Liu Ruhai is a fancy doctor, and his flirtation with the new wife of the Wang family is none of her business.
Liu Ruhai also secretly opened a tea shop and restaurant near Nankang Hou Mansion.
This has nothing to do with her either.
Cao Xiwan was busy opening a shop.
She went out in recent days and first went to Maoji Cake Shop in Waimaoer Alley near Qingliangmen. Mao Ergou's mother wiped her hands on her apron and followed her in quickly: "Ms. Cao is here, come in and sit down."
The aroma of tea smells from the pottery bowl, and there are patches of golden sunshine on the corners of the curtain held up by bamboo poles.
Aunt Mao makes cakes, and there is a small tea stall set up outside the window along the street, which also sells tea.
"How much money do you make? Madam Cao, you know, I'm just not losing money." Aunt Mao sighed, so she borrowed the Mao's tea stall and quietly met a few knowledgeable drugstore clerks in the back room.
The one who keeps the cabinet and picks up medicine.
According to the custom of medicine shops, this kind of clerk must serve as an apprentice in a large pharmacy for more than five years before entering the trade. He must also be literate, able to do calculations, and can recite the names of five to six hundred kinds of medicines. Otherwise, he will pick the wrong one.
Medicine, if you read the wrong prescription, you will die and be sued.
Aunt Mao smiled and invited the passers-by to have tea and cakes. Cao Xiwan had already said that when she opened the drug store, she asked Aunt Mao to take over the tea stall and help cook and clean in the drug store and receive a salary.
How could Aunt Mao be unwilling:
"Don't worry, Mrs. Cao. Ergou is in the donkey and horse store. The drugstores come to the dock every season to transport medicinal materials and look for him. There is no one he doesn't know. He will definitely be able to help find a reliable partner."
Mao Ergou was a foreigner and a widow. He only rented three houses on Qingliangmen Street. The houses were shallow and anyone coughing on the street could be heard clearly in the back room.
Aunt Mao brought her son to the capital to join a relative. Fortunately, when Mao Ergou was working in a relative's donkey and horse shop, he recognized Mother Zhao, who led Cao Xiwan's horse.
Cao Xiwan didn't like any of the waiters, so she got the contract in vain, so she wasn't in a hurry.
If she wanted to open a shop without losing money, she must find an old man from a big drug store.
After sitting for a while eating crude tea, she fell in love with the neighbors of the Mao family and fell in love with the two eldest sisters.
They are all middle-aged elder sisters who are hard-working and talkative. They know that there is a small family, and she wants to hire one to do odd jobs for her parents after the weather is cold. Clean the yard and do some work.
She kept the words in her heart and drank tea for a while before getting up.
Aunt Mao sent her away diligently, but said she was disgusted, "Er Gou took some money that was not worth it in the Yamen. It's better to come out and follow Mrs. Cao to do things for you."
Cao Xiwan smiled. Of course Aunt Mao was just joking. Firstly, Ergou was in the yamen, and no one dared to bully the orphans and widows. Secondly, Aunt Mao didn’t know that she, Cao Xiwan, had also worked in the yamen in the past. She just thought that Zhao’s mother was asking for help.
She asked the master of the house to arrange errands for Ergou.
When she came back, she went to the inner chamber of the Hou Mansion as a routine.
The slaves in the house all wore newly made autumn coats for the Marquis' wedding, and the whole house had new clothes made. The girls were all young and as beautiful as camellias, and the cold winds of autumn and winter seemed unable to blow into the Marquis of Nankang.
The high gate courtyard of the mansion.
"Sister Cao is here."
She greeted him with a smile and stepped onto the corridor near the general account room. In addition to working hard every day to show her face in the Marquis Mansion, she also had to go to the Zhou Da Steward and the Second Steward to say hello, and to flatter several house stewards everywhere.
Mom, let’s walk around with the little sisters we know well.
The most important thing is that she greeted Mrs. Hou in her room early and said that she was coming back to work.
During the days when she was waiting for the news, she stayed at home every day when she had free time. She heated up the kang early in the morning and leaned on the pillow to read her father's medicinal books.
She has a biological father in the family who is a run-down doctor, so she knows a little bit about it.
The more she read the medicine books, the more she felt that Liu Ruhai's prescriptions were the most brilliant.
There were several pots of wintersweet in the room, and the greenery was pleasant. She ate ginseng tea and thought cautiously that maybe to cure her heart disease, Liu Ruhai went over to flatter her and make her new wife happy.
It is also the kindness of doctors.
Besides, she asked about the cost of the medicine. Not counting the prescription, he charged the Wang family twenty taels for just one visit.
He rents the house for only 20 taels a month!
——Why not make money if you have money?
However, as the days passed, wintersweet stamens covered the branches of the plum grove in Nankang Hou Mansion day after day. Doctor Liu still went to the Wang family every day for medical treatment. News came that he even bought property in Shunyi Fang, where the Wang family is located.
He used the medical fees of these ten days to buy a share in the tea and wine shop diagonally opposite the entrance of Wangjia Lane.
She pondered, unable to help but become suspicious.
Isn't this kid just looking for sex?
On this day, she was walking around the Hou Mansion and unexpectedly met the new wife of the Wang family.
"Hey, who is that?"
Looking from a distance, we can see a winding autumn osmanthus path in the garden. The shadows of the osmanthus are all gone near the warm hall in the lee, and there is a lingering fragrance.
Under the tree, there is a figure in a green horse-faced dress. She is slim and slim, but she looks calm and behaves well. At first glance, she is the daughter of an official and scholarly family, and she is quite beautiful.
"That Mrs. Wang is Mrs. Six's childhood friend. Her maiden name is Lei." Su Yun, the girl in the old aunt's room, was talking to Cao Xiwan in the garden. Su Yun smiled and whispered, "I heard that my family
Something happened, and now she is the daughter-in-law of the eunuch Wang of the Wine and Vinegar Bureau. Her maiden name is Yan Wen."
"...It turns out to be her."
Sure enough, it was her. Across a pool of dry lotus and clear water, she looked at it from a distance and felt that it was indeed wronged for such a woman to marry into a eunuch's family. But who told her father that there was an error in the timber account when he was building Xiaoling Mausoleum?
He was imprisoned? Thanks to his relatives and friends who rescued him, he was not beheaded.
Her father, Lao Lei, would inevitably want to rely on eunuch Wang to escape. I'm afraid he would also want to rely on his daughter-in-law to reinstate him.
"I heard she is sick?" Cao Xiwan sat down in the bridge pavilion.
Mrs. Six and Mrs. Wang held hands and were indeed good friends. They enjoyed the autumn together on the other side and climbed the rockery.
"You also know? A while ago, I heard that even after being ill for several days, our sixth wife was afraid that she would marry into the Wang family and be ruined. We posted repeatedly to invite her over."
Cao Xiyang laughed: "Our sixth wife is, after all, the daughter of the military attache's family."
"She's so reckless! The old lady scolded her for meddling in other people's business and causing trouble. Fortunately, our old aunt interceded for her. We know she is a kind-hearted person."
Cao Xiwan nodded and smiled. In the rockery pavilion in the distance, the sixth wife, Liu Yuer, was wearing a rouge autumn coat and a bright red satin horse-faced skirt, a ball of fire. The new wife of the Yu family was wearing a thunderous pattern and a light green horse-faced skirt. She was white.
The corner of her satin coat is fluttering with ribbons, she is such a beauty. Is the new lady’s illness obviously cured?
It was not convenient for her to go to Mrs. Six's room and see Mrs. Wang with her own eyes.
After all, I haven’t met Mrs. Hou yet.
There was no movement in the main room, and she was not asked to do any errands.
"Xiao Wan, Mrs. Hou is trying to impress you." Even Suyun whispered to her quietly when he was sending her out of the house, "Wait a few more days before you go and beg Mr. Hou."
"Who says it's not?" She smiled, but she was already prepared.
She was only thinking about how to make Mrs. Hou happy, just give Dr. Feng, the famous doctor of Huichun Hall, to her.
Cao Xiwan, who had taken advantage of his power, was left idle for several days, unable to please Madam Hou and poach the famous doctor.
She was squatting by the door of her courtyard, digging the soil and planting medicinal herbs with all her heart.
Suddenly I heard the sound of donkey's hooves and the tinkling of luan bells in the alley.
The big flowered donkey must have been carrying him back again. She tilted her upper body and glanced through the crack of the door. She saw him getting off the donkey and knocking on the door.
Hey, she has ignored this guy for several days.
What is he here for?
She jumped up and ran a few steps away. Thinking that this guy could hear her, she stopped pretending. She looked at Liu Ruhai through the crack in the door.
He was carrying a medical box on his back and a food box in his hand. She knew as soon as she smelled it that he was sending some noodles from Seifukuji Temple.
She opened the door and said with a straight face: "I won't eat."
Liu Ruhai put away the food box and looked at her with a smile: "Ms. Cao hasn't been out for a few days. How is your health?"
She was too lazy to talk nonsense and closed the door smoothly.
When he raised his hand, she stopped and looked at him with her eyes.
He smiled: "The child in Chengfu Temple has recovered from his illness. I went to see him today."
"...You built a small farm at the foot of Chengfu Temple Mountain. There are three or four tenant farmers. I also went to see it." She smiled but said, "The new girl is very smart."
He was slightly stunned. She closed the door and thought to herself, she understood what this kid was thinking.
There are quite a lot of spies like him in the capital who are useless at work.
She closed the door and took out from her sleeve the message note that Mao Ergou had left in the crack of the door.
Jin Yiwei, who was in charge of Qianhu, marked Liu Ruhai's detail with a "D" and wrote it on the note, making him the lowest-ranking spy. It's not that this kid is incompetent, but he doesn't need to be too defensive.
Song Chengming's rule is that unimportant matters should be dealt with casually, but major matters and big news should not be leaked at all.
There are also naughty people in the secret spy circle. When they saw the situation of Jin Yiwei surrounding the capital, they defrauded their bosses and spent their time in the capital. When the time came, they spent money to buy some unimportant news and brought it back for business. Anyway, the emperor is far away.
.
As long as the spies are polite and don't offend Jin Yiwei, that's fine.
She had also seen many slick spies like Liu Ruhai who came to the capital to lurk, but also secretly bought properties, found lovers, and bought girls.
She is never embarrassed and is such a knowledgeable colleague.
Even the sages say that those who have a permanent fortune have perseverance. If they have a small fortune, they will be content and not make trouble.
She had more to do than less to do. She tore the note into pieces, chewed it and ate it.
Liu Ruhai looked at the closed black door of the Cao family. She was not in a good mood and had never been able to work as an errand in the Hou's mansion. Maybe she should spend another five hundred taels to let him talk with her.
He looked down at the vegetarian pasta box he brought from Seifuku Temple, thinking she would like it.
He brought it home and ate it by himself. The plain noodles contained chicken mushrooms, yam, and shouwu. The noodles were mixed with qiao wheat, which was bitter yet sweet.
He doesn't like to eat this kind of noodles, but if she likes to eat these plain noodles, it is natural that she is weak and likes to eat them unconsciously, because these medicinal herbs are good for her body.