Embroidery requires a lot of patience, which is what Lin Dan lacks the most. Every few minutes of sitting still, embroidering a pattern, she became so restless that she couldn't go on anyway. But the Lin family has fallen. Apart from learning embroidery skills and revitalizing the family business, she has no other choice. Therefore, she has to find an effective method to suppress the anxiety in her heart and smooth out her sharp edges and corners.
The number of wooden piers and stakes at home was decreasing at a rate visible to the naked eye. When the fire was cooking, Si Yiniang complained that the servant was too diligent and chopped the firewood too much, making it difficult for her to control the heat. The little servant felt bitter in his heart, but he didn't dare to say it. After seeing the ruthlessness of the young lady chopping wood, he was a little scared.
Lin Dan practiced embroidery for a while and chopped firewood for a while every day. His waist and legs were no longer sore, and he felt more energetic with needles. Slowly, she felt that the blood in her bones was diminishing, and many more flexible and tranquil things came up.
She thought that tyranny was her own nature, but in this way it was not. It is not so much a kind of nature as it is a sequelae caused by a special experience, and it will be smoothed after a little grinding. Strictly speaking, her temperament is more like water.
On this day, she sat for two full hours before taking out the hatchet, ready to adjust her emotions, but saw the maid Cuilan walk in with a strange expression.
"What happened?" Lin Dan straightened the stake and asked casually.
Cuilan looked around and lowered her voice, "It's been more than a month since the Du family moved here, but they have never dealt with our family. Today, for some unknown reason, they sent someone to deliver a cart of gifts."
"What's so strange about this, they had to clean up their new home more than a month ago, so naturally they didn't have the heart to make friends and neighbors." Lin Dan split the wooden stake into two evenly divided left and right, and placed them neatly into four. Then six petals, eight petals…
Since the little servant was scolded by the two concubines, she stopped venting indiscriminately, but split the wooden stakes into strips, so that she could take them to the kitchen to meet.
Cuilan leaned closer and replied, "You don't know something, girl, it's not surprising that the gift was delivered more than a month late. What's strange is that his family sent a truckload of sawn wood! A few feet of wood can't be used. It's not good for making furniture. It's useless except as firewood. What do you mean by his family? It's not so poor that you can't even buy gifts, right? Madam is sulking at the moment. His family bullies people."
Lin Dan grinned, and his tone was a little happy: "The wooden stakes you gave? It's very good!" She didn't think too much about it.
Cui Lan: "..."
She shouldn't have discussed this with the girl!
The two were talking with ducks and chickens, but behind a wall, Du Rusong was leaning on a tree trunk, listening to their conversation, with an interesting smile on the corner of his mouth.
"Brother, brother, I heard that you sent a truckload of wood to the next door today? I can tell you, we are no longer the sons and daughters of the Marquis of Anding, so we can't make fun of people like this!" A man wearing a butterfly skirt The young girl hurried into the yard, her voice a little loud.
Du Rusong's small smile disappeared immediately, and after listening carefully, there was no sound from the next door.
"Brother, what are you trying to do? They didn't provoke us, so let's not provoke them!" He was about to reprimand his sister when the crackling sound of chopping wood sounded again, but he was not disturbed by their conversation at all.
Du Rusong didn't collapse, covered his mouth and smiled.
However, Du Ruyan seemed to have caught some criminal evidence, pointed to the other side of the wall and said, "Did you hear that? Where would someone cut firewood and put it in the garden to cut it? You must have annoyed them, and they deliberately chopped firewood to protest! "The two were originally one family. Later, the owner divided the house into two and sold it. The large garden in the middle was divided into two small gardens by a wall, and the layout was symmetrical.
The more Du Ruyan thought about it, the more she felt that this was the case. She lifted up her skirt and climbed up the treetops, wanting to see how the person opposite her was angry with her brother. With a round face, round eyes, and a small round nose, the appearance is very delicate and lovely.
Du Ruyan fell in love with this little girl like a ragdoll at once, and beckoned: "Little sister, are you angry that my family sent you a cart of wood?"
Lin Dan picked up a new stake, split it in half with one knife, shook his head and said, "No, I'm practicing embroidery."
Du Ruyan laughed and said, "But you are clearly chopping wood!"
Du Rusong also jumped up the top of the tree and looked at the little girl with a beaming smile. Seeing that she easily split a stake into evenly sized wooden strips, his eyes dimmed slightly. A layman watching the doorway, an expert watching the excitement, he could see at a glance that this little girl was not chopping firewood to vent at will, but had rules. It seems that her sword skills cannot be achieved without more than ten years of hard work.
He just raised his vigilance in his heart, but suddenly thought that the family's details are indeed not clean. Lin Dafu and Zhang Hui were both horse thieves back then, and each one's kung fu was better than each other. Not surprisingly.
Recalling the little girl's life experience, looking at her utterly cute appearance, and thinking of her sturdy temperament, Du Rusong wanted to laugh for some reason.
Lin Dan didn't even look at him, just stared at Du Ruyan. She often heard Cuilan say how beautiful the lady next door was, and seeing it today really lived up to her reputation. Compared with Du Rusong's sharp-edged and deep-lined facial features, Du Ruyan is softer and more delicate. Wearing a gauze dress embroidered with butterflies, she climbs up the treetops. .
Lin Dan was very patient with her, pointed to the embroidery frame behind him, and explained, "I feel uncomfortable after sitting for a long time, and I always want to chop things. I can only go back to embroidering after I chop these woods."
"So it is." Du Ruyan suddenly realized, looked at his brother thoughtfully, and said, "Can you show me the flowers you embroidered?"
"Here." Lin Dan put down the hatchet and picked up the embroidered stretcher.
Du Ruyan's expectant expression was slightly stiff, and she praised: "It's very expressive, the embroidery is very good." She couldn't see what it was, so she didn't dare to say more.
"Thank you. If you need anything in the future, you can come to me to buy embroidery. Sooner or later, I will embroider better than Meng Si." Lin Dan said seriously.
"Yes, if I need it, I will definitely come to you." Du Ruyan laughed until her mouth cramped, but she couldn't bear to tell the truth. With the little girl's embroidery skills, not to mention one day, I'm afraid that she will never catch up with Meng Si in her entire life. People started learning embroidery at the age of three. How old is the little girl? It looks like there should be fourteen, right? It's a little late.
Unexpectedly, Du Rusong, who has always been poisonous, nodded and said: "I believe that if you give you a while, you will definitely surpass Meng Si. If there is a shortage of wood at home, you can come to me." Then he laughed again, The handsome facial features glowed with scorching brilliance in the spring sun.
Cui Lan's eyes became straight, and if her mouth grew a little bigger, she was afraid that saliva would flow down. Lin Dan was unmoved, nodded and said, "Thank you, I will give you one for free when I embroider the finished product." The words were very confident.
"You're welcome, girl." Du Rusong couldn't help laughing. Seeing that his sister still wanted to talk to someone, he pinched the back of her neck and jumped off the tree. More than a month after moving in, he had already figured out the little girl's routine. After cutting two stakes, it was time for her to practice embroidery again, but he couldn't delay other people's time.
"Brother, you really know how to talk just now. If you were like this when you were at home, my father would never have taken your crown from you." Du Ruyan looked up and down at her brother with a very ambiguous smile. It's another sweet gift, and another thoughtful word. Brother, is this Hongluan's heart
"I didn't tell a lie," Du Rusong said firmly. "Sooner or later, the little girl will be able to do something, just watch it." Embroidery can also embroider with a ruthless vigor to kill the enemy, and force himself every day. Sitting dry, practicing hard all the time, with such perseverance, what can't the little girl do
Du Ruyan shook her head and snorted, not taking her brother's words seriously at all.
On the other end, Lin Dan had already immersed himself in embroidery wholeheartedly, stitch by stitch, the embroidery was smooth and dense. After another three months, she has mastered several basic stitches of embroidery, and has learned to tailor clothes very well. She even made a skirt for Zhang Hui and her two concubines, which fit perfectly.
On this day, the two concubines finally changed the course and said, "You have already learned the seven basic stitches of embroidery, and we can't teach you the more advanced stitches ourselves."
Lin Dan shook his head and said, "No problem, the person who first invented embroidery didn't know anything. It all depended on his own exploration. The advent of every needlework method was developed by the embroidered mother day and night. I can do it, and I can do it too.”
The two aunts said with relief: "It's best if Tan'er can think like this. There are some exquisite embroidery items at home, all of which your father found from all over the country. We'll bring them over for you to take a look at later. , maybe it will inspire you. From today, we will teach you how to draw. No matter how skilled an embroiderer is, she can't embroider anything without a beautiful pattern. If you can learn painting well, you will learn how to embroider. You can get twice the result with half the effort. I heard that Meng Si is very good at painting. When embroidering, she doesn't even need to trace the picture on the embroidered cloth. She can embroider with needles and thread. A painting can be sold for a thousand taels of silver, and a piece of her embroidery can also be sold for the same price. People all over the world say that her embroidery is in no way inferior to a peerless painting, which shows how important it is for embroidery to learn how to paint well.”
Lin Dan nodded and said yes, and did not dare to slack off.
The two concubines took out a few strands of silk thread and said, "Before you learn to paint, we will teach you to identify colors. If composition is the foundation of embroidery, then color is the soul of embroidery, and the only way is to combine the two perfectly. , in order to embroider the handed down works. You see, the silk thread in my hand has four colors, namely dark green, dark green, medium green, light green... "
Lin Dan looked at the embroidery thread, shook his head and said, "Auntie, you are wrong, there are clearly six colors here."
The two aunties looked at the silk thread, and then at her serious face, suddenly a little stunned.