her. She planned to visit various shops in the capital to understand the consumption environment in the capital.

As always, she brought her son and Caiyun, and she also brought Xuefei with her. Although it was difficult for her to treat Xuefei the same way she treated Caiyun, she still hoped that the little girl could see more of the world, grow up a little, and not be blinded by some short-term and non-lasting benefits.

Liu Rusi and the others walked towards the west gate of the palace, but they didn't expect that just as they reached the door...

"Madam Liu, please stop. The prince has instructed that you cannot leave the palace." The guard at the gate said respectfully.

The charming face suddenly darkened! Has she really become a prisoner in Prince Duan's Mansion?! She is really possessed by a ghost! For a moment, she thought it was not bad to stay with Chu Shiyu like this!

Caiyun, who was standing by, quickly comforted her: "Don't be angry, Sister Si! Let's go out together when the prince comes back!"

"Sister Si, why don't you go around the palace first? The palace is so big, and we've only seen a small part of it." Xue Fei also advised softly.

"Mom! I'll talk to my adoptive father later. How could he not let me go out?" Little Qin Hao was filled with indignation!

Liu Rusi rubbed her son's little head. Sure enough, her own son understood her best! This was not a question of when she could go out or where she could go! But why did he forbid her to go out? !

After suppressing her anger a little, Liu Rusi asked the guard expressionlessly, "What about the two girls beside me? Can they go out?"

The guard smiled and said, "You can go out if the prince has not given instructions. Madam Liu can ask them to do anything. If you are worried, you can assign a few people to follow you."

"hehe."

Liu Rusi turned around and walked back expressionlessly. It wasn't that she wasn't angry anymore, but she was so angry that she didn't know what to say? ! It turned out that this was directed at her alone! What sin had she suffered in her previous life to be favored by Chu Shiyu? !

Return to the gate of Ruliuyuan.

Suddenly, two beautiful figures came running from a distance!

"Sister Liu! Madam Liu! Please help us!"

Liu Rusi responded and turned around, and found that it was two of the three beauties she saw at the door of the back house the day before, their faces were full of panic.

The beautiful woman who had a wooden expression that day was now extremely excited. She knelt down in front of Liu Rusi and said, "I have never dreamed of anything else. I am already content with having no worries about food and clothing. Please let me stay in the palace! Please don't send me to the farm!"

"Who sent you to the manor? What would happen if you were sent to the manor?" Liu Rusi stretched out her hand to pull her up, but she fell to the ground and refused to get up.

The other beauty was stunned for a while, thinking about something, then she also knelt down and begged, "This morning, a steward came to us and gave us two choices. One is to release the indenture and give us 100 taels to let us find our own way, the other is to send us to a farm far away from the capital and leave everything else as usual."

"Why not choose one?" Liu Rusi found it a little difficult to understand. It would be fine if Chu Shiyu was nice to them, but he obviously ignored them. He could be self-reliant with the hundred taels.

Before the two beauties could reply, several maids and servant girls came over to grab the two beauties. At the same time, a maid repeatedly bowed to Liu Rusi and apologized: "I'm sorry for disturbing Madam Liu. Please forgive me. I will take them back right away!"

"Wait!" Liu Rusi was not someone who would meddle in other people's business. Besides, she really thought that these two choices were not bad... but she felt that this matter had something to do with her...

After a little thought, she smiled and asked, "Your prince won't let me leave Prince Duan's mansion. I just happen to be in a bad mood right now, and I feel a little suffocated. Can I keep them here to talk for a while until the prince comes back?"

"This..." The old women and maids looked at each other, nodded in agreement, and let go of the two beauties.

They had been told not to disturb Madam Liu, but they had also been seriously warned that unless Madam Liu asked to leave the house or was about to do something dangerous, they must not make Madam Liu angry, otherwise they would be sent out of the house directly.

"Let's go in, sit for a while and chat." Liu Rusi said with a kind smile.

Watching the two of them standing up gracefully, she suddenly understood why Prince Kang always brought beauties with him. Good-looking people are indeed pleasing to the eye... However, Prince Kang was more seriously ill than Chu Shiyu. He had to make a healthy person deaf and dumb.

Leading a few people to the main hall of Ruliu Courtyard, it was very comfortable to sit here in the summer. Liu Rusi first told little Qin Hao: "Haohao has no time to study these days. Will he start to recover today?"

"Okay!" Little Qin Hao jumped up happily, but tilted his head and said, "When my foster father comes back, tell me. I have something to tell him."

Liu Rusi thought about it quickly, and then nodded in agreement. If she just gave a straightforward suggestion without any sarcasm, Chu Shiyu should not be angry with the child, right? Maybe he would listen to her advice?

The children who were not suitable to listen left, letting Caiyun sit down, and Xuefei also moved a small stool nearby.

Liu Rusi opened the topic and asked, "First of all, none of this matter with you was my idea... May I know your names?"

The two beauties looked at each other doubtfully, and each introduced themselves: "My name is Su Xiao."

"My name is Su Qing." The beauty said as she looked at the huge courtyard in front of her.

"Are you sisters?" Liu Rusi was surprised. Are these genes good enough?

"Su Xiao and I are both from Shuiyubingtai. All the women in Shuiyubingtai have the surname Su." Su Qing secretly looked at the woman dressed as a lady in front of her. Madam Liu was slightly more charming than them, but it was only her temperament that was different. Her appearance was not much different. Why was Madam Liu so favored by the prince?

"Shuiyubingtai, what is that place?"

Su Xiao and Su Qing both looked up and looked at her carefully. They found it hard to believe that someone with Madam Liu's appearance was not from the cabinet.

"Shuiyubingtai collects beautiful women from all over Daxia, and even from the Western Regions, Southern Xinjiang, and Eastern Japan, and presents them to the rich and powerful. If they are the best, they will be sent to the royal family, some will enter the harem... Some will be awarded to kings, princes, generals, and ministers like concubines."

No wonder the two brothers of the Chu family have such rare beauties around them. They were selected from all over the country and even from neighboring countries. They are more than one in a million... Liu Rusi looked at the door and asked, "I remember there was another one. Why didn't she come?"

"Du Ruo is from the Golden Wind Jade Dew Pavilion. There are fewer rules there, and those whose real names are not too vulgar don't have to change them. Maybe because of this, the people who come out are a little more casual."

Liu Rusi could hear Su Qing's hostility towards Jinfeng Yulu Pavilion, but she couldn't understand it. They were both ruthless beauty concentration camps that "processed" and sold people like commodities. How could they still have a sense of belonging?

Feeling a little uncomfortable, Liu Rusi didn't want to ask more about the pavilion and the stage, and turned to the main topic and asked: "If you release the indenture, you will be free, why don't you want to?"

"How can it be a good thing? I was sold by my uncle, and my parents died early. Where should I go if I leave the palace?" Su Qing was a little excited.

"Don't we still have a hundred taels? As long as we don't squander it, it should be enough to live comfortably."

"Although the prince has never favored me, he has never treated us harshly. According to my treatment as a concubine, I get ten taels of silver per month, and there is also an allocation for food, clothing and other expenses. If you get a hundred taels of silver, how you live in the future will depend entirely on luck!" Su Xiao looked at Liu Rusi with a look of 'Are you kidding me?'

Liu Rusi suddenly understood! She was busy in Dongshan Village, and her monthly income was only about five taels. They didn't have to do anything in Prince Duan's Mansion, but they could earn twice as much as her monthly income! And they didn't have to spend any money on anything else!

She was moved by this treatment! If Chu Shiyu could not touch her like he did to them, and...

"Can you go out on weekdays?" Liu Rusi asked calmly.

"There are no restrictions in the backyard except for the two palaces... and now there is also the area around Ruliu Courtyard." Su Qing looked at Liu Rusi with complicated eyes.

"The backyard? What about outside the backyard? Can we leave the palace?"

The two looked at her strangely. Su Xiao said, "Female family members should not go to the front house unless necessary. As for leaving the palace... it's easy to cause trouble and bring shame to the palace. This is the same in every family. In some families, concubines are not allowed to leave their own courtyards. The palace is already good. Such a big backyard is enough for us to play around."

The excitement about the treatment was instantly gone. What was the point of earning a lot of money if you couldn't spend it? Finding that she had nothing in common with them, Liu Rusi was speechless for a moment.

There was silence for a moment.

Su Qing begged again: "Sister Liu, the prince must want us to leave the house because of you. If you help to talk to us, we should be able to stay!"

Liu Rusi felt a headache. It was not her business to dismiss Chu Shiyu's "employee". Moreover, even with modern dismissal treatment, the 3N plus 1 compensation was very generous. They should have saved money over the years, which was enough for them to live a worry-free life.

But Liu Rusi also knew that their dismissal was related to her. For a person like her who had no talent at all, Chu Shiyu cleared out the backyard and caused others to lose their jobs. What kind of a deal was that?