[Red House Chai Dai] Salted Pork Knuckle, Crab Rice Wine

Since Mrs. Wang and Aunt Xue both wanted to get married, when Baochai heard the news about Baoyu, she became more worried.

She is not the kind of rebellious person who intentionally disobeys her parents, she just looks on from the sidelines with her cold eyes. Although Jia Baoyu is a bit smart, but in daily life, he does not think about making progress, hates economic career, and is not good at handling common things. It is really difficult for the sisters to hang out in the team and belong to the son of a noble and wealthy family for life.

On that day, Baochai saw Jia Baoyu choose the best rouge, and said with great interest that the rouge on the market was uneven and thin, so she wanted to make her own rouge for the sisters. It's all right, if you have time, you can make some powder, wouldn't it be better than the lead powder sold outside?"

Baochai was talking ironically, but Baoyu became more excited than he heard any sage's words. Within a few days, he happily put the powder made from purple jasmine seeds into the jade hairpin stick, and gave it as a treasure. she voila.

Seeing this, Baochai couldn't help feeling cold, and since then he knew that Baoyu's aspirations were only in the boudoir.There are Jia Zheng and Jia Lian outside the Pianrong State Mansion to support them, Mrs. Wang and Sister Feng are planning inside, and Jia Mu is the mainstay. Baoyu gave him the nicknames of "rich and idle man" and "busy with nothing to do", implying advice.Baoyu didn't think he was disobedient when he heard the words, but was very proud of it. He brought up his old childhood name "Jiangdong Flower King" and asked Baochai for evaluation.It's really dumbfounding.

As for Baoyu's secret intercourse with the maids in the room before he passed the Ming road, and jealousy and flirtations in Jia's school, Baochai also vaguely heard about such things, although he was quite conflicted in his heart, but the current fashion is like this, It would be unvirtuous for a girl's family to bring this up when discussing marriage.

Therefore, Baochai had no choice but to complain to her mother, Aunt Xue twice, in private, on the grounds that Baoyu did not know how to make progress. However, Aunt Xue was already moved by Mrs. Wang's promise of a bright future, and she just waved her hand and said, "What are you afraid of? Your second aunt It's nothing more than looking at your steady and peaceful child, and pointing at you to persuade him. Even if the persuasion doesn't work, the Rongguo family has a great career, so can he still make him poor?"

When Aunt Xue said these words, the excited look on her face made Baochai feel very sad. Sometimes she even suspected that Aunt Xue seemed to be a different person, and she was no longer the mother who loved and cared for her since she was a child.But from a more mundane point of view, Baochai actually understands Aunt Xue's thoughts very well.

If the Xue family is really married to the Jia family, in theory, it is actually the Xue family who has made a move.Even though the Xue family was rich and not short of money, their ancestors were only a military supplier who supported the imperial court in the war, so they were granted the title of "Ziwei Sheren".

Furthermore, Aunt Xue has always loved her son Xue Pan the most, but Xue Pan is not easy to worry about. Every time something happens, he must rely on the power of the Jia family to take care of him at all times so that it can be settled smoothly. Wouldn't this marriage be more stable?

Because of Aunt Xue's insistence, although Baochai knew that there were many things wrong and felt uncomfortable, she was not willing to openly disobey.Fortunately, Baoyu is still young, and Mrs. Wang's thoughts are only slightly revealing. For her, the first important thing now is to deal with the selection of court servants in two years' time.

Baochai is an open-minded person, so she temporarily put aside her dislike of Jia Baoyu's lack of progress and unbearable entrustment. Whenever Aunt Xue and Mrs. Wang mentioned it, she just pretended to be obedient and prevaricated, and devoted herself to preparing for the selection of court servants. Hope to be selected successfully, stay away from right and wrong.

One day Xue Pan invited a group of playboys to have a drink in the front courtyard, but Baochai, Yinger and Xiangling stayed in the backyard room, doing some needlework and chatting at the same time.

Because there was a dish of spicy crab on the front table, Yinger didn't know how to mention it, so Ying'er sighed: "I remember when I was a child in Jinling City, every autumn and winter, my wife ordered me to mix a very good ginger vinegar sauce with steamed crabs, and it was delicious. Order to bring out the best crab wine from the cellar. At that time, my aunt was helping in the kitchen, and there were rewards at the banquet outside, so I drank half of the jar by stealthily, and then slept for a long time."

Baochai knew that Yinger was good at drinking, but she didn't know that she had such funny things when she was a child. Just as she was about to joke, Xiangling next to her asked hurriedly, "What is crab rice wine? This is the first time I've heard of it."

Yinger also knew that Xiangling liked to break the casserole and ask the end of everything, so she hurriedly explained: "Crab and rice wine are a perfect match, don't you know? Crab rice wine is a saying in our family, and our master often said it when he was alive. , the name on the outside is Huadiao, also called Nvnuhong."

Hearing this, Xiangling's heart was touched, and she was in a daze, but Ying'er didn't see it, and suddenly remembered something, and said to Baochai, "Miss, do you still remember the crab rice wine in our old house in Jinling? There were dozens of jars originally. , and buried under the flower tree together with Lengxiang Wan, and later when they came to Beijing, the jar containing Lengxiang Wan was dug up and brought along with them, but the crab rice wine was still buried."

Baochai didn't wait for her to finish, but hurriedly stopped.There is an allusion here. In the old days, when the daughter of a wealthy family in the south of the Yangtze River was born, most of the high-quality glutinous rice in the family was made into rice wine and buried under the flower tree.When the daughter grows up and gets married to a good man, wine is served as a dowry banquet, which is called daughter red.Its wine is mellow, sweet and fresh, with unique flavor.This custom is most prevalent in Shaoxing. Shaoxing flower carvings are also well-known all over the world, and they are also known as Zhuangyuanhong and Nvnuhong.The difference is that if you give birth to a daughter, you will be named Nvnuhong, hoping that you will meet a lover and be reliable for life;It is the pity of the world's parents.

When Xue Baochai's father was alive, he was fond of drinking, especially Shaoxing flower carvings. There were hundreds of jars of old flower carvings in the wine cellar of the old house. He called it crab yellow wine. Then it became the custom of Xue's family.Later, he saw that Baochai's appearance and behavior were not ordinary, and he became more and more proud. He carefully selected dozens of altars of excellent flower carvings from hundreds of altars of old flower carvings, and buried them under the flower tree. That day, I had a drink with my in-laws.Unexpectedly, father Xue suddenly had a whim and made Baochai stand for election, and the candidate would not be able to marry, so the matter was not mentioned again. Later, father Xue died of another illness, and the family was in a hurry. No one remembered the matter. .

Baochai has always been an easy-going person, since she wanted to enter the palace, she had to devote all her heart and energy to planning it, so she followed her mother and brother to the capital early to be kind to everyone in Jia's mansion, and only hoped for these relatives It can help at a critical moment. As for Nurhong or Crab Rice Wine, of course she doesn't take such trivial matters to heart.Only Ying'er was good at drinking, and was suddenly aroused by the crab in the front yard, and took the opportunity to sigh.

Seeing that Baochai refused to let her speak, Yinger knew that her unmarried daughter's family would not bring up the name "Nvnuhong" all the time, so she stopped knowingly, turned her head to look at Xiangling, still in a daze, pushed her with a smile and said: " This person is in a daze again. What kind of magic is going on right now."

Only then did Xiangling come to her senses. Since she came to Xue's house, she has been following Baochai, knowing that Baochai has a gentle and generous personality, and gets along very well with Yinger, so she didn't hide it from them at this time, and answered honestly. : "You know I don't remember much about my parents and the past. Just now Ying'er said that she buried the wine in the ground, but she seemed to be touched. She vaguely recalled a few scenes. It seemed that an elder directed the servants to go to the tree. A pit was dug to bury wine, and I was hugged and watched by the side."

Ying'er didn't wait for Xiangling to finish, and said: "I think this elder must be your father. Unexpectedly, you are a lady from a rich family! I don't know if you can see your father's appearance clearly?"

Hearing Yinger's words, Xiangling didn't mean any jealousy at all, but was really out of kindness for her own sake, so she told the truth, shook her head and said, "I don't remember clearly." Seeing Yinger sighing and sad, Instead, he hurriedly comforted her and said, "It's just a casual mention. It's been so many years, what else can I do?"

Baochai also sighed when she heard the words.When reminded by that mysterious voice, she knew better, that Xiangling was Yinglian, the only daughter of Zhen Shiyin, a rich man in Suzhou City.But what if you know this?The Zhen family had long been turned into a pile of rubble due to a fire in the Gourd Temple. His father, Zhen Shiyin, saw through the red dust and became a monk, and had no fixed place to live.Xiangling is a weak, unmarried girl who can't lift her hands or shoulders. Even if she leaves Xue's house, where can she go? How can she settle down?

Baochai knew that Xiangling was sad, and wanted to find something to distract her, so he said to her, "The guests are being entertained up front. Go quietly to the kitchen and ask if there is any crab rice wine that has been removed. Give it to our lady." Liquor lunatics bring some."

Xiangling understood, glanced at Yinger, responded with a smile and went out.

Ying'er was busy arguing with Baochai: "It's just mentioned occasionally, and there is a drunk lunatic somewhere."

The two laughed and quarreled, and after playing for a long time, they picked up sewing again.Both of them thought that Xiangling should have come back earlier, but unexpectedly there was no news for a long time, and when they were wondering, they suddenly saw Xiangling covering her eyes with a handkerchief, crying all the way back.

Baochai was surprised, and Yinger was so frightened that she lost her needle and thread and jumped up, grabbing Xiangling and asking what happened.The two comforted each other in soft voices for a long time before they realized that Xiangling was molested before they could go to the kitchen to ask a word.