Nanny Gong coughed again.
Ah Zhu immediately became impatient and asked, "Just because I was born in the Duke of Liang's mansion, can I not make friends?"
Nanny Gong was embarrassed.
Zhou Shaojin suddenly realized.
No wonder she acted so confidently and generously, it turned out that she was the eldest daughter of the Duke of Liang’s Mansion.
If she remembered correctly, Duke Liang had no concubines, only one son and one daughter, both legitimate. The son should be that Zhu Kun, Zhu Pengju, and the daughter should be this Zhu Zhu.
Zhou Shaojin smiled and said, "It's rare to use a surname as a name."
Ah Zhu laughed and said, "My original name was 'Zhu', which means pearl. Later I thought it was not a good name, so I changed it to 'Zhu', which means vermilion. Isn't it better than 'Zhu', which means pearl?"
Zhou Shaojin nodded: "It's quite unique."
"I think so too!" Ah Zhu said proudly and no longer mentioned anything like being a guest, which made Zhou Shaojin breathe a sigh of relief.
A maid came over and saw them and exclaimed, "Seventeenth Miss, Old An is looking for you!"
"Looking for us?" Zhou Shaojin pointed at his chest.
The maid nodded and said with a smile: "Mrs. An said that she was short of one person, so she asked me to find either the two Miss Zhous or Miss Ah Zhu..."
Everyone was stunned.
Miss Seventeen asked the maid, "Are you playing Mahjong or mahjong?"
The maid laughed and said, "Let's play mahjong."
Miss Seventeen asked Sister Zhou Shaojin, "Do you know how to play?" Then she said, "I don't know how to play. In the past, it was my Sixteenth Sister who played cards with Old An."
"I can't do that either!" Ah Zhu cried, "I can't sit still..."
Zhou Shaojin doesn't know how to play.
In her memory, her sister also played.
She hoped that her sister could seize this opportunity and leave some impression on Old An so that she could chat up the fifteenth young lady of the Gu family in the future.
Zhou Shaojin looked towards his sister.
Zhou Chujin hesitated for a moment and said, "I can do it, but I'm not very good at it..."
Miss Seventeen and Ah Zhu were both relieved. Miss Seventeen even pulled Zhou Chujin away and said, "It's better if you don't know how to do it... If you don't know how to do it, you will lose... Our Lao An, hey, she is a master... If you beat her, she will be unhappy; if you lose to her on purpose and she sees it, she will still be unhappy... If you don't know how to do it, it's just right!"
Zhou Shaojin was shocked and asked the maid to send someone to report to Mrs. Yuan and Mrs. Mian. Then he followed Zhou Chujin and others to Lao An's place.
Ah Zhu hid at the door and was unwilling to go in.
She said to Zhou Shaojin and Miss Seventeen, "I'll wait for you here... We'll go to the garden to catch butterflies later."
Zhou Shaojin was very surprised.
Ah Zhu said awkwardly: "Every time Mrs. An sees me, she asks me to play cards with her..."
Although they had just met, Zhou Shaojin had already seen that Ah Zhu was an active person. Given her age, it would be really uncomfortable for her to accompany an old man to play cards.
Zhou Shaojin and his sister smiled knowingly, and went into the house with Miss Seventeen.
The card table had already been set up, and Old An was sitting in front of the card table covered with a scarlet felt carpet, playing cards by himself. Seeing them come in, he was very happy, and said to a woman next to him who was wearing a dark blue silk vest and a white embroidered skirt, "You can go now, I have someone to accompany me now..." Then he smiled and waved to Zhou Shaojin, "Second girl, come sit next to me."
Zhou Shaojin hurriedly said, "Mr. An, I don't know how to play cards! My sister will play cards with you!"
"Is that so?" Old An was a little disappointed, but soon became happy again and asked the woman and Zhou Chujin, "You all sit down. Let's play a few more games while they are listening to the story. When the show is over, you all can go back."
The two of them smiled and said "yes" and sat down.
Another maid brought a stool over for Zhou Shaojin and Miss Seventeen.
The other card holder was a maid who looked to be in her early twenties. Miss Seventeen whispered to her, "This is the eldest maid who served my great-grandmother."
Zhou Shaojin guessed so, otherwise it would be impossible for him to play cards with Lao An.
Nanny Miao sat behind Lao An and helped him watch the cards.
Miss Seventeen pointed at the woman and whispered to Zhou Shaojin: "… She is my aunt, the thirteenth child. After my uncle passed away, my great grandmother took my thirteenth aunt back home. My sisters and I all studied with her."
Another Liao Zhangying.
Zhou Shaojin couldn't help but sigh in his heart.
The old man An, who was playing cards, suddenly said to Zhou Chujin, "Silang just came over. Did you know?"
Zhou Shaojin immediately realized that Lao An was referring to Cheng Chi. Zhou Chujin took a while to react and said with a smile, "We were watching Miss Sixteen inserting her hairpin in the front, and I didn't know Uncle Chi had come over. What did he come for?"
When Old An heard this, his eyes narrowed into slits of smiles, and he said, "He heard me nagging, so he took it to heart and found a ghost marriage for our Nineteenth Lady..."
Uncle Chi... introduces ghost marriage to people...
Zhou Shaojin felt like he was almost unable to hold it back any longer.
Zhou Chujin was even more dumbfounded.
The two sisters couldn't help but exchange glances.
Old An didn't notice any of this at all, and continued to talk to himself, "The other party was also a scholar, he died at the age of nineteen, he had quite a lot of family wealth, and he was planning to adopt a son to provide for them..."
Looks very satisfied.
The Zhou sisters were unable to utter a word.
Gu Shisan Niang said softly, "Grandmother always talks about this matter every time she sees your uncle... She is old, we can only let her be happy."
Zhou Shaojin expressed his understanding.
But Uncle Chi was helping her do this... She just felt something was wrong.
Ah Zhu waved at them from outside the window.
Zhou Shaojin sat with Miss Seventeen for a while, then found an excuse to slip out.
Ah Zhu chuckled and said, "Let's go to the garden."
Many guests came to the Gu family today. Among them were people like Wu Baozhang who made her wary, and some like Miss Sun who took the initiative to show her friendliness. Who knew who she would meet when she went to the garden
She said, "Why don't we just sit in the yard and chat?"
This way it won’t be difficult for her sister to find her.
It's obvious that Ah Zhu is the type of person who rarely has playmates, and anything is fine as long as there's someone to accompany her.
She agreed immediately.
Zhou Shaojin looked towards Miss Seventeen.
Miss Seventeen was also very easy-going and immediately smiled and said, "Okay! Then I'll ask the maids to bring us some bamboo chairs, make a pot of tea, and serve some snacks and fruits."
Ajulian declared "OK".
Zhou Shaojin thought of Cheng Ji and said, "I have a cousin who has a personality very similar to Ah Zhu's. I'll introduce her to you when I have the chance."
"Okay, okay!" Ah Zhu nodded with a smile.
After the maids served tea and snacks, Shiqi Niang told Ah Zhu about the ghost marriage that Cheng Chi had introduced to her aunt Nineteen, who had died young.
Ah Zhu exclaimed: "Cheng Zichuan is really amazing! It seems that nothing can stump him."
Cheng Chi's courtesy name was Zichuan.
Since Ah Zhu knew his calligraphy, even people who didn't know him should have heard of his reputation.
Zhou Shaojin asked: "Do you know Uncle Chi?"
"Yeah!" Ah Zhu laughed, "Once my brother wanted to go to Qinhuai River to play, my father knew about it and didn't allow it. But my brother said that he was going with Cheng Zichuan, and my father agreed immediately. My mother knew about it, and said to the personal nanny: I was wondering why Pengju had changed his personality. He went to Qinhuai River, not secretly, but also told the Duke. It turned out that he was using the name of the Fourth Master Cheng!" She imitated the way the wife of the Duke of Liang spoke vividly, and said with a smile, "I was on the lookout at the time, and when my brother came back, I ran to the gate to take a look. He was not as handsome as my brother, but he was a very nice, kind, and patient person, and never lost his temper, unlike my brother, who would always say that he would throw me out, and then make me kneel in the ancestral hall..."
Zhou Shaojin thought of Cheng Chi's appearance and nodded.
She also felt that Cheng Chi was a very gentle person.
"But," Ah Zhu said, holding her chin, "ghost marriage... I've never seen it before," she asked Zhou Shaojin, "Tell me, if I ask your uncle to take me to watch the fun, will he agree?"
"That shouldn't be the case!" Zhou Shaojin pondered, "We think this is quite lively. Maybe the two families holding the ghost marriage are quite sad. I always feel that it is a bit disrespectful to watch it so carelessly!"
Miss Seventeen agreed and said, "I heard from my family that Aunt Nineteen was very smart. My grandfather said more than once that it would be better if Aunt Nineteen was a boy. When Aunt Nineteen passed away, my grandmother's hair turned white overnight..."
Ah Zhu nodded, but still couldn't help but said, "I'll ask someone to ask Cheng Zichuan when the time comes. Maybe he will take me there?"
Miss Seventeen disagreed.
Ah Zhu looked around and saw that the maids and servants were all standing far away. She came up to them and said, "My father will be taking my brother to the capital in a few days!"
Zhou Shaojin and Miss Seventeen were not girls from ordinary families, so they naturally knew the rule that princes were not allowed to enter the capital without an imperial edict. They were both very surprised.
Ah Zhu said, "I heard from my mother that there is a eunuch named Liu Yong who became the eunuch in charge of the Imperial Household Department. Do you know what a eunuch in charge of the Imperial Household Department does? He helps the emperor approve documents, and the ministers in the cabinet have to look at his eyes... After he became the eunuch in charge of the Imperial Household Department, he told the emperor that the princes from all over the country had not come to the capital to pay homage for more than ten years, and the emperor might not recognize the princes who grew up in the princes' mansions. So the emperor asked the princes from all over the country to come to the capital in batches. My father and my brother were in the first batch and set off in September. My mother said that my father felt that since the Cheng family's business in the capital was so big, your uncle must be very familiar with the officials of all sizes in the court, so he wanted to invite your uncle to go with him... He didn't want him to do anything, just report to my father if he encountered anything, so that my father could be prepared..."
I'm afraid this is not a good idea, right
The emperor was most averse to officials in Beijing making friends with princes, and he was also averse to princes making friends with local officials and gentry. Moreover, the Cheng family had people serving as officials in the imperial court, and they were also a century-old family in Jinling... In the previous life, the Cheng family was confiscated. Could it be related to this incident
Zhou Shaojin said: "The Cheng family's business in Beijing is so big, it should be the credit of Uncle Jing, right? It should not have much to do with Uncle Chi, right?"
Ah Zhu was stunned, then burst into laughter.
It was as if she had said something really funny.
He laughed so hard that he fell backwards.
Miss Seventeen also laughed, but she was a little nicer than Ah Zhu. She just covered her mouth with a handkerchief when she laughed.
※
Today's update, sisters.
O(∩_∩)o
※(To be continued)