Yang Zheng was robbed. For the sake of Yang Zheng's reputation, the servants of Xing'an Marquis' Mansion did not dare to make a big deal about it. While sending people to look for Yang Zheng, they also sent people to the Chu family to seek an explanation.
The people from the Chu and Yang families hadn't found Chu Chengmao and Yang Zheng yet, but Yang Zheng drove a carriage with the drunk and asleep Chu Chengmao back to the city. Not only were the people in the Xing'an Marquis' Mansion dumbfounded, but the Chu family was also confused.
But Yang Zheng said in person that the hijacking was a misunderstanding, so even if the people from Xing'an Marquis' Mansion wanted to cause trouble again, they couldn't find a reason.
When the news reached the palace, Jiang Yanyi and Feng Shuo sighed during dinner: "I didn't expect that my second brother looks old-fashioned, but he is actually an interesting person. He drove out of the city that day to take Princess Jiawu to Yang Lake to watch the sunset."
Feng Shuo was eating and just glanced at her without saying anything.
That evening, the eunuch on duty in the imperial study came to tell Jiang Yanyi: "His Majesty invites you to the Zhaixing Tower."
The Zhaixing Tower in the palace was built during the reign of the previous emperor. It is said that the previous emperor dreamed of ascending to immortality from the Zhaixing Tower. The location of the Zhaixing Tower was calculated by a sorcerer, who found it to be a blessed place for immortals. Every step in the tower is paved with white jade, and the outside is covered with nine-colored double-eaved brackets. In the sunlight, the glazed tiles on the brackets seem to be covered with a layer of golden light, majestic and sacred.
Jiang Yanyi didn't know whether the Zhaixing Tower was a fairyland, but one could clearly see the divisions of the stars in the sky from the Zhaixing Tower. Every year, officials from the Imperial Astronomical Observatory would go up to the tower to observe the stars when they predicted the country's fortune.
She wondered in her heart why Feng Shuo suddenly invited her to Zhaixing Tower. She went to the appointment with full of doubts. When the sedan chair stopped at Zhaixing Tower, looking at the towering building in front of her, Jiang Yanyi was still shocked by the ingenious ideas of the ancient architects.
Whether from the gorgeous and majestic appearance or the load-bearing capacity of the building, it is unprecedented and unparalleled.
In the torrent of time, many skilled craftsmen have emerged in various industries. Some of them built a building that amazed the world for hundreds of years, some fired a piece of porcelain that was passed down through the ages, and some made a painting that was remembered by future generations...
Jiang Yanyi traveled from another world thousands of years later, and he always felt a lot of emotion and awe towards these things that were full of ingenuity and wisdom.
Life in later generations is becoming more and more convenient and fast, but many things are not done as well as in this era. Perhaps it is because people's hearts are more easily impetuous, and fewer and fewer people are willing to spend more than ten years to learn a skill. Those craftsmanship that once amazed the world will eventually be slowly forgotten in time.
When I climbed up to the Zhaixing Tower, I felt a hint of coolness in the wind blowing towards me.
Jiang Yanyi saw Feng Shuo who had been waiting here early. He didn't like wearing a golden dragon robe, so the dragon robes sewed for him by the palace maids in the Clothing Bureau were mostly black.
The wind blew towards him and filled his wide sleeves. His long hair and sleeves danced together, and the golden dragon with bared fangs and claws on his lapel seemed to come alive.
"Why did you ask me to come here?" Jiang Yanyi walked forward slowly.
Feng Shuo didn't look back. He looked at the red sun that was gradually sinking above the western hills and said, "The sunset here is more beautiful than that at Yanghu Lake."
Jiang Yanyi was stunned for a moment before she realized that he asked her to come over just because she praised Chu Chengmao for taking Yang Zheng to watch the sunset at the dinner table at noon.
She was a little amused and helpless for a moment.
There is no denying that watching the sunset from the Zhaixing Tower is indeed beautiful.
The setting sun is now red but no longer blinding; its rays of light sprinkle on the distant mountains and the nearby houses, so gentle that they make one's heart intoxicated.
The clouds in the sky seemed to be burning, with shades of red, deep and light, a magnificence that could not be captured by a famous painter’s brush.
Jiang Yanyi turned his head to look at Feng Shuo. His handsome features were also covered with a layer of rosy light, and the golden dragon embroidery on his robe seemed to have turned dark red.
Jiang Yanyi always felt that dark red suited Feng Shuo better. His appearance was charming but not ostentatious, and the majesty of a superior accumulated between his brows was enough to make people ignore his appearance.
She leaned over, stood on tiptoe, and kissed him lightly on the chin.
Feng Shuo lowered his eyes, kissed her on the forehead, and hugged her to watch the sunset over the capital city, saying, "I can't accompany you to travel around the world, to famous mountains and rivers, but we can still watch this sunrise and sunset for decades."
Love words spoken unintentionally are always the most touching.
Jiang Yanyi used to think the word "life after life" was ridiculous, but after meeting Feng Shuo, she really hoped that there was reincarnation in the world and that they could stay together forever.
*****
Chu Chengmao and Yang Zheng's wedding date is set for mid-September.
The autumn heat is raging, and the sun is even hotter than in July.
Yang Xiu led the caravan to search outside the Great Wall and brought back a lot of rare seeds. Jiang Yanyi found cocoa beans and coffee beans among them, and he finally had a way to make homemade cola.
She used cocoa beans, cinnamon, bay leaves and cloves to make cola soup, then added brewed coffee and mixed them together. The color looked like cola and it also smelled a bit like cola, but it tasted more like some kind of cold granules melted in water in later generations. After adding boiled caramel and squeezing lemon juice1, the taste was closer to cola, but it was still a long way off.
Because he only remembered these seasonings and not the specific proportions, Jiang Yanyi relied solely on smelling and tasting to constantly increase and decrease the proportions of the ingredients. By the end of the trial, he almost forgot what real cola tasted like.
The production of carbonated water did not take Jiang Yanyi much effort. The royal wine in the palace came from two sources: one was tribute from outside the palace, and the other was wine brewed by the royal winemaker.
Jiang Yanyi asked the winemaker to add a layer of partitions with small gaps in the fermenting wine barrel, place a water bowl on the partition, and then seal the wine barrel tightly, so that the carbon dioxide produced during the winemaking process will blend into the water bowl and form carbonated water.
Coke with carbonated water and ice cubes tastes more like real cola, but it still lacks the flavor.
Jiang Yanyi was not able to restore the taste of Coke 100%, so he excitedly took the experimental Coke to Feng Shuo to taste. Feng Shuo took a sip and frowned.
There is a burning sensation on the tip of the tongue as it enters the mouth, which is different from the burning sensation when strong liquor enters the throat. It is like the pain caused by tiny bubbles bursting on the tip of the tongue. The taste is a bit sour, but when you taste it carefully, it seems sweet, which is indescribable.
Jiang Yanyi asked him excitedly: "How is it?"
Feng Shuo pursed his lips to savor the taste and said, "I still prefer drinking."
This result made Jiang Yanyi very depressed. She asked Chenyu and other young palace maids to try it. It might be because this thing looked black and bubbles appeared when poured into the cup. It was very similar to the Jiu wine rumored in the palace. After all, it was said that when Jiu wine was spilled on the ground, it would make a "sizzling" sound and foam would come out.
One of the young palace maids drank it tremblingly and burst into tears on the spot, leaving Jiang Yanyi confused and asking the little palace maid why she was crying.
The little palace maid burst into tears and said, "My lady, I don't want to die. I still have old parents at home..."
Did they think Coke was poison
Jiang Yanyi's face was full of black lines. He raised his head and drank a glass of iced cola clean. He said, "This is the fat house water I developed. I just asked you to try the taste."
Although the young palace maids did not know why their queen named the water "Fei Zai Shui", they were greatly relieved to learn that their lives were safe.
Jiang Yanyi herself also felt that the cola she drank was a bit cloudy and not clear enough. She experimented many times and finally found that removing the cocoa beans could avoid turbidity and the subtle bitterness in the cola was gone.
She was a little puzzled, wondering if she remembered it wrongly. Maybe there were no cocoa beans in the ingredients of Xule.
Coke is still being improved, and the young palace maids in Chengde Palace often help Jiang Yanyi try it, and gradually they become addicted to this kind of strange drink.
Jiang Yanyi made Coke too often, and the winemaker gradually ran out of carbonated water. Jiang Yanyi relied on the little chemistry knowledge that his high school chemistry teacher had forced into his mouth, and remembered that sulfuric acid and limestone could produce a large amount of carbon dioxide when they reacted. Sulfuric acid was called green vitriol in ancient times, and it was a medicinal material for treating typhoid fever. Jiang Yanyi asked someone to go to the Imperial Hospital to get green vitriol, and also ordered someone to find a lot of limestone, and successfully collected carbon dioxide to make carbonated water.
After making cola soup more and more times, Jiang Yanyi felt that the cola she made always tasted wrong. She wondered if it was because she was not using essential oils extracted from those raw materials.
Thanks to Xizhou becoming the hub of trade between the Daxuan Dynasty and the surrounding countries, a caravan from the depths of the desert brought perfume to Daxuan. Yang Xiu is now mainly responsible for running the caravan. Bing Shao is nominally a royal guard, but in fact he is there to facilitate communication with Yang Xiu and then relay information to Jiang Yanyi.
When Jiang Yanyi was single-minded, his brain was not very smart. When he heard that there was a caravan selling perfume in Xizhou, his first reaction was not to win over the foreign caravan as soon as possible and monopolize the perfume market, but to let Yang Xiu contact the caravan and let them use brand-new equipment to extract lemon oil, cinnamon oil and cassia oil, the flavoring ingredients for making cola.
In the world where Jiang Yanyi originally lived, perfume was first born in Egypt in the 15th century. When she came here, she opened a precedent for foreign trade by exporting porcelain, and then caravans brought the perfume from the desert country back to the Daxuan Dynasty.
It was an unexpected opportunity that led Yang Xiu to contact the people from the perfume caravan, but not for the perfume they had, but to ask them to help develop and extract what Jiang Yanyi needed, and they became friends through this opportunity.
Later, merchants from all sides saw the profits brought by perfume and rushed to cooperate with that caravan. When Yang Xiu went to bid again, the caravan directly chose Yang Xiu, an old acquaintance, to cooperate with.
Jiang Yanyi was drinking cola mixed with various extracted essences. He was a little dumbfounded when he saw the thick stack of banknotes handed over by Yang Xiu.
She has monopolized a field invisibly and made a lot of money.
The supply of perfume was limited, and the caravans had to travel long distances from the desert outside the Great Wall to transport it, which resulted in the ladies of the court in the Daxuan Dynasty having to rely on their connections and bidding to buy a small bottle.
Jiang Yanyi became a supply middleman and controlled all the perfumes in the entire Daxuan Dynasty. When Chu Chengmao and Yang Zheng got married, he was so wealthy that he gave Yang Zheng a bottle of perfume with different scents.
As the queen, the gifts she brought were placed on a red cloth tray and brought to the Chu Mansion by the eunuchs in the palace. People from all over the city could watch.
The female guests attending the wedding banquet were so amazed at the sight of so many perfumes that they couldn't help but say something sourly about how Yang Zheng was blessed.
It is said that fortune and misfortune go hand in hand. Jiang Yanyi finally made a cola that tasted 90% similar to Coke, and earned enough money to support his family by selling perfume. He was feeling very happy when a heavy blow came to him.
She took a large amount of alum from the Imperial Hospital and ordered people to find limestone. Some palace servants who were not aware of the situation also said that she tinkered with some strange bottles and jars every day. The ministers who had repeatedly tried to let Feng Shuo participate in the selection but were blocked by Feng Shuo were very happy, as they finally had something against Jiang Yanyi.
The rumor spread from one person to ten, and from ten to a hundred, until it finally spread into the story that Jiang Yanyi had mastered witchcraft and bewitched Feng Shuo, which made him favor her exclusively.
When Feng Shuo placed the memorial impeaching Jiang Yanyi for alchemy in front of her, Jiang Yanyi was completely stunned.
"I make pills?" She looked confused.
Feng Shuo rubbed her head and said, "You have a good reputation among the people. Those old guys just couldn't find any dirt to discredit you before. Now that they have this opportunity, they will naturally not let it go."
Jiang Yanyi didn't expect that he would get into such a big trouble just because he wanted to drink a Coke.
It felt disgusting to be framed. She originally thought that she was the only one in the palace and there was no intrigue, so she did not strictly discipline the palace maids. Now that something like this happened, of course a reorganization was inevitable.
Yang Zheng and Madam An Shao often went to the palace to accompany Jiang Yanyi. They had all drunk the Coke she made and knew the disgusting intentions of the ministers who spread the rumors.
Yang Zheng was so angry that she slammed the table. "They said that Fatty Tea was a demon water cast by a sorcery, so it must be a demon water? Didn't they say before that Your Majesty, you were making elixirs? Now you have the nerve to say something like that. It's obvious that they want to force their own daughter into the palace, but they have to use the excuse of caring about Your Majesty's offspring. This scholar can really make shit and urine smell good."
Madam An was not as outspoken as Yang Zheng, but she also heard An Yongyuan say that the ministers in the court were clamoring to select concubines to fill the harem on the grounds that Feng Shuo had no children and Jiang Yanyi had ill intentions in refining the demon water. She stuffed a prescription into Jiang Yanyi's hands and said earnestly, "I took the medicine twice according to this prescription and got pregnant. Your Majesty, you should try it too."
When Yang Zheng saw Madam An giving the prescription, she slapped her head and remembered that before she entered the palace, Madam Chu also gave her a prescription and asked her to give it to Jiang Yanyi. She quickly took it out from her sleeve pocket and said, "My grandmother also asked me to bring a prescription to you."
Holding two prescriptions for conditioning the body, Jiang Yanyi felt quite helpless.
She and Feng Shuo had been married for less than a year, and the two were not in a hurry. When the ministers submitted their first memorial requesting a selection of candidates, Feng Shuo realized that having an heir was the high-sounding reason those ministers used to ask him to participate in the selection, and he had always wanted to have a child with Jiang Yanyi.
However, Jiang Yanyi's stomach was still not moving, and the imperial physician came to check her pulse every now and then to regulate her body. She also paid great attention to nourishing her diet, and the imperial physician said that she was in good health. Feng Shuo had heard of men who were infertile, and he also asked the imperial physician to check Jiang Yanyi's pulse without her knowledge. The imperial physician said frankly that he was in good health and had no worries about having children.
He didn't know where he heard this folk remedy from, but every time after tormenting Jiang Yanyi, he would stay inside and refuse to come out, saying that this would help conception. However, after trying many times, he still failed.
*****
Feng Shuo used tough measures to suppress the ministers who were making a fuss in the court. He was worried that Jiang Yanyi would be bored alone in the palace, so he asked her to go back to the Chu family to stay for a few days to relax.
Jiang Yanyi also wanted to go back and see Old Madam Chu to prevent her from worrying about her.
Everything in the Chu family remains the same except that there is a new mistress.
Chu Nian'an, the eldest grandson of the Chu family, is almost two years old. He is a fair and tender chubby boy who walks unsteadily but loves to run everywhere. His nanny follows him around all day long, fearing that he might accidentally stumble.
Old Madam Chu asked her to hug the chubby little Nian'an more, saying that if she had some luck with children, she might be able to have one when she returned.
Jiang Yanyi didn't have high expectations for the child at first, but when she held the sweet and soft little chubby boy, saw him holding a piece of milk cake in his fat paws, opening his big round eyes and calling her "Auntie" in a baby voice, her heart melted again.
Xue looked at Chu Nian'an and smiled from ear to ear. Chu Nian'an was covered in cakes and pastries, but she didn't mind at all and took the child to him, carefully wiping his chubby paws with a handkerchief. It was obvious that she really liked this child and was raising him as if he were her own.
Xue has always been considerate in dealing with people. After Yang Zheng came into the family, she gave up the power to manage the household expenses and concentrated on helping Jiang Yanyi run the business. The financial income of the first house now mainly depends on Xue. Liu and her son have completely lost their say in the Chu family. They dare not treat Xue harshly anymore and instead rush to curry favor with her.
Yang Zheng was a person who would treat others very well if they were nice to her, and she got along very well with Xue.
As soon as Chu Chengmao got married, Chu Shubao and Chu Jiabao also had to prepare for marriage. Old Madam Chu had a lot of things to worry about, but the two girls didn't take marriage too seriously. They just said that everything was decided by their family. Privately, they devoted all their attention to the rouge business.
Chu Shubao's rouge business grew bigger and bigger, and she opened several shops in the capital. Because of Jiang Yanyi's relationship, she got to know the Zhao family, which specialized in rouge, and became business allies with the Zhao family. When Jiang Yanyi returned to the Chu family, the two sisters asked Jiang Yanyi a lot about business.
What Jiang Yanyi misses most is naturally Chu Yangui.
After Mrs. Jiang left, she could feel that the child could not find a sense of belonging.
She specifically asked Chenyu to pass a message to the gate, asking Chu Yangui to inform her when he returned from court. However, Chu Yangui did not return home until dark. He only asked a waiter from the restaurant to come back and tell her that he had an appointment with several colleagues and would not be back for dinner.
Jiang Yanyi had dinner with the Chu family. The Chu family understood that Feng Shuo asked Jiang Yanyi to come back to relax, so during the dinner, they did not mention a word about the court officials' slander that she had pressured Feng Shuo to select a concubine.
In the evening, Jiang Yanyi returned to her own courtyard and asked the secret guards assigned to her by Feng Shuo to check Chu Yangui's whereabouts.
Based on her understanding of Chu Yangui, Chu Yangui was not the type to make friends with others and make appointments to have meals at restaurants. At the height of the storm when she had just been impeached by court officials, Chu Yangui suddenly behaved abnormally, and there must be a reason for it.
***
Just after midnight, Chu Yangui's carriage returned to the Chu Mansion. When he entered the mansion, the doorman said respectfully, "Fifth Young Master, the queen has returned to visit her relatives, so she asked you to go to Rosewood Garden."
Rosewood Garden is Jiang Yanyi's courtyard in the Chu family.
Chu Yangui had one hand behind his back. The loose court robe made him look a little thin. The lantern hanging high in front of the mansion gate cast a layer of dim soft light on his handsome face, making him look more gentle and harmless.
Chu Yangui nodded and said, "I see. I had a few drinks with my colleagues and I smell of alcohol. I'll go back to the yard to change clothes before going to see my sister."
The concierge responded repeatedly.
When Chu Yangui took a few steps and looked up again, he saw a lot of blood on the sleeve that Chu Yangui was holding behind his back.
The blood spots did not look like Chu Yangui's, but rather like someone else's blood sprayed onto his sleeves.
The author has something to say: Tomorrow will be the last episode of Little Bun (fist)
1. It is not clear when lemon first appeared in my country, but there were already documents about lemon in the Ming Dynasty. The Compendium of Materia Medica written by pharmacist Li Shizhen recorded that lemon has the functions of promoting body fluid, quenching thirst, and removing heat. Chili pepper was introduced to China in the Ming Dynasty. Since there were already chili peppers in the fictional era that the heroine traveled through, it is assumed that there were also lemons.
2 Use cinnamon, cloves and bay leaves to cook cola soup. This recipe comes from the Canadian cola recipe provided by an up master named "Xiao K-Experience Canada" on Bilibili. It is considered a relatively successful homemade cola.
3 British chemist Joseph Priest once made carbonated water by placing a water bowl on a beer barrel.
4 The use of sulfuric acid and limestone to make carbonated water comes from Joseph Priestley's book "The Combination of Water and Air" published in 1772.
5 The appendix of the 2009 edition of "The Coca-Cola Empire" published by Huaxia Publishing House contains the recipe of Coca-Cola. It seems too boring to write out all the ingredients, so I will just put the specific ingredients as follows: caffeic acid, citric acid (both types of acids are contained in lemon peel), coconut, lime juice, sugar, orange oil, lemon oil, orange oil, nutmeg oil, cinnamon oil, neroli oil, essence, etc.
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