Section 49: Xin Yue

I don’t know when it started, but it seems like there are two more people in the family. When I leave the house in the morning, I always run into Xin Yue, who is always smiling. There are always some mung bean cakes that Yun Ye likes in the small bamboo basket. After a quick bow, they go their separate ways, as if nothing is wrong.

At noon, the Yun family cook always delivers the food on time. This is also an important time for the old gentlemen and Yun Ye to communicate. After abandoning the ancient rule of “not talking while eating,” the old gentlemen always feel that their appetite is increasing.

After finishing the meal and preparing to engage in a lively discussion, a woman in a green dress would appear, serve the men with a cup of fragrant tea that was just right, win the praise of everyone, and then hide her face and retreat.

No one in the academy drinks soup anymore, which makes Zhao Yanling feel very hurt. He only makes a cup of soup when he is alone, feeling the wonderful taste of the tea in his mouth.

Xin Yue was playing catch with Xiaoya in the front yard, and they were both very happy.

Xin Yue and her aunt discuss pastry making in the kitchen. The pastry skills of the Yun family have grown rapidly.

Xin Yue and her aunt make clothes together in the garden and exchange them from time to time, so Yun Ye has a gorgeous robe with Shu embroidery that is very eye-catching.

Xin Yue was in the back house talking to her grandmother. She didn’t know what to say, and made the old lady laugh from time to time. It seemed very harmonious.

Until one day, Yun Ye found out that there was no tea in the study, so he called his mother to come and change the hot water. When she came in through the door curtain, she was blushing and surprised Yun Ye. She changed the tea for him and then went out. Through the bamboo curtain, her beautiful back was faintly visible in the courtyard, and her mother’s laughter was also mixed in.

Yun Ye was not surprised that Xin Yue would conquer the women in the family, but was surprised that she conquered them so quickly. It seems that the quality of the women in the family needs to be improved. I don’t know about the aunt’s tenacity, the aunt’s shrewishness, or where the grandmother’s old wisdom has gone.

Yesterday, I saw her and Xiaodong together, pushing the swing with great enthusiasm. In the end, Xiaodong quietly dug out the snacks buried in the ground and invited Xin Yue to eat them. Just for being able to trick Xiaodong into handing over the hidden food to her for safekeeping, Yun Ye felt that the Yun family was enveloped in a huge shadow, and the shadow looked a lot like Xin Yue.

The dinner table was out of the question. A whole house of women were surrounding Xin Yue, one giving her a piece of chicken, another ladling her a spoonful of soup. Yun Ye, who usually enjoyed this treatment, was furious. The bowl had been empty for half a day, and no one had paid any attention to it. The little maid even put the chicken bones in Yun Ye’s bowl and said that he couldn’t bite it, so he asked his brother to eat it. He put down his bowl and chopsticks and resolutely refused to eat the food that was given to him. The marquis, who was determined not to eat food that was given to him, planned to go to the kitchen to find something to fill his stomach. He didn’t expect that the kitchen was also very lively, with servants and maids everywhere.

Xiaoqiu was eating with the maids, each holding a large bowl, the kind that was bigger than her head, full of rice, with the vegetables on top sticking out, buried in her head, eating sweetly, as if there were no one else around, more at ease than at home.

Embarrassed, with a half-empty stomach, Lord Yun staggered to the academy, looking miserable.

A few old men were doing nothing but relaxing under the trees. Each of them was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and shorts, with wooden-soled slippers on their feet. They were lying on deck chairs with their legs crossed, shaking a fan in their hands, and a small teapot on a low stool. If they said too much, they would take a sip from the teapot mouth to mouth. If they added a few lines of Beijing opera, Yun Ye would think he was in Beijing.

“Don’t hang around with old men when you’re young. Go find your own fun.” Before he even got close, he was chased away like a dog.

I came to see Sun Simiao, but he hadn’t yet agreed to settle down at the Academy. I took advantage of the fact that I had nothing to do to talk to him and see if I could persuade him to stay at the Academy.

As the last rays of sunlight squeezed into the old man’s room, the smell of medicine was strong, and his stung eyes hurt. He ran out as soon as he entered, not knowing what the old man was doing. After a while, the fire stick also ran out, his face full of tears, looking very pitiful. After waiting for a long time, he saw the old man come out slowly, muttering, “I failed again.”

“What is the Taoist priest doing? Why is there so much noise?” Yun Ye asked curiously. It seemed that he couldn’t understand the academy now. Many people were acting strangely. For example, Lao Sun had searched for all kinds of medicinal herbs to make the white medicine in Yun Ye’s hand. According to him, he was almost successful.

Mr. Lishi would carefully study the large bone whenever he had time. He could not be asked about it, and would get angry if anyone did. Some students had already reported that Mr. Lishi was stealing dragon bones and secretly drawing various pictures of the bones while no one was looking, as if he were going to ascend to heaven.

Mr. Yuan Zhang has asked about the White Jade Capital many times, intentionally or unintentionally, and even asked if it was possible for him to go there.

Yuchi Dasha dug up the entire front slope by himself, saying that he wanted to build a city to deploy his troops and prepare for a decisive battle with Duan Meng here.

Li Tai now likes to tie stones to cloth and throw them into the air, then watch as the cloth at the four corners slowly sends the stones back to the ground. It started with small stones, gradually becoming one, two, and five catties of stones. Yesterday, I saw his guards carrying a hundred catties of heavy stones up the Eagle’s Beak Cliff with difficulty…

Lao Sun didn’t hear Yun Ye’s question, or he simply didn’t want to pay attention to Yun Ye, stomped his feet and rushed back into the house.

This is self-inflicted!

No one cares, so Yun Ye ran to the kitchen of the academy and forced the cook to hand over the best piece of lamb. He used a small pot on a small red clay stove to boil tea and prepared to make his own lamb shabu-shabu, tofu, vegetables, and some wild mushrooms. He didn’t call anyone, he was alone. If I’m not happy today, I don’t believe I can’t finish eating five catties of lamb.

There was hidden grape wine under the bed, which he had stolen from Li Xiaogong’s house. The copper wine pot was full and soaked in well water, which would make it taste better later.

If you don’t like the white soup of the mutton hot pot, we’ll eat the red oil. The chef sent the thinly sliced mutton, the finely chopped green onions, the green vegetables that aroused one’s appetite, the white and tender tofu cut into strips, the garlic paste, and the sauce were all complete. Yun Hou planned to reward himself.

Just as Yun Hou was about to start eating, Li Ke rushed in, shouting, “It’s over, it’s over!” in a panic.

In the blink of an eye, he found the hot pot and immediately forgot his worries. He took out a pair of silver chopsticks from his bosom and started to fish in the pot.

“What happened? Why are you in such a hurry?” Yun Ye was worried about something going wrong, after all, those basic construction machines were not so reliable.

“There are no more bricks and tiles. The progress is too fast. The bricks and tiles can’t keep up. The cement you burned is almost gone. We have finished stacking the stones. All that’s left is the bricks and tiles and cement in the kiln. The cement is fine. As long as it is smashed and ground, the bricks and tiles are hopeless. It will be shut down in three days.” After eating a few bites of mutton, Li Ke spit out his tongue and said in a stammering voice, “It’s not going to work.

Since the last time the clumsy kiln worker who accidentally fired the glass won the reward from the family head, the Yun family’s brick kiln has been a sensation in the kiln factory. Since then, there have been many strange things that have been fired. The antique shelf in Yun Ye’s study is full of strangely shaped stones. There is a kind of stone that is burned to a crisp. After it is smashed, it hardens overnight when it is exposed to water. Yun Ye knows that this thing should be cement, and it took hundreds of tries to get the right standard. Now it is being mass-produced, and the follow-up work is complicated. It needs to be smashed into large pieces and then ground on a large stone mill to be used. Yun Ye’s confidence in building a stone house also comes from this.

When Yun Ye came to his senses, he found that Li Ke had already eaten and could not sit still. He was loosening his belt, and most of the mutton on the small table was gone, as was most of the vegetables and tofu. Li Tai was now lying on the table and eating like crazy.

“I saw that Yun Hou was thinking about something, so I called over Xiao Tai, who had not yet had dinner, and we ate some delicious food together. This is what it means to eat. Xiao Wang finally had a real meal, not leftovers.” Li Ke ignored Yun Ye’s flaming eyes and explained slowly.

Li Tai, who was picking up the mutton, also praised his third brother for his selflessness.

Forget it, today is not a good day for dinner. After Li Tai finished eating the last piece of lamb, the three of them left the room. The cool evening breeze blew away the last trace of Yun Ye’s depression. Standing on a high place, the Dongyang River sparkled beneath their feet. Dozens of three-story buildings stood on both sides of the river. three-story buildings, although only the outline, but also quite large, amazing, noisy construction site finally quiet down, mountain nest smoke, that is laborers in cooking, presumably labored all day, they, at this time on the rice bowl, the heart may temporarily forget that terrible disaster.

“Ye Zi, this is the most useful thing I have ever done. The magnificent houses and halls are rising from the ground one by one. You don’t know how happy I am. I even know the materials needed for each house and can predict when each house will be completed. Only I know how magnificent and beautiful these houses will be when they are completed. You have to promise me that you will leave one for me. The Jade Mountain is the most beautiful in autumn. I will bring my mother here for a few days to let her enjoy it.”

“Hmph, you’re dreaming. These houses are all useful. Next year, we’ll be enrolling a large number of students, and there will be no less than a thousand students and a hundred teachers. I’m worried that there won’t be enough houses, so there’s no room for you.”

“It’s just that you ate your food. Why are you so stingy? I can pay for it, can’t I?” Li Ke was angry and noisy.

I don’t care about the little brat’s thoughts. I grabbed Li Tai and walked back. The gate of the academy was very lively. The weasel couple was closing their stall. They looked very happy and seemed to have made a lot of money. The old gentlemen also returned from a stroll along the river. They were laughing and chatting all the way. The students of the academy were playing and joking at the gate. Zhao Yanling and the gentlemen in the book were talking about the buildings along the river, full of anticipation. Yun Ye smiled and walked through the crowd. Just as he was about to go in, he heard someone shouting, “Yun Shixiong!”

When he looked back, it was Xin Yue. She shyly carried a lunch box and after a long time, she finally managed to hand it to Yun Ye. She said in a sweet voice, “You didn’t have a good dinner, so I made some dishes especially for you. After that, she ran away with her face covered.

The students of the academy were in a state of chaos, and the old masters nodded with their beards. The weasel couple looked at each other with a look of blessing.

“No!” Yun Ye screamed in his heart. How could I have forgotten that the girls in Shu are famous for being bold? After this commotion, did I marry someone else?