《Legend of Concubine's Daughter Minglan 知否知否 應是綠肥紅瘦》C180. The Man Come Back from Work (115)
Advertisement
It was already three o'clock in the afternoon when Fifth Old Madam and her two daughters-in-laws left. Minglan didn't want to sleep anymore. So she came back to the room to get changed. After that, Xiaotao served a bowl of three delicacies warm soup with orecchiette. As Minglan drank the soup, she started to browse the personal files of each servant which had just been presented to her at the same time.
"I see our madam really love eating liquid food." Caihuan followed Xiaotao to clean up things in the Shao room (T/N: The room next to the main room). While they were working together, Caihuan said smilingly, "Luckily, you are good at cooking that."
Xiaotao bent over to gather all the clothes which had been dried in the noon. While she was folding the clothes one after another, she answered, "Speaking of this, Mama Qiu from our previous mansion is the best in this. The orecchiette she rolled out is so chewy. I only have a smattering of her skills."
"There are so many things for me to learn." Caihuan took the iron which had already fulfilled with charcoal and asked, "Should we iron the clothes here?"
"No, let's go outside to do it." Xiaotao, with her voice lowered, carried a pile of clothes and went out gently. Then she stopped at the front door of the side room.
Only until then did Caihuan remind of something and say, "Is it inappropriate for us to leave madam alone in the room?"
Xiaotao picked up a piece of snow satin underwear and spread it on the board slowly, "This is our lady's rule. Unless there are guests in the room, she prefers to stay alone. Because she doesn't like others walking around in her room."
Caihuan kept that in mind and then asked, "What if she needs tea or something else?"
"Xiaotao took over the iron and began to iron the clothes while saying, "So normally one of us would stay in the room next door. If our lady needs anything, she would call us. Let's finish the ironing quickly and go to the Shao room."
After Caihuan had hesitated for a while, she still found that rule a bit strange. Then she asked, "Then... what if Master needs anything?"
Xiaotao, feeling that question rather strange, raised her head and asked, "Why should we care about what Master needs?"
Being contradicted by Xiaotao, Caihuan gave out an awkward smile and said, "You are right. As our madam's maids, we should always put her needs in the first place."
In the late afternoon, the dark clouds suddenly gathered overhead, which covered half of the sky. Then a sudden clap of thunder sounded from the distance, following which were a heavy downpour. The giant raindrops fell so rapidly as if they were poured onto the ground.
Seeing the rain becoming like a torrent now, Minglan turned around and patted on Xiaotao's shoulder while praising, "Luckily you have already picked up the clothes this afternoon. You do have a prophetic eye." Xiaotao who knew nothing about being modest nodded and said, "Madam, I think you are right."
Then Minglan taught Xiaotao patiently, "No, you should say, 'You have taught me well, madam."
Xiaotao learned very quickly and even added her own words, "You have taught me well, madam. You are the one who has a prophetic eye!"
Minglan nodded smilingly as her commendation to Xiaotao.
"And did your prophetic eye tell you that your husband would be exposed to the rain?"
Advertisement
A scornful voice of a man sounded at the door. Minglan and Xiaotao both turned around. Then they found Gu Tingye standing at the door like a drowned rat with water dropping from his red silk court suit with Qilin patterns. The ground where he was standing were full of water right away.
Minglan, as startled as she was, looked at this wet man from top to the bottom and then said surprisedly, "I, I did have predicted the rain. When I took a nap in the afternoon, I felt today was quite stuffy. So I have already told Gu Shun to bring the umbrella to you." Minglan felt herself so virtuous when saying that.
With darkness covered half of Gu Tingye's face, he goggled at her for a while and then uttered, "... I went to the imperial court on horse."
Minglan blinked her eyes. After she had thought of his words for a while, she finally realized that riding a horse was not like riding a bike. He was not able to hold the umbrella and the bridle rein at the same time. Then she blushed due to embarrassment and answered a 'oh' softly. Also, she didn't forget to remind him, "Why don't... you take the coach to work next time. Then we won't need to worry about the winds or the rains."
After Gu Tingye had heard of that, the other half of his face also turned dark.
Without saying a word, he walked to the inner room. Then Minglan ordered instantly, "Xiaotao, call Xiahe over..." Gu Tingye, with sullenness still on his face, turned around and pulled Minglan over, "Why can't you serve your own husband? Don't call her. Get in there with me!" As saying this, he dragged Minglan into the inner room.
Minglan was completely stumped by his words. Then she could only turn around and say, "Xiaotao, prepare the hot bath water. Also, bring us the ginger soup!"
After they had got into the inner room, Gu Tingye opened his arms behind the folding screen and waited there. Minglan, having touched her nose, lowered her head and unbuttoned his clothes. After the drenched clothes had been taken off, his strong body was exposed. Then he put on the long robe which had been passed over by Minglan and got into the Jing room (T/N: bathroom in ancient times.) to take a bath. Minglan only heard the sound of the gurgling water. After a short while, Gu Tingye went out in a clean snow silk nightclothes. As he sat upright on the edge of the bed like a mountain with his long fingers put on his knees, he stared at Minglan coldly in silence.
Minglan looked at him as well, not knowing what had happened. After being in a daze for a while, her nature of drawing on advantages and avoid disadvantages was finally awaken. She took a handkerchief and came over to him. Then she scrubbed his wet and thick black hair. While she was doing that, Gu Tingye smelt the musk-like fresh fragrance from her, which made him feel very pleasant. Then he held his little wife's waist and attached his half-wet face to her, feeling extremely warm and comfortable.
"Stop being angry." Minglan said that while rubbing his hair through the dry handkerchief.
Gu Tingye let Minglan sit on his knees with his arms around her waist. After she had sat tight in his arms, Gu Tingye looked at her with his two dark eyes and asked, "Do you know why I was angry?"
Advertisement
Minglan asked tentatively, "I should have sent someone to pick you up in a coach, right?"
Seeing the confused look in Minglan's eyes, Gu Tingye sighed secretly and said, "Forget about it. I won't die of getting wet. How are you today? Everything alright in the mansion?"
Minglan breathed a sigh of relief after Gu Tingye had changed the subject. Then she took a stack of papers from the desk at once and handed them to Gu Tingye, saying, "See, what do you think of this? I'm a clever girl, aren't I?"
Having browsed a few pages, Gu Tingye burst into laughter, "Good for you to think of this." He raised up his head to look at Minglan, finding her method quite funny.
Minglan knew that he must be laughing at her inwardly. Then she argued with her mouth twitched, "I don't want to use the people with unknown backgrounds."
Gu Tingye glanced over the papers on the top while saying with a smile, "Ha ha, our mansion is full of hidden talents. We even have the purchaser and craftsmen from Duke Ling's mansion. Well, the cooks are not so good. They are all second-class chef... Mama Lai's sons have all got rid of their indenture? But Mama Hua hasn't made any progress over these years. How generous is Fourth Aunt, she even sent Mama Tian's whole family to us..."
However, the smile on Gu Tingye's face gradually faded away after he had finished reading a few papers. He had to admit that Minglan's method was right to the point. The simple personal resumes of those servants could reflect many things. The place where they had come from, the rewards or punishments they had received, the whereabouts of their families as well as their previous jobs were all stated neatly on the paper. A few words could imply so many things about that person. As a result, lots of things in the dark were also exposed.
"This is a great way!" He commented briefly with fierce expression in his eyes, "We have to make our mansion a clean place. Anyone who dares to act stealthily, just punish or sold them! And if someone gossips about that, send them to me! I'll see who's so bold to plot in my mansion!"
Hearing the weird words from him, Minglan knew that something must have happened on the imperial court today. But she couldn't ask too much about that. So she only nodded and asked softly, "Someone... is plotting against you?" She should at least be prepared.
Gu Tingye frowned, being a bit unsatisfied with the last phrase Minglan had said. Then he replied with a gloomy face, "If we are not careful enough, the words we talk at night will be spread out the next day. At the moment, things are very complicated outside our mansion. I can't tolerate any conflicts inside of my own family."
Minglan watched at him with interest. As a matter of fact, her biggest gain today was not the personal details of those servants but the behavior pattern of this man. Hmm, so interesting.
From days ago, Minglan had already found that everything in their mansion seemed very disorganized. The personnel management was in a chaos. The servants were sluggish. The regulations were sloppy. After she had inquired lots of people, she found that those problems were all because of Gu Tingye instead of the servants.
It had been a year since he had established his own mansion. But it seemed that he had never cared about the matters in the mansion. There were only a few stewards who were in charge of the daily affairs. He had also dispatched a group of solders to help him guard the front gate, which made all the servants in the mansion living like prisoners. As far as the servants didn't made any mistakes, caused any trouble or behaved suspiciously, he wouldn't care about anything about their livings.
There were several heavy locks on the door of the storeroom, inside which were tons of rewards and boxes of precious things. But he had never taken any of the rewards out. As a result, the decoration in the mansion was so simple as if this was an impoverished family. What's more, the yard where Sir Gongsun lived had always been heavily guarded day and night. Gu Tingye almost created some secret code to get in and out. As for the outer study, it was even harder to get in there than getting in the prison to visit the prisoners. Everyone who entered and came out would be searched twice.
Minglan pondered for a while. Suddenly, she reminded of her brother, Changbai.
The cautious character was in Changbai's blood. Without anyone's instruction, Changbai always acted in a discreet way spontaneously. For example, although Changbai knew Yanghao who had served him for dozens of years very well, he could still scent out Yanghao's movement as long as his papers had been flipped slightly. Perhaps being prudent was a required quality of a civil official. Sheng Hong was also capable of doing that after he had experienced lots of things when he had been young.
However, Gu Tingye wasn't born to be a discreet man. There were so many things that he couldn't prevent. Thus he had to open a new path.
His style might seem a bit rough but was actually very clever. His methods were straight and tough but very effective. Gu Tingye knew that his mansion was never a peaceful place and there might be someone who spied him for someone else. He was even aware that the people who had been sent by the people from Marquis Ningyuan's mansion might not have good intentions. But since he didn't have the time or the spirit to deal with them, he had decided to do those things in his own way.
After all, this honorable task of handling the family matters would eventually be taken over by someone else-- Thinking of that, Minglan couldn't help clenching her teeth.
"Don't worry. I understand your means." Minglan touched the man's chest while trying her best to act like a tactful woman, saying, "I'll see how many people we have first and then assign tasks to them. If there is anything I don't understand, I'll just ask you."
Gu Tingye nodded lightly. After he had seen how Minglan had handled matters over the few days, he found her quite reliable. He had always considered Sheng mansion a well-governed place with a good reputation. Also, the eldest lady of Sheng family who had married into the Yuan family was also good at home management. So Gu Tingye was quite optimistic about Minglan's managing ability. And even if she wasn't that good, he would be there to help her.
At this time, Xiaotao entered into the room with a tea tray. Then Minglan stood up right away and served the ginger soup to Gu Tingye while saying, "Drink it now. It'll help dispel the cold air!"
Gu Tingye held the tea cup and took a sip. The brown sugar ginger in the well-made soup tasted quite mellow in his mouth. After he had drunk the soup, he felt his belly very warm as if his body was gently heated by the slow fire, which made him very comfortable. Then he couldn't help but praise, "What a nice soup!"
Minglan said smilingly, "Of course! I picked the materials by myself and have braised the soup for two hours! You should drink two large bowls of the soup! I hope you can sweat, that would be the best for your body. I also ordered someone to send the soup to the guards and servants who have accompanied you today. You can rest assured."
Advertisement
I Gained The Power To Shapeshift On Earth
Thomson did only one thing in his daily livestreams, and that was constantly punching sandbags. A week later, he made a giant 150 kg sandbag explode with one single punch! At that time, all the viewers thought that this was just a show, all until one day—an accident occurred on Thomson’s livestream. At a construction site, a stone weighing several tons went out of control and smashed towards the ground! In the moment of desperation, Thomson swung his fist at the stone. With a bang, the stone shattered into pieces!!! …In the next month, Thomson quickly became a rising star all over the Internet. Everyone thought he had reached his peak, until one day—Thomson suddenly transformed into a Pegasus and flew into the air…
8 1012Tempest Rogue
This story follows Auron, a man who has been plagued with vivid nightmares his entire life. While running away from a beating, a splitting headache causes him to fall to his knees. Once again his nightmares bleed into reality. The next "episode" he has brings him from the scene of his nightmare, to a posionous swamp. To make matters worse his memories from earth are fading, and these nightmares that plagued his childhood, filled with darkness and a red coocoon, are back and worse than ever. As he clings to the only memories he has left, he is forced to fight through a world of brutal blood thirsty monsters, dungeons, and a complex magic system governed by an ancient agreement. First time writing any sort of story. Everything is still a work in progress. As I improve on my writing I will go back and edit parts. Early chapters are subject to change as I grow my ability. I am going to try my best to write this world and improve as I go. My goal is to make my dream come to life through the medium of text. This is why I wanted to post it here. Feel free to comment, and bring constructive criticism. Hope you enjoy! More info (Spoiler warning): only read if you are picky, read a lot, and want to waste no time with a story you may not want read. This book is a litrpg. This means it contains stat tables, and other game elements. (Which you may gloss over if you would like) It is written in a fantasy world, in the style of a progression fantasy. The main character grows in power as the story plays out. My characters are written to my best ability, but you may find them immature. The MC has to adjust to fighting, and killing which he struggles with for a while. His partner is a magical salamander who is a friend and mentor. The world building, monsters, and descriptions are also low tier. (I am working hard to change that!) If you are okay reading something by someone who is just getting started then welcome! I am doing my best, and incrementally improving as I go.
8 189Heroes of The Collective Volume One : Resentment
Enhanced Beings. Humans with the ability to do something astonishing. Some learn to use it for good. Others for bad. But most are content with the 9-5 and walks with the dog. But use it for bad, you’ll answer to… The Enhanced Beings Collective! USA’s taskforce in the fight against Enhanceds who threaten America’s national and global interests. Volume One: Resentment throws us straight into the action via Kimona Jones in 1939. Taking off on a world record attempt flight she misses her destination. By ninety years...As we meet the others in The Collective, it’s clear that their fights aren’t just against the bad guys, but also each other and their own personal demons. Introducing Woodland Warriors and The Rodeos mini-series: Woodland Warriors Vol 1 - Introducing Grizzly George, Boy Beaver, Nova and Bao the Maltese Tiger, the off shoot of The Enhanced Being Collective dealing with the monsters, mythical creatures, bad guys and DEATH itself *kinda* that lurks deep within the heart of America... It's forests. The Rodeos Vol 1 - Saddle up, it'll be a bumpy ride for Effie and Reuben. Motorbike gangs, Russian mobsters, lesbian gunslingers and legendary villains... The states along the US-Mexico border have their problems, but none big enough for The Rodeos. They get stuff done, and they do it their way. [18+] Find Volume Two here : Heroes of The Collective Volume Two : Regret | Royal Road Also on Wattpad.
8 411Animus-Blade: Sword Singer
My first story, feedback is appreciated. Fifteen-year-old bookworm Joan lived a poor but sheltered life, her only worry was the upcoming rite that granted individuals of her age a soulbound magic weapon called an Animus-blade. Failure to acquire one labelled you as an outcast who is left to rot by society at large and Joan has good reason to believe that she will be among them. But after her only friend, Alessia goes missing Joan is slowly dragged into the cruel world and is forced to decide how she will confront the darkness in the recesses of humanity or be broken by it. [Participant in the Royal Road Writathon challenge - April 2022]
8 212Aberrant Tales
The world of deities had met its end. Now is the time of nightmares and delusion. Or it should be that way but Alvah made the best of living a half-life until after so long he spoke with another "creature". A broken mage and a lovely monster meet in a world deprived of its gods and other stories both long and short. With cover art provided by Jack0fheart as found in https://www.royalroad.com/profile/178717
8 154Không có lai sinh - Phong Ca
Tác giả: Phong CaĐộ dài: 56 chươngKiếp trước, đời không có gì nuối tiếc. Thanh Liên một lòng hộ chủ. Vương phi có ơn, có nghĩa, nàng thay Vương phi gánh chịu kiếp nạn, cũng không tính là gì?Chỉ là....một ánh mắt vương vấn, một bóng hình thoắt hiện khiến Thanh Liên trước giờ phút đó đã quyết định hủy mình. Chỉ để không thẹn với ai.Tưởng chỉ có mình "tự mình đa tình", nào ngờ những ngày làm linh hồn phiêu lãng, nàng nhìn thấy hắn...Hắn vẫn lạnh lùng như vậy. Gươm không chùn khi ra chiến trận, vẫn hiên ngang hộ chủ, lập nhiều công lớn.Và cô độc...Luôn cô độc một mình.Cuối đời, trước khi chết, nàng nghe rõ hắn gọi. Gọi " Liên nhi."Nàng chọn lựa, giữa vinh hoa kiếp sau được hưởng và cơ hội làm lại. Nàng phải chăng đã phụ hắn, làm hắn lỡ cả đời.Lai sinh....không chung bướcKiếp này nguyện chung đôi.nguồn https://greenhousenovels.com/gioi-thieukhong-co-lai-sinh/
8 109