As mentioned above, the old Zhu's family was extremely demanding of the civil servants who worked for their family.As a junior lieutenant in Jinyiwei whose position is only higher than that of Lishi, he is a high-level cooking expert, and his monthly salary is only [-] liters of rice.

Not to mention buying a house, with his meal size of at least five bowls of rice, it is not even a problem to eat enough.

Living in Chang'an is not easy.

What Beijing is to Ming Dynasty is what Chang'an is to Tang Dynasty.

At the foot of the emperor, the first good area.The palaces and palaces are uneven, and there are piles of beautiful scenery.

Where and how to live.For a foreigner with a meager salary, it is a question worth thinking about.

It's different from Qiu Zijin, a national key college student who eats, drinks, and sleeps in the Imperial College, and can still take rice.The Fusi Yamen in Beizhen is in charge of food and housing, and there is no staff dormitory.Unless they are arranged to be on duty at night, there is only a small bed in the duty room for everyone to take turns to rest.

As far as Gaohui's salary is concerned, buying a house in Beijing is definitely out of the question, even renting a house in the city is not enough.

So Gao Huihe chose to rent the Mercy Nunnery at Taoranting outside the city.

Wanda calculated it based on the memory of taking the subway in Beijing in the previous life.

600 years later, if this buddy commutes by subway every day, starting from the main entrance of the Forbidden City and getting off at Taoranting, he needs to change Line 10 to Line [-], and the one-way journey takes nearly [-] to [-] minutes.

Of course, there is no subway in this era, except for Yang Xiuxian's "Blizzard", which was given to him by Commander Yuan as his personal property, and all the horses in Jinyiwei Yamen are "official vehicles".Unless the Tiqi is required to travel due to official business, it is not allowed to borrow it.

The Jinyiwei yamen is on duty at Maoshi.If you miss a point, you will be punished with military discipline.Therefore, Gaohui basically commutes between the Jinyiwei Yamen and the Cibei Nunnery in the center of the capital every day.

After hearing this, Wanda couldn't help but wonder: How could such an old man live in someone else's nunnery?Isn't this nunnery a place for women to go?Can you also take in men?Don't they have any taboos?

But after Yang Xiuxian gave him an explanation, he suddenly became enlightened.

As we all know, the taxation and corvee of farmers in the Ming Dynasty were determined according to the number and grade of the fields they owned.The more you have and the better your rank, the more taxes you have to pay.

However, there are a few types of people who do not have to pay taxes no matter how many fields they own.They are: relatives of the emperor, Jinshi, and Taoist monks and nuns.

Yes, in the Ming Dynasty, as long as they were admitted to Jinshi, the whole family could be exempted from food service.

If you have no talent in your studies, and you don’t have the status of being a relative of the emperor, and you still bite the bullet and don’t want to pay taxes, what should you do—there is no way—to become a monk.

Let's not talk about the feasibility and difficulty of becoming a monk, but let's discuss why a nunnery can live in a man.

In the early days of the founding of the Ming Dynasty, there were many wastelands in the country. Emperor Hongwu adopted a tax policy of light corvee and low taxation to encourage everyone to open up wasteland.People who love farming also responded positively.

In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, theoretically, the number of fields was more than one or two times more than that in the early period, and the taxes collected should have increased geometrically.

No, taxes didn't skyrocket as hoped.

"Field" will certainly not disappear, and the industrious Chinese people will not let go of any piece of wasteland.

It's just that they have changed from "civilian fields" that need to pay taxes to "fields" that do not need to be taxed.

In order to avoid the high land tax and a lot of exorbitant taxes calculated based on this standard.The helpless farmers of Ming Dynasty chose to "attach" their land to official land or families that were exempt from paying taxes.I simply became a tenant, because the "yellow book" shows that he has no land, so the whole family does not have to pay taxes...

This miraculous practice even had a scientific name in the Ming Dynasty, called "innuendo".

It does not refer to the "innuendo" of Sang Yuhuai, but the innuendo of "innuendo" and "trickery".

This led to the fact that in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, gentry landlords and large temples owned hundreds of hectares of land, but did not have to pay a grain tax.An important reason why ordinary farmers with only three to five mu of Susukida became the main taxpayers.

Let's not talk about how far away, anyway, this is the situation - temples, especially famous temples, have a very considerable number of fields, as well as monks and nuns attached to them, tenants, and even refugees who escaped corvee.

The Cibei Nunnery near Taoranting is such a large temple with hundreds of acres of land and tenants.

With more land, there are naturally more vacant houses.Cibei Nunnery will rent out these vacant rooms to earn some money.

It is said that it is rented in the Cibei Temple, but in fact it is just an empty house near the Cibei Temple.In the Ming Dynasty, there were already specialized real estate brokers, the so-called "ya people".

Shortly after taking office in Beijing, Shandong People's High Council rented a spare small house in Cibei Nunnery through Yaren.

Many poor people who came to visit relatives and friends in the capital, or candidates for exams who could not afford to rent inns and houses in Beijing, would choose to live in temple properties outside the city.

It's cheap and quiet, and it's a good place to go.If the child wins the Toad Palace in the future, it will add fame to the temple, which is a win-win situation.

Although Gao Hui is a rough man who doesn't believe in gods and Buddhas, he also knows that as a Jinyi guard, he has already killed evil with all his hands, lest he tarnish the quiet place.Therefore, I have rented a house in the Cibei nunnery for nearly three years, and I have never set foot in the nunnery.

Not to mention taboo at all.

"Ah, now I understand..."

Wanda suddenly realized.

After all, the salary given by the imperial court was too low, and it was not easy for Gao Hui to rent a house, so he could only go to the suburbs.

At the same time, I feel compassionate.

No wonder I saw Gao Hui on duty in the city from time to time when I was resting.

It stands to reason that as his entourage, Gao Hui's work and rest should be synchronized with his own.

There is no such thing as "overtime pay" in Beizhen Fusi.The reason why he worked so hard, and even went to duty on holidays, was because of the two free "working meals".

"You two went out just now, what did you see?"

Yang Xiuxian asked.

He didn't have much contact with Gao Hui, but he knew that although he was upright, he was not bad at business.He and Deng Xiang had been there for so long just now, so they must have discovered something strange.

Moreover, with Gao Hui's capacity for drinking, he wouldn't be able to drink like that after just one drink. He was obviously pretending to be drunk just now.

Gao Hui took a deep breath and looked at Yang Xiuxian.

"The subordinate saw an 'old man'."

"Old man?"

Wanda was puzzled.

A person like Gao Hui would have friends in the Land of Fireworks?He is not Deng Zongqi...

When I stepped into the alley just now, several elder sisters were frowning at Deng Zongqi. Deng Zongqi had a coquettish and sophisticated smile, and he seemed to come here often.

I just don't know if his wife who lives in Daxing County knows.

"At the beginning of the year before last, there was a sister-in-law and a little girl who rented next door to my house..."

Gao Hui frowned his two thick eyebrows and said worriedly.

In the spring of the previous year, a mother and daughter who came to Beijing from Kaifeng, Henan Province to visit relatives, lived in the small courtyard where Gaohui was located.

This small courtyard house may be the most dilapidated house under the name of Cibei Nunnery.Although the housing price is very low, it is very unsuitable for living because it is ventilated on all sides and leaks in rainy days.

Gao Hui didn't care, he spent most of the day in Jinyiwei Yamen, rarely at home.For him, this place is just a place to sleep at night.

Moreover, he had no possessions, and all his belongings were just a few sets of clothes and a bedding.As long as the rain doesn't drench the kang, everything is fine.

So he has been the only one who has rented this yard for two years, and the rest of the rooms have been kept empty.The house is a bit shabby, but it is happy and quiet, which is also in line with his dislike of talking to people.

The mother and daughter who moved in suddenly broke his usual peaceful life.

That day, Gao Hui, who had just solved a major case, was off duty. When he walked into the yard exhausted, he drew out his knife vigilantly.

There was a strange smell in the yard, and the lights were on in the house that had been deserted all year round.

Moreover, someone touched his things.

Then, he saw Sister-in-Law Song's mother and daughter shivering in fear, huddled in a corner.

He and I don't know how many days they hung in the yard, they were drenched in the rain and then dried, dried and then wet.It was finally accepted today, and the clothes were neatly folded.

"The woman's husband's family name is Song, a 27-year-old young woman. She lets me call her 'Sister-in-law Song'. Her daughter is called 'Xiaohui'. She is only seven years old and has big eyes. She is very cute."

Gao Hui lowered his head, and his hands on the table trembled slightly, "She took her child and came to the capital to find her husband whom she had not seen for many years... Someone from the village told her that she seemed to have seen her husband in the capital a few years ago. .”

This woman married her current husband at the time.In order to make a living, the husband left his hometown shortly after the wedding to make a living.The woman who was pregnant at that time and the old mother were left behind.

The woman waited for a man in her hometown for eight years, but there was no news at all. The mother-in-law who had been waiting for her son to come home passed away last year, leaving the world with a grudge.

Not long after burying her mother-in-law, the woman took her daughter, who was not yet seven years old at the time, from Kaifeng, Henan, all the way to the capital.

"This story sounds familiar..."

Wanda frowned.

Isn't this the plot of "Chen Shimei"?This Mrs. Song is clearly Qin Xianglian's character design.Could it be that her man married the princess and became a son-in-law?

No, brother-in-law Zhu Jianshen's harem has nothing, and there is no princess at all.

No... Chen Shimei and Bao Zheng happened in the Song Dynasty.Now it is the Ming Dynasty, which is hundreds of years away.

Chaos, chaos.

"After they arrived in Beijing, they looked for a place to live first, and then slowly inquired about their husbands. Naturally, they couldn't afford to rent a house in the capital. Sister-in-law Song rented a room in the small courtyard of the Mercy Nunnery. "

Gao Hui didn't know what was going on in Wanda's mind at the moment, so he continued talking.

"She spent almost all her money along the way, and after paying the rent, there was not much left. Fortunately, she is a woman, and she can go to the backyard of the nunnery to wash clothes for those nuns, so as to earn some subsidies."

Doing laundry for Gaohui was a matter of convenience, and also wanted to sell some favors to this neighbor.

"Sister Song is a good woman and beautiful. Whoever marries her is really lucky..."

Gao Hui squinted his eyes and recalled, a rare smile appeared on his mouth.

Although he is 27 and [-] years old, and the child is so old, he came all the way to the capital and suffered a lot.But this capable Mrs. Song still has a fair complexion and a slim figure, and she is especially beautiful when she smiles.

Before Sister-in-law Song's mother and daughter came, the yard of Cibei Nunnery was just a place to sleep for Gao Hui.

But here comes the mother and daughter, the mother is gentle and the girl is cute.

Although poor, they try very hard to live comfortably.

About a month later, Mrs. Song saved money to buy tiles and straw, and asked Gao Hui to help them repair the roof when it was not worth it.Of course, he also repaired his roof that had been leaking for several years.

After repairing the roof, Gao Hui jumped down from the top, and saw Mrs. Song had prepared a hot meal, waiting for him under the thatched shed in the yard.

"Xiao Gao, thank you for your hard work."

Mrs. Song said to him with a smile.

Gao Hui walked to the table and sat down, looking down at the table full of food.It suddenly occurred to him that the last woman who cooked for him was his mother from his hometown in Shandong.

He has been in the capital for so many years, and he doesn't know if she is doing well in the eldest brother's house.

Picking up a piece of dried tofu, put it in his mouth and chewed it twice, Gao Hui was surprised to find that the tofu tasted like ham!

"In the future, on the day you rest and take a bath, you can have dinner at home. I will also cook your share."

Mrs. Song said to him while refilling the meal, "Now I am in charge of the back kitchen of the Mercy Nunnery."

It turned out that Mrs. Song washed clothes and sewed for the nuns during this time, and gradually won the trust of the aunts.Mrs. Song took the opportunity to recommend herself to them, and cooked a table of vegetarian snacks, which the nuns who ate were full of praise.

Taoranting is a famous landscape in the suburbs of Beijing. Its name comes from the sentence in Bai Juyi's "Leisurely Drinking with Mengdegu Wine and Making an Arrangement for the Later Period" "Wait for the chrysanthemum and yellow home brew to be ripe, and you will be drunk and intoxicated."

Every year when the weather is suitable in spring and autumn, many literati and scholars in the city will come together to enjoy the flowers and leaves.

Especially in autumn, literati and poets come here.Climb high and look far away, pick dogwood, drink chrysanthemum wine, sing poems, and sing against the wind and moon.

If you are popular, you will inevitably come to the Temple of Mercy to burn incense and worship.If there are female relatives among the traveling people, they will go to the clean room behind the nunnery to rest for a while.

Before Mrs. Song came, the nunnery only had tea and snacks sold on the street to entertain distinguished guests, which was not grand enough.The hostess had long thought that if she could have the pure vegetarian cakes and fruits produced by the nunnery herself, plus a table of exquisite vegetarian dishes, that would be the icing on the cake—to earn more incense and offerings.

In the past, the Mercy Nunnery was always suffering from the lack of a good cook. Most of the cooks outside were men, and good female cooks were kept in the house by high-ranking officials, and they would never condescend to come to the temple to cook.

Therefore, Cibei Nunnery has always felt that it is "missing a corner of the complete book of all treasures" in recent years. There are ancient temples, ancient trees, bright moons, and gardens. What is missing is a cook who can sell.

Now that Mrs. Song came and ate the snacks and meals she made, the host's regrets over the years were easily resolved.

The aunt was also generous, so she simply waived the rent for Sister-in-law Song's mother and daughter, and let her not only mend laundry, but also cook.He also simply let her be in charge of the vegetable field behind the mountain. Besides supplying the nunnery, the surplus vegetables can also be taken home to eat.

Gao Hui had a very comfortable meal.Although it is vegan, it was the best meal he ate until he was 23 years old.

It is even more delicious than the barbecue that the brothers from Beizhen Fusi eat out in restaurants on weekdays.

It turns out that Mrs. Song was a well-known beautiful cook in Kaifeng before she got married.People who come in and out are all rich and powerful mansions, and they only cook food for the banquets of the rich and high-ranking officials.

In particular, she cooked a table of vegetarian banquets and pure vegetarian fruits, which was completely passed down by her mother, and can be called the best in the world.

Regardless of the color, aroma, and taste, it can be completely fake, so that people can't tell that what they are tasting is actually a vegetarian dish.

The profession of cook is passed down from generation to generation, only to women, not to men.Therefore, at such a young age, Xiaohui already has a good cooking posture.

When Gao Hui went home several times, he could see Xiaohui, who was not as tall as the stove, holding a kitchen knife and practicing her knife skills.

"It's actually an ancient colleague... No, no, she is more senior than me, she is a 'banquet special', and I can only work in the food street of Wanda Plaza..."

Wanda listened and whispered.

Since then, the two tenants have gradually become acquainted.

Mrs. Song would do laundry for Gao Hui to dry, and cook a delicious meal when he occasionally took a bath.

In return, Gao Hui will help Mrs. Song find out about her husband.In addition, if their furniture or roof is broken, he will also help to repair it.

Gao Hui knew his own food intake, so he really let go of his stomach to eat, and he was able to eat up the three to five days' rations of their mother and daughter in one meal.So every time I eat very reservedly, and then come to Beizhen Fusi Yamen the next day to eat pig food madly.

Their mother and daughter lived there until the beginning of last year, before Wanda entered Beijing.

Suddenly one day, the two disappeared.

Just half a month ago, Gao Huigang followed Tiqi to cross-province to handle the case, and ransacked the house of a high-ranking official, and was allocated a lot of "benefit fees".As soon as he came out of Beizhen Fusi, he didn't even eat the celebration banquet, so he wanted to go back and see the mother and daughter who hadn't seen each other for a long time.

Passing by the night market, he was in a good mood and bought a clay figurine for Xiaohui.

The Temple of Mercy holds temple fairs on the 25th and [-]th of every month.At that time, villagers from the nearby ten miles and eight townships and even people from the city of Beijing will come to watch the fun.

There are everything in this temple fair, selling pots and pans, clothes, hats, shoes and socks, hairpin flowers, net towels and leather belts.There are also a variety of snacks, including meat and vegetables, stir-fried liver and belly, barbecued lamb intestines, everything is included.There are also many things to amuse children, such as windmills, bamboo dragonflies, clay figurines, and sugar paintings, which are enough to keep these children lingering for a whole day.

At the last temple fair, Xiaohui took a fancy to the clay figurine of "Meng Zhangfei". At that time, she pestered Mrs. Song for a long time, but she failed to get her wish.

If this girl saw "Zhang Fei", wouldn't she die laughing?

Gao Hui held the bamboo stick under the clay figurine and walked, even his steps became much more cheerful.

Walking to the gate of the familiar courtyard, Gao Hui couldn't help but stop.

What greeted him was a completely dark and silent garden.

The same as a year ago, as many years ago, when he came back every night to see.

There is no warm light, no smell of food, no laughter from Xiaohui, nor the figure of Mrs. Song mending clothes under the lamp.

Gao Hui held the bamboo stick under the clay figurine and was stunned for a long time.

He walked into Mrs. Song's mother and daughter's house by the moonlight, and found that their clothes and luggage were gone.There is already a thin layer of ash on the pit, which shows that no one has come in for a long time.

He just left like that, disappeared without even saying hello...

For the first time, Gao Hui knew what it means to be "lost in a sense of loss".He walked back to his room in a daze, stuck the clay figurine "Zhang Fei" on the window sill, and sat down on the chair.

On the corner of the bed were neatly folded a few pieces of clothes that he changed and washed half a month ago. Mrs. Song probably put them away for him and put them there after folding them.

Not even willing to light the lamp, Gao would open the window and look at the cold moonlight outside.

After they left, did Mrs. Song find her husband?

Yes, they came from thousands of miles just to find a husband.Now that he is gone, there must have been news of that man.

In this case, even if there is no "Zhang Fei" clay figurine, Xiaohui will be very happy.

After that, Gao Hui overheard and asked that Mrs. Song really left in a hurry.After hastily saying goodbye to the aunts, he took Xiaohui and left.

Didn't have time to leave a single word.

Since then, Gaohui has resumed a solitary life.As for him, this small courtyard has become a place only for sleeping.

A strong wind in autumn lifted the thatch off the roof.In winter, the tiles were cracked by frost, and the house began to leak again. Fortunately, it didn't leak on the kang, so let it go.

If it weren't for the "Zhang Fei" who was stuck on the window sill by Gao Hui and had been air-dried and deformed, he would have almost thought that he had just had a dream before.

"That Mrs. Song, is she in the 'Forget Me Pavilion' now? Is she the one who cooked for us today?"

Wanda asked cautiously.

Seeing Gao Hui nodding with heartache, Wanda was disappointed.

No matter how quiet the appearance of the "Forgetting Me Pavilion" is, it is also the place of fireworks and willow lanes.How could Mrs. Song, such a decent woman, come to this kind of place to be a cook?

"That's right... You must be used to the food cooked by Mrs. Song, so you recognized it right away today."

Wanda suddenly took a deep breath, "The little girl standing next to Pipa girl today, could it be the 'Xiaohui' you mentioned!"

No wonder!That's why the little girl showed a puzzled expression when she saw the back of Gao Hui who pretended to be drunk and pounced on him.

Xiaohui is still young, only ten years old, so she can only be raised as a girl in a brothel.But what about after a few years?

When she is thirteen or fourteen years old, when she is tingling, will Lin Sanniang from "Forget Me Pavilion" let her go?

Both Mrs. Song and Xiaohui are good girls from decent families. Now they are living in fireworks. Although they are a cook and the other is a girl, no one knows what will happen in the future!

"You must have gone to the back kitchen. Did you see Mrs. Song? Did she say anything to you?"

Wanda stood up, rubbing her hands anxiously.

"I pretended to be drunk and bumped my way to the back kitchen..."

He pushed open the door of the back kitchen. Apart from Mrs. Song, there were two middle-aged women and a young servant who were standing by the stove at that time. They were all shocked when they saw Gao Hui suddenly barged in. .

Facing him was Mrs. Song, who was wearing a bib, tied up and struggling, with a haggard face.

The moment Gao Hui appeared, Mrs. Song's eyes flashed a lot of emotions.

Happiness, shame, fear, and sudden expectations.

She immediately realized that she couldn't let others see that the two of them knew each other.

So he called out, took two steps back, and shrank behind the stove.

Fortunately, Deng Xiang arrived at this time, stopped the "drunk" Gao Hui, and blamed him for doing good deeds everywhere after only two drinks, and wanted to take him outside to blow some air to sober him up.

Gao Hui understood immediately, staggered, and followed Deng Xiang out of the kitchen full of nonsense.

Before leaving, he turned his head to look at Mrs. Song who secretly looked at him from bottom to top.

"wait for me."

He said with his mouth.

"My lord, please save Mrs. Song's mother and daughter. They are the daughters of a good family. They must have been wronged to live in brothels!"

Before Wanda could react, Gao Hui knelt down on his knees and kowtowed three times to him.

"The subordinates will do their best to serve the adults and the court with all their heart."

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