Without Mingyu on the female guest's side, the atmosphere was not as lively as before. The wives of officials had less people to curry favor with and flatter, and all that was left were internal introductions and interactions. However, this was the territory of the Anxi Marquis' Mansion after all, and even though there were a few wives of officials of higher status, the rest of them would not show their flattery too obviously.
In comparison, the situation was much better for the male guests. With a group of young and lively officers in the barracks, there was no need to worry about the atmosphere not being lively. When it came to drinking, the civil officials were no match for the military officers, and soon many of them became excited, playing finger-guessing games and cheering.
It was not until the sun was setting that the male guests gradually dispersed. Mingyu was almost done resting, so she stood up and went to the gate with Sima Hong to see the guests off. Many officials were red-faced and passed out drunk, and were carried to the carriage. Mingyu was secretly shocked by this. How could they be so dedicated? They were drinking with their lives!
But at the end, Mingyu didn't see Lu Xu'er. When she sent Mrs. Lu off, she smiled and explained that her daughter was not feeling well and had to go back first. Mingyu smiled faintly and nodded, not taking it to heart.
Sister Liu complained to Mingyu, "How shameless! Any girl with a bit of dignity wouldn't have come into our house today! She came and left without saying a word. There's no one else in the whole of Da Chu who is so rude."
At night, Sima Hong's confidants in the military camp stayed in the mansion and talked in the study. Mingyu saw that Sima Hong had drunk a lot of wine at noon, and thought that he would not be too hungry at night, so there was no need to prepare too much food. She went to the kitchen to mix flour, added a little salt, and made a few thin scallion pancakes, cut them finely, put them on a plate, and soaked them in honey water for him to sober up, preparing to give them to him as dinner after Sima Hong and the others finished talking.
At this time, Baihao hurried over and said to Mingyu, "Madam, please go over quickly. I am very angry and have scolded the deputy generals. They are so pitiful. If you continue to scold them, they will have to slit their necks to apologize!"
Mingyu stopped what she was doing and exclaimed in surprise. She had never seen Sima Hong get angry before. He was always smiling in front of her and would just put on a stern face when he got angry occasionally. It was hard to imagine that he would scold someone so harshly.
"Let's go and take a look." Mingyu washed her hands and followed Baihao to the study. Baihao was a very sensible person. The fact that he invited her showed that those deputy generals were of high status and were scolded by Sima Hong and needed someone to save the situation.
On the way, Mingyu couldn't help but ask, "What happened? Wasn't he fine at noon? Why did he suddenly get angry?"
Baihao said, "At noon, Lin Hui and his gang were very ruthless and made several adults drunk and left sideways... They had long been annoyed by these civil officials who were arrogant and looked down on the military officers, so they wanted to teach them a lesson. They went a little too far. I had warned them not to go too far. If this gets out and the censor finds out, they will probably be sued." Several civil officials were really drunk, and many of them couldn't control themselves and wet their pants. If the censor knew about it, the Anxi Marquisate would be implicated just for the crime of officials being drunk and disrespectful. However, Baihao couldn't tell Mingyu about this, so he only mentioned it vaguely, hoping that Mingyu would understand.
"I understand." Mingyu nodded with a smile. In fact, it was not a big deal. Those civil officials lost face, but he would definitely not make it public. The censor was not so idle as to come to Tianshui. There were so many cockfighting and running errand boys in the capital. If he did not participate in killing the enemy and serving the country, the Marquis of Anxi must have been kicked in the head by a donkey.
As we were almost at the study, we could hear Sima Hong cursing loudly, "You idiots! Is your head full of tofu dregs? You think you are great because you can drink? You think everything will be fine now that we are stable? Now is just the beginning! Do you think I don't know that those civil servants look down on us and don't obey us? Why don't you think about how to build good relationships with them, make them our people if you can use them, and find other ways to make them unusable? You only know how to drink and cheat people, you short-sighted idiots! Go back to the camp and each get twenty military sticks!"
Baihao shuddered and warned Mingyu, "Madam, you can't say that I came to find you. Just say... you have prepared dinner and came to eat with me!"
Mingyu didn't know whether to laugh or cry. She waved her hands and whispered, "I know. I won't betray you."
Baihao smiled, as if relieved, and shouted loudly to the study: "Master, the wife is here."
Sima Hong's thunderous voice of lecturing people suddenly stopped. After a while, he coughed and said, "Okay, I'll be out later." His voice became more gentle than an octave.
Mingyu and Baihao stood in the corridor and waited for a while, then they saw the door of the study open. Sima Hong came out first, with a flush on his face, which was unclear whether it was the aftereffect of drinking or a little anger. His eyes were sharp and his complexion looked a little bad.
Lin Hui and others followed Sima Hong out. At first they hung their heads, but soon they became full of energy again. They greeted Mingyu with a smile and called her "sister-in-law". Some of the brave ones even asked her to help them find wives. They didn't look like they had just been scolded by Sima Hong. It seemed they were used to being scolded mercilessly by Sima Hong.
"What's wrong with you? Why are you so angry on such a good day? Aren't they your brothers?" Mingyu walked forward with a smile and straightened Sima Hong's collar.
Sima Hong glared at the group of bachelors and said, "I'm scolding them because I treat them as brothers. Otherwise, I wouldn't bother with these brainless bastards!"
Mingyu didn't know whether to laugh or cry. He was really ruthless. He started scolding her in front of her. She quickly winked at Baihao, and Baihao immediately fled with a group of people.
Sima Hong naturally guessed that Baihao had invited Mingyu to come to save the situation, otherwise Mingyu would never come to his study to find him when he had something to discuss. However, he did not feel disgusted and was even more happy to sell his wife's face, which showed that Mingyu had truly entered his life in every aspect. Seeing her gentle and peaceful smile, his anger turned into tenderness.
Holding Mingyu's hand, Sima Hong pulled her slowly towards their yard. Mingyu looked at his expression and spoke first, smiling, "There is something I have always wanted to discuss with you, but I have been busy moving these days and have not had time to do it."
"What's the matter? Tell me." Sima Hong said with a smile.
Mingyu smiled and said, "The mansion is almost built, and we've moved in. It's time to bring mother over from the capital. Logically, we should have brought her here a long time ago. We're both here, so why would we leave mother alone in the capital?"
Mrs. Xu mentioned this in two letters recently, and sternly told her not to take advantage of Sima Hong's favor and throw her mother-in-law aside to live a small life. She didn't care about the impeachment of the censor or her reputation. Since she married into the Sima family, she, a girl raised by Xu Su, couldn't do anything to be unfilial to her mother-in-law. Sima Hong was raised by Miao. The mother-son relationship of twenty years is not something you, a little girl, can compare to. He may not say it, but he may think about it. You take the initiative to bring it up first, saving his face, and he will be grateful to you.
Sima Hong had actually long thought about bringing his mother back home to live. In his eyes, Tianshui was the Sima family's home. It made no sense for him to let his mother live alone in the capital when he had already started a family. He was also worried about Miao's age. Every night when he went to bed, he would dream that his elder brother, who had passed away, would jump out and scold him for being unfilial. He would be terrified when he woke up.
But he didn't know how to bring it up with Mingyu. There was a lot of grudge between his mother and Mingyu before. At that time, his mother was very picky about Mingyu and looked down on her. It was hard to guarantee that Mingyu didn't have any knots in her heart. Now that Mingyu was pregnant, her temper was even worse than before. He was afraid that if he asked to take his mother home, Mingyu would be angry and treat her and the child badly.
Now Mingyu took the initiative to bring it up, with a sincere smile, not like she was trying to compromise her feelings, which made him overjoyed. Although his wife had a bad temper and was a little difficult to serve, she was still clear about the big principles and knew how to think for him.
When they got to the house, Sima Hong closed the door, hugged Mingyu and sat her on his lap, kissed her again and again, his joy was beyond words, and he kept smiling and said, "Mingyu, you are really my good wife."
Mingyu was a little surprised at his reaction. She didn't expect him to be so happy. However, when she thought that it was worth it to make Sima Hong happy, she immediately felt unhappy about bringing Miao over.
Mingyu ordered the maid to serve the meal she had prepared and brought honey water to Sima Hong. After he drank it, she smiled and asked, "Why are you so angry? They have been with you in battle for many years. Give them some face."
Sima Hong shook his head, his eyes full of helplessness, and sighed: "They are all outstanding in martial arts, well-trained in leading troops, and can fight a hundred men on the battlefield. They are very powerful, but now we don't need them to kill the Tartars, at least not in the next two years. The civil officials sent by the court look down on military generals. They are all older than us, how can they convince me? They are just pretending to be respectful for the sake of face, but in fact, each of them has his own calculations in his heart... There are not many of them who can read and write, and they are all people I can trust. They must be transferred to civil service positions to subdue these foreign civil officials. I am also a little anxious today."
Mingyu was silent. Sima Hong was not yet 20 years old. In her previous life, the 20-year-old boy was still playing basketball in college, sweating and youthful. His biggest worry was the CET-4 and CET-6 exams. He was still too young, and those old-timers in the officialdom would not take him seriously.
Even she is too young, and others think she is young and easy to fool. Otherwise, how could Xu Si's wife have the courage to teach her to lend money at interest? To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to come to Qidian... to vote for recommendation and monthly tickets. Your support is my greatest motivation. ． PS: Thank you for...'s pink vote~~~ Thank you Xiang Jiejie for the amulet, thank you Yu Mengsang for the cake, so many cakes, Xiao Zhai is so moved~~br> Someone suggested that Mingyu give birth to twins, Xiao Zhai touched his chin and said deeply, this is really a technical job~~RS