Yu Jinnian knelt down, took out a small handkerchief to help Sui Sui dry her tears, and coaxed her softly to ask what was wrong. She sobbed and couldn't speak, then Ah Chun ran up and gestured: "We were playing in the garden, Sui Sui lost the pendant! We searched for a long time but couldn't find it..."
Yu Xu followed and nodded.
It was talking about the necklace pendant made of pearls in Xin'an County. What he thought was nothing but a pearl pendant, Yu Jinnian patiently rubbed her red eyes from crying, smoothed her crumpled little skirt, and asked the cook to bring some fruit to cheer her up, saying: " In this way, Brother Xiaonian, ask the little flower essence in the garden to help you find it, and when you wake up tomorrow, you will be able to find the pendant!"
Sui Sui nodded, then shook her head again, pouted her small mouth in displeasure, and asked sadly: "Then what if the flower essence can't be found..."
"Hmm..." Yu Jinnian pondered for a moment, "Brother Xiaonian will give you a better one, okay?"
Sui Sui frowned, she only knew that these beautiful things were very expensive, so she was afraid that Yu Jinnian would not have enough money, so she had to resist the urge to want beautiful jewelry, and said duplicity: "If the flower essence can't be found, I don’t want that Sui Sui, Sui Sui and sister Qing Huan made a lot of headbands.”
"That Sui Sui is really a sensible little girl. Come on, Sui Sui won't cry, otherwise she won't be the most beautiful." Yu Jinnian coaxed her well, and saw that her fingernails were covered with dirt from when she was looking for pendants , then motioned to the servant next to him.
"Miss, let's wash our hands." The servants immediately ran to fetch warm water, brought it over, and took Sui Sui to wipe it clean.
Yu Jinnian stood up, couldn't help but look at Yu Xu more, and asked strangely, "Why are you with them?"
Yu Xu blinked his eyes: "I, I will go out and walk casually. When I meet, I will look for pendants with them."
The garden is so big and there are so many roads, it is indeed normal to meet some people wherever you go. Yu Jinnian didn't take it seriously, and asked casually: "Did you eat enough yesterday, and slept well? If there is anything inappropriate, tell the boy in the garden."
Yu Xu smelled the scent wafting from the kitchen, kept poking his head in, hesitatingly said: "Brother Jinnian, I... I want to eat meat, is that okay?"
Yu Jinnian smiled indifferently: "Okay, just tell them what you want to eat. They can cook all kinds of dishes from east, west, north and south. Even the dishes from our hometown, they will also serve a few dishes."
He went back to the kitchen, opened the pot of sour plum pulp and stirred it, and asked the people below to watch the fire carefully. He planned to go out to buy something by himself, but when he was about to leave, he remembered something, and turned to Yu Xu and said, "Yes. Well, Yu Xu, we don’t raise young masters in our garden. Of course it’s okay to keep you, but you have to work. The third floor on East Cross Street is mine. If you want to help with some chores in the garden, go to Sanyu Yu Lou can help, if you think about it, talk to Qing Huan, and she will tell you what to do. Got it?"
Yu Xu stared at him for a long time before saying: "... um."
He whispered again: "Brother Jinnian, my face hurts, and it hurts even when I eat."
Yu Jinnian looked at the bruise on his face, it had settled overnight, and it looked a little deeper, even touching him made him grin his teeth in pain, so he could only frowned, sighed, and said that he would wait until he recovered from the injury Besides.
After that, he arranged a few people to help Suisui find the pendant, and then he picked up the small basket and went out.
As soon as he left, Yu Xu touched his chest, exhaled lightly, straightened his clothes and coughed, walked into the kitchen, looked around with his hands behind his back, touched this and that.
The cooks all heard that a relative of Yu Jinnian had come to the garden, and when they saw it today, they all knew it must be this one, so they stopped their work for a while and called him "Little Mr. Yu".
Yu Xu was startled at first, but then became complacent, raised his head a little higher, imitating the way Yu Jinnian ordered people just now, and asked them to pour him a cup of tea, and talked for a long time, but saw no one Move, he said again.
The cooks looked at each other, feeling strange, and finally went to the next door to get the teapot and poured him a cup.
After Yu Xu drank it, he praised the "good tea": "It is worthy of being a nobleman's tea. It really makes people's tongue, raw... raw water!" Talking nonchalantly, making three different things and four different things, causing people to laugh without knowing it.
This tea is not to be said to be drunk by the nobleman, but the guards and maids like Duan Ming and Qing Huan who are with the nobleman drink much better fragrant tea than this, but a few pieces of thick tea leaves can also make people feel better. Feeling overwhelmed? The little cook who was holding the teapot couldn't help but sneered, filled up his teacup again, and finally put the whole teapot into his arms, saying softly: "Then you can drink a few more cups, live more Son of water!"
The rest of the cooks also laughed and went back to work one after another, ignoring him.
Yu Xu wandered around by himself for a while, then lifted the lid of a small earthen jar, and saw a hoof lying inside, suddenly got excited, took a spoon to fish it out, and gnawed it. When a cook saw it and called him in shock, several teeth marks had already been left on the hoof. After being drank by him for a long time, he suddenly said in surprise: "What are you doing! This is what the prince ordered, and stewed for lunch for the little prince to replenish his body!"
"What's it called?" Yu Xu said displeasedly, "I'm his younger brother, what's wrong with eating an elbow, didn't you hear just now, he said that I can eat whatever I want."
The little cook pointed at him: "You—"
Another older cook hurriedly came over to grab her, took her aside and advised, "Forget it, he is from the young master's family. It's just a hoof, let's stew another one." .”
The little cook stomped her feet angrily, but there was nothing she could do. She could only hurry up and take out another elbow to make it again, muttering in her mouth: "This one that has been stewed for half a night will taste the same as the one that has only been stewed for an hour. What! A mountain villager who doesn’t know where he came from, dares to pretend to be our little son’s family member without seeing what kind of thing he is... Ah! What hit me!"
She turned her head and saw that there was a bone lying at her feet, and Yu Xu was holding half of a hoof that hadn't been gnawed, and walked out of the kitchen without looking back.
After eating the hooves, he met a few servants who were looking for pendants all over the garden. He lowered his head and walked around, threw the eaten bones casually, saw some unknown flowers growing by the path, and put his hands on his clothes. After wiping his face clean, he stretched out his hand to pinch a flower and put it on his head. He swaggered back to his yard and shouted for yogurt, while he lay on the couch with his legs curled up and humming, picking up the leftovers from last night's food. pastry stuffed into mouth.
There were two sweepers in the yard, one with a broom and the other with a bucket, chatting while working. The one with the bucket came in to water the flowers and asked, "What are the guards outside looking for?"
The one sweeping the floor sighed and said, "I was looking for the necklace pendant for the little lady, and I don't know where it fell. The little lady has been crying all morning, and the young master managed to coax it well. You said that the little lady goes there every day." How many places can the pendant fall? But it’s really strange. After searching for a long time, I didn’t even see a shadow. Aren’t there many new servants in our garden recently? I thought, Maybe it was picked up by some blind, black-hearted, tuberculosis ghost!"
The bucket-carrying man said, "In short, you and I didn't pick it up. After finishing the work here, we will help to find it."
The sweeper nodded.
Yu Xu strained his ears to listen to them talking and walking away, so he swallowed the snack in his mouth, knocked it down, kicked the door hard, spat at the yard, and shouted: "Chirp! , Chirping, the root of the tongue is so good to chew? — What are you looking at, staring at the big fish eyes, are they all dead? I’m going to be thirsty to death, I want to drink water!”
The sweeper frowned, and the bucket-carrier grabbed him and murmured, "He's from the countryside. I heard that he begged all the way to get to the capital. If you know anything like him, you lose your worth."
The sweeper was about to fetch water for him, when suddenly a gust of wind blew by his shoulder, and the ancestor rushed out happily, and when he came back to his senses, he saw his eldest son just coming out with a letter in his hand. The letter goes out.
He thought to himself, look, don't look at people from the countryside, whoever is a big official and who has power is easy to curry favor with, his heart is bright!
Ji Hong put the secret letter into his lapel, and was in deep thought when he heard a person beside his ear shout, "Your Majesty!"
The person who came was wearing Yu Jinnian's old gown, which made Ji Hong mistake his eyes for a moment, thinking that it was Yu Jinnian in front of him, he turned his head and looked at it several times in confusion, and finally remembered who this person was. Only one night passed, and this boy turned upside down, he didn't even look like a beggar at all.
Ji Hong couldn't help frowning: "You..."
Yu Xu grinned: "Your Majesty, you can call me Xiao Xu or Xu'er, you can call me Xu, the sun is rising in the east, my father said that it is a good sign that this day will be prosperous."
"Yeah." Ji Hong responded lightly, and didn't answer his words, just said, "Jin Nian has gone out, if you are looking for him, you can go to the third floor."
Said to go.
"Hey, my son!" Yu Xu hurriedly grabbed the hem of his clothes, blinked his grape-like eyes lightly, he put his toes on a raised flower stone on the ground, and said timidly, "I'm new here, I don't even know The capital is so big, I don’t have enough to eat and don’t wear warm clothes every day, and I feel like I’m going to starve to death every day. Thanks to you, son, for taking me in, I can be reunited with Brother Jinnian. Speaking of which, I have been with Brother Jinnian for two years It’s been a long time since I’ve seen him, he’s changed so much, I can barely recognize him…”
When he speaks, he will unconsciously flap his eyelashes, his eyelids are half-drooped, and he looks innocent like a bird, as if he can cry just a few more words, which makes it hard not to feel sorry for him.
After he finished speaking, Ji Hong couldn't help narrowing his eyes, and raised his hand. Yu Xu hurriedly moved up, slapped a pair of watery and affectionate eyes, looked at him earnestly, and whispered: "Xu'er is like an ox and a horse, and will repay the kindness of the son and brother in the future."
With a sound of "shua", Ji Hong pulled his sleeve out of his hand, and said coldly: "I have no kindness to you. It is Jinnian who took you in. If you want to repay it, you can report it to him."
Yu Xu: "..."
Ji Hong strode away, but he still froze on the spot, clenched his fingers for a while, stamped his foot angrily, turned his head abruptly, and yelled at the two watching boys in the yard: "Let's watch, I'll dig out the eyeballs for you! Where's my water!"
The sweeping boy spat behind his back, and said mockingly, "Our young master is such a philanthropic person, how could he have such a shameless relative."
When Ji Hong walked to the front yard, he met Duan Ming who had just returned from a business trip. He handed the secret letter in his arms to him, thought for a while, and told him: "Send someone to hurry up and go back to Xin'an County to check. Who is that Yu Xu?" How did you come to the capital?"
Duan Ming received the letter, and with a noo, turned around and left again.