The Second Master of the Red Chamber

What Jia Lian said to Feng Jieer that night was definitely more than just a suggestion.

The current situation in Rongguo Mansion does restrict his development, unless he really loses his face and does something like "occupying the magpie's nest".

But he obviously didn't need to.

Until now, in addition to the property handed over to Feng Jieer and the property under the name of the Lin family, the cash flow in his hands still exceeds one million!
With so much wealth in hand, you could easily take out a few hundred thousand taels to build a spacious and luxurious villa, bring in beauties like Baochai, Daiyu and others, and live your own life behind closed doors. Wouldn't that be wonderful?

Therefore, in the past two days, Jia Lian personally went to the place where the Lai family was located and conducted a detailed investigation.

In order to build a back garden imitating the Grand View Garden, Lai Da's family spent a lot of money to obtain the real estate deeds of more than a dozen households in the surrounding area. Those real estate deeds naturally came into the hands of the official cemetery of Rongguo Mansion.

In addition, Jia Lian told Lai Sheng that he wanted to build a new house and had taken a fancy to his family's land. Lai Sheng immediately said happily that he had wanted to move to another place for a long time...

Therefore, the site is large enough and there is no shortage of money. He just needs to ask the Ministry of Works to invite a few skilled "designers" to survey the site, make a construction blueprint, and then he can hire people to start construction.

His mourning period will end in the spring of next year. He wants to marry Baochai and Daiyu into his family before the mourning period is over.

Therefore, time is very urgent.

However, due to Lady Jia's "request" conveyed by Sister Feng, Jia Lian did not do these things in a high-profile manner, but prepared secretly.

He did not think that Jia Mu and the others could come up with any good way to stop him. In fact, by now, there was little he could not do if he wanted to. At least that was the case in the two mansions of the Jia family.

After finishing his own affairs, Jia Lian returned to Ningguo Mansion to take a look at Jia Jing's funeral arrangements.

Although he had already mastered the art of handling funerals, both the mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law, Youshi, were also good at household chores, so Jia Lian naturally didn't need to do it himself and worry too much.

After taking a quick look around and finding that there was nothing missing from the relationship between Youshi, the mother-in-law and her daughter-in-law, Jia Lian headed west to find some free time.

The original intention was to go to Tianxiang Tower to have fun with Gu Qingyi, the four beauties and the dozen or so little actors, but after all, they remembered that there would be a funeral at Ningguo Mansion tomorrow, and it would be inappropriate to have singing and dancing in someone else's house at this time of year.

So she forced herself to walk and headed for the Grand View Garden, intending to find the golden hairpins to improve her relationship.

He had not decided which stop to go first, but just as he reached the back of Yihong Courtyard, he heard beautiful piano music coming from Longcui Mountain.

Jia Lian immediately quickened his pace and walked up the dozens of stone steps in front of the mountain gate to the Longcui Temple.

Following the sound of the piano, it is easy to see two stunning ladies communicating about the piano under the rose rack in full bloom.

The beautiful lady sitting cross-legged on the mat holding the zither and playing it didn't show any special reaction when she saw Jia Lian. The other beautiful lady who was sitting quietly at the stone table looked up and saw him, but she frowned slightly, snorted, and turned her head away, pretending to ignore him.

Jia Lian seemed to be unaware and sat down beside her. He waited until the lady finished playing the piece before clapping his hands and saying with a smile, "Yes, Qingyi's zither skills have improved again. I'm afraid there are few people in this world who can match Qingyi in the art of zither.

In time, Tsing Yi will surely leave a mark in the history of vocal music."

Gu Qingyi put down the zither, stood up and saluted, saying, "Sir, thank you for your praise. Qingyi's skills are so humble that I really don't deserve it."

Before Jia Lian could say anything else, Miaoyu snorted, "Someone has ruined the good atmosphere. Sister Qingyi, let's go and talk inside."

As he said this, he stood up and asked Gu Qingyi to leave.

Fortunately, Gu Qingyi was not as arrogant as her. She glanced at Miaoyu who was obviously in a bad mood, shook her head and smiled, without saying anything or moving.

Miaoyu's face turned ugly. She felt that these little sisters were too disrespectful to her. She was standing there, not knowing whether to leave or stay, and was quite embarrassed.

She was going to leave after all, but just as she took a step, her hand was grabbed by someone and then pulled back by a powerful force.

"Let me go. It's broad daylight. How can you be so rude in such a way?"

Looking at Miaoyu's face, which was still extremely beautiful and even had a bit of interest even when she made a grumpy face, Jia Lian smiled while secretly wondering if it was because he hadn't visited this young lady for too long, causing her to feel resentful again?

But after thinking carefully for a long time, he confirmed that he had only not been to Longcui Temple for two days.

So he asked with a smile: "Tell me, what's going on? Why are you giving me a cold shoulder as soon as you get here?"

In front of outsiders, Miaoyu still felt embarrassed when Jia Lian held her hand and asked her with a doting look on his face.

To the point that he could no longer pretend to be unhappy.

She said shyly, "Nothing, I'm just curious why the Duke, who is so busy with official duties, didn't take your sister Lin or sister Xue out of the city to play today, but thought of coming to my Longcui Temple instead."

When Jia Lian heard what he meant, he immediately cried out, "What a heartless thing to say! I sent someone to call you that day, but you didn't want to go. Now you blame me?"

Jia Lian looked at me as if he was being unreasonable, which made Miaoyu blush.

She glanced at Gu Qingyi, who was standing by her side with her eyes fixed on the melon, and said angrily, "Yes, I have no conscience and I am unreasonable. Anyway, I am a person that no one wants to talk to. Go away, don't come to me, go find your well-educated sister from the Xue family!"

Miaoyu's behavior was not completely unreasonable.

The day before yesterday, Jia Lian took his sisters from the garden out of the city for an outing, and he sent someone to invite her.

But she was jealous and annoyed by the sudden news that Jia Lian was going to marry Baochai, and also because of her status, she refused without a second thought. But in her heart, she actually wanted to go out of the city to play with Jia Lian and others.

She even thought that if Jia Lian really cared about her and came to invite her in person, she would reluctantly agree to go.

But it didn't happen.

After the girls in the garden came back, she learned from the maids' word of mouth and her casual conversations with the girls how happy they had been playing that day. She couldn't help but regret it.

That would be fine, but Jia Lian seemed to have forgotten her existence these past two days and has not come to see her.

In addition to the matter of Baochai, if she could be in a good mood when seeing Jia Lian, she would not be the fairy Miaoyu with low emotional intelligence.

Jia Lian could naturally hear some of Miaoyu's emotions from her sour words.

But he didn't care too much and didn't intend to explain.

Women of this era, especially women of such an outstanding man as him, have a very good ability to comfort themselves.

Even if they can't solve the problem themselves, the people around them will help them.

What he needs to do is to take care of their physical and mental feelings to the best of his ability and let these delicate flowers grow as healthily as possible.

It just so happened that Jia Lian knew very well how to take good care of the physical and mental feelings of Miaoyu, an 18-year-old girl.

While smiling inwardly, Jia Lian stood up and said righteously, "Nonsense! Who said that no one wants to pay attention to my little nun? When you say this, are you saying that Qingyi is not a human being?"

Jia Lian smiled as he picked up the tall but light Miaoyu and carried her sideways.

When Miaoyu heard Jia Lian call her a little nun in front of outsiders, she was immediately shocked and felt extremely ashamed.

It was because this name, which she obviously disliked, was the word that Jia Lian liked to say when they were alone in the depths of the Zen room discussing the Dao with her.

He was about to retort in shame and anger, but unexpectedly, he was picked up by Jia Lian.

Now it was meaningless to say anything, she said hurriedly: "What are you doing... Sister Qingyi is still here..."

She was so embarrassed that she was almost incoherent. In her heart, she even thought that Gu Qingyi didn't know the true relationship between her and Jia Lian!
How could she know that Gu Qingyi had already been convinced of her background since their first meeting.

Do you really think that the most popular courtesan in Jiangnan is so outgoing that she calls me sister the first time we meet?

Seeing this scene, Gu Qingyi's expression hardly changed. After seeing Miaoyu stopped struggling in Jia Lian's arms, Jia Lian still had no intention of letting her go. How could she not understand that Jia Lian had the idea of ​​favoring her.

So he bowed and left quietly.

Of course, Jia Lian is not as stupid as Miaoyu. He knows his relationship with Miaoyu and he can hide it for a while but not forever.

In fact, many people must have speculated about his relationship with Miaoyu until now. But until now, there has been no decent rumors in the two houses.

Perhaps they were afraid to spread it, or perhaps there were too many gossips about Jia Lian, and a mere Miaoyu was not worth mentioning at all.

But no matter what, there is certainly no need for Jia Lian to hide his relationship with Miaoyu from Gu Qingyi.

Using words and brute force, he half coaxed and half forced Miaoyu to calm down in his arms, and then he was about to walk towards the Zen room.

Suddenly remembering something, he turned around and looked at Gu Qingyi, who had the same tall figure and the same cold face as Miaoyu. He said naturally, "You follow me too."

Gu Qingyi was stunned, and then seemed to recall some embarrassing scenes. Her face, which had been calm all along, finally turned a lot redder.

Even Gu Qingyi was like this, let alone Miaoyu who was already extremely embarrassed.

After hearing Jia Lian's order, she immediately raised her neck and wanted to express herself.

Jia Lian noticed it at the first moment, and while he held her tightly with both hands, he lowered his head and kissed her thin lips.

The kiss was light and gentle.

This was not the first time that Miaoyu was kissed by Jia Lian, and she felt the love and favor from Jia Lian through this kiss for the first time.

Before she could feel it clearly, Jia Lian looked up and said to her softly, "Be good and listen to me."

So she stared at Jia Lian blankly for a moment, then turned her head and buried her face in Jia Lian's chest, acting like an ostrich.

Jia Lian couldn't help but burst into laughter.

Ignoring the two girls' embarrassment, he strode forward, leaving only one sentence behind: "Pick up the zither as well."

This time, Gu Qingyi really couldn't keep up with Jia Lian's pace. It took her a long while to realize Jia Lian's intention.

After hesitating for a while, he finally turned around, picked up the guqin on the ground, and followed Jia Lian. (End of this chapter)