Chapter 540. Homesickness (2/2)
Madam Liu came with two bowls of ginger-sugar soup and saw the two maidservants kneeling on the icy cold floor. She hurriedly said, “Cao’er, even if they made a mistake, we shouldn’t let these people kneel for this long ah! Quickly let them get up in order to avoid harming their knees.”
“Return back to the ranks or listen to my orders unconditionally. You two can choose one!” Yu Xiaocao took the bowl of ginger-sugar soup from her mother’s hands and drank it in one gulp. The warm and toasty liquid warmed up her insides and pushed away the cold from her body.
Chunhua and Qiushi both vowed that they would listen to her orders. Yu Xiaocao pointed at the free space on the kang bed, “That’s good, then you two should sit there. You won’t refuse this time, right?”
The two maidservants exchanged looks and obediently pulled themselves onto the kang bed. They sat at the very edge of the kang bed with their legs tucked under them. Yu Xiaocao revealed a faint smile and said, “Erya, give the bowl of ginger-sugar soup to these two older sisters. It’s best to drink it while warm so it can drive away the cold!”
Wutong suppressed the smile coming on her lips as she watched the two maidservants obediently take the crude bowl of porcelain over and drink the soup in a few sips. She also drank down her own ginger-sugar soup and said, “We don’t need to worry about your loyalties. However, you two really need to understand your true position here. Are you Royal Prince Yang’s maidservants or our young miss’s? If you’re with our young miss, you naturally should listen to her orders. Our young miss has a kind and generous heart and is not very strict about the customs. As long as you do your own work properly, there’s no need to walk on eggshells around her.”
Chunhua and Qiushi both nodded their heads and thanked her for her advice. Before long, Madam Liu came over with two plates of pastries and placed it on the small table on the kang bed and said, “It must have been tiring to travel so quickly here. Eat some pastries for now. The pot is stewing a small wild pheasant. Tonight, we’ll eat dinner early and rest early. Tomorrow, we’ll go with you back to Dongshan Village.”
Yingchun saw that her mistress’s mother was going back to the kitchen and perceptively jumped down. She put on her thick fur-lined boots and chased after the older woman, “Although my skills are not as good as yours, Madam, I can still be of great help in the kitchen.”
Madam Liu shook her head at her and pushed the maid back towards the room, “No need, we don’t have so many customs in our family. Go back to the room and warm up completely first!”
“Then…this servant will help the madam manage the fire! The stove is much warmer than being on the kang bed. This servant will be gaining a favor from this!” Yingchun said all of this with a cheerful smile on her face, making Madam Liu unable to rebuff her offer.
Yu Xiaocao had the protection of the little divine stone on this journey so she didn’t feel like she had gotten exposed to the cold. In addition, she had also added some mystic-stone water to the water that her maidservants drank every day. Thus, they weren’t harmed from exposure either. Before long, they all warmed up. When they saw that the madam was in the kitchen cooking for them, the maidservants couldn’t sit still anymore. Unfortunately, not a single one of them had any talent at cooking. They could only enter the kitchen to do chores like washing vegetables and cutting them. Madam Liu thought that they were in the way and sent them all out.
Yu Xiaocao rolled up her own sleeves and began to cook. She made Sichuan poached fish in chili sauce, spicy chicken pieces, and spicy congee. Eating spicy food in this type of weather warmed a person’s belly up. The four maidservants were quite frightened by the fact that they had let their master cook food for them to eat. It was truly disgraceful of them. When they got back to the capital, all of them worked hard to learn how to cook. Although their food wasn’t as tasty as the food made by cook maids, they were still edible. But this was in the future.
After living on the farmstead for a few days, Xiaocao realized that the scope of the greenhouse business here in Tanggu was not in any way smaller than the one in the capital. Just from wholesale alone, they sold tens of thousands of catties of vegetables and fruits every day. This basically meant that they made a few thousand taels in income every day. It was likely that Yu Xiaocao no longer knew just how much wealth her own family had at this point.
During those days, Yu Xiaocao brought her four maidservants along to also help on the farm. Chunhua and Qiushi clearly had martial arts skills as both of them had much more strength than the average person. Containers holding over a hundred catties of vegetables were easily moved around by them like it was no big deal. The male workers on the farmstead were all so shocked that their eyes nearly fell out of their heads when they saw those two maids working. As for Wutong and Yingchun, they stayed with her. One of them worked the scale, while the other worked on the books. They cooperated quite nicely together and helped save Yu Hai and his family quite a bit of work.
As New Years got closer and closer, Madam Liu finally was able to hand her work to Yingchun and have some time to herself. She took her daughter and her remaining three maids to spend lots of time perusing the markets to buy items for the New Years celebrations. It wasn’t easy for her daughter to make it back for the holiday to celebrate together. Thus, she needed to make sure they bought everything they needed.
In reality, the family had their own supply of fruits and vegetables and it was very easy for their family to buy any chickens, ducks, and seafood they needed in the village. Thus, there wasn’t much they needed to buy. However, shopping was a woman’s pleasure. Every day, they left with empty baskets but would always come back with packages, large and small, with them. Chunhua and Qiushi had become their bag holders and ended up with all sorts of shopping bags hanging off of them every day.
On the twentieth day of the twelfth month, Madam Liu took her daughter with her back to Dongshan Village with a giant donkey cart filled to the brim with goods.
This time, when Yu Xiaocao came back, she didn’t bring any of the ceremonious gear that was befitting of a feudal princess or royal princess rank. Thus, the villagers were much more welcoming and casual when they saw her. Seeing their familiar faces with their warm smiles, hearing their familiar voices with the hard to forget village accent, Yu Xiaocao sometimes thought that this sort of simple and honest life was what she really wanted. No matter how much glory, splendor, gold, silver, and treasures one had, one couldn’t buy sincerity or the warmth of true friendship. It couldn’t buy a simple honest life. Homesickness suddenly struck her…
“Xiaocao!” Liu Huifang had already transformed into a slender and pretty young maiden. She had just accompanied her father to deliver a cart full of chicken eggs and didn’t expect to see her childhood friend at the mouth of the village. Now, Liu Shuanzhu’s entire family were occupied with their chicken-raising business. They now had almost a thousand chickens at home. Although the hens didn’t like to lay eggs as much in the winter, they still had some eggs every few days or so. Selling those eggs to the Zhou Family’s factories was also a good source of income.