Chapter 98: The calculating servants (1/2)
Ningzhuo's governor's house
After the introductions were made, Chief Ning from the provincial ministry of works left. Steward Meng as the steward in charge of the upkeep of the governor's house was sufficient enough to handle getting the New master and madam of the house settled. His presence wasn't needed as such, he had already relayed his master's instructions to these old servants, they knew what to do.
The majority of the servants in front of her were all essential to the proper working of the house. Since each of them oversaw various sections of the servants, it wasn't good for them to be held up for too long chaos could be unleashed by their underlings.
While it was necessary for all the servants in the resistance to introduce themselves to her. There were still other chances, Su Liya was exhausted from the long journey and just instructed Steward Meng to bring the servants in batches to her pavilion the next day for tge necessary instructions.
Su Liya dismissed the rest of the servants and instructed them to return to their posts while Matron Bao led her to her Quarters. The governor's house was huge, it would take a full day to see all the courtyard present. Considering the new madam's long journey here, matron Bao suggested that a thorough tour of the residence would be done on another day.
However, Matron Bao pointed out a few places on the path to the main courtyard. Such as the governor's receiving room, the banquet hall and the library which doubled as a schoolroom for children. There was an open-spaced pavilion with small false lakes, fountains, flowers and trees where house parties for ladies could be hosted.
The governor's residence was widespread and richly decorated as expected of a provincial leaders residence if not a little bit over-decorated. The previous Governor liked the finer things of life.
This kind of blatant show of wealth from the provincial head of a rumoured underperforming province was suspicious and screamed of various financial crimes punishable by the law. How can a mere provincial Governor's house rival the palace in splendour?
One could tell that he poured in a lot of money in this residence. Every corner of the yard cried money from the beautiful landscape comprising of flowers and trees to the stone sculptures and fountains, the false hills and small lakes. Made for a beautiful picture of wealth and arts.
The main courtyard was a wide small compound that took a large mass of land. As per the usual design, there were two large pavilions on different ends of the courtyard, divided by a small garden with a false lake that housed some small fish.
The more she saw of this residence the more exhausted she got, this really seat well with her but she made sure not to let her true feelings show and just acted calmly. She took Zhu Fengyin's last word before she left the capital to heart, so there wasn't much said about Lu Yaozhu's stat in Ningzhuo in the original novel since he was not the male lead.
The author only glossed over it without saying much but based on what she knew of Emperor Zhong and the sixth prince, she suspected some foul play. She needed to look into the previous governor and his financial activities before bringing up her suspicions to Lu Yaozhu but she still wanted to sound him out and find out his thoughts on everything.
Matron Bao led her through the small garden to her pavilion. The main courtyard was called the Fangxi pavilion, Lu Yaozhu's quarters was the biggest in the house with very spacious rooms. The study, which took up a majority of the space. A small library next to it, a bathing room with a steam bath. A living room, a dining room and a spacious bedroom.
While Su Liya's waiter though big only contained five rooms, the biggest room was her bedroom. Next to the bedroom was a huge bathroom with a hot bath. There was a living room and dining room and a big nursery, which wasn't going to be in use since Su Liya and the general just got married and didn't have a child yet. There was a storeroom at the main courtyard, most people build those to have their smaller valuable closer to them while the main store held the bigger ones
Before leaving the matron led the maids stationed at Fangxi pavilion to pay their respects to the new madam. She didn't bother introducing the courtyard maid in charge of sweeping and keeping outside clean since they wouldn't have much interaction with the madam and only introduced the three inside maids who served inside her waiters.
The maids were introduced to her as Ah Mei, Ah Li and Ah Fan. The first thing she noticed on seeing the maids was that they were all pleasing to the eyes. They were the standard pretty girls with sweet innocent features men liked. Even their voice sounded nice, it was soft and sweet to the ears that is if you liked to train your ears to hear whatever they said.