Chapter 89

The jade pendant did not see Li Yuangui take it back, and Jiafu was not easy to ask questions, so she went back to the Duke's Mansion after leaving the palace.

Mrs. Xin and the second room had long known that she was picked up by a palace car, and they all paid attention to it secretly. When they saw her returning now, the girls and women from the two places came over and rubbed their heads. The rough envoy in the courtyard inquired about the news, and soon, everyone in the Guogong Mansion knew that the eldest grandmother was going to leave Beijing for the north.

This time, although everyone is saying that Pei You'an was convicted by the emperor and was sent out, but in the end, neither the Ministry of Punishment nor the Dali Temple has issued any documents on this matter, and the source of all the rumors is also unknown. However, it started from a few backs that were seen early that morning, so it was not completely sure that this was true before. After all, with the close relationship between the emperor and Pei You'an in the past, such a thing happened overnight. Incredible. But now that the news is real, there is a commotion in the secretive state of the government. After a while, Mrs. Meng came over from the second room, confirmed the news to Jiafu, showed sympathy on her face, comforted a few words, and said , the second master also asked her to tell her a message, saying that when something happened, it was useless to be sad, and told her to relax and take more care of her body on the way. When you get there, after a while, long live forgiveness is just around the corner, stay for a while , Said when to leave, and came to see her by himself. Jaffe thanked and sent her out.

Jiafu had previously learned from Li Yuangui that Pei Youan was sent to Suye City in Ganzhou. It was such a coincidence that it was exactly the place where he died last in the previous life. He didn't care about his emotions, but became more and more anxious.

Pei You'an went out of the customs this time, not as an official. The two ready-made gorgeous Qiu Li clothes are not easy to bring. After rummaging through the boxes, they picked up some thick ordinary winter clothes. , I use ordinary fabrics, stuff the best thermal cotton wool in the folder, and all the girls and women who are good at sewing in the yard come, sit around, you sew the sleeves, I make the face, and fly the needle overnight. In just one night, several new cold-proof clothes were made and packed into boxes one by one.

The next morning, the luggage was almost packed. Li Yuangui didn't say that the emperor would not allow her to bring servants, so she could. Sandalwood and Muxiang are of the right age. They have served Jiafu for many years, and she wants to go with her when she opens her mouth. Mammy Liu also really loves Jiafu and wants to go there, but she is persuaded by Jiafu to go back to Quanzhou and bring a letter to her. Mother, told her to live in Quanzhou in the future.

Madam Liu grabbed Jiafu's hand, rambled on, and told Sandalwood to serve the eldest grandmother. When it came to the sad part, her eyes were red, and everyone had tears in their eyes.

The whole room was feeling sad, and a woman beside Mrs. Xin came over.

Jiafu wiped her tears and called the old woman in.

The old lady came in, glanced at the boxes and luggage on the ground, smiled and bowed: "Grandma, when you were not there a few days ago, a fire broke out in the original warehouse in our mansion. It was timely, but the house was damaged a bit, and it is no longer usable now. Madam thought, if it was renovated, it would cost another sum of money. The big yard by the bridge has been empty for so many years, and it is a pity to leave it there. Yes, what Mrs. means, the uncle will come back in the future, and I don't think he will move there again, so I want to free up the old things in it, reorganize it a little, and change it into a warehouse, which can save a fortune. . While the eldest grandma is still at home, send me to tell me which of those old things are still useful, and ask someone to move them here, and if they are useless, they will be taken away."

That Lianqiao South Courtyard is where Pei Youan lived when he was a teenager. Before getting married, the old lady allocated this small yard by her own north house for the young couple to live in. Although she did not live there, there were still many books and other sundries that Pei Youan had collected since childhood. If you really want to move, it won't be empty in a few days.

Jiafu was silent for a moment, then said lightly: "It's better to use it as a warehouse. I'll take a look. The books don't get damaged, they'll all be moved here." At the door, I saw a pile of tables and chairs that were taken out from the inside on the road outside. The courtyard door was open, and the courtyard was also full of tables, chairs, and bookcases that had been cleared from the house. A pile of books was spread out on the ground. Going in and out, busy carrying things, the old woman surnamed Ye next to Mrs. Xin was standing on the steps, and she was instructing her in a loud voice to lift the bookshelf. The book that was not taken down fell to the ground.

"Dead dead dead! Come and help support—"

The old woman who carried the bookshelf shouted loudly, and swarmed up on the side, with seven or eight feet, stepping on the books that fell on the ground, and finally lifted the big bookshelf to the open space.

Jia Fu walked over, squatted down, and picked up a book on the ground with a black footprint.

The book is very old, the pages are yellowed, and there are words and sentences that are familiar to Catherine, long or short. It is a note left by Pei You'an when he was a teenager.

Jiafu carefully dusted off the mud on it, and picked up the books on the ground one by one.

Seeing this, Mrs. Ye came over to help pick up the books, and said with a smile, "Grandma, are you here? Look, which of these things are still needed, I'll ask someone to pack them up and send them to your yard."

Jiafu folded a few books in her hand, put them on the table next to them, straightened up, and said coldly, "I want them all! Even this yard, I want them too! Bring them all back to me, and they will belong to them. How to move out, just give me how to move back!"

Everyone stopped and looked at each other.

Madam Ye was stunned for a moment, then smiled and said, "Grandma, aren't you embarrassing me? I also do things according to Madam's wishes."

Jiafu looked around the girls and women around, and said with a sneer, "You guys just excused the uncle and left like this, and you won't be able to come back again. This is really a waste, right? Let me tell you, the uncle is today. If you lose your power, no one can see what will happen in the future! I advise you to look at the long-term, don’t be a rat stealing oil, follow the master, and you can only see the two inches in front of you! This life is still growing If anyone dares to step on the things in this courtyard again today, wait for me, if you step on it today, I will let you know in the future that I am not a mud man with Buddha mind and Buddha nature!"

The yard became silent. After a while, the old wives hurried up and picked up all the books on the ground. They said, "Don't blame grandma, it was just a moment of carelessness."

Jiafu turned to Madam Ye: "Are you going to move? If you don't move, I'll ask someone to move it myself." Then she turned her head and ordered Madam Liu to call all the servants in the courtyard. Madam Liu responded with a sound, turned around and hurried away. Jiafu also ignored Madam Ye and continued to clean up the messy books all over the floor.

With a smirk on her face, Mrs. Ye moved away quietly, reached the door, and left quickly.

Jiafu instructed the people to put together the books that had been moved out. The desks, chairs, bookcases, dusted, and moved back again and again. As she was busy, Mrs. Xin walked in accompanied by Mrs. Ye and others. Frowning, he said unpleasantly, "How do you say this? I saw that this place has been empty for so many years, and the boss used to be at home. Now the home is not what it used to be. Thinking about how much it can save, I asked people to vacate it. . Didn't I also ask what you meant?"

The servant in the yard stopped what he was doing, and Jiafu walked over and said lightly, "I was going to tell my mother-in-law, this yard, when the husband comes back in the future, even if he doesn't need it, he must first ask him what he means. There is a collection of books that have been accumulated over the years, and there are a lot of sundries. They are moved around in case they are damaged. My mother-in-law wants to open a warehouse, and there is no empty room at home. Please ask my mother-in-law to find another suitable place. "

Mrs. Xin stared at Jiafu: "Do you still have my mother-in-law in your eyes? Even You An is here, but it's just an empty courtyard. I think he won't talk to me like you do!"

"My mother-in-law also remembers her husband's well-being. Now that no one else is at home, she asks her mother-in-law not to touch his things. If her mother-in-law is dissatisfied with me, she will wait for him to come back and ask him to divorce me in the future!"

After Jiafu finished speaking, she turned her head and ordered Mama Liu to lead the people she brought to continue moving things. Madam Liu responded loudly, gave Madam Xin a sideways glance, and the commander continued, and the yard became busy again.

Madam Xin was speechless for a while, her face was red and white, but she was helpless.

Jiafu looked at the woman in front of her with cold eyes, and her heart suddenly filled with the same happy feeling she had when she fought with people in Meng Mu's department. The bad anger in her heart seemed to be relieved a little, and she ignored it. As for her, she continued to organize her books and was busy when a girl ran in quickly and shouted: "There is someone in the palace, Long live the reward!"

Mrs. Xin was surprised and couldn't care about it anymore, and hurriedly turned around to ask who the reward was. The girl shook her head blankly.

After thinking about it, it should only be his own son. Mrs. Xin stared at Jiafu, left here, and hurriedly turned away.

What Jiafu listened to was a reward, and naturally she couldn't fight with her. Anyway, she broke her face with the emperor, and she was leaving tomorrow, so she didn't go to greet her, and stayed to continue sorting out the sundries. Unexpectedly, after a while, the girl ran back quickly and shouted, "Grandma, it's a reward for you, grandma, go!"

Madam Liu and others were surprised and looked at Jiafu.

Jiafu rushed to the front hall in a hurry. It was Cui Yinshui who came, with a few little eunuchs beside her, carrying a box of gold-painted snails that had been covered in yellow silk. Mrs. Xin, Mrs. Ye and others were also there, and their expressions were different from that of the previous one.

Cui Yinshui elongated his voice: "Zhenshi listens and appreciates it."

Jiafu knelt down, and the others followed along to listen to the reward.

The emperor rewarded Jiafu with 500 taels of silver and a number of ramies, yarn and brocade. After Cui Yinshui finished reading the list, he took a box from a young eunuch, held it over, and said with a smile, "Ms. Zhen, this is a box of top-grade Yushu Cordyceps that has just been presented in Qinghai this year, and it will be collected within a year. So much, long live also reward you. Thank you."

Jiafu thanked her, accepted the reward, sent the eunuch away, and came back, Mrs. Xin had shied away from her discomfort and disappeared. The old lady and girl she met along the way, when she met Jiafu, were all respectful, and they all shouted grandma, It's like going back to the old days.

Human feelings are warm and warm, and the world is hot and cold. In just half a day, a good show was staged in this palace. Jiafu didn't care to sigh, she went back to the courtyard and saw that many servants had come, all scrambling to do things, even people from the second room. When everything returned to normal, Jiafu looked around, closed the doors and windows with her own hands, locked the door, and turned to leave.

Before passing the big tree that was said to have hanged people back then, Jiafu stopped for a while, then turned around and commanded, "Cut down the tree and dig out the roots!"

...

The next day, Jia Fu accompanied a baggage army of nearly 100 people sent to the outside of the customs, rode a carriage, left the capital, and set foot on the road to the north.

Yang Yun also accompanied her.

She left Beijing in early November. On this day, it had been almost a month since Pei Youan left Beijing.

This army is transporting a batch of urgently needed medicinal materials to the border town of Ganzhou, and the speed is not slow. As planned, it will arrive by mid-December. The journey was smooth at first. After a month of trekking, Jiafu arrived in Suzhou with the army. The centurion, the leader of the team, told her that after passing Suzhou, it would take hundreds of miles to the northwest and cross a section of the Tianshan Mountains. It would take about ten days. The journey will be able to arrive at the city of Suye in Ganzhou.

This trek is not easy. Jiafu's feet have developed frostbite because of the long-term trapping in the carriage and the severe cold weather. Unexpectedly, at this moment, the weather was suddenly bad. When passing through the Tianshan Mountains, a heavy snowfall came, covering the ancient road that had been slowly stepped out by soldiers and horses for thousands of years. Submerged the high plateaus and ravines between the mountains and mountains. Couldn't find the way, if one accidentally fell, it would be a cliff and abyss. The team was forced to stop in a mountain pass sheltered from the wind. After stopping for seven or eight days, the heavy snow finally stopped. It took a few more days to finally walk out of this ancient mountain road. When we finally arrived at Suye City, it was the end of the year. It was snowing heavily and the wind was roaring. In a few days, it was New Year's Eve.

Suye is a thousand-year-old place, but it used to be a stopover point on the commercial road in the Western Regions. Due to its location, there are abundant aquatic plants and lakes flowing from Tianshan springs nearby. Later, don’t know which dynasty started, the court built soil as a city, and gradually people lived here. a large population. Today, this place has become one of the important cities where Ganzhou garrisoned troops to defend against the Hu people. There are hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians. In the city, there is the Dusi Mansion, which is in charge of the ar and the people. didn't see her, and didn't send anyone to receive her. Jiafu stood in the snow outside the Dusi Mansion, her hands and feet were numb, and after waiting for a long time, she got the news from an old guard of the Dusi Mansion who couldn't see, saying that Pei Youan had been here for almost two months, but he was not there. In the city, went to the stockyard outside the city.

The old guard said that he had been here for decades, so he knew something. Hu Liangcai's father, who was also a subordinate of Duke Wei in his early years, was punished by the army for violating military discipline. It was polite and sent him to the stockyard as a watchman.

This position appears to be free, but it is actually a drudgery. The place is far away from the city, and the surrounding area is desolate and uninhabited. In the stockyard, in addition to managing the supply of fodder for all the army horses here, it also treats the sick and weak horses that were sent. There are only a few old and weak soldiers. When encountering a boss who deliberately makes things difficult, he can be held accountable at any time on the grounds that the horse is thin or dead.

Jiafu thanked the old soldier, came back, and asked Yang Yun to find the centurion who had come all the way, and asked him to send someone to lead him to the horse farm outside the city. He didn't want the centurion to think that she had been captured by Hu Liangcai. At the reception, people went to hand over the medicinal materials, and they returned in the evening.

In other words, if she waited for the centurion to come back, she would be the fastest, and she would not be able to leave until tomorrow.

Jiafu only felt that she couldn't wait any longer. She wished she could fly over immediately, and rushed back to find the old soldier, asking him to lead the way for her, so she went over immediately. The old pawn just finished the handover and agreed, Yang Yun drove the carriage, the old pawn sat beside him, Jiafu and two girls with their luggage, sat in the carriage, several people in a car, outside this lonely northwest city. In the heavy snow, he staggered away toward the depths of the wilderness.

Jiafu imagined seeing Pei You'an and slapped the letter hard on his face, even though her hands and feet were already stiff, she didn't feel it at all. Going forward in this way, after walking for a long time, in the evening, the carriage suddenly stopped, the horses neighed and stopped.

Jiafu stuck her head out and found that the horses were tilted, their front hooves deeply sunk into the snow. Yang Yun went down, checked it again, and said that the horse's hoof stepped into a pothole buried deep in the snow, and the front hoof was broken and could not go.

The old soldier said that it was getting dark, or he could only turn around. There was a place to rest nearby, so let's go and rest first.

Jiafu asked about the distance to the racecourse, and the old soldier said that there were still eight or nine miles to go.

Jiafu looked at the vast snow in front of her and said, "Just take a short walk, let's walk there!"

Yang Yun couldn't persuade him, but he had no choice but to lead the injured horses and carts to the side of the road first. Jiafu and the two girls brought light luggage, and under the leadership of the old guard, they stepped on the ground with one foot and one foot. The snow on the calf, against the wind and snow, moved forward step by step.

When Jiafu finally stood in front of the fence gate of the stockyard, it was already late at night.

The sky was dark and the snow was flying. She didn't know how many times she slipped and fell, and her whole body was covered with snow and ice.

An old soldier yawned and opened the door. He learned that it was Pei You'an's wife who had come over. He stared at the snowman-like Jiafu, the open-mouthed boss. Passing through the rows of warehouses used as warehouses, he finally stopped, pointed to the end of the row of houses, and said, "Master Pei lives there."

It was a row of dilapidated rooms, pitch black, and only in the direction pointed by the old man, there was a faint yellow light in the window.

"Master Pei is really kind to the horses. After coming here, the sick horses here have recovered a lot. It's just that he is sick. In the past few days, the cough has become worse."

The old soldier was beside him and whispered in a low voice.

Jiafu was trembling all over, and she turned her head and asked Yang Yun to find a place to settle down with the sandalwood and wood incense, whose face had turned blue. She walked quickly in the direction of the lights.

She stepped on the snow on the ground and walked away, getting faster and closer.

When he was about to reach the door, he slowed down and finally stopped.

The heavy snow fluttered and fell silently from the depths of the endless night dome. It was pitch black all around, and only a few dim yellow lights were scattered in the door and window in front of him.

The doors and windows are very old, and there are cracks everywhere between the gaps in the wood. Jiafu held her breath, suppressed her heart that was about to jump out of her throat, and slowly came to the dilapidated window, looking in through the cracks in the wood.

There is a bed, a table, a stool, and a stove in the corner of the room, and there is nothing else. The fire in the furnace was dim and weak, and it looked like it was about to go out.

He hadn't seen him for over half a year, but he was very thin and pale, and he was wearing an old robe. He was sitting at the table with the dim soy oil lamp in the corner of the table.

After writing for a while, he suddenly coughed, showing a slight pain in his face, then stopped writing, got up, and bent over to pick up the kettle, as if he wanted to pour water.

Suddenly, as if aware of something, he stopped, slowly straightened his body, turned his head, and turned his eyes to the direction of the window where Jia Fu was.

"Who's out?"

He asked, his voice slightly hoarse, but extremely calm.