Chapter 370 - Getting Face (2/2)
The male guests were only separated from the female guests by a wooden screen. When they overheard the ‘gossip’ from the women’s side, all of them started thinking quickly. Someone who was able to catch the eye of the empress and Princess Consort Jing had to be extremely talented. They could only try to become friends and avoid offending her!
For the following days, Yu Xiaocao had started mysteriously receiving a bunch of calling cards and invitations. Other than the prefectural magistrate's wife, she didn’t know any of these people let alone be familiar with them. After having Yingtao and Yangliu handle a few of these, things got even more odd——why were all of these wives and daughters of officials, as well as wealthy merchant families, trying to make a connection with her? She was only the daughter of a farmer who had a good hand at cooking and baking.
As this continued to happen, Yu Xiaocao almost couldn’t take it anymore. Luckily, after Huang Dachui’s family started working for them, all of the work at the kitchen and storefronts had gradually decreased for the rest of the family. After practicing for a bit, Huang Xiaomei was also able to handle the work in the pickled vegetable store by herself. Thus, Yu Xiaocao took her two personal maids and went back to Dongshan Village.
Ever since Yingtao purposely made things difficult that one time, Huang Xiaomei trained hard to become good at calculating sums in her head. Now, she almost never needed to use her abacus and she was still able to get to the total quickly. It was only when there were larger totals that she had to still use her abacus. Yingtao had observed her for a few days and discovered that Huang Xiaomei had gotten to the point where she never made mistakes.
Yingtao and Xiaomei’s relationship had started off rocky but they were now extremely good friends. Yingtao had noticed that Xiaomei didn’t have any other clothes other than the two sets that the young miss had bought her when she first started. Thus, she had given a few sets of her old clothing from last year that she had worn in the residence to the other girl.
Lady Fang was quite generous to the servants in the residence. Every season, she would give the maids and senior servants an additional two sets of clothing. For the personal maidservants, they received even more as they often appeared next to their masters and essentially represented their master’s status. The clothing that they received, from the type of cloth used to the patterns on the cloth, were all considered to be of decent quality that most people in the capital could use.
When Yingtao first arrived, Xiaomei had mistakenly thought that she was the young miss of a wealthy family in the prefectural city! Yingtao’s clothes from the previous year were all about eighty-percent new, so they still were very usable to give to someone. Xiaomei was very happy after receiving the clothes and repeatedly said that she had never worn such beautiful clothes in her entire life!
In order to hide from the misses and madams from the wealthy families, Yu Xiaocao went back to Dongshan Village. Without much warning, winter had begun.
In early winter, a large snow storm had covered the whole village and mountain. The older folks and young children, who had weaker bodies, all couldn’t handle the change in weather and had fallen ill. Thus, Yu Xiaocao became busy again.
Ever since Doctor You found his nephew, he only stayed at Dongshan Village for a short period of time before he decided to go back to his hometown. After saying his farewells to the villagers, he moved for good. As the ‘direct disciple’ of Doctor You, Yu Xiaocao had become the only person in the village who had any medical skills.
At this time, most of the villagers were not in good financial condition, especially right after the disaster year. Those who were only mildly ill didn’t bother to see the doctor and only endured until they got better. Those who couldn’t endure would borrow a ride on a cart to go to the medicine hall in town. Most people had forgotten that Yu Xiaocao had medicinal skills.
This year, the weather had changed abruptly and Old Yu had fallen victim to it. He got a headache, fever, and his whole body ached from head to toe. In addition, he acquired a cough and had become short of breath. At first, he only thought he had a cold and could get over it by drinking some ginger soup and sweating it out. Who would have thought that after two days had passed, he couldn’t get out of bed?
Yu Xiaocao took out some herbs from her medicine box that were used for treating colds and concocted them with some mystic-stone water. Then, she had her grandfather drink a few bowls of medicine. Very quickly, his condition got better. Before three days had passed, Old Yu was back to his old energetic self and was back at the foot of the mountain gathering firewood. Old Yu was someone who couldn’t stay idle. In fact, if you stopped him from working, he would start feeling bad. Winter had come and the weather had suddenly turned cold. There wasn’t enough firewood at home, so he went out every day with a basket on his back to pick up firewood at the foot of the West Mountain.
That night, Old Yu was taking his usual walk and had gone into his older brother’s residence. As soon as he entered, the strong smell of medicine hit his nose. After asking, he found out that his older brother, Yu Lichun, was also unable to escape from the sudden change in weather and had fallen ill, just like he did earlier. He had taken five days worth of medicine but still hadn’t gotten better.
Furthermore, Yu Jiang’s youngest daughter had also gotten a fever. She was a pitiful tiny girl that had to drink a few bowls of bitter medicine every day. She had cried until her throat had gone hoarse. Most of the time, even if they were able to force the medicine down her, the little lass would throw it all back up until her whole body was sticky. She seemed to be in a constant state of drowsiness and her periods of lucidity shortened. The doctor from the town had looked at her and shook his head and said that it didn’t look good.
After taking care of his father as well his daughter, Yu Jiang had markedly become thinner in the past week. This year he had earned quite a bit of money with his second brother, and he wasn’t greedy for money. When his father and youngest daughter had fallen ill, he had called a doctor from town over and spent over a few taels to buy medicine for them. However, neither of them had gotten better.
Yu Jiang’s older sister had come over to see their father when she heard the news. After finding out their symptoms, tears streamed down her eyes. She stated that her village’s Old Han wasn’t as old as their father but had also gotten a high fever and couldn’t leave his bed. His family’s sons and daughters were all filial and had paid for a doctor and medicine. Despite spending quite a bit of money, he ended up dying in the end. Yu Jiang’s older sister couldn't help but cry when she saw how haggard her father’s face looked.