The Legend of the Long Room in the Red Mansion

Before the palace and the capital were in chaos, the Jia family was in chaos first.

Shi Taijun was not at home, and Mrs. Wang was immoral and untalented. It was half the effort to take care of the family, and even some old servants who thought they were respectable acted in a grand manner.

Jia Huan's begging Caiyun to help him steal things became a starting point. All the decent maids in Mrs. Wang's room began to give favors with the things in the room. They are a little old and sensible, and they don't want to leave this room.The second room now has no room for the maids to linger, except for Baoyu who is somewhat attractive, but there are already too many beautiful maids in his room, and the Jin Chuaner sent by Mrs. Wang is basically gone. There may be another aunt reserve.

Instead of staying in the room of Mrs. Wang, who has already had a bad reputation, it is not easy to choose who to marry in the future, so the big maids tend to move to the room of the leisurely and decent old lady.There are also some second-tier maids who don't dare to set their sights so high, and they generally set their sights on the grandma Li Wan, hoping to be released in a few years and marry a decent steward.These are not enough, all that is left is to work hard towards the girls.

Now the goddaughter Baoqin who lives with Mrs. Wang has become the number one candidate—near water, she is friendly, and her family is extremely rich. To look forward to?To put it politely, it is called a descendant of the Duke, and there is a concubine in the palace as a backer, but if you put it bluntly, it means that the nepotism is not good, and you will not go halfway, and the skirt in the palace There is also the suspicion of old age.This directly led to the fact that Tanchun, the serious lady of the second room, was far inferior to Baoqin in the market.

Next is Baochai. Many maids have admired Baochai since she came here. They think she is approachable, gentle and kind, and generous in her hands. Moreover, Baochai’s family has more money than Baoqin. If you follow her for a few years, you will definitely be rewarded. You can get a sum of money with the deed, and it is cheaper to buy a house and land when you go home.The only thing Baochai loses to Baoqin is that she is not as good at hooking up as Baoqin. As a result, after the maids made up their minds, they suddenly found that Baochai seemed to cooperate with them, and began to frequent Mrs. Wang's room and Lixiangyuan .

After being in a dilemma for a while, the maids realized that there is no need to be too difficult, because Baoqin and Baochai often act together, and they can please anyone when they get the chance.But Baochai is a little troubled that Baoqin always follows her. If she wants to get mad at Mrs. Wang, she can't bring a companion. She was already worried enough that she didn't come to a conclusion last month. If she can't tell the truth this month, I'm afraid the princess I'm about to get angry.

Baochai tries her best to push Baoqin to other girls, but although Baoqin has a good relationship with everyone, she is still her cousin with Baochai, and she habitually looks for her first when she is around.Baochai had no choice but to go to Baoyu's place to intentionally or unintentionally raise some topics such as poetry clubs and receptions, so that Baoyu could go and make fun of it, so as to take the opportunity to throw Baoqin away.

Baoyu really likes this. His life has not been very orderly these days. Jia Zheng gave him a lot of homework before he took office. His favorite sister Lin moved away again. Mama learns the rules and doesn't play with him. The new sisters are not yet familiar with their tempers, so he doesn't dare to be too presumptuous. As a result, Xiangyun is the only one to accompany him crazy, and it will become boring after a long time .When Kou Baochai mentioned the matter of having fun, Bao Yule jumped on the spot.

Mrs. Wang did not want Baoyu to play with only Daiyu. As long as Daiyu was not around, Mrs. Wang would not ask which girl Baoyu wanted to play with.As for the foreign filial piety, everyone has to look sad, and most of the actors and operas raised by the official family have been dismissed, but there are still a group of twelve little opera girls in the Grand View Garden, but they are temporarily not singing. That's all.Therefore, such trivial matters as Baoyu wanting to eat, drink and have fun are even more harmless in Madam Wang's eyes. She only ordered a few words not to drink too much, so as not to hurt her body, so she ordered the kitchen to prepare food and drinks for them.

Seeing this, Baochai pushed Baoyu, winked at him, and smiled coquettishly.Baoyu was full of joy, took Mrs. Wang's hand and said coquettishly, "If we play alone, my wife will be lonely. You might as well go with your son."

Seeing that her son was thinking about her, Mrs. Wang smiled contentedly and said, "I'm a god, I won't make trouble with you."

Baochai saw the opportunity and interjected: "Auntie, why don't you go to my mother for a while, and then bring the colorful clouds and clouds, and play cards for a while." She had already discussed with Baoyu that she would send Mrs. Wang away and let her Go with Aunt Xue to keep company, lest they can't let go of playing.Baochai hadn't given Baoyu a good face for a long time, but at this moment she suddenly changed her attitude, chatting and laughing with him, Baoyu was so fascinated that she couldn't think about anything else, and just let Baochai command.

Mrs. Wang also intended to let Baoyu wantonly be happy for a while, so she readily agreed, and took away the colorful clouds and clouds as Baochai wished, leaving only Yuchai to watch the house.Seeing this, Baochai instructed Baoyu to take the maid in his room off to play as well, and Jin Chuaner came to play with Yu Chuaner, and the two sisters chatted and couldn't care less about looking at the house.

Baochai secretly took advantage of this, and immediately made up her mind to get everyone drunk as soon as possible, and pretended to be drunk herself, so as to wait for the opportunity to search Mrs. Wang's house.It was very difficult to do it alone, so Baochai had no choice but to confide part of the truth to Yinger, her confidant.Ying'er has been with Baochai since she was a child, and she has no family by her side, so she wholeheartedly follows the Xue family, letting her know that there will be no danger of leaking the secret.

Originally, Jia Huan would be able to help if he was there, and he would be happy to harm Mrs. Wang's things even without explaining the reason to him.But unfortunately, this day is the family sacrifice of the Jia family. Jia Lian led Jia Huan and Jia Lan to Tiekan Temple to burn paper to sacrifice the coffin. Jia Cong and Jia Amnesty did not go this time because they caught a cold and were not feeling well.After Jia Qiang got off duty, she went along with a few young people of the same generation in the clan, and they didn't expect to come back until evening.Baochai didn't expect her mother to delay Mrs. Wang until after dinner, so she had no choice but to wait for Jia Huan to come back, and took Yinger and her two to do it herself.

At that time, the banquet was ready, but there was no wine, so Baochai was very anxious, how could she fill people without wine.Fortunately, Baoyu yelled earlier than anyone else: "Why don't you bring wine?"

A woman at the bottom replied: "My brother, who dares to get drunk in this day and age?"

Xiang Yun said unhappily: "We're just playing around at home, and we're not going out for a drink, so why bother?"

Li Wan hastily stopped him: "Calm down, when the old lady comes back, I don't care if you eat a pot, you can take it at this time." Li Wan is the oldest and the eldest sister-in-law, she sent a message However, Baoyu is not good at making trouble.

Seeing this, Baochai came forward to hold Li Wan back, and said with a smile, "Sister Yun is right. We're just having a small banquet at home. It's all about relaxing. Who can really get drunk? My sister-in-law just doesn't look at us. , don't hold Qin'er, even the old lady at home said she shouldn't be in charge of her." Baoqin went in without knowing it, but seeing that her cousin had changed her temper and wanted to drink and have fun so much, it was not easy to break the stage, so she pulled it away. Pull Baoyu's sleeve, motioning him to act like a baby.

Sure enough, Li Wan, who was pestered by Baoyu, promised them to drink, but Li Wan was afraid that they would be really drunk, so he insisted on watching them, lest there be any accidents, Mrs. Wang would definitely question her.Baochai felt very sad, with such a Zhenshan Taisui around, something bad would happen, but it was not easy to get ahead, so he could only take one step at a time.

Immediately, the wine jar was moved up, Xiangyun and Baoyu took the lead, and soon there was a commotion.Bao Qin is also very lively, and Li Wan's two younger sisters, Li Wen and Li Qi, are also young, so they were also attracted to her after a while.Xiuyan is relatively more demure, but she is also honest, and she can dismiss it with any excuse.In order to pretend to be drunk as soon as possible and go to rest in Mrs. Wang's room, Baochai uncharacteristically took the initiative to toast and tried her best to find some interesting games, but she lost frequently and was fined a lot of alcohol.Baoqin wondered secretly, only felt that her cousin was really abnormal today.

Li Wen and Li Qi played for a while before they were sent away by Li Wan. Today, Aunt Li said that she would take their sisters to live with their uncle.As soon as the two sisters withdrew from the banquet, Li Wan also relaxed a lot. After all, she didn't want everyone to drink and have fun during the national filial piety. She was afraid of ruining the reputation of the Li family. Everyone went to mess around.

Xiangyun was the second one to leave the banquet. She drank too much and fell asleep when she went outside to sober up. It was Tanchun who wanted to find her back and made sober soup for her to drink.But Xiangyun was still dizzy. Seeing her like that, Baochai felt that the time was almost up, so she also pretended to be drunk and dizzy, played the Baoqin, and said directly that she wanted to go to her room to lie down.

Although Baoqin lives with Mrs. Wang, they don't live together. She is no more an old widow than Shi Taijun, so she can let Baoqin sleep in her own room.Although Jia Zheng didn't go to Mrs. Wang's room for three to five months, that place had to be reserved for her, so Baoqin lived in the wing.Baochai pretends to be drunk and goes to take a nap in Baoqin's room. Baoqin wants to accompany her, but Yinger persuades her to go out.She also wanted to keep a servant girl to serve her, but she was also declined. Baoqin didn't think much about it, and Tanchun pulled her, so she went back to the front.

When there were only Baochai's master and servant left in the room, Baochai sat up from the bed and put in her mouth the sobering stone she had just brought to Xiangyun for sobering up. Ying'er rubbed her temples for a long time. Completely sober and calm, the two master and servant tiptoed out of the door and quietly sneaked into Mrs. Wang's main room.

Mrs. Wang's room is small and very simple - her private house basically lost the dowry for Yingchun, and most of the things she got from Daiyu were used to decorate the Grand View Garden, and she didn't get much.This was convenient for Baochai and Yinger to rummaging through boxes and cabinets. The master and servant first started one at a time, but the workload was still quite heavy, so they had no choice but to pay attention to the movement outside, while working separately.

Sisters Yu Chuan'er and Jin Chuan'er were sitting in the ear room talking and laughing, Caiyun Caixia followed Mrs. Wang to Lixiangyuan, and the rest of the little girls were sweeping the yard and running errands, so they didn't dare approach the upper room easily.At this time, as long as no outsiders came in suddenly, Baochai and Yinger's actions were basically safe.Ying'er was in charge of searching the cabinets and boxes, because after the search, she had to sort them out again, which was not a technical job that the eldest lady could do.Baochai was in charge of the box on the dressing table. Many ladies’ dressing tables have hidden compartments. Baochai focused on this area, and found a lot of them, but there were no prescriptions. They were all loans from Mrs. Wang. There were also some receipts from the pawn shop. Baochai looked through them carefully for fear of missing them, and was speechless. Mrs. Wang's loan was not small. With such a large amount and such a short period of time, it would be difficult to collect the money. If you are in a hurry, you are afraid that something will happen.

The two searched around roughly, but they didn't see the owner, but they were not discouraged. After all, this is the main room, and there are side rooms on both sides, which is also the place where Mrs. Wang lives daily. There is also a Buddha Madam Wang claims to be pious, and she burns incense every day, so it is unknown where she puts it.It's just that it is difficult to search all the places in one day, Baochai must immediately decide where to go next.

Yinger anxiously waits for Baochai to make up her mind, Baochai is in a dilemma, desperately substitutes herself into Mrs. Wang, trying to deduce where the things might be placed, but it is very difficult.Ying'er whispered: "Girl, make up your mind, if you drag it on, I'm afraid Yu Chuan'er will come back."

Baochai was upset, and gritted her teeth: "Go to the Buddhist hall first." Although the Buddhist hall should be a clean place and should not keep dirty things, who knows whether Mrs. Wang has grasped this kind of psychology of people, and instead Just do it.Yinger was obedient, and when Baochai gave an order, she turned around and ran into the Buddhist hall, not daring to be disrespectful to the Bodhisattva, kowtowed on the knees, and began to search for futons and kneeling mats on the spot.

Baochai moved all the incense sticks on the stove, trying to find the hidden compartment, but this time they found nothing.Ying'er also pinched all the fabrics on and off the stage, not only not daring to take them apart, but also checking them over and over again.However, if the medicine bag can still be squeezed out, I am afraid that what Mrs. Wang is holding is a prescription, so as long as it is sewn into the cushion, no one will be able to touch it.

Ying'er looked at Baochai eagerly, and when she showed her, Baochai really wanted to let Ying'er take apart the cushions and look at them, but she didn't have enough time, so she ordered Ying'er in desperation: "The pattern and pattern of the futon kneeling cushion I remembered everything, I made exactly the same thing when I went back, let’s change things and take them back to look for them.”

Ying'er said with a bitter face: "Good girl, do you see how many things are here? How big are each ones? How can we steal something?"

As soon as Baochai said something wrong, she stomped her feet angrily, but couldn't think of a way out.Pian Yinger urged again: "Good girl, should we go?" He took out a pocket watch from overseas and looked at it: "It's getting late, wait a minute for tea." Kung Fu, I'm afraid Yu Chuan'er will come in to tidy up and prepare dinner."

Baochai gritted her teeth hard, and said with determination: "Go home and try to get Mom to leave Auntie to drink anyway."

Yinger was shocked: "Girl, what about you?"

Baochai supported the statue of Guanyin with one hand, and said decisively: "I'll stay and keep looking. You just have to run back and tell me before they leave the table, and then we'll go back to Girl Qin's room together."