Pastoral Splendor

Xu Yixuan stood under the tree with a bitter face, with Jian Yifei beside him.

"Master, what should we do? My mother is here, and she's going to lock me in this courtyard." Xu Yixuan looked at the various koi in the pond, threw a small stone, and the koi were startled and swam away, causing ripples to spread across the water.

Jian Yifei was secretly delighted. Xu Yixuan couldn't go out, but he could come and go as he pleased. Presumably, the Princess Consort of Yu wouldn't notice him; her attention was entirely on Xu Yixuan.

From now on, he can go to Miss Xiao's house alone. When Xu Yixuan was around, he rarely spoke because of his status. He always had to let Xu Yixuan speak first. Now it's great, he can talk to Miss Xiao to his heart's content.

"Master, Master!" Xu Yixuan waved his hand in front of Jian Yifei: "What are you laughing at? You're laughing even though your disciple is unhappy. Your master has no conscience!"

Jian Yifei was taken aback. Had his smugness been written all over his face? Seeing Xu Yixuan standing before him with a pout, Jian Yifei felt a pang of guilt. He had only been concerned with his own happiness and had forgotten his disciple's suffering. "Yixuan, I think the best solution is to get your mother to leave the villa as soon as possible, so you can play to your heart's content." After much thought, Jian Yifei could only offer this suggestion to Xu Yixuan. As for how to get the Princess Consort of Yu to leave the villa, he didn't know either.

Xu Yixuan looked down at the small pond, his eyes darted around, and a smile appeared on his face: "Master, you're really amazing! You came up with a great idea in the blink of an eye! I need to find a way to make the Prince Yu's Mansion in the capital cause some trouble, so my mother will have to rush back!"

Seeing Xu Yixuan cheer up, Jian Yifei felt relieved: "Yixuan, think it over carefully, just don't make things too big."

Xu Yixuan nodded: "Master, you have to believe me!" He looked up at the azure sky with white clouds drifting by and sighed deeply: "Master, I want to go see Miss Xiao. I wonder how she is now."

Jian Yifei suddenly felt a little awkward, and he didn't know why. Hearing those words, he felt an inexplicable strangeness. He looked down at Xu Yixuan and said, "You'd better bear with it. If your mother finds out, she might get upset and have Miss Xiao arrested and beaten. Wouldn't that be too much for her?"

Xu Yixuan hesitated for a moment, then said tentatively, "My mother may be a bit strict, but she shouldn't... act so recklessly, right?"

“Who knows? Aren’t there plenty of maids in those wealthy and powerful families who have been beaten to death for allegedly harboring ill intentions towards their masters? Although Miss Xiao isn’t a maid in the Prince Yu’s mansion, if the Princess doesn’t like her, she can easily find a reason to beat her dozens of times. Who would dare to speak ill of the Princess? Who in Yuzhou City would dare to contradict the Princess?” Jian Yifei earnestly advised Xu Yixuan. As he spoke, he seemed to believe it was true, and he couldn’t help but feel panicked and worried about Yan Ying.

“Master is right. In that case, I will not disturb Miss Xiao for the time being.” Xu Yixuan angrily tore down the weeping willow by the pond: “I hope Mother will return to the capital soon.”

Jian Yifei stood silently beside Xu Yixuan, but in his heart he was thinking. It had been quite a while since he had been to Xiaojia Village. Should he go and take a look today? What excuse should he come up with? He kept thinking, his mind a jumbled mess. All he could see was Yan Ying's smiling face, reflected in the pond, constantly breaking into fragments and then coming back together.

The Xiao family was in a state of great excitement. Construction on the new house had begun; the foundation had been dug, and they were just waiting for the frame to be installed and the earth to be filled in. The eldest son of the Xiao family paced back and forth on the excavated foundation, so excited he could hardly speak. Although he had initially opposed Yan Ying building such a large new house, now, looking at it, he felt a sense of satisfaction. The house looked sure to be nice. Standing in front of the mound of earth, he could almost hear the rushing water and the joyful shouts of his daughters inside.

As the villagers filled the foundation with soil, they chatted with Boss Xiao: "Boss Xiao, it's unbelievable that you've saved up so much money without making a sound. This three-courtyard house must have cost a lot of money." Lately, the villagers have been talking about Boss Xiao's house construction. Everyone is speculating about how big the house is, that it requires such a deep foundation.

"We haven't seen them firing bricks. Are they planning to buy blue bricks to build an adobe house?" Some people glanced at the calm and quiet Xiao family and found it unbelievable: "If it's an adobe house, they should have made the molds and fired the bricks themselves long ago. Why haven't they made any noise?"

“Let’s wait and see, who knows…” Xiao Laifu’s wife chuckled, “Don’t let the house be half-built and then unable to be finished.”

"Oh dear, if that's really the case, it'll be so shameful!" The butcher's wife chuckled, fiddling with a few thick strands of hair at her temples with her plump hands. "I think that third daughter of the Xiao family is quite ambitious, carving out such a piece of land to occupy. But she'll need money to build a new house!"

Standing among the group of women, Xiao Wangshi listened to their discussion and nodded repeatedly: "That's right, that's right, they're so poor, yet they still want to live in a new house?"

A few days ago, the Xiao family broke ground, and she sent all five of her grandsons there, except for the youngest, who was only three years old and left at home. She felt too embarrassed to send him to the construction site to freeload. The Xiao family's daughter prepared really good food. Not to mention eating large chunks of meat every day, there was a pot of rich meat and bone soup every day, stewed with kelp, which smelled especially delicious from afar.

Yan Ying set the wages at the general rate for short-term labor in Yuzhou City: sixty copper coins a day. If lunch was included, the rate would be fifty-two copper coins a day. Most of the people Yan Ying hired were from her village, so everyone went home for lunch, and only those from other villages ate at her place.

But Yan Ying's meals were really good. Usually, there was one meat dish and two vegetable dishes, along with a soup. Although there was only a little bit of minced meat in the meat dish, you could still see the meat in it. The people from other villages ate to their hearts' content, their mouths glistening with oil. When the people from our village came over, they couldn't stop bragging: "You guys go back to eat, it's better to eat here. It only costs eight copper coins, and you eat so well!"

At first, the villagers didn't believe it, but when they came over and saw the meals that Yan Ying prepared for those dozen or so people from other villages, they couldn't help but stand aside and drool. They could only taste such good food during festivals, but this third daughter of the Xiao family didn't even blink an eye and made the food smell delicious every day!

Actually, Yan Ying did the math and realized she hadn't really lost out. How much was meat per pound? Just thirty copper coins. For a dozen or so people, it wouldn't even take a pound of meat. The vegetables were grown in her own garden, so they didn't cost any money. Every day, she would spend a few copper coins to buy a few large bones from the butcher, wash and chop them with a piece of kelp leaf, throw them into the pot, and wait for them to stew. The result was a big, full pot with oil droplets floating on top and dark red marrow syrup, which tasted even more delicious.

The villagers were also tempted, and a few people came to eat at first. Later, more and more people came to eat, so Yan Ying had to quickly go to the city to buy a large iron pot and a large steamer. Every day, she had to cook food for about forty or fifty people, which exhausted the sisters.

Seeing that the food at Yan Ying's house was good, Xiao Wangshi was also very tempted. She urged her grandsons to take their bowls and go to Yan Ying's house to eat: "That's your uncle's house. Do you expect your nephews to count money when they go to their uncle's house to eat?"

The grandsons were initially hesitant to go, but after hearing their father praise their uncle's cooking, they were tempted. At lunchtime, they took their bowls and headed towards Xiao Laoda's house. Reaching Xiao Laoda's kitchen, they saw a long queue. Ignoring the queue, they rushed into the kitchen, shouting, "Third girl, hurry up and get me some rice!"

Yan Ying and Er Hua stood by the stove. When they saw several cousins ​​crowding over, they tapped the pot with their spoons and said, "Get in line! Can't you see how many people are waiting?"

Xiao Wangshi's grandsons were very indignant and shouted, "Second daughter, third daughter, we are relatives, why don't you take better care of us?"

"Whether you're related or not, it doesn't matter to me. You have to follow the rules. Everyone is queuing up, why shouldn't you?" Yan Ying ignored them, took a bowl from a neighbor, scooped him a large bowl of rice, and then scooped a few spoonfuls of vegetables, smiling as she said, "Uncle, go over there and get some soup later."

The uncle smiled, picked up his rice bowl, and went out. Xiao Wangshi's grandsons stood by the stove for a while, and seeing that Erhua and Yanying ignored them, they could only walk out of the house and line up. When it was their turn, Yanying still gave each of them a few spoonfuls of vegetables and a large bowl of rice as usual.

"Third girl, why didn't you scoop more meat for me?" Xiao Wangshi's third grandson, Shuisheng, was the most cunning and lazy. Seeing that the food Yanying served him was no different from what others had eaten, he couldn't help but grumble.

"You didn't give me any more money, so why should I treat you differently?" Yan Ying smiled and glanced at Shui Sheng. "Eight copper coins for a meal, everyone pays the same amount, yet you want more food?"

"What? They're going to deduct money from our pay?" Shui Sheng shouted, holding his rice bowl. "Is this even possible? They're deducting money from our own brothers who come over for a meal?"

"Why don't you want to deduct money? In all these years, has your family ever invited us over for a meal even once?" Yan Ying had heard Er Hua mention that since the family split up, she and her three uncles had hardly had any contact. Even during the New Year's Eve dinner, the three families would gather together and never invite her family. But now this Shui Sheng was actually jumping around wanting to eat and drink for free; he was incredibly shameless.

Yan Ying threw down her spoon, snatched Shui Sheng's rice bowl, and sneered at him: "You have to pay to eat here. If you don't want to pay, then please leave and don't delay me from serving other people's food."

"Yeah, yeah, you want to eat without paying? It's not easy for people to build houses, they finally saved up this little bit of money, and you have the nerve to come and eat and drink for free? If you're not going to eat here, then hurry up and move aside, we're hungry and waiting for Miss Xiao to serve the food!" The people in the back of the line complained, all pointing at Shui Sheng's back. Shui Sheng's face fell, and he muttered, "Hmph, I won't eat food that costs money."

Chapter Seventy-Two: Schemes

The entrance to Old Master Xiao's kitchen was crowded with people, all craning their necks to look inside.

Many people knew Xiao Wangshi's character, and they pointed and whispered: "Your grandmother was not soft-hearted at all when she kicked your uncle's family out, but now she lets you come and freeload without batting an eye?"

"The food at Old Master Xiao's house didn't fall from the sky. They paid for the food themselves. If they want to eat here, they naturally have to pay. Everyone is from the same village as you. We see each other all the time. If no one pays, do you expect Old Master Xiao's family to starve?"

Yan Ying remained silent, but deftly carried the rice bowl to the kitchen door, poured the food into a large bucket by the door, and then strode back to hand the empty bowl to Shui Sheng: "Take this bowl and go back."

Shuisheng stood to the side holding an empty bowl. Seeing his brother's bowl full of food that smelled delicious, he couldn't help but feel a little regretful. He turned around and muttered, "I'll eat here."

“That will cost you two days’ worth of food.” Yan Ying pointed to the bucket outside the door: “Or you can pick out the food I just poured in and eat it.”

Shui Sheng shuddered. That was a swill bucket, where leftover food was dumped. Some people in the village raised pigs, and every night they would come to Old Man Xiao's house to collect this swill to feed their pigs.

"Why do you want me to eat pig swill?" Shui Sheng widened his eyes. "Xiao Sanhua, are you doing this on purpose?"