You are unlucky and I am tough

The family of the Luohe prefect did not live in the government office, but had another mansion in Wutong Lane not far from the government office.

This prefect Zhu served in Luohe Prefecture for eight years. He and his first wife had two sons, and he also had two concubines, each with a son and a daughter.

The two older sons are seventeen or eighteen years old and are now studying at the Yunhe Academy in the city, waiting for next year's college entrance examination. The daughter has reached the age of marriage and is still waiting to be married.

This is information that anyone in the city can ask. Cheng Shuang and Wei Qinglang had already found out.

Early in the morning, the two of them arrived at the back door of Zhu Mansion in Wutong Lane. Cheng Shuang originally wanted to split the troops into two groups, but Wei Qinglang disagreed, saying that it would be too dangerous to go out alone, so the two of them decided to act together.

The back door of the Zhu Mansion faces a snack street, which is quite lively. The two of them asked which shops on this street have been open the longest.

After asking clearly, Cheng Shuang went shopping alone, and then lied that her sister was a maid in the Zhu Mansion. Under the pretext of caring about her sister's life, she asked the boss about the situation of the Zhu family, mainly asking what kind of person Mrs. Zhu was and whether she was good to the servants.

I asked three shops that had been open for more than ten years, and they all said that Madam Zhu was kind and gentle, and treated the servants well. The wonton seller said that some of the maids in the mansion sometimes came to him to buy wontons, and they were all well-fed, well-dressed, and lively.

Among them, an old lady selling buns at the back door of the Zhu Mansion spoke the most. The old lady knew the maid who was in charge of kitchen purchasing at the Zhu Mansion. She said that Madam Zhu was a lady from a famous family, with a gentle personality, good education and good manners, and was very generous to both concubines and servants.

Although Magistrate Zhu was busy with official duties, he rarely lived in the yamen and returned home every day. His concubines did not compete for his favor, and he raised his children well.

Madam Zhu treated both of her concubines' children as her own, and her eldest son and the concubine's second son went to school together since childhood. The third daughter of the Zhu family was also of marriageable age, and Madam Zhu recently intended to choose a scholar from a well-established family for her daughter after the imperial examination next year.

After finding out all this, Cheng Shuang and Wei Qinglang went to Yunhe Academy again.

Yunhe Academy is the best academy in the city. There is a cafeteria in the academy, but many students are not used to eating in the cafeteria and choose to eat in nearby restaurants. The two sons of Prefect Zhu are no exception.

At the nearby Hefeng Restaurant, they met the two young masters of the Zhu family who came to the restaurant almost every day. Both of them were good-looking and looked quite gentle and upright.

There were six or seven of them in the group who came to eat together. Cheng Shuang and Wei Qinglang sat at the table next to them, secretly observing the two young masters of the Zhu family.

Throughout the meal, it seemed that the two Mr. Zhus were very respectful to each other and friendly to their classmates. The people at the same table knew their identities and did not flatter them. Instead, they chatted and discussed academic matters normally.

As cautious as they were, they couldn't find any fault in this interview and felt that Magistrate Zhu must be a good person.

The two men felt relieved. As for the governor of the provincial capital, which was not far from the provincial capital, he was a second-rank official of the imperial court.

As the highest leader of a province, his main responsibilities are to evaluate and supervise officials at all levels, as well as make decisions on major policies and issues. Apart from that, he rarely appears in public, and ordinary people have no access to him at all, so they have no way to find out.

However, as long as we are sure that the prefect is a good person, there will be no big problems later on. After all, the governor will not interfere with the relocation of the people.

After finishing the most important task of their trip to the capital, the two of them happily began to stroll around the streets again, buying a lot of miscellaneous things.

Cheng Shuang also saw a street vendor selling crutches and bought a new one for Cheng Lizheng. She then went to a clothing store and bought a set of ready-made clothes for Wei Nanxing, Cheng Chen, and Cheng Xu.

Wei Qinglang didn't buy any. He thought that the clothes were all pretty ugly anyway, so he could just use the ones he had for changing.

Seeing that it was almost time, the two of them returned to the inn, and then went into the space to look at the two buckets of crayfish. Although they were rinsed with running water in the bathroom, some of the shrimps in them were no longer very energetic.

Cheng Shuang suggested picking out those that were not very energetic and cooking them. Spicy crayfish and braised prawns were enough to make them.

Then the two of them picked out about five or six pounds, and Cheng Shuang bought a large rubber bucket in the mall to keep the rest and cook it when she wanted to eat it.

Crayfish was a gain during this trip to the provincial capital. Knowing that there were crayfish in this dynasty, they could buy shrimp seedlings from the mall in the future, and then standardize the breeding of crayfish to make money as a delicacy.

The crayfish and the various seeds they bought this time, the raw materials and recipes they had in their hands, these delicacies that were not available in this dynasty were enough to open a big restaurant.

The two are already considering whether to open a restaurant of their own or find someone to cooperate with to make money, but these are all matters for the time being.

Cheng Shuang bought an induction cooker and various ingredients needed to cook crayfish from the mall, and the two of them started to get busy. It took more than an hour just to clean the crayfish, and then they prepared the ingredients.

Neither of them was very good at cooking, so they worked together to make two flavors, braised prawns and spicy crayfish. By the time they were done, there was not much time left to use the space.

In order to leave time for a shower at night, the two of them took out a large basin of spicy crayfish, closed the doors and windows of the inn's room, and started eating directly in the room.

However, the aroma of crayfish still drifted out a little, and some people in the inn sniffed, curious about what kind of dish the inn was cooking that smelled so good.

After the two of them had eaten and drunk their fill, they put all the shrimp shells and drink bottles into the space, opened the door and threw the garbage out the door and it disappeared.

In Wei Qinglang's space, except for his house, there was thick white fog outside the doors and windows. People couldn't get out, but things could be thrown out.

Not long after dark, Zhao Xiuwen came back, went to the second floor of the inn, knocked on the door and warmly invited him.

"Brother Wei, Madam Wei, let's go to the night market. I'll treat you tonight, so don't refuse."

The two men, who were already full, smiled reluctantly, but they didn't want to offend Zhao Xiuwen.

Fortunately, the night market was a bit far away, so I was able to digest some of the food while walking there.

The night market streets are brightly lit, with stalls lined up, and jugglers performing on the streets, doing somersaults, breathing fire, and walking through fire rings, drawing cheers from the onlookers.

The three of them watched the performance for a while, and then Zhao Xiuwen said he would treat them to a meal at a restaurant. The two did not want to go to the restaurant, so they sat down at a mutton soup and noodle stall.

The fragrant mutton soup is delicious when eaten with flatbread.

Unfortunately, Cheng Shuang couldn't eat much, and most of it went into Wei Qinglang's stomach.

Zhao Xiuwen rushed to pay the bill and saw that the stall was selling lamb skewers, so he asked them if they wanted to try some.

Cheng Shuang hurriedly stopped him, "Zhao Tongsheng, don't buy it. We can't eat it all."

Zhao Xiuwen thought they didn't want him to spend more money, so he lowered his voice and said, "Don't worry, you two. I got some money after finishing my work, so I can afford to treat you to a delicious meal at the night market tonight."

Cheng Shuang quickly waved her hand, "Really, no need. Actually, we forgot we were going to the night market tonight, and we had already eaten before you came back."

It was obvious that Zhao Xiuwen wanted to thank them for the room they had on the boat and the meal they had had yesterday. And as for the boat returning tomorrow, Mr. Lu had also said they could just stay in their original room on the way back.

But she was really full. If Zhao Xiuwen kept buying food for them, she was afraid she would die of it.

"Have you eaten?" Zhao Xiuwen looked at Wei Qinglang in confusion. "Brother Wei, you didn't look like you had eaten when you were eating just now."

Not only did he finish his own portion, he also drank up the noodles and the bowl of mutton soup that Cheng Shuang had only taken a few bites of. He thought Cheng Shuang didn't like it.

Cheng Shuang chuckled, "He eats a lot, he's quite the glutton."

Wei Qinglang: “…..”

He just had a good digestion and didn't want to waste food since someone else was treating him, so he finished her portion as well. Yet, she actually called him a glutton.

Zhao Xiuwen couldn't help laughing when he saw Wei Qinglang's expression. "In that case, I'll invite you two to go see a play. There's a theater just up the street."

"Watch a play?" Wei Qinglang looked ahead and saw a theater with the words "Bai Xi Yuan" on it. He became interested and nodded.

Cheng Shuang had no objection, as long as he didn't treat her to food anymore.

The three of them arrived in front of the theater. The entrance fee was 200 coins per person, which only included a cup of ordinary tea. Other expenses were charged separately.

Zhao Xiuwen took the lead and took out one or two taels of silver. Cheng Shuang and Wei Qinglang looked at each other tacitly, wondering what Zhao Xiuwen had been doing in the past two days and how he suddenly had so much money.