Chapter 66 People cared more about equal distribution than limited materials
“Miss, didn’t Mammy Tang ask you to wait for her to pick you up in the mountain?” Zhen Jing, whose na was Chan Yi now, ran after He Danggui, and panted heavily as she shouted, “It’s about 5:00, only the second morning now. Even if Mammy Tang can fly, she cannot co back overnight! My legs are breaking. Let’s have a rest!”
“I agree, Miss. Let’s have a rest at the edge of the mountain road, and my hands hurt!” Huai Wen, whose na was Huai Hua now, stopped, and putted the baggage on the road, shaking her hand, “I can’t make it! I really can’t walk any further!”
He Danggui walked in the front, stopped and complained, “You need to rest again?” Excuse , are you maids? As your Miss, I’m not tired of carrying such a heavy load about 100 jin, and you’re still panting with almost empty hands. How co you claim yourselves as people who often walked on mountain roads?” In spite of complaining, she put the carrying pole down, sitting on the luggage to have a rest.
Chan Yi sat on the stone steps of the road angrily, “We are walking but you are running, Miss. Even if we have more legs, we can’t catch up with you!”
“Fine, don’t pout!” He Danggui comforted her, “As soon as I walk in this kind of straight-down mountain road, I can’t help quickening my pace, so I start to run. How about this? Later, you two sit on both sides of the carrying pole, and I will try to pick you down the mountain, so your hands and legs won’t hurt, and we can save ti.”
Huai Hua exclaid, “You are kidding, Miss! The two of us together weighs more than the loads of that carrying pole, and plus the weight of the carrying pole itself. It must be more than 300 jin! Even if you are a female Overlord of the West Chu, or a rebirth of Hua Mulan. It’s impossible for you to take both of us on the mountain road!”
He Danggui scratched her chin carelessly and smiled imdiately, “It doesn’t matter. Let’s try it. If I can’t, I will get down the mountain first to put everything in soplace, then I will pick you up.”
Huai Hua said incredibly, “Miss, you can not only walk fast but also have good physical strength. You are even stronger than the strongest man in my village!”
“I told you she is a heroine! Yesterday you did not believe it, and you understand it now!” Chan Yi looked at He Danggui with a worship and asked, “Miss, where shall we go after getting off the mountain? If Mammy Tang can’t co back today, will we be holess? Are we going to live in the inn of Tu’er Town tonight?”
He Danggui raised her finger, and a mysterious smile appeared on her face, “Let’s make a bet. After we get off the mountain, we’ll just wait at the intersection. If Mammy Tang doesn’t co to us within an hour, you will be able to punish any way you want, but if she cos, I will punish you at my will. What do you think?”
Huai Hua turned to see Chan Yi, perplexed. Because it was the first ti for her to see He Danggui act in such a lively manner. She usually acted like a little grown-up after all. Chan Yi thought for a mont and responded in an emulative way, “I accept. Although you are very clever, I heard very clearly at that ti. Mammy Tang said that she will pick you up tomorrow and hopes you can stay at the Taoist temple to recuperate your hands... By the way, how about your hands? Still itchy now?”
He Danggui looked at her hands carefully, “According to the color of the skin, it should be fine. After getting off the mountain, I will untie the numb acupoint of my elbows, and let the blood flow in my arms.”
Chan Yi ntioned this and sighed, “What are the Misses in the large families thinking about? If it were my cousin who ca back from the dead, I would be madly happy. But she just sent clothes with hidden thorns and itching powder to hurt you. If you didn’t find those things in front of Mammy Tang, I think she may not admit it as her plot and might even bla you for wronging her by then. From another aspect, if you go back to Luo’s Family, she will have another playmate. Why does she want to trick you?”
He Danggui drew circles on her fingernail leisurely and analyzed thoughtfully, “Maybe she was too happy to be crazy, so she played a trick on on purpose. In fact, that was quite good, and I should thank her because I finally convinced Mammy Tang. By the way, I haven’t told you that I used to live in the West Lateral court, which was an old yard that has been abandoned for many years. It was humid and gray, and many of the rooms were in disrepair. Living in there was already inconvenient. Later, the court gradually beca a mice nest, and the place was uninhabitable...”
Hearing this, Chan Yi shivered for fearing of mice. He Danggui smiled and reassured her, “Take it easy. Before we return to Luo’s Family, the most annoying West Lateral court will disappear from Luo’s Mansion. Thanks to the fourth sister’s blessing, the whole mansion’s mice can be thoroughly eliminated. I think we can have a better yard to live in the future.”
Chan Yi stared at her eyes and shouted with a low voice, “Seriously, Miss? You want to thank her, and expect her to help us to change a good yard to live? This ti you aren’t smarter than . According to my analysis, Fourth Miss putting the itching powder on your clothes was not only to simply make you itchy. If you really put on that clothes to take the sedan, you might get undressed and run off the sedan because it is too itchy! She is so bad. How can she help us?”
He Danggui picked up a wild chrysanthemum from the side of the road, and slled, then started to read a poem, “When the double ninth festival cos, chrysanthemums will bloom again. Good flowers slled so good!”
She was sincere to say “we can move out from the West Lateral court and have a better place to live thanks to Luo Baishao”. This ti, without Luo Baiqiong’s itching powder, she could not have convinced Mammy Tang if she only got several thin thorns on that beautiful clothes sent by Luo Baishao. And Mammy Tang would not either have had such a strong sympathy for her, or have believed that elegant Second Miss would hide thorns in the clothes. Not to ntion she would less likely to help her to seek Madam Luo for justice.
Hearing that the skirt with water ripples and the gauze dress embroidered with white magnolias were sent by Luo Baiqiong, He Danggui imdiately checked them carefully. Based on the experience of her previous life, when Luo Baiqiong was unmarried, her pranks had always been childish and monotonous, and just had a few little tricks. There was nothing new.
In her pervious life, when she arrived at Luo’s Family, she was just 9 years old. Although her shape of a beautiful young lady was not appeared yet, her delicate facial features and fair skin imdiately drew nurous aning eyes. She was always like a frightened deer, and her eyes flashed the light of innocence, timidity, and curiosity. So, when she went to kowtow to Madam Luo, the latter took her up with great joy, and embraced her all the ti after giving a glance at her. In the end, Madam Luo joked with the first and the second branches of the family, “Co! Look at her. This is Chuanxiong’s daughter, Yi, and she must be the most beautiful Miss of our mansion.”
After listening this, Luo Baiqiong’s gentle appearance imdiately changed and looked at this “cousin” who was raised on the farm trenchantly.
Last year, there was once that Luo Baiqiong heard secretly from Ding Rong’s wife. The latter said that half a month ago, when she was passing the farm outside of the city, she saw that the Fourth Mistress’s daughter bent to pull weeds in the field, and then threw the grass into the basket on her back. Within a short ti, she was sweeting all over out of tiredness, and she used a black towel to brush her black face. Ding Rong’s wife sneered, “She has completely beco a village girl, and she doesn’t even look like a Miss of Luo’s Family. Even the maids who were responsible for washing feet for their masters in the mansion are better than her.”
Luo Baiqiong rembered clearly that after hearing those words, the hate in her mother’s eyes was clear, but her mother smiled pleasantly. At that ti, she felt a little strange, because the girl had been kicked out from Luo’s Family for many years, and had no relationship with Noble Ladies like them. Why did her mother pay so much attention to that girl?
Luo Baiqiong looked at the wild girl in Madam Luo’s arms repeatedly and wanted to find out any flaws on her face. Didn’t Ding Rong’s wife say that the girl did farm works in dirty mud? How could her face be so fair, and her eyes be so bright? She didn’t deserve to sit on the arms of Madam Luo! Why did her grandmother treat a stranger so well?
After a few days, the Administrator of the Third Branch, Wang Minshan, ca back from the north to visit his family. He also brought with him so crops and 4 bolts of silk with patterns of morning clouds, which were bought by the Third Lord, saying those things were from Northern Zhili. Since Madam Luo thought Yi was new here and she was kind of a small guest, Madam Luo decided to give her 2 bolts of silk with light color, and give the 2 dark bolts of silk to be evenly distributed to First Miss and Younger First Mistress Luo of the First Branch, as well as Second Miss and Fourth Miss of the Second Branch of the family.
Actually, there were different types of fabric to be distributed all the seasons in the mansion. No one liked those rustic silks before, but people cared more about equal distribution than limited materials. These 4 honorable Ladies of Luo’s Mansion were very angry because they should divide things that a wild girl left. In the end, no one wanted the rest 2 bolts of silk. Therefore, Gan Cao and Deng Cao sent it back to Madam Luo. Madam Luo thought the children were so self-effacing, smiled cheerfully and asked Deng Cao to send those to Third Miss as well.
Fourth Miss, Luo Baishao, had old unpleasant story with He Danggui when she was a little kid.
Luo Baishao was the third Miss in the family. When she was less than a year old and was about to be recorded as the “Third Miss” in the family tree, everyone in the family called her “Third Miss”. She was about to turn a year old to be recorded as the “Third Miss” into the family tree. But one day in the midnight, sothing changed. Luo Chuanxiong, the fourth daughter of Madam Luo, suddenly held her two-year-old child, He Danggui, and returned ho. She said with tears that this ti she had made a clean break with He’s Family, and she would live with her daughter alone in the future. At that ti, Lord Luo Duzhong was still alive, but knew himself was about to leave the world because of cardiac disease. In order to let his favorite daughter Chuanxiong live at ease in Luo’s Mansion, he also recorded his granddaughter’s na into the family tree, and arranged her na between Luo Baiqiong and Luo Baishao by the order of age. In this way, He Danggui beca the “Third Miss” among the young generation, while Luo Baishao was turned to be “Fourth Miss”.
Lord Luo Duzhong died in his sleep after 3 months. 2 years later, He Danggui was sent to the farm on the outside of the city. 3 more years passed, Luo Chuanxiong married He Fu, who was 3 years younger than her, and she purchased a big house with 5 yards with her dowry, then moved in with He Fu, He Fu’s mother, his sister and his brother-in-law. “Third Miss” and her mother went out from Luo’s Mansion temporarily.
In the second year, Fourth Miss of Luo’s Family, Luo Baishao, was 7 years old. One day, Lou’s Family sat up a stage for the opera show, and many females of the East and West Yard of Luo’s Mansion sat under the stage. On the stage, the players first perford Zhuang Yuan Hong, then Qian Hun Ji and Yunniang Seeks for a Husband. Suddenly, soone said, “Why are all the bad guys rank the fourth in every play?” Then a lot of people covered their mouths and said with smile, “Sounds right. Is it possible that the opera writers all prefer to describe people who ranked the fourth to be bad guys?”
Luo Baishao rembered this in her heart imdiately. After the show, she got back to her mother and said that her sib elder sister ranked the second, so she should be the third. She wanted to be “Third Miss”.
Second Mistress Luo peeled a green grape with her long red nails, and told slowly to Luo Baishao, “Everyone’s na and rank are recorded in the family tree, and only the patriarch has the right to modify. Now the lord of the East Yard has died, so only the lord of the West Yard, Luo Duheng, could do this for you. Shortly before, Qiong felt her quondam na was too countrified and wanted to change a good na. She didn’t succeed until she had looked for him for many tis. If now you look for him again to change your rank, he must be impatient! This is destined. We were supposed to write your na in the family tree in a couple of days later, and you would have ranked the Third. But an outsider whose surna is He ca in front of you shalessly and was written in the family tree. While she is sent away now, but as long as the family tree is in there, she has always occupied the place. You can only be Fourth Miss, and it is dood, so you have to accept your fate!”
Because of this, Luo Baishao hated He Danggui whom she had never t secretly. It was He Danggui who made her “the bad guy” in every play. Her sister ranked the second, and the others had always put her sister in their hands, so when she wanted to change her na, she got what she wanted. But she, as the Fourth Miss, beca a natural “bad guy”. She not only couldn’t get the sa love as her sister in this life, but the things she got were not as good as her sister’s. All of these were caused by He Danggui who occupied her position!
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