Translator: SJade, Editor: Dj22031
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Just as Feng Liao and Yong Ruo were competing in eyesight and will, the door of the elegant room was gently pushed open, and An Zimo led the proprietress and a waiter in, carrying a large three-layer food box.
Feng Liao was the first to look away, with a look of shame, suspicion, and trance. Yong Ruo quietly breathed a sigh of relief: she won the competition!
The proprietress transferred the remaining dishes to several ceramic bowls, then put all the ceramic bowls into the food box and covered it with a lid.
A guard with a knife hanging on his waist came in and took the food box in his hand.
Yong Ruo smiled and asked the proprietress: “Can you help me hire a carriage? It’s late, and I can’t walk so far with so many things.” The key was that she would be carrying a huge amount of money! Walking alone at night like this was simply seeking death!
An Zimo smiled and said, “Miss, don’t worry! I have hired a carriage for you and it is waiting outside the door.”
Yong Ruo was overjoyed and was about to thank him, but Feng Liao said, “Send the carriage away! I will personally take Miss Yong back.”
An Zimo agreed and was about to leave. Yong Ruo said, “Wait a minute!” An Zimo paused, glanced at Feng Liao, and seeing that he did not urge or object, he waved to the proprietress and said, “You guys go out first!”
After the proprietress saluted, she bowed silently and left with the waiter.
Yong Ruo kept smiling and asked Feng Liao, “Sir, how do you want to send me back?”
Feng Liao pressed his hands tightly against his clothes, letting the fabric absorb the sweat from his palms. He tried to remain calm and said, “I came here by carriage. I’ll send you home first, and then I’ll go back to the mansion. Just as you said: It’s getting late, and you have more than ten taels of silver on you. What if the driver is unreliable and gets tempted by the money? Didn’t you say that for one or two taels of silver, some people would dare to risk their lives? Isn’t it much more reliable for me to send you back?” After that, he casually told An Zimo, “Give Miss Yong ten taels of silver.” An Zimo took out a ten-tael silver ingot and handed it to Yong Ruo with both hands.
Yong Ruo looked at it and smiled, “Can it be changed into small change?” It would not be easy for her to spend such a large ingot of silver!
An Zimo smiled, took out a purse from his sleeve, poured out all the silver coins in the purse, weighed it and handed it to her: “It should be just the right amount.”
Yong Ruo took it with both hands without hesitation, put it carefully into her saddle bag, and said to Feng Liao: “I appreciate your kindness, sir. But your carriage must be extremely luxurious. Such a carriage appearing in a place like Mopan Hutong will definitely attract a lot of attention. If I were sent back in such a carriage in the middle of the night, I don’t know what kind of gossip would spread! Although I am not particular about trivial matters, I am a woman after all, and I cannot withstand the invasion of rumours. I hope you will sympathize with me. If you have mercy on me and send a guard to see me off, I will be very grateful!”
Feng Liao was speechless, so he could only say to the guard carrying the food box: “Lu Bu, take a few people and send Miss Yong back safely.”
The guard named Luo Bu bowed and responded, then walked out with the food box.
Feng Liao then stood up, made a gesture of invitation to Yong Ruo, and said very gently: “I will take you downstairs!”
Yong Ruo sighed in her heart: First love is always beautiful, but it is always difficult to last. She picked up the basket, said nothing more, walked out of the door of the elegant room, and went downstairs.
Outside the inn, there were two carriages parked. The decoration of the first one was indeed very gorgeous. It must be Mr. Feng’s carriage; the second one was an ordinary green tent carriage that was often seen on the street.
Yong Ruo bowed to Feng Liao: “I’m leaving! Mr. Feng, take care!”
Feng Liao returned the greeting and said softly: “You take care too.”
Yong Ruo said no more and turned to get on the green tent carriage.
The driver drove away in the carriage, and the guard named Luo Bu brought two people and rode on horseback to guard on the side.
Feng Liao stood outside the door of the inn, looking at the direction where the green tent carriage left. Only when the carriage had gone out of sight did he look back at the inn and nod to the host and hostess who had come to see him off. He looked up at the elegant room upstairs for a long time, whispered a few words to An Zimo, and then he sighed and reluctantly got on the ornately decorated carriage.
The curtain was lowered, and Feng Liao took out a box from his sleeve.
He opened the box and picked out a branch of red plum blossoms.
He held the branch of plum blossom and looked at it for a long time before he whispered, “Fear, sadness, and sleepiness, it blooms late alone, fearing that the ice will not be in season. It pretends to be a small red peach and apricot color, but still has a lonely and thin snow and frost posture…”
The voice was low and lingering, like a dense spring rain, pouring on the heart.
Yong Ruo sat in the swaying carriage, touching the silver and copper coins in the bag, she felt a kind of excitement and sense of steadiness that she had never felt since she came here.
Finally, there is some money! Finally, I don’t have to go without a meal!
The carriage stopped outside the Yong family’s door. Yong Ruo got off the car, holding a basket and a food box.
Her second brother Yong Qiao seemed to have been waiting behind the door. When he heard the sound, he opened the door and rushed out to hug Yong Ruo’s waist: “Sister! You are back! I have been waiting for you for a long time!”
Yong Ruo smiled and said, “Good boy! I brought back some delicious food. Let’s go in!”
“Delicious food?” Yong Qiao’s eyes lit up.
After Yong Ruo thanked and said goodbye to Luo Bu and others who escorted her back, she turned into the yard and asked Yong Qiao to bolt the door. After bolting the door, Yong Qiao went to take the things in Yong Ruo’s hand. Yong Ruo handed him the basket: “Put it in my room!” The food box was too heavy, and Yong Qiao was sure he couldn’t carry it. Yong Qiao took the basket, ran into Yong Ruo’s room quickly, put the basket on the bed, and ran out again.
“Sister, what delicious food?” Yong Qiao stared at the food box and swallowed his saliva.
Yong Ruo held the food box in one hand and touched his head with the other: “Meat! Very delicious meat!”
“Meat!” Yong Qiao raised her head and looked at her with shining eyes, then became worried again, “It’s very expensive, right? Sister, it’s not easy to make money, don’t spend it all!”
“Don’t worry! I didn’t spend any money! A kind-looking old lady invited me to a banquet, and I packed the remaining dishes from the banquet and brought them back.”
Yong Ruo changed the person who invited her to dinner to an old lady, so that people around her would not make a fuss and say something unpleasant.
Although she didn’t care about other people’s gossip, the core of “people’s gossip is scary” was that it would not only impact your heart, but also make your environment worse. If a small white lie could save a lot of trouble, why wouldn’t she tell this lie!
Yong Qiao continued to worry: “Then…, wouldn’t that be embarrassing?”
Yong Ruo suppressed the urge to sigh and educated Yong Qiao on the attitude towards life: “Qiao Qiao, as a person, you have to face reality. If you are poor, don’t be so stubborn, otherwise you will only suffer more. If I am afraid of embarrassment and don’t bring these dishes back, you can’t eat meat tonight! Or, do you want me to buy them myself?”
Yong Qiao weighed it, and his sense of crisis made him make a quick decision: “It’s better to bring back the leftovers!” He raised his head and looked at Yong Ruo’s face, looking very distressed, “It’s just that my sister has been wronged!”
Yong Ruo smiled: “It’s okay, sister is not wronged! Sister is very happy to eat tonight. Go get clean bowls, chopsticks and spoons.” Yong Qiao ran away.
Yong Ruo carried the food box to the main room. As soon as she reached the door, the shabby wooden door was opened from the inside by her third brother Yong Miao.
“Sister, I have been guarding mother all the time and have not gone anywhere!” He looked up at Yong Ruo with an expression that asked for praise.
Yong Ruo smiled and touched his head, praising him: “Good boy! Sister brought you some delicious food! I’ll serve it for you after I see mom. Has mom woken up yet?”
Yong Miao nodded and said in a choked voice, “She has woken up! She woke up because of a stomach-ache, and she was sweating all over. Later, my second brother and I persuaded mother to drink some medicine, but she vomited again, and the vomit was stained with blood. After vomiting, mother refused to take medicine or drink porridge, and told my second brother not to get medicine anymore, saying it was a waste of money and if she could be cured, she should have been cured long ago…” He looked up at Yong Ruo, tears rolling down his eyes, “Sister, let’s find another doctor to see mother! This doctor is useless now!”
Yong Ruo rubbed his head, wiped the tears from his face, smiled at him, and said as gently as possible, “Okay! Let’s find another doctor to see mother!”
But she sighed deeply in her heart: Mother Zhou had been ill for several months, with symptoms of upper abdominal pain, weight loss, weakness, loss of appetite, nausea, and vomiting blood. Yong Ruo seriously suspected that mother Zhou had a stomach problem, or was simply starving. But she was not a medical student, so she could only leave mother Zhou’s illness to the doctors of that time.
Following Yong Miao into the main room, Yong Ruo put the food box on the square table under the west wall, and then went to see mother Zhou on the bed.
Mother Zhou was sleeping, she was as thin as a skeleton, her eye sockets were sunken, and there was no blood on her face and lips.
Since the first month of the year, mother Zhou had been getting weaker and weaker, and she was sleeping more and more every day. It didn’t seem good.
Fortunately, the family had some money now, so they could hire a better doctor and give mother Zhou more nutrition. Maybe there was still hope of saving her.
Yong Ruo returned to the square table and saw Yong Miao kneeling on a bench, staring at the food box intently, sniffing his nose hard, sniffing the faint aroma wafting from the food box.
The tears on his face were not dry yet, and he showed this greedy look again, which was really cute and pitiful.
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