Bai Jingyu barely suppressed his resentment, and asked Xu Junlang with a worried look about Xiangrui's condition. Xu Junlang said that several maids in the madam's courtyard were guarding her, and they had invited a doctor to diagnose her. The doctor said that she had a miscarriage, and they had called a midwife. When he went to Fangyuan, Xiangrui was in great pain. Although it was not the due time yet, it seemed that she had to give birth.
Bai Jingyu asked Xiangxue to go to the courtyard to call a maid and find a few maids who had given birth to help, and asked her to bring some silver to reward people. Xiangxue went out to send the maids away, and came back to pour hot tea for Xu Junlang, and helped him take off his official uniform and put on a light and soft satin jacket. Xu Junlang no longer looked serious and his expression relaxed.
After a while, lunch was served. The maids in the corridor came in and set the food, brought hot water for washing hands and faces. Xiangxue carefully served Bai Jingyu and Xu Junlang lunch. Bai Jingyu moved a plate of fragrant duck in front of Xu Junlang and said with a smile:
"Master, you've been busy all morning, you must be very hungry, right? I remember when we first got married, my husband and I loved eating this. Now I'm taking medicine, but I can't eat duck meat. I thought you would come these days, so I specially asked Tiantian to make this dish. Master, have a try!"
Xu Junlang said: "Duck meat is an irritant. You are sick, so don't eat it at all! Here, have the chicken wings. The braised catfish is great. Here are the fish eyes. You like them!"
Bai Jingyu's eyes turned red: "Master, do you still remember that I like to eat fish eyes..."
Xu Junlang raised his eyes to look at her: "What's wrong? I remember all your preferences. We have been a loving couple for several years, and this love will never fade no matter what happens!"
Bai Jingyu held the corners of his eyes with a handkerchief and said, "With what you said, all my hard work over the years is worth it. I can die with my eyes closed! When you marry someone new in the future, as long as you treat my Lian'er well, everything will be fine!"
Xu Junlang's face darkened, "You are talking nonsense again! You are fine, why should I marry someone new? Mother married you for me because she said you are good-looking and very capable. You have done a lot for the family in the past few years and have been very hardworking. In my heart, you are a lady from a famous family, many times better than the eldest lady in the eldest house. I am not a master and I have to listen to the old lady's arrangements and marry two wives... I only have you as my wife and I will not take concubines. Xiangrui and Xiangxue are yours. If you like them, you can take them in under your name and raise them. They also raise concubines for the sake of the children. I will never be as confused as the master and not distinguish between the primary and the secondary!"
Bai Jingyu's face gradually relaxed, and a smile appeared on his lips: "As long as you have me in your heart and cherish me, you can do whatever you want. I will never say no and will help you with all my strength!"
The couple exchanged some heartfelt words for a while, and when they were almost done with lunch, Bai Jingyu was in a good mood. Pointing at the half-eaten leftovers on the table, he said to Xiangxue:
"It's still hot, take it to the room over there and eat it!"
Xiangxue thanked him, took the small table away, replaced it with a mahogany table, put some hot fragrant tea on it, and then went back to eat.
Bai Jingyu drank a sip of tea, and seeing Xu Junlang's straight eyebrows slightly wrinkled, he comforted him: "Don't worry, Master. Xiangrui is the first child, so it won't be that fast. I'm not fully recovered yet, so I can't go to see her. There are more than a dozen maids and servants guarding her, as well as the midwife and the doctor. The little maids have divided into three groups to visit her, and will report back as soon as there is news... Master can't enter the mother's room, so he can only sit here and wait for news. I think Madam has received the letter and will be back soon."
Xu Junlang shook his head: "If you are willing to arrange it for her, it must be very appropriate. I am not worried. I am thinking about another thing!"
"What's up?"
"Alas! To be honest, I gave you some of my salary, and gave some to my mother. The rest was reserved for daily entertainment. A few days ago, the prefect of Jingzhou Prefecture went to the capital for important matters. He is my peer, so I had to entertain him and help him with various relationships. I spent a lot of money and thought that I would not need money anymore. Who knew... You stay at home every day and have never heard of the King of Qi. The King of Qi is the younger brother of the current emperor and is the most favored by the empress dowager and the emperor. He returned victorious this time and was injured. Officials in the court rushed to visit him. My colleagues also discussed putting together a backup gift and sending it to the King of Qi's mansion. Each person would have to take out five or six hundred taels of silver, but I don't have that much money now..."
Bai Jingyu looked at him: "Five or six hundred taels of silver? Isn't that too little?"
Xu Junlang was stunned for a moment: "It's quite a lot. There are seven or eight people, so the total amount is about four or five thousand taels, enough to buy a very decent gift!"
Bai Jingyu rolled his eyes. "The King of Qi is different from the King of Jin, the King of Wei, and the King of Yue. He was born to the Queen Mother and is the brother of the Emperor. This time he returned to the capital and made such great contributions. The Emperor will definitely give him great rewards. The Queen Mother will not let him go again. Maybe he will stay in the court to take charge of government affairs in the future? I have been in the government for three years and am only a sixth-rank official now. Although the old lady and the Queen Mother are cousins, she is not willing to use her easily. The Queen Mother also rarely summons the old lady to the palace, which shows that it is difficult for her to get close to me. If I can take this opportunity to establish a cousin relationship with the King of Qi, it will be easier to talk to him when I visit him in the future!"
Xu Junlang asked: "How do we establish that cousin relationship?"
Bai Jingyu said: "There is no need to pool money with colleagues. We can spend five or six thousand taels or even tens of thousands of taels of silver to prepare a unique gift and send it to the Prince of Qi's mansion with a name card. If he wants to come in the future, he will know you are here. If he can't remember, I can find an opportunity to get close to him!"
Xu Junlang was shocked: "Oh my god! You can prepare a gift of five or six thousand taels of silver yourself, but where can I get so much money?"
Bai Jingyu glanced at Xiangxue who was beside him. Xiangxue lowered her head. Bai Jingyu said, "Tomorrow, go to the embroidery shop at the east end of Renyi Street, take my handwritten note, and ask the shopkeeper to withdraw all the silver on the account. There will be 7,000 to 8,000 taels. I will give you another 2,000 taels of silver notes later. When you have a total of 10,000 taels of silver, you can report to the master and ask him to go with you to pick a suitable gift and personally deliver it to the Prince of Qi's mansion!"
Xu Junlang looked at Bai Jingyu, his eyes sparkling: "Jingyu, you are really... No wonder the fortune teller said that you are destined to be a lucky wife. You can take care of me like this. In the future, I will be promoted step by step, and I will need your imperial edict to grant me amnesty!"
Bai Jingyu covered her lips with her sleeves, coughed twice, and said in a tender voice: "Husband and wife share the same fate. Who else can I rely on besides my husband? If not for you, how can I rely on others?"
"Of course it's for me. You'll have to rely on me in the future!" Xu Junlang hurried over and sat next to Bai Jingyu. He patted her back gently and said lovingly, "You must take care of yourself and don't work too hard. Meilian is growing up and you have to worry about her. We'll have another son, and then we'll have everything!"
Bai Jingyu snuggled into his warm arms, took a deep breath, and a heat rose in her eyes: this intoxicating tenderness and thoughtfulness once belonged to her completely and she could enjoy it at will, but now it is not so easy to get it!
Xu Junlang embraced Bai Jingyu and said worriedly, "But I heard from my uncle that the King of Qi has a strange temper and is moody. His vision must be different from that of ordinary people. If the gift is not to his liking, wouldn't it be..."
Bai Jingyu closed his eyes and leaned against him: "My master has been close to the emperor since he was a child, but he never wants to bring you brothers to meet the emperor. It shows that he doesn't hope that you will have much success. You can't believe everything he says to you!"
Xu Junlang pondered: "My master is not a person who would do that... Well, I will go find him and ask the King of Qi what he likes, okay?"
Bai Jingyu reached out and gently stroked Xu Junlang's face, sighing, "My Lord, you are only one day younger than him, and yet you are already his younger brother! He always puts you above him in everything, and since he is the eldest son, how can he fulfill his responsibilities as the eldest son? He only cares about earning credit for himself, and never cares about you, his brothers below him..."
Xu Junlang said, "It's fate, what can we do? I should have been the first to come out, but I didn't move, and my aunt gave birth to him first. He was the one appointed to accompany the prince since he was a child, and he was followed by a large group of people. How could we brothers get close to him easily? When he went to the battlefield in his teens, the prince was inseparable from him. He was reluctant to leave, but he had to go. There were tens of thousands of people following him, and they couldn't see each other. He only went home for a day or two to visit his family. His contribution was exchanged for his life. We can't say anything about his title... Now that he has been honored and favored by the emperor, I will have to rely on him in the future. You must not say those disrespectful words anymore, and you must not look down on my sister-in-law as you did before. I heard that she has become a different person since she was sick. She is very smart and intelligent. Now she is in charge of the household affairs of the Hou Mansion. She is more powerful than you, isn't it?"
Bai Jingyu curled his lips: "I'm sick, how can I know? I have been helping my mother manage the affairs of the Bai Mansion since I was a child. It is not difficult to do such things. She is from a small family, what does she know? The eldest wife insisted on pushing her up. It is hard to say whether she can last a month!"
Xu Junlang smiled and said, "Take your medicine and take care of yourself. Go and help her and teach her. Sisters-in-law should help each other. If she can't do it anymore, you're the one who's in charge."
Bai Jingyu snorted, "If I want her to teach, she has to have the brain to bear it! I have been with the first wife for a few months, and I have only been in charge for a month. The rules and regulations have been re-established. She came here and took advantage of it. If she can't continue, it will be a joke!"
As he was talking, Xiangxue brought a little girl in and replied, "Sister Xiangrui is still in pain. Madam is back. Please go over and talk to her!"
Bai Jingyu sat up straight in Xu Junlang's arms, feeling extremely dissatisfied: the wife was also a person who could never be tamed. She only knew to complain that she could not give birth to a son and never appreciated her good points. Xiangrui became pregnant with Xu Junlang's child, but the wife directly took Xiangrui into her own yard to raise her, without considering her face as a proper daughter-in-law at all. She had already felt a little cold towards this mother-in-law.
Xu Junlang comforted her: "I'll go take a look and do some errands. Don't wait for me for dinner. I may not be back until very late. Leave the light on!"
Bai Jingyu's face flushed slightly. He reached out to the small cabinet inside the couch, took out a key, and handed it to Xiangxue:
"The two banknotes that Madam Huang took back yesterday are locked in that walnut cabinet. Take me there to get them!"
Xu Junlang followed Xiangxue into the next room and opened the cabinet. As expected, there were two banknotes, one for one thousand yuan. Xu Junlang took the banknotes and saw that Xiangxue just lowered her head and dared not look at him. He sighed and said:
"I've neglected you these days. Don't fall asleep at night. I'll go see you first..."
Before Xiangxue could answer, Xu Junlang had already opened the curtain and walked out the door.
He took the handwritten note from Bai Jingyu, gave Xiangxue some instructions and asked her to take good care of her grandmother before leaving.
As soon as he left, Bai Jingyu asked Xiangxue to call in a little maid who was usually with him and told her to go to the garment workshop immediately to see what was going on at Mother Huang's place.
Xu Junlang walked to the fake stone mountain and met his father, the second master Xu Xiping.
Xu Xiping frowned and looked at him: "Is what I just heard in Aunt Yan's courtyard true? Your wife is actually going to ruin the Xu family's offspring?"
Xu Junlang bowed to his father and said with his eyes downcast, "Father, don't believe the rumors. Jingyu only asked Xiangrui to come here to teach her some things about having a baby. Xiangrui accidentally fell on the way and her fetus has started to move. I think she will give birth today."
Xu Xiping said, "Offspring is a big deal. I asked you, mother, to watch carefully. If it's a boy, you'll have an heir. Jingyu is good in every way, but... Chun'er should have given you a son last year - how did that go?"
Xu Junlang said calmly: "I told her to prepare gifts for the palace, and she gave me some to relieve the immediate urgency."
Xu Xiping breathed a sigh of relief: "That's good, that's good... Come on over, I'll go to Chunhuayuan with you to have a look!" (To be continued)