After being scolded by Mrs. Sun, Mrs. Bai restrained herself a lot. In the next few days, she remained honest and had no sense of presence. She took her two daughters and hid in the house doing needlework, and would not go to Westinghouse easily.
Although Gu Qingci didn't realize that she had become someone else's daughter-in-law, she listened to her more or less with Mammy Zhang softly teaching and admonishing her from time to time.
After getting angry on the day of serving tea, he also obediently stayed quiet for two days.
He paused, and then took a moment to go to Mrs. Sun's place to make a confession.
Although she knew she wasn't sincere, but at least she was willing to build a ladder, and everyone could only take the opportunity to get off. When talking, the old lady squinted a smiling face from the beginning to the end, and looked cheerful. Outsiders who didn't know the inside story really thought that this family was harmonious.
Li Cheng was amazed to see it, secretly saying that everyone is really good.
From this point of view, his little wife's skill is still a bit weak, but she is still young after all. It's no wonder that the mansion has to bring a nanny to dowry, otherwise they will be bullied to death if they meet someone with a bad heart.
Two meals a day also go to the east yard to eat on time.
After the Li family married Li Chengze, their family fortune was exhausted, and their living conditions are naturally not as good as before.
There is no meat on the table once in a few days, mostly a dry stew, or with scrambled eggs and fried vegetables.
When Gu Qingci was at the dinner table for the first time, his dislike was written all over him from head to toe, and he really couldn't get used to it anywhere.
The roughness of the food is second to none, and the most important thing is the huge difference in the diet of the nobles and the common people.
Gu Qingci was raised by the daughter of the Hou Mansion, Jiaojiaoer, who was honored with gold and jade, brocade clothes and jade food.
What does her living environment look like
It's impossible for the Li family to know, and I'm afraid they can't even imagine it.
Li Cheng made an analogy to the Rongguo Mansion in the novel A Dream of Red Mansions, and felt that it was probably like that.
Just look at the part in the Dream of Red Mansions when sister Lin enters Jia's mansion. The whole family eats in a well-behaved manner, and the old lady sits next to the girls. At the beginning, a large group of maids brought handkerchiefs and basins to wait for the ladies to wash their hands. When the plates of delicate dishes were warmed up, there were maids who served the dishes to help pick up the dishes. Appearing, carrying basins of water, asking masters to cover their faces, rinse their mouths and drink tea, the continuous movement and reaction are all long-term habits.
It was raised by the accumulation of wealth and heritage of several generations.
Every family has its own habits. Sister Lin is also the daughter of an official family, but she went to her grandmother's house because the customs and rules there were different from her own, and she thought that she would have to change them one by one in the future.
As for Gu Qingci, it's not just a matter of her different living habits, but also her living standard has plummeted and she has plunged sharply.
It is almost equivalent to descending from a wealthy family to an extremely poor family.
To be honest, for ancient women, getting married was equivalent to their second reincarnation, which directly determined their living standards and happiness index for the rest of their lives.
In modern terms, what Gu Qingci invested in was a junk stock.
So how can she not despair? It is because of despair that there is no scruple to do everything in heaven.
Thinking of this, Li Cheng felt a little sympathetic to the kid.
There are not many Li family members, and the family does not divide the men's and women's tables when they close the door to eat, and they all sit together to eat.
The chopsticks of the seven and eight people are picking up and down in the dishes, and the elderly people are sometimes not very particular, and like to talk at the dinner table, but they don't pay much attention to it, and occasionally a little bit of saliva will inevitably leak out.
That Gu Qingci didn't scream and expose it on the spot was the credit of Nanny Li's repeated exhortations in the past few days.
Even though there was no quarrel, her face was not concealed either, it was very ugly changing from red to white.
To be fair, not to mention that Gu Qingci couldn't bear it, Li Chengze didn't feel it at all.
It's just that the environment is too tolerant, and he can't be as willful as the little girl, what does that look like.
It is impossible for her to eat this kind of vulgar food in Gu Qingci's eyes. After being poked many times, half a bowl of rice was repeatedly poked, and she didn't even put a mouthful of it into her mouth.
The pot of stew, a scrambled egg, and a fried cabbage with oil residue were not touched.
Li Cheng looked at Gu Qingci and didn't say anything, but Li's family members didn't look well, and he also had a headache.
Suddenly, I realized what it was like to be caught between mother and daughter-in-law.
There is a pot of untouched rice soup on the table. This thing is available every day, and no one in the Li family likes to drink it.
In Li Chengze's eyes, the way Gu Qingci poked rice with his head down was no different from that of a picky eater who doesn't eat.
Gu Qingci was so angry that she just wanted to get through the meal and go back to her own room to eat delicious food.
But suddenly, a slender and well-articulated hand stretched out in front of his eyes.
Gu Qingci was startled.
Li Cheng calmly picked up Gu Qingci's bowl, scooped two spoonfuls of rice soup into her rice, soaked the rice soup and rice together, and placed it in front of her again.
With a gentle tone, he said, "Let's eat."
Everyone in the Li family was stunned for a moment.
Li Qingci quickly raised his head and then lowered it, as if hesitating and struggling for himself. After a long while, he finally picked up the bowl, opened his mouth, and carefully took a bite of the rice.
Originally, such an act of adding food to his wife in public would definitely dissatisfy the elders in the family, which would make the new wife even more angry.
But the current situation is a little different, because in the eyes of the Li family, Li Cheng only made some rice soup for Gu Qingci, which was completely worthless in their eyes, which really made them think of having a daughter-in-law. Forget about mother and such.
On the contrary, Mrs. Sun and Mrs. Bai thought that Li Cheng was not used to seeing Gu Qingci embarrassing their family, and deliberately taught her a lesson.
If Li Cheng knew what these people thought, he would really be dumbfounded.
However, he was sure that if he really gave Gu Qingci the stew that was poked by everyone's chopsticks, he would guarantee that Gu Qingci would not eat a bite, and would even lose his temper with himself.
It has to be said that Li Cheng understood Gu Qingci clearly.
After reluctantly passing by two more times, Gu Qingci refused to go there again, no one persuaded him to be of any use.
Mrs. Sun and the others knew it well, they just watched coldly, but they couldn't talk about it.
In the end, Li Chengze was still required to come forward to explain the truth. He only said that Gu Qingci was young and frail, and that he had some stomach problems these days and couldn't eat.
After speaking for her, Gu Qingci took it for granted.
—
Today, Mrs. Sun recalled what she said earlier about buying someone for Li Chengze. After breakfast, she originally wanted Mrs. Bai to invite the old man’s house, but Mrs. Sun didn’t know how to buy someone, let alone For someone like her who only buys one servant, the matchmaker will not come to the door.
Or Li Cheng said that there is no need to be so troublesome, he can go to the Yashe by himself.
So Sun can let him go.
Li Chengze didn't go out for the past few days. He accompanied the little girl back home, and there were many complicated lawsuits in the Hou's mansion, which took him a lot of effort to deal with.
When it was time to come back, Gu Qingci insisted on pulling the second wife's clothes, with a face full of reluctance, refusing to go back, and finally the second wife scolded her daughter cruelly before finishing.
Because of this, Gu Qingci was still angry with a cold face from the time he got into the carriage until he returned to the house.
Naturally, Li Cheng didn't care about her, he just thought of her as being awkward.
He still has a lot of things to deal with in his mind, and he doesn't have time to discipline Gu Qingci right now, and only occasionally coaxes her when he finds time.
Li Cheng, on the other hand, had a memory. He didn't rush to go to the private teeth house before going out, but walked and watched to get familiar with the route and the customs here.
It is only when you leave the door that you can really feel the difference between different worlds. The rented buildings here, the roads, the horse-drawn carts, the clothes of the people... These are completely different from the modern times he lives in.
Li Cheng sighed, and wandered around the west of the city for a long time, until it was almost noon before going to the private tooth house.
The street behind Yashe is full of slaves, Li Cheng looked at many of them coldly along the way, and finally chose one, and asked someone to take him to choose, and finally bought a fifteen-year-old boy.
At this time, although human trafficking is legalized, it makes people feel complicated.
However, just now along the way, someone knelt down and kowtowed to Li Chengze and begged him to buy him, but Li Chengze didn't know how to react.
The newly bought kid was just old and smart, so it wasn't very cheap, costing five taels of silver.
Li Cheng is very poor. He has lightly counted his own property in the past few days, and there is only ten taels of silver in total, which was saved by the original body for a long time. He spends money for his studies from home every month, so he saves some.
I bought someone, and now I only have five taels of silver left over my whole body.
The Li family has been living off the rent of the 200 mu of land in the countryside, and has not engaged in any other business.
When there are no major affairs at home, life is still good, and it can even be used for Li Chengze to study.
Of course, because there is a scholar in the family, the Li family has not saved much money these years.
This year, in order to sell a hundred acres of land, half of the family's livelihood was cut off at once, and it will not be slowed down in a short time.
Li Chengze is a big man, and he is still married now, so it is naturally impossible to ask Li Baode or Sun for money like the original body.
He also thought of the ten or so people in Gu Qingci's house, if it wasn't for Gu Qingci's own dowry to send monthly bills, he would not be able to support them at all.
In this way, he is already a person who can't even support his wife.
Professor Li had never been in such a mess before, he thought he had to figure out a way to make money quickly, otherwise he would not be able to support his wife, let alone his wife.
Li Cheng was not very good at naming, so he took the boy he bought back and asked Mrs. Sun to help him name him Yuanbao.
The old lady felt that the intention was good and it was easy to shout.
Li Cheng first let Yuan Bao get acquainted with the environment, mainly in the east courtyard. The west courtyard is full of people around Gu Qingci, and the mothers-in-law and maids are all female relatives. Except for the east wing where Li Chengze slept, the rest of the rooms are There are arrangements. You don't need to guess to know that Gu Qingci has a lot of rules, and he might not let outside men enter the second door, so he arranged Yuanbao to live in the south room on the Dongyuan side. The room here is empty and can be accommodated.
"Little feudalism." Li Cheng couldn't help but shook his head and cursed in a low voice.
Yuan Bao was obedient and clever, while Li Cheng had a good impression of him, and took him with him when he went out these two days.
If you can't think of a way to make money while you're locked up at home, you naturally have to go out more.
On this day, Li Cheng looked through the Li family's ledger at home to check the income and rent of the land in previous years.
Farming is completely dependent on the sky and eating. God rewards the face. If the year is good and the harvest is good, the rent will be more. I can't collect it.
It is very unsafe to rely on this little land for food. The Li family is not a big landlord, and has thousands of hectares of fertile land. One hundred mu is not enough to say, and there may be no food at any time.
Later, Li Cheng found out that the Li family still had 100 mu of woodland. It was said that because the land was not good, nothing could be grown or rented out, so he had been idle there and ignored it for several years.
Such a large piece of land is so wasted, Li Cheng wants to see what is going on with the land, if it can be used, planting some fruit trees and the like can also be an income.
He mentioned this matter to Li Baode, saying that he was going to go there to have a look.
Li Baode nodded, and said: "That's fine, I haven't visited the fields in the second half of this year, so you go, meet those tenants by the way, and collect this year's rent." These things were done by Li Baode in previous years.
Li Cheng didn't like to procrastinate, so he got up early the next day and asked Yuan Bao to hire an ox cart to come back, and the two of them pretended to go out.
The paddy fields and golden land of the Li family are all in Hekou Village. It takes about an hour and a half by car to go out of the city.
When Li Cheng went out, it was two o'clock in the morning.
Xiao Man quietly came back from the side door, followed by the main room.
Nanny Zhang was waiting outside, seeing her coming, she quickly asked, "Do you know where uncle has gone?"
"Go back to Mommy, the uncle has gone to the countryside. He said it is Hekou Village. It seems that he has gone to collect farm rent."
Nanny Zhang listened and nodded, then raised her feet and went back to the inner room.