On the twenty-fourth day of the twelfth lunar month, after breakfast, Jiang Yuqing took a coachman and half a carriage of gifts to Xiushui Bay to visit her maternal grandfather and grandmother.
When Old Scholar Lu and Guo heard that their granddaughter had come back, they ran over very quickly. Their two grandsons were afraid that the old lady would fall, so they hurried over to help her.
When the old lady saw her granddaughter, she gave her a big hug with tears streaming down her face, "You heartless girl! You've been gone for years without coming back to see us!"
Jiang Yuqing hugged the old lady and said, "It's my fault, darling has missed you too."
After letting go of the old lady, Jiang Yuqing paid respects to her maternal grandfather and two cousins and their wives.
After exchanging greetings, they went inside to talk.
Uncle Lu had just been transferred to a county in Chenzhou Prefecture this year.
With only the status of a xiucai, he could only stop at being a county magistrate in his official career. Fortunately, he was a contented person who did not harbor any extravagant hopes.
He devoted all his energy to his job and worked hard and conscientiously. As a result, he was quite popular wherever he went, so even if some people were not happy with him, no one dared try to bring him down.
Therefore, he sat quite securely in the position of county magistrate.
His two sons were already married.
His eldest cousin Lu Huai passed the provincial examination last year. Now he was teaching students at the family school while continuing his studies. He planned to spend two years studying hard before going to the capital to take the imperial examination.
He married the daughter of the principal of the county school. Now the couple already had a two-year-old son.
His second cousin Lu Jin failed the provincial examination last year. Like his older brother, he also planned to continue taking the test next time. His wife was already pregnant.
Jiang Yuqing distributed the gifts she had prepared.
Seeing the many expensive gifts she had brought, Guo couldn't help but scold her, "It's enough for Grandma to be happy just having you come see us two elders.
There's no need to spend all that money on gifts. You'll be thirteen or fourteen soon. You should save up a dowry for yourself."
Jiang Yuqing laughed and patted her chest, "Don't worry, don't worry. Your granddaughter is not lacking money.
You just take them, Grandma. Don't worry about me. Given my status, no matter whose family I marry into in the future, they will have to support me!"
As soon as the old lady heard this, she laughed, "You're right about that!"
Jiang Yuqing ate lunch at her maternal grandparents' house. In the afternoon, she visited the newly renovated academy.
Because Xiushui Bay was not far from home, she stayed at the Lu family for dinner before going home to spend more time with the elders.
The next day, on the twenty-fifth, the family made rice cakes and dumplings.
Jiang Yuqing had not experienced such liveliness for many years. She happily flitted from one area to another, squeezing here and playing there, chatting with the uncles, aunts, brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law who had come to help.
In the years she had been away from home, the clan had gained quite a few new sisters-in-law that she did not recognize.
But she was easy-going and approachable, so she called them whatever the family told her to call them, without any hesitation.
This made the sisters-in-law, who had been rather intimidated by her at first, feel much more at ease.
On the twenty-sixth they made candied fruit, and on the twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth they slaughtered pigs, chickens and ducks.
On the thirtieth, they held ancestor worship. The ancestral hall was filled with rows and rows of people, and she was the only female descendant. Moreover, she was at the very front.
When she placed her imperial edict conferring the title "Princess Protector of the State" on the offering table, the flame of the candle suddenly flared up with a "poof".
The whole hall gasped! Someone said it must be the old clan chief getting happy again.
The old clan chief had gone to paradise two years ago. It was said that he had left with a smile on his face, without illness or pain. His spirit tablet was also enshrined here.
The old man had devoted his whole life to the prosperity of the clan. Jiang Yuqing also wished to bring some posthumous glory to him and all the ancestors within her power.
During the New Year, apart from staying overnight at her maternal grandparents' house to pay New Year greetings, Jiang Yuqing did not go anywhere else. She stayed at home to chat with the elders or went for walks around the village.
Or she would discuss business with her third brother Jiang Yuhu.
Not that she knew anything about business herself. It was just that technology and information were so advanced in her previous life that even a tiny suggestion could open up new business opportunities and perspectives for Jiang Yuhu.
For example, last spring she had sent him recipes and seasonings for grilled skewers by carrier pigeon.
After he had people try them out, in just over half a year he had opened seventeen Tai An barbecue restaurants, covering almost the entire Lingzhou Prefecture, providing jobs for nearly a hundred disabled and retired soldiers.
When autumn came Jiang Yuqing was afraid the barbecue business would be affected, so she sent him a hot pot recipe. As a result Tai An Barbecue took the city by storm once again, making money hand over fist.
By the end of last year, after deducting all costs and expenses, the seventeen restaurants had netted a profit of one hundred and ninety thousand taels of silver.
Now eating grilled skewers in summer and hot pot in winter had become a popular fashion and new culinary symbol. So they were bound to make even more money in the new year.
He planned to expand the business to the neighboring prefecture this year, aiming to open outlets of "Tai An" in the seven southern provinces within three years before considering further expansion.
There was no denying that this third brother of hers was truly ambitious and clever.
So Jiang Yuqing told him about the business model of modern supermarkets.
As soon as Jiang Yuhu heard it, his eyes lit up. He kept his sister there discussing it for a whole afternoon, and took a whole afternoon's worth of notes. If their mother had not intervened with a stick to drive him away, he probably would have continued talking to his sister.
While explaining the concept of supermarkets to Jiang Yuhu, Jiang Yuqing suddenly thought of another good idea - newspapers.
They may seem cheap, but the sales volume would be huge.
Although not many people were literate in the whole of Da Xia, there were still quite a lot who could afford to buy them.
The content could include current events, gossip, serial stories, or get big names to write articles on current affairs.
There could also be advertisements and missing person notices and so on.
However, in the context of this era, it would be easy to cause trouble by accidentally publishing something sensitive.
After careful consideration, Jiang Yuqing still felt it would be better to give this idea to her father for the court to implement. After all, there was no way the penny pinching Ministry of Revenue would pass up such a lucrative opportunity.
The next day, on the eighth, after getting up, washing, and eating a bowl of her favorite sour broad bean and pork rice noodles, she went to the vegetable garden at the back and watered the plants with Lingyu, taking the opportunity to pick a basketful of ripe fruits and vegetables.
Her second aunt had said there would be guests today. Jiang Yuqing didn't ask who they were. They probably weren't very important guests.
In Qingzhou, apart from close relatives, no one was qualified to receive her personal hospitality.
After leaving the vegetables at the kitchen door, Jiang Yuqing fetched a basket from the house and sat down on a little stool by the kitchen door to pick them instead of hurrying with the chore.
She had completely given up on the high-difficulty artistic field of cooking.
Rather than disturb others at work in the kitchen, she might as well find something she wanted to do for herself, at least she was pretty good at picking vegetables.
Little White lay lazily beside her, wagging his tail. With such nice sunshine it would be a waste not to use it for napping. He was absolutely loving it.
Just then, a little maid came over from the front yard to say that Doctor Qiu was asking her to go over. So Jiang Yuqing put down the unfinished vegetables and went to the front yard.
It turned out the old man was just bored and wanted to go up the mountain to collect herbs. He asked Jiang Yuqing if she wanted to go with him.
Jiang Yuqing thought she didn't have much to do anyway, so she agreed.
When Jiang Laotou heard that the old rascal was taking his precious granddaughter up the mountain again, he immediately objected and said he would go with them.
Old Lady Hu was afraid that the two old fellows were too old to carry the baskets back and would tire out her granddaughter, so she dragged out Jiang Yushan, who was reading in the room, to make him responsible for carrying the baskets as the laborer.
In this way, the number of people going up the mountain changed from two to four.
When he was still at home before, Jiang Yuqing had often followed Doctor Qiu up the mountain to gather medicine, so the two of them had a good sense of which mountains had more medicinal materials.
After searching for half a day at the mountains they had gone to before, they couldn't find many good medicinal materials, and only then did they realize that outsiders had dug up most of the good medicine over these years.
So the master and disciple decided to shift their position and go to several of the more distant low hills to take a look.
But Old Man Jiang stopped them, saying, "You can't go to Teabag Ridge anymore these days!
A couple of years ago a big snake came, I heard its body was as thick as a water bucket, fifty or sixty feet long.
Two medicine pickers from neighboring Tongluoping Village didn't know about it and went up the mountain, and one was swallowed by the snake, scaring the other one crazy.
The one who went crazy now gets scared and hides under the bed even when he sees a well rope.
Over the past two years, that big snake occasionally comes down the mountain to eat sheep and other livestock. The villages close to Teabag Ridge are all extremely frightened of it."
Upon hearing this, Jiang Yuqing frowned and said, "It's winter, shouldn't all snakes be hibernating? And besides, hasn't anyone organized people to fight the snake?"
Old Man Jiang said, "Of course people have gone. This matter was reported to the county government, and the county magistrate dispatched people to search for it several times, but they never found anything.
But strangely, every time the snake fighting team came down the mountain, the snake would come out again to wreak havoc on the villages, and it has truly become a scourge of our Qingzhou."
When the master and disciple heard this, they no longer insisted.
Jiang Yuqing planned to find another chance to go check out that mountain area after returning home. It wouldn't be good to bring along his master, grandfather, and older brother right now.
Since there wasn't any good medicine to be found, the master and disciple didn't keep searching. They just treated it as going for a stroll in the mountains and by the water. Unknowingly, they had walked quite far.
Seeing that it was almost noon, the few of them found a path down the mountain nearby. Walking home along the village trails would surely save quite a bit of effort.
As they were passing by a natural spring well next to a small village, the four people stopped to drink some water and rest their feet.
One old man washing his hoe downstream recognized Old Man Jiang and happily called out, "Hey, Old Three!"
Old Man Jiang looked up and was also delighted. "Old Caichong, how can it be you?" It turned out this old man had once worked with Old Man Jiang putting out fires, and could be considered a life-and-death brother.
The old man said, "What are you all doing here? Picking medicine up the mountain?"
Old Man Jiang cheerfully replied, "Just strolling around since we're free. It's not good to stay cooped up at home all the time, otherwise you get rusty." The old man said, "Going for walks is good. Are you done with lunch?"
Old Man Jiang said, "Nope, we were just about to head home!"
The old man said, "Don't rush back. Come on up to my place. My family has already prepared lunch, perfect timing to eat together!"
Old Man Jiang said, "Forget it, your family makes just enough food. With so many extra people, won't you be left drinking northwest wind?"
The old man said, "What northwest wind. It's not like the old days when we didn't have enough to eat. Nowadays there's ample grain at home, and we have meat too. We haven't seen each other in ages, it's a perfect chance to share a cup of wine with you older brother."
Although the old man was advanced in years, he had ample strength. Through earnest coaxing he firmly dragged Old Man Jiang to his home. Jiang Yuqing and the others exchanged looks and could only resign themselves to following along.
At the old man's house, it was indeed as he had said. The table was covered in white rice and meat dishes. Seeing that there were guests, his daughter-in-law hastily added two more meat dishes.
Just as things were getting lively and joyful, urgent ringing of a copper gong suddenly sounded from outside, "Hurry, someone come quick to fight the snake! The big snake from Teabag Ridge has come down the mountain again and dragged off Old Sun's little girl! Quickly, someone come!"
