Rebirth of the Merchant Woman's Revenge

About an hour later, Gu Qiongsi came out of Nanshan Academy exhausted.

Even so, the expression on her face was still relaxed. After all, this time, when she asked to borrow money, Mr. Nanshan generously agreed to lend her four hundred taels, but he said he would have to wait until tomorrow afternoon to give it to her.

So the two of them made an appointment to meet in a private room on the second floor of Louwailou at 3:00 p.m. tomorrow.

When they returned home, it was already completely dark. The business environment in the Great Chu State was very good and it was a peaceful and prosperous time, so there was no curfew. The city gates would only be closed at you time, so the city was still very lively, especially the commercial street they were passing by.

At this time, a strange fragrance came, which made Gu Qiongsi and Chunxiu feel refreshed.

Chunxiu lifted the car curtain, and the fragrance became clearer, it was the smell of storax.

"Aunt, it's the smell of Wangyu Tower." Chunxiu spoke quickly. Their carriage was passing by Wangyu Tower, and not far away was Yaxiangzhai which had already closed.

Gu Qiongsi sniffed the scent carefully and found it was indeed more fresh and elegant than the scents sold in the Gu family incense shop that she had known before. So she took Chunxiu with her into Wangyu Tower, intending to learn more about their incense first so that she could refer to them when she ran her own incense shop.

A clerk had already seen the two people coming in and hurriedly stepped forward to greet them, "Sir, what kind of incense do you want to see?"

Gu Qiongsi thought about it and realized that she had never been to a perfume shop since she was a child. Gu Qiongsi had no memory of having been there before, because all the perfumes in her house were sent by her aunt every quarter. There were quite a lot of them, and they couldn't use them all, so they never purchased more.

So she smiled and asked, as if it was her first time in a perfume shop, "I don't know much about perfume, could you please recommend one to me?"

The clerk was not surprised. He led the two to a counter with a row of exquisite small jars and introduced them, "Young Master, you may have heard that in the perfume testing competition a few days ago, Wangyulou won the first place in the balm and perfume category with this goose pear fragrance, and this one won the first place in the perfume powder category."

He introduced the fragrances on the counter one by one and enthusiastically sold them to her. Even though she did not have a strong intention to buy at the moment, he would still open those fragrances and let Gu Qiongsi taste them.

To Gu Qiongsi, those kinds of fragrances seemed to be not much different from those in Yaxiangzhai, but she discovered the difference after smelling them for a long time. She was exhausted just now, but after spending a cup of tea in Wangyu Tower, she now felt much more energetic and in a much better mood.

Obviously, these should be the effects of the incense. She couldn't help but admire the superb incense-making craftsmanship of Wangyu Tower.

Although the two did not buy any perfume in the end, the clerk still escorted them out of the store.

When she returned to Xie Mansion, Xie Cheng'an was waiting for her in Acacia Courtyard, and Dingxiang was holding Xie Rui and playing with him.

Seeing Gu Qiongsi coming back, Xie Chengan quickly stood up and asked, "How is it? How is it? Can Mr. Nanshan lend it to us?"

Gu Qiongsi was dressed as a man this time, so she didn't wear a veil, and the fatigue on her face was obvious.

Hearing Xie Chengan ask this, she felt a little unhappy. He didn't even care about his own health. As soon as he came back, he asked about the money. "Don't worry, Sanlang. The master said that Si'er will go to Louwailou to get the banknotes tomorrow."

"How much?" Xie Cheng'an continued to ask, "How much did you agree to lend us?"

"Three hundred taels." After Gu Qiongsi said this, she reached out and pulled off the jade hairpin in her hair, and her black hair spread out like a waterfall.

Her action made Xie Cheng'an stare at her in amazement. It was not an exaggeration to say that she was extremely charming. However, he ignored the hint of guilt in her eyes. She said that the four hundred taels that Mr. Nanshan had promised were only three hundred taels.

"Si'er," Xie Cheng'an suddenly hugged Gu Qiongsi from behind, "Sanlang, can you stay tonight?"

This sentence scared her. The marks on her body must be the most obvious today. There was no way she could let him stay.

Gu Qiongsi was stunned for a moment, then said, "I promised Mr. Nanshan today that I would write three more poems for him when I go to get the banknotes tomorrow. I really don't have much energy, so I hope Sanlang will understand."

Xie Cheng'an's back stiffened. Although he knew that what Gu Qiongsi said seemed to make sense, she had found all kinds of excuses to evade him and kept pushing him away, which made him feel very uncomfortable.

Today, he reached the climax. He said with an unhappy face, "Can't I stay and write poems with Si'er? Maybe we can come up with even better poems by discussing together."

"Sanlang, you're joking. You also know where Si'er's poems came from. How can they be compared with Sanlang's?" Gu Qiongsi laughed at himself, took out the incense recipe he found from Gu Xunwei, and handed it to Xie Chengan.

"Sanlang, take a look at this incense recipe. Do you think you can understand it?"

Xie Cheng'an lowered his eyes. He recognized all the words on the incense recipe. He reached out to take it and found that the spices on it were also common. It was just that a lot of terms were used in the production process, methods and procedures, which confused him.

"I have heard Gu Xunwei mention many of the terms used in this recipe before, so I know some of them, but not all of them. So I have to study this again in the next two days and make sure to figure it out before the spices are delivered. Otherwise, these recipes will be like a piece of waste paper to us."

Gu Qiongsi explained, and when she saw Xie Chengan's expression relax a little, she felt relieved, and then continued, "You two take Rui Ge'er to the east wing first, I have something to say to Sanlang."

Dingxiang and Chunxiu immediately nodded in agreement and walked out holding Xie Rui.

Xie Cheng'an looked at Gu Qiongsi in confusion, not knowing whether she had anything else to say to him, so he also looked at her curiously.

"Sanlang may not know that Si'er has not recovered since she gave birth to Rui'er. I don't know if it's because of the premature birth or because she didn't get enough rest during the confinement period."

"It's been so long now, but I still have a dirty body, so I always find all kinds of excuses. Please don't blame me, Sanlang."

After Gu Qiongsi said these words, her cheeks had turned red with shame, she lowered her head, and her eyes were wet.

Xie Chengan was shocked, and went over to grab Gu Qiongsi's hand, "Si'er, why didn't you tell me earlier? Let's find a doctor to take a look and take good care of you. This can't go on."