The little lady in the dining room

Chapter 166 Dumplings
There was nothing to do that day, after exchanging with Yi Shi about the Shangshi Bureau and Shangyi Bureau, Xueli accompanied A Yao for a walk around to relieve boredom.The 72 new maids who entered Shangshi Bureau this year are all eight or nine years old. They happened to learn to peel winter bamboo shoots together in the afternoon. Ayao was so happy to see that there are so many sisters who are not a few years older than her. too little.

So Ayao also got two winter bamboo shoots to peel and play with, and stuffed two for Sydney.Of course Sydney is easy to peel, but as for Ah Yao...

Anyway, just playing.

This thing is quite rough to peel. After peeling, it is much smaller than before peeling. Ayao frowned and worked hard. After Sydney quickly peeled two pieces, she looked at her with a chin on the side and a smile. , Ah Yao raised his head to meet Xue Li's smile when he peeled it halfway, and immediately pouted: "Mother, you are bad!"

Oh heh heh...

Xueli felt more and more that Ayao was more fun when she grew up, she was a very smart little girl, she deliberately bullied her, she could tell right away.

Of course, after bullying, she still needs to be coaxed and encouraged. Xueli slowed down a lot when she peeled the pear again, and she didn't peel off the pear completely until Ayao finished peeling the one in hand.

So Ah Yao is very satisfied!I am very self-aware and feel that the time it takes me to peel half of it is about the same as the time it takes my mother to peel one, which is already very good...

The mother and daughter played with winter bamboo shoots like this for nearly an hour. As soon as the female officials in charge of teaching the little palace ladies came in, Xue Li immediately coaxed Ayao away—someone who is not good at peeling will be punished soon, this scene It's better not to let Ah Yao see it.

That night, Xueli coaxed Ayao to sleep together. Before going to bed, Ayao asked her: "Mother asked sour plums and ebony to come over, okay? I miss them!"

Xueli should say "Okay, let them come to accompany you tomorrow", but she felt a little strange for a moment - she had already asked Xingren to call for someone during the day, why didn't she come now?
Maybe I have to pack up and pack up and come over tomorrow?
Xueli didn't ask too much for a while, after all, Suanmei Wumei was different from the other court ladies in Jiugeyuan, and the two of them were inferior when they were slaves.Her urging to others was just urging, and it was more or less a crime for the two of them.Those two little girls had lived their lives with trepidation enough, she would rather relax with them at ordinary times, since it was not an urgent matter anyway.

Early the next morning, when Sydney woke up, she saw Fugui poking her head outside.

A Yao was still soundly asleep, so she greeted her and asked, "What's the matter?"

"There was a little misunderstanding." Fugui also lowered his voice tactfully, "After Sour Plum and Wumei came to Shangshi Bureau yesterday, Xingren said that they had other things to come over by themselves. But these two have never been here Shangshi Bureau, wanted to ask for directions, but encountered a few eunuchs who were being asked in a bad mood, and got into trouble."

Sydney Dai raised her eyebrows, knowing what it meant by "I've hit the mold".People who live in slavery are too easy to encounter "bad luck".

She asked, "Are you hurt?"

"Some." Fugui leaned back, "I was locked up in the firewood room all night. In the morning, Peng Qizhong and Peng Qiyu passed by when he was going to deliver the meals. He heard Wu Mei shouting inside and brought them back. Now people are waiting in the west room, and the eunuchs also came over. Here comes the apology."

Xueli was both angry and suspicious, she was silent for a while and said: "Call someone to come over and look at Ayao, I'll go and have a look."

"No." Fugui agreed, turned around, found candied dates and brown sugar, and told Dou Sha and Sesame to go to Sydney to have a look.

As soon as Xue Li stepped into the west room, four or five eunuchs knelt down, kowtowed and shouted: "My lady, forgive me!"

According to Xue Li's own opinion, she really wants to be "ruthless" for a while, so as to make these people suffer and grow their memory.

——No matter how bad their mood was yesterday, it is not a good person to vent their anger on two little girls who have just turned eight years old with sour plums and dark plums.

After staring at them coldly for a while, Xueli held back.

After all, Shangshi Bureau is not her Jiugeyuan, and the people here are not her people.Although she can rely on her status to get rich, it is too easy to get a bad reputation of "being spoiled and arrogant".In addition, the sour plum and ebony were slaves, and although their actions were not good, there was nothing wrong with it. After this reputation was suppressed, it was difficult for her to even defend herself!

Xueli felt depressed, thinking secretly, can I put some crotons in their bowls after letting them go? !

Pushing away this thought and throwing it away, she coughed lightly: "Before you vent your anger on others in the future, ask who they are. These two girls were allocated by His Majesty to Emperor Ping An, and Di Ji still thought about them last night." Woolen cloth."

A few people kowtowed like garlic, and said repeatedly, "Lady forgive me, Diji forgive me", Xueli held her breath in her heart, so she deliberately let them kowtow for a while, guessing that there was a purple spot on her forehead before saying: " Go about your business."

The eunuchs were excited all over, and after kowtowing again, they didn't dare to hesitate at all, and disappeared in a flash!

Only then did Sydney look at the sour plum and ebony next to it.Both of them had bruises on half of their faces, and they could vaguely see finger marks.The sour plum seemed to be drooping, while the dark plum was so pale that there was no blood left.

The two knelt on the ground and didn't dare to lift their heads, Xue Li walked over and asked, "They didn't ask, why didn't you say you were Diji's people?"

Suanmei trembled: "Lady, slave..."

The moment she raised her eyes to glance at her expression, her eyes were full of panic and regret, and Xue Li almost understood it when she looked at her.

——Probably because she was so frightened at that moment, she was so busy begging for mercy and so on, she couldn't remember that Diji's identity could be suppressed.

She sighed and asked them, "Where is the injury?"

"No..." Suan Mei lowered her head, Wu Mei forcibly calmed down, and said, "Your servant is fine."

Asking the two of them if they are injured, sick or uncomfortable is really anxious to death!
Xueli also knew that they were still very afraid that they would not be kept in Jiugeyuan if they were seriously injured, so they could only tell Fugui, "Go and ask the imperial physician."

"Miss..." Wu Mei's eyes were flushed, and she was about to cry at the next sentence, "You can just take care of yourself, and soon..."

"Don't talk nonsense, let the imperial doctor take a look. I will take care of you at ease, and I won't drive you away." After Xueli finished speaking, she really didn't want to stay in this room any longer, and Suanmei and Wumei were always frightened. Sometimes, she felt extremely depressed.

She inquired, but she couldn't find out what kind of crimes their family had committed and were confiscated as slaves, but she knew that they had been slaves for at least four generations—this made Xue Li feel uncomfortable no matter how she thought about it, if they were really parents If you commit a crime, the father and the son will pay the debt, but there have been so many generations...

They are still children!
So Xue Li felt sad for a while, and sat in the room looking at A Yao's sleeping face in a daze.Until Fugui came in to reply, saying that the imperial doctor had come to see him, and the sour plum was fine, but the leg that had left the root of the disease in the past had some problems and needed to be taken care of, and Wumei's left arm was dislocated.

Fugui sighed and said: "This ebony can bear it too, the dislocation is so painful, just now I didn't let us see it at all. The imperial doctor didn't cry or shout when he showed it to me. He bit his lip and endured it, his mouth was bitten to pieces! "

Sydney: "Are you ready?"

"It's done, I specially invited the adults who are good at bone setting in the Taiyuan Hospital to come over."

Fugui sighed again after he finished speaking, Xueli leaned on the soft pillow for a while and said: "Punish Xingren with half a year's salary, if she doesn't understand why, let her come and ask me directly."

"..." Fugui was startled for a moment, but instead said, "No."

Fugui withdrew, Xue Li turned over, hugged the pillow and weighed it, it should be the right thing to do.

From her own courtyard with only one side, to the courtyard with six grids, and then to the courtyard with nine grids, she has basically never personally punished anyone—at most, she had such an idea before, and then asked the emperor to decide whether it would work, and more often It was the emperor who directly settled the matter for her.

But this time she decided to do it herself.

She must be able to handle the affairs in her yard, at least... She doesn't want to see this kind of thing happen under her nose, which she clearly doesn't want to see.

She took good care of sour plums and ume, which should have been known to everyone in Jiugeyuan. The two of them are very close people around Ayao, so everyone should know it very well.It is also well known that they are easily bullied when they are in slavery or out of Jiugeyuan. Xingren should not have left them behind and let them find a place for themselves.

She wanted to order the almonds like this, so that others could weigh the weight of the almonds.

One is "I don't like to see sour plums and ebony being wronged for nothing, you can protect them more when you can protect them", and the other is "Emperor Ji can't take care of you if you use someone who is handy. Let me figure it out for the first time, thanks."

In the bedroom of the accompanying maids, Xingren was stunned after hearing Fugui's words, and then became a little annoyed.

When Fugui said, "The lady said that if you don't understand why, just ask her directly", she really stood up and wanted to ask Sydney, but Fugui stopped her.

Fugui looked at her and said: "Are you really going? Let me tell you, my lady is not in the right mood right now. Ever since she saw the sour plum and ebony plum, she has been depressed, and her brows are so wrinkled that she can't open her eyes. My lady You don't know yet? You have a kind heart, and you have never been happy to see those two girls being wronged. You are good, throwing people down directly makes people dislocated by bullying, and you really plan to ask the lady? Just figure it out yourself!"

After Fugui scolded her like this, he persuaded her: "Okay, okay, don't be wronged, this matter is over and it's over, and you will have to remember your sex in the future and you will have to commit another crime. A half-year salary is better than a board. , if you need money urgently for something, the lady will not really let you be forced to death by money if she finds out!"

Fugui dared to say this for Sydney.He has known Sydney for the longest time, and he knows that Sydney will never know who is short of money and just sit on the sidelines.

When Peng Qizhong and Peng Qiyu first arrived in the yard, she saw that the two of them had suffered in the past, so she opened her mouth and said that she allocated two qian silver to them every month from her salary, and it has not changed until now.

Xingren is much closer to her than Peng Qizhong and Peng Qiyu.

At this point, Fugui weighed it up—everything that sounds good has been said.So he didn't care that Xingren was still in a daze, he turned around and left, thinking that it would be better for her to figure it out by herself.Anyway, no matter whether she felt that she was wrong or not, she had to persuade herself to go through this hurdle. She was a court lady who served people.

Xingren sat in a daze for a while before slowly recovering.

After thinking and thinking, I was still dissatisfied.

That's obviously just two maids who are in slavery. In the palace, every floor is trampled on. Slave people are always beaten to death and they die in vain. Why does the Ruan family punish her with this excuse?
It's nothing more than to show that his position is a higher level.

Xingren's heart was extremely blocked, and a sneer broke out unknowingly.

Tch, what a big deal.Having given birth to three children, they still have no titles, and I don't know where the overwhelming confidence comes from.

By punishing her for two slave girls, who did she intend to show embarrassment to?
Xingren was bored in the room for a long time, Er Er sat in front of the dressing table and combed his hair vigorously for a long time, the comb pulled his scalp so painful that he didn't care about it, and then he combed his hair again.

She admits it now, but it won't be like this forever.

After all, wasn't Ruan Shi just a court lady in the past?

After careful selection again and again, on the day of the Dragon Boat Festival, Sydney heard that Mrs. Yi had submitted the roster of candidates from the Shangyi Bureau first, and wrote a thick book in detail, including the details of each person selected. The situation is described in full.

This is obviously a fear of making mistakes.

When Xue Li heard about this, she twitched her lips, and looked at the roster she had just drafted on the desk... There were only names, birthplaces, ages, and statuses in it, and she felt that this was enough!Your Majesty is so busy, how can he have time to read such a thick book!

As a result, it was heard that night that the emperor personally wrote a decree to praise Yi, praised her for her virtuousness, and praised her for her ability to handle affairs. By the way, she also remembered her daughter born last year, and granted her the title of Ning'an.

Sydney: "..."

Does this mean that he is quite satisfied with the thick book Yi Shi presented?

Then what she wrote...maybe...too succinct.

Sydney decided to take some time to write a new book, but let’s talk about it tomorrow. Today is a good Dragon Boat Festival, and it’s better to eat rice dumplings happily.

On this day last year, she just started to have a bad mood, and she didn't even eat a few mouthfuls of delicious rice dumplings. This time, she should eat more!
——Ahaha, those two little guys who caused her morning sickness are still too young to eat zongzi!

While wrapping zongzi, Sydney was so beautiful in her mind that she was thinking wildly.All the ingredients prepared in front of her are enough, she plans to pack some more, eat some for herself and A Yao, send some to A Yuan, and send some to Zichen Palace.

Ayao was very enthusiastic to help. She likes the rice dumplings with candied dates the most. She thinks that the steamed candied dates taste sweet, and the surrounding rice is as sweet as honey. It tastes sweet inside and out. very good!

So Xue Li added half of the rice to the nested rice dumpling leaves, and Ayao added dates to it one by one, forcibly filling up the rest of the top!
The distracted Xueli lowered her head: "...too many, I can't steam it like this."

Ah Yao watched tearfully as Mother took out all the dates, only three were left, and covered the remaining space with glutinous rice.

After a busy afternoon, a pot of zongzi was baked in the evening, and the fragrant glutinous rice smell mixed with the steamed smell of other ingredients filled the room.

As soon as Duan entered the room, Ah Yao was overjoyed, clapped his hands and jumped on the couch for a while, then ran down, sat down in front of the desk and said, "Mother, I want to eat jujubes!"

"Okay!" Xueli responded quickly, took out a red cotton thread, peeled it off and handed it to Ayao with a zong leaf. Ayao looked at it and said, "You eat first."

So nice!

Xueli hugged A Yao to "baji" a kiss, took a bite of the rice dumpling, put it aside and peeled a new one for her.She opened the cotton thread with her right hand, and picked up a few more wrapped in light yellow thread with her left hand, and called someone in: "Send these to Your Majesty and A Yuan, and then take a few of other flavors and send them together. I want to say that the one with the light yellow line was made by Ayao!"

Hearing this, Ah Yao giggled and shrank into Xue Li's arms, and Xue Li brought the rice dumplings to her mouth, and she took a bite until her mouth was full of sticky glutinous rice.

Xingren and Brown Tang went forward together to pick up the rice dumplings made by Ah Yao, and went to the kitchen to pick out two of various flavors, divided them into two food boxes, and carried them to Zichen Hall.

This summer is not too hot, and I didn't sweat much after walking all the way on the palace road. The light beige skirt fluttered in the breeze, casting a soft brilliance among the red walls.

Soon they arrived in front of the Zichen Hall, the two nodded each other and said goodbye, Brown Tang went to the Jiuge Courtyard at the back of the hall, Xingren raised his eyes to look at the long steps in front of him.

The long rank is so high.The grand hall above is breathtaking, and it seems that if you concentrate for a while, you will be overwhelmed by the momentum.

Xingren calmed down, lifted the hem of the skirt lightly, and walked up.

In front of the hall, Chen Jijiang blocked her way.

"My lord." Xingren bowed her knees and said with a smile, "Miss Ruan asked the slaves to come..."

"Hey, I know you're from Miss Ruan's side." Chen Jijiang smiled, and beckoned Xingren to take two steps away, pointing to the palace gate behind him, "The people from His Majesty's residence just came here, and His Majesty is not in a good mood You, be smart when you go in, ah."

This is an ordinary point, but it makes Xingren's heart light up.

She thanked Chen Jijiang again, stepped over the threshold, and went to the side hall to bring out the rice dumplings from the tray, thinking about every word she was going to say in a hurry.

The road through the outer hall is so long, the dim light makes people feel as if the roof of the hall is pressing down...

However, it went so fast again.It seems that in the blink of an eye, the threshold of the inner sanctum is in sight.

Xingren raised his eyelids slightly, and looked at the emperor who was sitting in front of the case.

He was reading the memorial, his expression was extremely flat, and he could not see any unhappiness.If it wasn't for Chen Jijiang's reminder, she would not be able to see anything.

Xingren breathed out slightly, and walked in again.

The emperor was reading the memorial, and from the corner of his eye, he saw a court lady reaching out to remove the original dim sum on the case, and replaced it with a plate of zongzi, but ignored it.

The memorial turned a page.

A gentle voice sounded beside him: "Your Majesty is in a bad mood? Eat something, maybe you will feel better."

These words sound very familiar.

(End of this chapter)