"Ahem, they are all seeds. Even if I show them to you, you may not recognize them!"
Under Zhu Ying's piercing gaze, Lao Xianyu seemed unusually cheerful. He took off a bundle and handed it over, saying with a smile, "Look, this is what I made when I was free! Hey, I used to drift on the sea a lot, and I didn't have any other hobbies, so I often brought back some random things. I would plant anything I thought was delicious, even if I didn't know what kind it was."
"Over time, I have grown a big vegetable garden. I don't even know what many of the things are. The so-called secret garden is just like what the second young master said, just for the sake of sounding good. But since I am older and don't go out to sea very often, this is the only hobby I have left, so I kept it hidden and didn't want outsiders to know. I really wasn't teasing the second young master before."
"Also, I trusted the wrong person in the past and took him to one of my old vegetable gardens. But that guy turned out to be a worthless person and stole vegetables to sell. When I questioned him, he retorted. I was so angry that I razed the entire vegetable garden and moved it to another place. Over the years, not to mention Xiao Huasheng, even Yunhe has never been to my new vegetable garden. The Second Young Master is the first outsider to visit."
Zhu Er snorted angrily when he heard this: "According to what you said, if you take me with you, then you still think highly of me? Don't you see who I am? How can I think highly of the edible things in your garden?"
But he suddenly saw Zhang Shou staring at him, and he suddenly came to his senses and quickly changed his words: "I heard what Ah Liu said after he returned from Cangzhou. I came here to look for seeds with good yield and quality. But I am not after money or a career, I just want to do something solid. Besides, you have to show all your skills when you get to the capital, right?"
That's not necessarily true! If he arrived in the capital and found that the old emperor was a tyrant who ate, drank and had fun all day and ignored state affairs, or a mediocre ruler who was manipulated by court officials and trapped in the palace, or a suspicious ruler who seemed to have an iron fist but actually liked to play with people's hearts... He would rather pretend to be incompetent and leave!
As Lao Xianyu thought about it, he very attentively handed one of the bundles to Zhu Ying. Seeing that Zhu Ying actually untied the bundle and saw the paper packages inside, he let Zhu Er hold the bundle and opened the packages one by one, examining the contents with great interest. He glanced at Zhang Shou and handed over another bundle, then smiled so hard that all the wrinkles on his face were smoothed out.
"Dr. Zhang, you are a doctor of the Imperial College and you have a lot of knowledge. You actually know how to make the best use of all the ingredients I mentioned earlier. Can you please take a look at these seeds now? To be honest, I don't recognize some of them."
When Zhang Shou learned that Xian Yunhe had never been to Old Salted Fish's vegetable garden, he realized that the vegetable garden was indeed Old Salted Fish's biggest secret. On the contrary, the stone tablets that Ah Liu had just carried in were probably insignificant to Old Salted Fish. He didn't recognize them anyway. At this time, he did not take the bundle, but directly untied it in Old Salted Fish's hand and took out a paper bag from it.
Zhu Er was upset when he saw that Zhu Ying was treating him as a bag carrier. He complained, "Yingying, you have never even planted flowers, let alone these seeds. How could you possibly recognize them? I have looked in that vegetable garden before, and I have never seen more than half of the things there. I just couldn't recognize them. Even though your brother-in-law is educated, he certainly doesn't know what they are!"