The little girl of the landlord's house

Chapter 58

When she arrived in the city, Xie Yujiao suddenly had the feeling of a countryman entering the city when she saw the streets lined with shops and the intricate high-rise mansions.Although it is not a modern world of steel and concrete, Xie Yujiao is excited to see groups of vendors doing business in the distance.

For ten whole months, Xie Yujiao hadn't been out of Xie's house. Xie Yujiao felt that even a modern house girl might not be as good as herself.But even though they were in the city, Xu Yuxing didn't let them go shopping during the day because they were here to see the Lantern Festival, and only let her and Xu Huiru stay at home.

The Xu family's courtyard in the city is not big, there are only two courtyards, and there are about twenty rooms, but for the Xu family, it is enough.The house was clean and tidy. I heard that the eldest girl and the cousin girl came, and the servants were also very attentive.

After Xie Yujiao's observation, she found that there was not even a maid under the age of 30 in this house, which shows that Xu Yuxing is usually a self-disciplined and famous person.

The two of them rested in the main room for a while. Seeing that it was almost time for lunch, they saw an old woman in her fifties or sixties coming in from the outside. When she saw Xie Yujiao and Xu Huiru, she saluted respectfully before speaking. Said: "Go back to the girl and the cousin girl, we have to wait for lunch, my old man has already gone out to order."

Xie Yujiao was feeling strange, but the old woman continued: "Usually the master doesn't have much time at home, so he ordered us not to buy the portion he ate, so now there are only vegetables and tofu for the servants to eat at home." , the master took Grandpa Dawei out to eat, and asked our old man to order food for the girl to bring in."

Xie Yujiao looked at the woman's honest appearance, so she knew that she should be an old servant of the Xu family, so she smiled and said, "Mom, although my uncle usually doesn't come home very often, he still needs to prepare a few things at home. , if one day he comes back late and has nothing to eat, wouldn't he be hungry?"

The old woman just smiled and said: "Master likes to eat noodles, if he is hungry at night, I will cut some fresh meat for him, stew it with green vegetables, and make sliced ​​noodles for him to eat."

Xu Huiru listened from the side, swallowed her saliva and said, "Mother Zhu, I'm going to drool if you talk about it, and I haven't eaten your sliced ​​noodles for a long time!"

The old woman watched Xu Huiru grow up since she was a child, and now she has seen less in the past two years, and she is afraid that Xu Huiru will go to the capital and learn everyone's rules, and she will become estranged from an old servant like her, so she dare not be too warm all of a sudden Now, seeing her flirting with me again, she just smiled and said: "If you want to eat, girl, I'll make you a midnight snack when you come back from the lantern show tonight, so you can taste my craft too." .”

You both said hello to Xie Yujiao and Xu Huiru, and about half an hour later, the food ordered from outside finally arrived, because the carriage was fast and the food was still hot.Xie Yujiao and Xu Huiru looked at the table full of dishes and didn't know what to say for a moment.

"The master said that the cousin girl came to the city for the first time, so she had to eat better. The servant ordered all the special dishes of Luliuju, and there were a few dishes that were too time-consuming, so I didn't order them." Mother Zhu's man He opened his mouth honestly.

Xie Yujiao held her chopsticks, not knowing where to start for a while, she raised her head to look at him and said, "Go down, we'll finish eating in a while, and I'll let you clean up."

Mother Zhu went down with his man respectfully.

Xie Yujiao took a look at these dishes, blinked her eyes, and said to Magpie, Ziyan, and Xu Huiru's two maids who were standing beside her, "Sit down and eat together. There are so many things, my cousin and I will eat together. It's not that I'm dying."

Xu Huiru's two servant girls didn't dare at first, so Xu Huiru also said: "My cousin asked you to sit down, so you can sit down, we can't finish eating so much."

Seeing that the two girls persisted, everyone sat down and ate together.

At night, the night fell and the temperature cooled down. It was a rare good weather outside. The round moon hung in the sky, illuminating the entire sky blue.Xie Yujiao and Xu Huiru put on cloaks and veils, and followed behind Xu Yuxing.

The lantern viewing in Jinling City is in the Confucius Temple, but this area is also the most famous place for feasting and fireworks, but every year during the Lantern Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival, many girls come here.In addition to many ladies who wear veils, there are also ordinary girls who are naked.

Although the little maids wanted to come out with them, Xie Yujiao told them to stay at home.This group of little maids have never seen the world, and if they get lost, it will be troublesome. The four of them happen to be no more than no less, and there is Dawei, a crooked nut, on this night, the ordinary boss surnamed met , I have to be shocked!

The four of them walked for a while, and finally arrived at Gongyuan West Street, Xu Yuxing pointed to the street where the red lantern was hung, and said, "This row of shops used to belong to the He family, but now our family has bought them. "

Xie Yujiao went up to take a look, and saw that there was a cloth shop, a jewelry store, and a noodle shop, and it looked like a busy area.

At this time, on the Qinhuai River, the boats were slowly moving, and there were many tourists. Xie Yujiao followed Xu Yuxing all the way, and came to the place by the river where there were most lanterns.

Today, Kang Guangshou also accepted the invitation of Yin Tianfu to come here to enjoy the lanterns on the Qinhuai River.Although he had just arrived in the south of the Yangtze River, his official position was low, but his father, Mr. Kang, had indeed been an emperor's teacher before, and now he is a senior official in the court, and he is the imperial tutor.

With this level of relationship, no officials in the southern area dare to underestimate him. Although he is not flattering, his official career is quite smooth. In addition, under his governance, Jiangning County's tax revenue this year is the highest among the surrounding counties. The most, because Master Ji of Ying Tianfu also took good care of him.

Kang Guangshou came out of the painting boat, and the cool evening wind blew away the luxury and luxury just now.Although the north was severely beaten, the south, thousands of miles away, was still feasting and feasting, flashy and extravagant.

Kang Guangshou raised his head, and suddenly saw a familiar figure on the shore, standing under the lantern, looking up at the crossword puzzle on the lantern.Those sly and bright eyes were full of intelligence, and Kang Guangshou recognized it was Miss Xie Yujiao with just one glance.

The last time I saw her was when Master Xie was buried, although half a year had passed in the blink of an eye, but for Kang Guangshou, his spiritual friendship with Xie Yujiao had been going on.Kang Guangshou's depressed mood suddenly improved a lot, he just called the boatman to come to the shore, and wanted to go up and say hello to Xie Yujiao.

Xie Yujiao and Xu Huiru were guessing lantern riddles on the bank, because Dawei only knew a few Chinese characters, so they kept asking this and that all the way, Xie Yujiao and Xu Huiru didn't bother to talk to him, only Xu Yuxing took the trouble to explain some lantern riddles to him in the mystery.

With bright lights in the distance, Dawei raised his head and saw the veiled Xie Yujiao looking towards him and Xu Yuxing. The stare in his eyes made the foreign boy feel his heart jump.

Xie Yujiao and Xu Huiru came under the largest lantern, like the other lanterns, there were lantern riddles written on red paper underneath, if anyone could guess the answer, tear off the red paper and go to the side stall owner After saying the answer, if it is correct, the lantern will belong to him.

Xu Huiru saw that the lantern was divided into upper, middle and lower layers, like an upside-down pagoda, each layer had a different color, candles were lit inside, and red paper hung from the bottom.Xu Huiru felt itchy for a moment, so she stepped forward, stretched out her hand and turned the red paper over, and saw two lines of small characters written on it: black is not, white is not, red and yellow are not; it looks like jackal cats and dogs, neither domestic animals nor animals. the beast

.There are also poems, words, and the Analects of Confucius. They are vague about east, west, north, south, and although they are short, they are wonderful essays.

Xie Yujiao is usually most afraid of being dragged by scholars, but now she knows every word in this riddle, but she can't figure out what it is talking about.It seems that the owner of the lantern stall deliberately didn't want to give this lantern to anyone, so he made this difficult lantern riddle, just to make things difficult for others.

After Xu Huiru finished reading the riddle, her face suddenly wrinkled into a ball. Xie Yujiao also frowned and thought for a long time. When she raised her head, she suddenly saw a familiar figure.Xie Yujiao smiled slightly, leaned into Xu Huiru's ear and said, "Cousin, do you want this lamp?"

Xu Huiru nodded shyly, looked at the lantern riddle again, and said, "Cousin, can you guess the answer to this riddle?"

Xie Yujiao chuckled, glanced at Kang Guangshou, and said with a smile: "I can't guess, but someone must be able to guess." Xu Huiru followed Xie Yujiao's eyes and saw a personable and gentle man from a distance. When he got there, he was so frightened that he hurriedly lowered his head.

Seeing Kang Guangshou approaching, Xie Yujiao probably recognized her, so she greeted him generously, and said to Kang Guangshou, "Master Kang is very interested, and he also came out to visit the lantern festival. My younger sister has taken a fancy to this lantern." Lantern, I wonder if Master Kang is willing to help?"

As Xie Yujiao said, without waiting for Kang Guangshou to respond, she just raised her head, reached out and took off the red paper, and handed it to Kang Guangshou.Kang Guangshou was the number one scholar after all. No matter how clever this lantern riddle player is, how could he be smarter than the number one scholar?
Although Xie Yujiao thought so, in fact, she was still a little dark in private.Before she crossed time, she always heard that it was very difficult to get the first prize. If a person could win the top prize, he would be a hundred times better than the modern top students!Kang Guangshou looked at the young man and wondered if he had real talents?Could it be that he also started a family by fighting for his father?

Kang Guangshou didn't know Xie Yujiao's careful thoughts. Seeing that she handed over the red note, he turned it over, took a serious look, frowned for a while, then suddenly relaxed his eyebrows and said with a smile, "Ling I'm afraid I've got my sister's lantern, please wait a moment, Miss Xie."

Xie Yujiao didn't expect Kang Guangshou to guess the answer so quickly. Xu Huiru watched Kang Guangshou go to the side of the stall to look for the boss with some anxiety. He took a pen and wrote the answer on the puzzle. Above, the stall owner looked at it, and immediately looked helpless. He came over to fetch the lantern with a fork, and said as he walked, "Today's question king is answered correctly, and this big lantern will also be taken away."

After hearing the words, all the riddle guessers turned around one after another, wanting to see who had guessed the riddle, because many people had already seen the riddle and couldn't figure it out, so they obediently gave up.

(End of this chapter)