"Uncle Shi, this is the courtyard that my mother arranged for Mrs. Zhen and Mr. Lin Xiang. It is not convenient for me to go in. If you need anything, you can give orders to the maids and servants inside. My nephew is always ready for orders in the outer courtyard."
"Well, you go ahead."
Watching the young man bow respectfully and leave, Jia Lian nodded secretly. Jia Yucun is worthy of being a second-class Jinshi, and he teaches his son well.
There are two sons and one daughter in Jia Yu Village, among which Jiao Xing has a son and a daughter, but both are still young. This older one was the son of his deceased wife, and Jia Yucun had just introduced him to him, obviously training him as his successor.
The courtyard of Yingtianfu's private residence is very spacious and beautiful.
Jia Lian walked forward along the corridor. Within a few steps, he saw Daiyu leaning on the railing alone, staring at the deep courtyard in front of her.
"What are you doing standing here? Where are Xiangling and the others?"
Daiyu turned around after hearing the sound. The loneliness in her eyes disappeared at a visible speed and was hidden. She glanced back at the wing at the back and pointed with her mouth open.
Jia Lian had actually heard the woman's voice coming from the wing over there, and just asked casually.
Looking at Daiyu's expression, Jia Lian couldn't help but smile and said, "Why, seeing Xiangling's mother and daughter reunited happily, are you jealous?"
"You're just jealous."
Daiyu's face was slightly red, and her original sadness was turned into embarrassment by Jia Lian.
But also, although she has lost her mother for many years, how can she compare with Xiang Ling. Xiangling lost both of her parents before she could remember. Now that mother and daughter are finally reunited, if she is still jealous, wouldn't she look very ignorant and without moral character?
Besides, how could she be jealous? It was just that she had just watched the reunion of Xiangling's mother and daughter. They held each other's arms and cried, and held hands and talked about their care. She was a little sad at the sight.
Of course, Jia Lian didn't really think that Daiyu would be jealous, although Daiyu's personality might be a bit sensitive, and you could even call her petty. However, the character and purity of Daiyu are definitely hard to find in the world.
To give the simplest example, no matter when, where, or under any circumstances, even if you think your parents may harm you in this situation, Daiyu will not have the slightest thought against you.
So she smiled, stepped forward and took Daiyu's little hand, "Since I'm not jealous, let's go in and see what they are talking about."
Daiyu didn't comment and just followed Jia Lian's footsteps.
In the simple and elegantly decorated room, Feng Shi, Jiao Xing, Xiang Ling, and several maids and servants were scattered around.
Seeing Jia Lian and others coming in, everyone stood up and saluted.
Unexpectedly, Jia Lian didn't expect Jiao Xing to be here, but he returned the favor. Then Jiao Xing took her leave consciously and left with her maid.
In this way, there are basically only one person left in the house.
Feng Shi and her daughter looked at each other. Under her daughter's pleading eyes, she took a deep breath, stepped forward and knelt down to Jia Lian, who had just sat on the couch, and said, "I am Zhen Feng Shi, and I would like to thank you Lord Marquis for saving your little daughter's life." and the grace of upbringing.
I have no repayment, so I voluntarily sold myself to enter your mansion. Whether it is cleaning the house or guarding the gate, I am all at your disposal. I hope that the Marquis will show mercy to you. "
Seeing her mother like this, Xiangling quickly stepped forward and knelt down with her mother, looking at Jia Lian pleadingly.
Not to mention the two of them, even Daiyu and several other maids in the room looked at Jia Lian like this, for fear that Jia Lian would not agree.
After previous exchanges, they all knew the situation of the Zhen family.
The Zhen family has long since disappeared, and Xiangling's father has been a monk for many years, with no news at all. And Xiangling's mother, Feng Shi, has been living in her natal family, and she is not very popular at all.
In this case, it is better to enter the Duke's Mansion to get a public meal. Not only will this not only provide food and clothing, but also be with your daughter day and night, making up for the shortcomings of more than ten years!
Although sold into slavery, it may not be so easy for Feng to accept emotionally, as he is a wife of a squire clan.
But she also understands that even if she is a slave of a wealthy family, her situation will be much better than her previous situation. The most important thing is that she has repeatedly confirmed before that her daughter is not willing to leave Rongguo Mansion and her master Jia Lian no matter what.
Therefore, if she wanted to be with her daughter, she could only sell herself and enter Rongguo Mansion. After all, with her power, she has no chance of taking her daughter away by force as long as others don't want to!
She didn't dare to take her daughter away.
After taking it away, where to go? She herself was living in her natal family and was despised by others. Should she take her daughter back to her natal family and suffer hardships with her?
Then why has she been looking forward to finding her daughter for so many years? Is it just to prevent her from living a rich life and suffer along with her?
Therefore, after a simple weighing, she agreed to the suggestion Jiao Xing gave her. Anyway, she has no children except Xiang Ling, so she can be a slave, and it will not affect her heirs.
As for the dignity of the Zhen family, she already had no idea. When her husband abandoned her, she was heartbroken and no longer thought about the Zhen family.
If she is pitiful today, if she is allowed to find her daughter, that is, to find hope for the rest of her life, she will naturally stay by her daughter's side until she dies.
Facing everyone's gaze, Jia Lian frowned and asked: "Did Madam have thought carefully about what she said? Although it is very simple for the house to adopt an additional servant, I don't want Madam to have any reluctance.
As for the madam's desire to stay with her daughter, I can naturally understand it. This is why I agreed to Xiang Ling to help her find her relatives.
Therefore, even if you don't sell yourself into the house, you can still stay with Xiang Ling. I can agree to take you back to the capital and rent a house for you in the capital. In this way, if Xiangling wants to see you, it will be easy. If you want to see your daughter, you can also come in and see her.
As for your daily expenses, you don’t have to worry about that. Xiangling girl has been with me for so many years, and I have never seen her spend a penny randomly. I don't know how much she has saved in her private house. Anyway, it is enough for you to live without worries. "
As soon as Jia Lian said this, everyone quickly looked at Xiangling with hidden smiles.
Yes, Second Master Lian is a generous man. Who in the house doesn't know how much he loves Xiang Ling? As a result, Xiang Ling usually gets many rewards!
When Xiangling heard Jia Lian's words, her expression became excited. She quickly looked at Feng, nodded vigorously, and almost said, "Don't worry, mother, I have money, I will support you!"
For Xiang Ling, she was definitely not willing to leave Jia Lian. However, she didn't want to wrong her mother. After all, she didn't even sell herself into Jia's family. Although she had long thought that she was a maid of the Jia family, it was true that the Jia family had not asked her to write a deed, and her monthly money had always been deducted from Jia Lian's monthly money.
Therefore, Jia Lian's suggestion was a way to give her the best of both worlds, and she was very grateful to Jia Lian for thinking about her in this way.
Madam Feng met her daughter's eyes and smiled instead. She turned around and kowtowed to Jia Lian again, and said sincerely: "I thank you so much, Lord Marquis, for thinking about me, my mother and my daughter. However, I forgive my greed, but I still want to She wanted to be a slave in the house. This way, not only could she be closer to her daughter, but she could also avoid living alone in a house, being lonely and having no one to talk to.
I also ask the Marquis to please allow me to sell myself into the house for the sake of Xiang Ling! "
"mother……"
Seeing that her daughter was trying to dissuade her, Mrs. Feng took her hand and shook her head.
How could she not understand that even if Jia Lian was telling the truth, how could she accept this kindness again? Moreover, she has lost her daughter for many years and now she has just reunited. How can she have the face to spend all the love her daughter has saved over the years?
Besides, living outside is not as cheap as following her daughter into the Duke's Mansion. Even if she doesn't consider the difficulty and cost of meeting in the future, she still doesn't worry about her daughter hanging around in the Duke's Mansion alone.
Therefore, she felt that Jiao Xing was right and finding a way to enter Rongguo Mansion was her best choice.
And she was not related to the Rongguo Mansion, so if she wanted to enter the Mansion, the only way was to sell herself to the Mansion.
Fortunately, through just the small details, she became more and more certain that Rongguo Mansion was a house of good deeds, and Jia Lian was also a virtuous person.
In this way, she doesn't have to worry about being treated harshly after entering the mansion.
For Jia Lian, he just wanted to help Xiang Ling find her mother. He didn't care much whether Feng went into the house to accompany Xiang Ling or lived alone outside.
Seeing that she had made up her mind, Jia Lian didn't want to talk nonsense and nodded: "Since you have made up your mind, I will make it happen for you.
However, you are not born into a family of this family, so you don’t need to sign a life-long contract. How about this, after you return to Beijing, you sign a five-year contract first, and after five years, you can stay or leave as you wish? "
Hearing this, everyone knew that Jia Lian was so lenient to Feng for Xiang Ling's sake.
Although there was a saying of short-term contracts in the world, in order to ensure the absolute loyalty of slaves, wealthy families usually only signed death contracts, that is, lifetime contracts, and they would be slaves and maids for the rest of their lives. There is no room for you to regret it.
Therefore, several maids and ladies from the Jia family and the Lin family looked at Feng with some envy.
Feng Shi naturally understood this truth. She didn't know what to say for a moment, so she could only kowtow to Jia Lian and say thank you: "Slave, thank you so much, Lord Marquis, for your generosity!"
"Thank you, Second Master, for your generosity..."
Xiangling also followed her mother and kowtowed to Jia Lian to thank her. When she raised her head, her eyes were filled with tears. She looked at Jia Lian with eyes full of gratitude and nostalgia.
This made Fengshi sigh deeply.
Seeing Xiangling's mother and daughter stand up, holding hands, clearly full of words to say, but due to the inconvenience of him being nearby to elaborate, Jia Lian understood why Daiyu had just gone out to enjoy the breeze alone.
So Jia Lian didn't want to stay here any longer, so he said goodbye to Jia Yucun and his wife.
"Senior Sister Lin, just stay and play with me..."
Yuchai, the daughter of Jia Yucun and Jiao Xing, may have seen a beautiful girl like Daiyu for the first time. After seeing her by chance before, she heard that she was her senior sister, and she immediately fell in love with her. Not only did they run after each other, but now they heard that Daiyu was about to leave, they were even more reluctant to leave. They pulled on Daiyu's clothes, trying to get her to stay and play with her.
Poor Daiyu is a lonely person. She always looks very embarrassed when facing such a little girl and being embarrassed to throw away the elder sister's money.
Jiao Xing saw Daiyu's embarrassment, stepped forward and took her daughter, and said with a smile: "Your father and your uncle have already agreed that we will go to the capital together this time. If you are reluctant to let go of your senior sister, we will be on the ship when the time comes. , you can see it.
They still have things to do now, so stop making trouble. "
"Oh, okay……"
The little girl frowned and reluctantly let go of Daiyu's clothes.
Jia Lian and Jia Yucun in front turned around and saw each other, and couldn't help but smile.
"I intend to keep Brother Lian down for a drink at noon. Since Brother Lian has other arrangements, Brother Yu won't force it."
"There is ample time."
"Hahaha, okay, the days are long!"
…
Because when they came to Yingtian Mansion, Jia Lian and Xiang Ling rode in the same carriage.
When returning, in order to give Xiangling and her daughter space, Jia Lian asked them to ride in his carriage.
In this way, he himself got on Daiyu's carriage justifiably.
But as soon as he boarded Daiyu's carriage and opened the curtain to go in, he saw Daiyu frowning and staring at him: "Why did you get up here?"
"My car was occupied by Xiang Ling and her mother, so I came to your place for a while. Well, isn't Sister Lin welcome?"
But Daiyu didn't believe how a maid, He De, could dare to occupy the carriage of his Grand Marquis Jia!
"Then there are still maids sitting in the back. If you ask them to make room for Xiang Ling and the others, will they be unwilling?"
In a family like Jia's Mansion, the maids who serve the young lady closely usually ride in carriages when going out. Only the servants and maids could only walk along.
As for the reason, no one has said it, it has always been like this anyway.
"Hey, my sister Daolin used to be a considerate and good mistress, but she turned out to be harsh as well.
As Zijuan Xueyan and the others serve you so wholeheartedly, you actually instigated me to snatch their carriage. How could your little cherry mouth say such cold and heartless words? "
"If you are considerate, then you can let them sit with you and do anything to squeeze me..."
Daiyu's face turned red. Just because she and Jia Lian had some small intimate behaviors, but almost all of them were in private rooms, that is, when no one saw them.
At least so far, she has never been in the same car with Jia Lian.
A carriage is a very private space, like a room. Now that Jia Lian is on her carriage, she is worried that others will laugh at her.
"In my capacity, it would be even more inappropriate for me to be crowded together with your maids, right?"
"Pooh……"
Seeing that she could not convince Jia Lian, Daiyu decisively took out her usual skills and spat at Jia Lian.
Jia Lian burst out laughing, "Okay, I admit, I want to ride in the same carriage as you. Who told Sister Lin that you are so lovable?"
Haha, Senior Sister Lin, just stay and play with me..."
"Ah, you are going to die, you are not serious!"
When Daiyu heard that Jia Lian actually imitated Jia Yuchai's previous tenderness to keep her, she suddenly felt goosebumps all over her body and her cheeks turned red.
However, she was still very happy about it.
She has never seen any outsiders since she was a child, and this is the first time she has seen a little girl who likes her so much. Therefore, although she was a little overwhelmed by Jia Yujiao's enthusiasm before, thinking about it afterwards, she was still quite happy.
After all, although many people in the Jia family dare not say it, details show that they all feel that they have a bad personality and are unlovable.
Humph, isn’t this girl very lovable?
Who knew, Jia Lian would make fun of her!
Seeing Daiyu panting and blushing after being teased like this, he knew that Daiyu couldn't stand teasing, so Jia Lian stopped in time. Sit closer, take her little hand, and let her lean gently into his arms.
Although Daiyu was shy about this, she couldn't drive him off again since Jia Lian and his men were already here.
"By the way, Sister Lin, have you been to Jinling City before?"
"Perhaps I have been here, but I have no memory of it."
Daiyu answered truthfully. Jinling is the central city of the entire Jiangnan. She should have been here with her parents when she was a child.
"In that case, how about I take you around Jinling City?"
Daiyu was moved when she heard this. There are few ladies who don’t want to go shopping without leaving home.
Besides, Jia Lian is accompanying her.
But after thinking about it, Daiyu still said: "Xiang Ling and her mother have just reunited. I'm afraid it won't be easy for them to follow us everywhere."
"It doesn't matter, I'll just let them go back first."
After saying that, Jia Lian let go of Daiyu, opened the car curtain, and ordered a group of people to take Xiangling and her daughter back to the old house in Rongguofu, and then took Daiyu towards the West City.
(End of chapter)
