school days in ancient times

Bihua Pavilion is really far away from Shouyunzhai, not because of his elder brother's yard, but in fact Bihua Pavilion is not in Ye Mansion at all.

At that time, his elder brother had just entered the official position, so he was engaged to Jiang Nanchu, the second daughter of the eldest son of Yong'an Hou, a veteran of the three dynasties. According to his official status and family background, his elder sister-in-law was properly married, but his brother, a Duanhua son, was really not good enough. Generally speaking, no one in Yong'an Houman's mansion said he was not happy. It is said that it was the woman's mansion who spoke first.

Ye Shilang is very pleased to have found such a good match for his beloved son, but he is worried about the courtyard of the couple's big wedding. Ye's family is naturally well-off, after all, Ye Heng has been working in the household department for so many years Every year, Bing Jingtan's respect is eye-catching, but it is far from the centuries-old family of Yong'an Hou Mansion. In order to prevent the Hou Mansion's in-laws from underestimating Ye Jing, Ye Shilang immediately decided to abandon the yard he had prepared for the eldest son. , but bought the courtyard next door.

The house next door used to be lived by a family of salt officials, and it was decorated very richly. Although it is only half the size of Ye Mansion, the courtyard is dotted with mountains and rocks, and there are all kinds of pavilions and pavilions. So, Ye Shilang bought this house with a lot of money.

The eldest son was not allowed to go out alone to set up a mansion, so Ye Shilang opened a moon gate on the partition wall between the two courtyards. This is a family, and the next door is named Bihua Pavilion.

The maids in front carried four palace lanterns to illuminate the road ahead, and Ye Mian asked Jiang to hold his sleeves while walking and chatting.

It has been three years since Jiang Nan first married Ye Mian. It is not an exaggeration to say that Ye Mian grew up watching Ye Mian, and Ye Mian is only thirteen now. On the raised arms.

"I came back with the letter today and there are a few carts of things that your brother sent back. I am getting someone to sort them out. I planned to send them to various yards in the next two days, but since you are here today, come over and pick them out. Let the wives follow you to Baofengyuan."

"I'm not in a hurry, it's the same for my sister-in-law to take care of it tomorrow."

"You don't need to pay attention to your share," Jiang said with a chuckle: "The whole car is yours, and the cages don't need to be dismantled. Your brother also told me in the letter to let you choose from other cages. If you like it Just take it, and the rest will be distributed to other courtyards."

"He's so kind." Ye Mian muttered softly.

Jiang Shi smiled and shook his head.

The main courtyard of Bihua Pavilion was brightly lit. Outside the courtyard, several maids were waiting there tiptoeing to look this way. When they saw the light, they hurried up to greet him. Two of them who were familiar with Ye Mian saw him coming, but Very happy, talking about "radish and cabbage".

Little radish and little cabbage are a pair of black and white rabbits bought by Ye Mian on the street last year. They were originally intended to be kept in Baofeng Courtyard. Who knew that Baoxue was allergic to rabbit fur, so they "reluctantly" sent them to Bihua Pavilion. His brother made a birthday gift, but who would have thought that these two rabbits would start to give birth to litters after they arrived at Bihua Pavilion, dozens of black, white and white rabbits, and Ye Jing couldn't throw out the birthday gift from Ye Mian , I had no choice but to set up a separate yard to raise rabbits, and specially allocated two people to take care of them.

Ye Shilang was angry with the smell of the yard and scolded Ye Mian several times.

Ye Mian first followed them to see the newborn cub before returning to the main courtyard. Jiang Shi, who had changed into plain clothes, gave him a crabapple red copper hand stove for him to hold, and took him to the warehouse.

Sure enough, there were more than a dozen boxes and cages in the warehouse, and four of them were sealed with the word "Mian" written on them.

"These are yours, you go back to Baofengyuan and have someone open them," Jiang said, pointing to the four cages.

"Well," Ye Mian nodded with little interest.

There are still a few boxes next to them, the lids of which have been opened and wide open. Ye Mian knew that Jiang wanted him to keep some favorites in them, but Ye Mian didn't even look at them. Walking to the side of the other three cages, the seal above said "Father".

Ye Mian walked over and pulled the seal away, and lifted the lid of the box without any politeness.

Jiang was taken aback.

Ye Mian flipped through the pages, took out a few inkstone paperweights, calligraphy and paintings, and said, "I want these."

"Naughty again, aren't you? Your elder brother gave it to your father."

"This is what I want," Ye Mian insisted, "Anyway, my elder brother didn't write a list for each yard. If you don't tell me, sister-in-law, no one else will know."

Mrs. Jiang glanced at him, stretched out her well-maintained bare hand and tapped his forehead, "Will your elder brother come back and discipline you?" But she turned her head and told Hou Zai's mother-in-law: "Wrap it up for the fourth young master." , take it away together in a while."

Jiang Nanchu: "Don't you want to look at those other boxes?"

"No, I don't like it."

Jiang Nanchu didn't care when he heard it, "Let's go, let's go back, there is another item that your elder brother asked me to hand over to you."

In the hall, after Ye Mian opened the red sandalwood box handed to him by his sister-in-law, he couldn't help laughing, "Why are you all giving me this thing today?"

"Why?" Jiang asked strangely.

Inside the box are two mountain horse hair Xiao pens, which are the best among the best Xiao pens, because the brush hair is made of wild horse hair from the Beiman Mountain, and the material is extremely rare.

"The boy from the Wei family also gave me two during the day, but they were made of sable hair," Ye Mian said while gnawing on an apple.

Mrs. Jiang was stunned for a while, lowered her eyes to think for a while, and said: "It is a good thing that Wei Cheng's son is friendly with you, but the etiquette is a bit heavy, we have to find a way to return the etiquette, so as not to spread rumors that our family does not understand etiquette. .”

Ye Mian nodded, "Then I'll get someone to prepare."

"Okay, what can you prepare?" Jiang said softly: "This thing is meant to be scarce, and it would not look good if you still have some valuable gold and jade. I will ask my natal family to look for it. There are some rare ones. It’s a rare item, find two more and come back, when you grow up, you will need it when you interact with people in the future.”

Ye Mian scratched her head embarrassingly: "How can this trouble the Hou family?"

Jiang smiled warmly and said: "Serious in-laws, why are you troublesome? You don't have to worry about these matters. My mother and I will take care of them. You can study at ease."

After sending Ye Mian away, Mother Du, Jiang's wet nurse, asked worriedly: "The fourth young master took the master's things, what if..."

"Don't worry about it," Mrs. Jiang gently interrupted Mama Du: "We must not interfere with the matter of their father and son."

"Yes." Mama Du lowered her eyes.

"You also saw it at dinner tonight. Although brother Mian didn't make a fuss, he couldn't have it in his heart. It's good to let him vent his anger, but the leftovers are just some of his old man's things, which are not worth anything."

"That's reasonable, but the girl understands it clearly," Madam Du nodded and sighed, "It's better to let it go when you're angry in your heart than to get together and form a feud."

Mrs. Jiang smiled: "Actually, Brother Mian is a magnanimous person, and he knows how to do things. I think when I first married into the Ye Mansion, we were worried every day, for fear that their brothers would not get along. It doesn’t fit, now it’s overthinking.”

"That's true," Madam Du sighed while helping Jiang Shi to sit on the floppy bed, "It's hard for the fourth young master, just after being wronged like this, he didn't blame us, and even protected the girl back to the yard."

"He came here to ease the hearts of our Bi Hua Pavilion, and also to stop the mouths of those servants who love to gossip."

"The fourth young master is really kind, there is nothing more caring than this." Mother Du sighed.

Jiang looked at the busy girl in the distance, pursed her lips and whispered in the nurse's ear: "Better than his brother."

"Naughty!" Mother Du said angrily with a tiger's face.

Jiang shi mischievously blinked her eyes with the wet nurse twice, before returning to the dignified appearance just now.

Feng Jin and Feng Ming carried the lamp for Ye Mian in front, followed by several strong women carrying boxes and cages, and a mighty wave of people was walking towards Baofeng Courtyard.

When they turned a corner and passed through a hallway, a group of people met each other, and when they walked in, they saw clearly that it was his fourth aunt and his concubine Ye Qiao.

"Fourth brother."

"Fourth young master."

Ye Mian accepted the gift from Ye Qiao and Fourth Aunt graciously, and then slightly bowed to return half a gift to Fourth Aunt.

"Where are Auntie and Fifth Brother going?"

"We just came back from Third Brother's Fusang Garden, sent the sticky rice cakes made by Auntie there, and talked to Third Brother for a while," Fifth Young Master Ye Qiao replied.

"I just came back from my eldest brother's place. It's cold at night. You should go back quickly. Fifth brother will go to Baofengyuan to play with me when he is free."

After Ye Mian finished speaking, she nodded to Si Yiniang, and led her away first.

Fourth Aunt stared at the boxes and cages carried by the women for a long time before Ye Qiao called her back to her senses.

"Auntie, what are you looking at? Let's go, it's too cold."

Fourth Yiniang sighed after a long time and said: "Fifth Young Master will have to walk around more with his brothers in the future, especially Eldest Young Master."

Ye Qiao lowered her head and muttered, "How do you move around? Fourth brother is better. Big brother may take a long time to recognize me even when I walk in front of him."

Fourth Aunt bit her lips and remained silent.

Although Ye Shilang is not yet in his forties, he is surrounded by wives and concubines. He has six sons and three daughters in total. Except for the first and fourth young masters who belong to the main family Qiu, the other children are all concubines.

The concubines who had children were all promoted to concubines, the second concubine was the second young master, the third concubine was the elder girl who had already left the court, she gave birth to the third and fifth young masters, the fifth concubine gave birth to the second girl, and the sixth concubine had both children. , is the sixth young master and the third young lady.

In the Dawen Dynasty, these young masters from concubines were said to be young masters, but in fact they were half-servants in front of their sons.

The second young master is the best among the concubines. He studied with the eldest young master since he was a child, and now he follows him to take office. Now who in the manor sees the second young master Ye Yuan is not respectful, but that's because he is a child. The second aunt is the Qiu family. The dowry girl has different feelings.

Unlike her, Ye Fu's housewife is a sweeping girl, without the support of her mother's family, and has no money to take care of her servants. She only won Ye Shilang's favor for a while because of her face. Fortunately, Qiu is not the one who tortures people, his third young master. Brother Cheng is also up to date. Although he can't read well, he is very organized. He has been reused by the Qiu family to help with the general affairs outside the house. It has gotten better in the past two years. Only then did he and the fifth young master, Brother Qiao, straighten up Some backs.

Although Fifth Yiniang only has one daughter, she is already engaged, and now she doesn't care about anything else, she is focused on the second girl's dowry, and goes to Qiu's place every day to serve at morning and evening, even if there is hailstorm.

Sixth Aunt is the most miserable, although she has one son and one daughter, she is not favored, and the servants everywhere are flattering and demeaning, the Sixth Young Master Ming Geer and the third girl are not very easy to live with her.

Si Yiniang sighed heavily when she thought of this, her family will never be wrong after becoming a brother, she only hopes that his brother Qiao can...

Thinking of this, Fourth Aunt hastened her pace of going back to the yard, making more shoes and socks for the mistress these days, so as to mention to her about sending Brother Qiao to the Imperial Academy.