Do you know the long song of laughter?

Chapter 442 Minglan Returns to the Sheng Family

"Why?"

Minglan turned sideways and said, "Shops in good locations in Bianjing are rarely sold to outsiders. You can't use all that money to buy a shop."

"You can buy them at your leisure. If you can't afford the silver, just keep it at home." Li An said.

When it comes to political reform, fields are definitely the top priority.

He himself has been buying a lot of land. If he were to reform the land area in the future, wouldn't it be a joke?

"Oh."

Minglan knew there must be something going on, but since Li An didn't say anything, she didn't ask any further.

Just keeping so much money at home and not making any money was contrary to the housekeeping and financial management education she received since childhood.

Selling land and shops are the most basic means of financial management.

For wealthy families, having idle money piled up at home would mean wasting their money.

Buying land and shops can maintain their value even if it does not appreciate, and also provide an income every year, which is the most worry-free way.

Since Li An didn't allow her to buy land, she thought about whether there were other ways to make money.

After all, Li Ang's parents and brothers returned to Yangzhou and stayed there.

Although the family has not been formally divided, she is now the mistress of the household.

She naturally wants to run her own family well.

Li Anke had no idea what Minglan was thinking. He hugged Minglan's soft body and slowly fell asleep.

……

The next morning, Li An had breakfast with his parents and then went to the palace.

When he arrived at the palace, he first paid homage to the late emperor, and then stayed in a side hall to keep vigil for the late emperor.

It was not until the evening that he left the palace and returned home.

When he got home, his parents and grandfather had already left. Except for the cook and Haitang Desheng in the kitchen, as well as the coachman and doorman that Li Ang often used, all the other servants had been taken away.

For a moment, it seemed a bit empty.

When Li An came back, Minglan had already asked someone to prepare dinner, and the couple sat down to eat.

"My dear, eat more. There are still more than twenty days left. You must take care of yourself." Minglan picked up a piece of meat and put it in Li An's bowl.

I was keeping vigil for the emperor in the palace and could only drink water the whole day. I couldn't even think about eating and had to go hungry.

Fortunately, I had eaten at home when I went there in the morning, so I could go home and eat in the evening.

"Well, you should also eat more."

After dinner, the couple went for a walk in the small garden.

Li An said, "Tomorrow is the day to go back to your parents' home. I can't accompany you, so you have to go back by yourself. Please say hello to your grandmother and mother-in-law for me."

According to custom, one has to return to the wife’s parents’ home on the third day after marriage, commonly known as returning to the parents’ home.

It was a period of national mourning, and not only Li An, but also Sheng Hong and Sheng Changbai had to go to the palace to keep vigil. Naturally, he couldn't accompany Minglan back home.

"Sir, there is no need to feel guilty. The situation is special now and your grandmother knows it," Minglan comforted.

"The return gifts have been prepared long ago and are in the warehouse. You can take them when you go back tomorrow. There is one for my mother and my brother, too." Li An said.

All these had been prepared before the wedding. Even though Ang Lee couldn't go, he still had to send the gift.

"Thank you, sir." Minglan was very happy to hear that Li An still remembered her mother.

"We are husband and wife, why are you being so polite to me?" Li An said, "Due to etiquette, I cannot call her mother-in-law, but in my heart, your little mother is my mother-in-law."

Minglan was so moved by what she heard that her eyes became red.

Li An saw this and comforted her for a while, then changed the subject: "Chang Jin is about seven or eight years old now, right? How is his study going?"

"He's a little slow in learning and that makes dad unhappy," Minglan said.

"Let him come to your house and play more often. I will teach him when I have time." Li An said.

"Well, thank you, sir." Minglan said with a smile.

"I told you not to be polite to me. If you continue like this, I will punish you tonight." Li An said.

Minglan blushed when she heard this and said, "Sir, Xiaotao and the others are here."

Li An turned his head and said with a smile: "Look at them, how far away they are, they are so smart."

Minglan turned her head and saw several maids far behind her, about ten steps away.

"Second Master, Madam, do you have any instructions?"

Xiaotao and Danju thought the two men had some instructions, so they hurried over.

"It's okay. My wife and I are praising you for being smart." Li An waved his hand.

"Second Young Master has also noticed that I am smart, but Madam... always says that I am stupid." Xiao Tao said with a smile.

"Yes, yes, you are not stupid, you are very smart." Minglan said with a smile.

……

After walking around for a while, it was completely dark, so the couple went back to their room to wash up.

After washing up, she went to bed and asked the maid to go down and rest.

There was a lack of entertainment in ancient times, and now it is a period of national mourning, so all entertainment venues in the city are closed, the night markets are suspended, and a curfew has been imposed.

I couldn’t even go out for a walk, so I had to go to bed early.

After all the trouble, Minglan lay limp in Li An's arms, not even having the strength to speak.

Li An has practiced martial arts for many years and is not only in good health, but he is also now at an energetic age and never gets enough.

In the first two nights, he was relatively restrained because he felt pity for Minglan.

Now that Minglan has adapted a lot, he is not so restrained anymore, which makes Minglan suffer a lot.

Minglan took a long rest before she calmed down and said softly, "Sir, are you worried about something?"

"What could I be worried about? Stop thinking about it." Li An said.

"I could feel that when the master came back at night, he seemed to be worried about something. It was not convenient to ask him at that time, so I didn't ask him," Minglan said.

Li An sighed slightly and said, "After His Royal Highness the Crown Prince came to Beijing, he never sent anyone back to Yuzhou to pick up his relatives. Yesterday, news came from Yuzhou that the Crown Princess was assassinated in Yuzhou. Fortunately, Shen Congxing's wife Zou risked her life to save her, but Zou did not survive. Last night, Shen Congxing led his troops back to Yuzhou overnight."

He heard the news in the palace today.

"Sir, you are suspicious..."

Minglan is very smart. Whether it is the assassination of the Crown Princess or the death of Zou, it has nothing to do with Li Ang and will not make him worried.

Then there is only one explanation, Li An thinks this matter is related to the government.

However, this topic was too sensitive, so Minglan stopped talking halfway.

"Maybe I'm overthinking it." Li An shook his head.

"Sir, whether it is true or not, it has little to do with us. You don't have to worry about it." Minglan comforted.

Li An was startled when he heard this, then he kissed Minglan on the face and said with a smile: "My lady is right, it is me who is worrying about nothing."

Even if it was Zhao Zongquan who did it, what does it have to do with him?

He never placed his hope of reform on Zhao Zongquan. After Zhao Zongquan succeeded to the throne, he needed to consolidate power and recruit some confidants to take power, so he had no time to think about reform.

If he just does his job honestly, he will be sent to other places in two years, where he will be far away from home.

The time to reform will be after Zhao Ceying succeeds to the throne in the future.

"Sir, it's getting late. You should go to bed early." Minglan smiled when she saw that Li An had figured it out.

"My dear, it's still early. There's no need to rush to bed." Li An said as his hands started to get naughty again.

"Sir, please forgive me." Minglan quickly held Li An's hand with a pleading tone.

Li An smiled awkwardly, stopped what he was doing, and said, "I was just kidding, go to sleep."

"Sir, why don't you take a concubine after the national mourning is over?" Minglan said.

She could feel the tension in Ang Lee's face and knew that he was not joking.

Although Minglan didn't want her husband to take a concubine, Li An didn't even have a concubine. Even her second brother had several concubines before he got married.

But she couldn't satisfy Li An, so she thought of taking a concubine for Li An.

"What nonsense are you talking about? Go to bed." Li An patted her and said.

Minglan didn't say anything after hearing this, but continued to think about taking a concubine for Li An.

Generally speaking, there are three sources of concubines. One is that a maidservant became pregnant and was promoted to a concubine.

Either they were bought from outside or given by colleagues or superiors.

But now, all the servants in the house, except Haitang, were brought by her as dowry.

Although she was willing to take concubines for Li An and could accept their existence, it was impossible for her to treat concubines as sisters.

I have been living with the maidservant around me for many years and we have developed feelings for each other. If she becomes my concubine, how will we get along in the future?

Therefore, after much thought, Minglan decided to buy a concubine.

……

The next morning, after Li An went out, Minglan had someone load the gifts into the car, and then drove to the Sheng family.

Sheng Hong and his son also went to the palace, and only the women were at home, so it was Hai who went out to greet them.

Hai had only been married for a short time, and Minglan had not spent much time with her, so they were not particularly familiar with each other. After they met, they exchanged a few words of greeting and then entered the house together and went to the main hall.

Xiaotao and other maids followed behind carrying things, while Mother Cui went to Shou'an Hall.

After arriving at the main hall and paying their respects to Madam Wang, Minglan asked Xiaotao and the others to present the gift to Madam Wang.

"Minglan, why are the maids you brought back the dowry? I heard that the Li family is quite wealthy, so why didn't they give you a few maids? If I had known earlier when I was leaving, I would have arranged a few more maids for you as a dowry." Madam Wang said.

"Madam, you don't know that my parents-in-law have gone back to Yangzhou, and my husband asked them to take all the servants back with them. I haven't had time to buy them yet." Minglan said with a smile.

"You've only been married for a few days. Why did your parents-in-law go back to Yangzhou? Didn't they say before that they were settling in Bian Jing?" Madam Wang asked in surprise.

"The master's grandparents are old and miss their hometown, so they are eager to go back. My father-in-law and mother-in-law were not used to living in Bian Jing, so they went back with them. My uncle and his wife were worried about my father-in-law and his family, so they went back with him as well." Minglan said.

The uncle Minglan mentioned was not Uncle Li An, but Li Ping.

After a woman gets married, she should address her husband's brothers by the same name as her children.

For example, Li Ping's children call Li An "uncle", and Zhang Qing calls him the same.

Although Li An and Minglan do not have children, when they have children, they must call Li Ping "Uncle".

Therefore she also called Li Ping uncle.

"Doesn't that mean you're the boss now?"

Madam Wang was a little jealous. She was afraid that Rulan would suffer when she got married, so she specially gave her a house in Bian Jing as a dowry.

The purpose was to allow Wen Yanjing to have a place to stay in Bian Jing so that he would not have to return to his hometown after marriage.

Madam Wang's original plan was to prepare a house for Wen Yanjing so that he could stay in Bian Jing.

Anyway, Wen Yanjing has a younger brother, so his parents can be completely left to be taken care of by his younger brother.

In this way, Rulan doesn't have to serve her parents-in-law, and she doesn't have to have sisters-in-law. It's good for the young couple to live their own lives.

She just thought of it as finding a live-in son-in-law.

Things turned out just as Madam Wang had expected, and the two got married in the house that Madam Wang had given them.

After marriage, Wen Yanjing entered the Imperial College to study and prepare for the next imperial examination.

However, Wen Yanjing's mother didn't expect that after seeing the beautiful and grand house, as well as its size, she simply decided not to go back.

Not only that, she also asked Wen Yanjing's younger brother to move from his hometown, and even asked Rulan to find a marriage for Wen Yanjing's younger brother.

This made Mrs. Wang feel as uncomfortable as if she had eaten a fly, but she couldn't even chase the person away.

It's only natural for parents to come and live with their son.

If it were just this, Madam Wang could have tolerated it, but Wen Yanjing's mother had asked Rulan to help find a marriage for her uncle. Seeing that Rulan had not made any move, she not only made Rulan follow the rules, but also found fault with her everywhere.

On the day Minglan got married, Rulan came and cried to Madam Wang.

Madam Wang was very angry. If it wasn't for Minglan's wedding that day and the emperor's death, which was a national mourning, she would have brought people to the house to attack them.

As a result, Minglan was lucky enough that her parents-in-law left as soon as she got married and she became the head of the family.

It was in stark contrast to Rulan, which made Madam Wang feel jealous.

Minglan didn't understand why Madam Wang's expression suddenly turned so ugly.

Since the death of Mrs. Lin, Mrs. Wang seemed to be a few years younger and always had a smile on her face when she met everyone every day.

It was only during the time when Rulan's incident happened that his face looked grim for a while.

Fortunately, at this time, Fang Madam came in and bowed, saying, "The old lady misses the Sixth Miss very much, so she asked the Sixth Miss to go to Shou'an Hall to talk."

"Madam, my grandmother has summoned me, so I will go first." Minglan stood up and bowed.

"Go ahead." Madam Wang said with a forced smile.

Minglan and Fang Mama left the main hall and asked, "Fang Mama, how is grandma doing these days?"

"Of course I am not as good as the Sixth Miss...Look at me, you should call me the Sixth Miss."

Madam Fang clapped her lips and said, "After the Sixth Miss got married, the old lady started to eat vegetarian food again like before."

Minglan's eyes turned red when she heard this and she almost cried.

Before she went to live with Old Madam Sheng, she heard from the servants that the old lady ate vegetarian food and chanted Buddhist scriptures every day, and lived a hard life.

But after she went there, she started eating vegetarian food for two days, and then her meals every day were very rich, much better than what she had eaten with her mother.

Minglan knew that her grandmother loved her and had asked someone to make this dish specifically to nourish her body.

"I'll talk about my grandmother later." Minglan said with a smile.

"Haha, only Miss Six's words can be listened to by the old lady." Mother Fang said with a smile.

As they were talking, they arrived at Shou'an Hall and entered the main hall. Old Madam Sheng, who was sitting on a soft couch at the top of the table, saw Minglan and excitedly shook her hand in her sleeve.

"Granddaughter, hello grandmother!" Minglan came to Mrs. Sheng and knelt down.

"What are you doing? Get up!" Old Lady Sheng quickly helped Minglan up.

(End of this chapter)