Gifts
"Xiaoxue is easy to handle." Zhao Ruxi had already thought of a solution for her. "You can still run your business in Beining. You'll be delivering cold dishes to the county every day, and you've been hiring the mule cart all along. Xiaoxue can go to school with me in the morning, and when she comes back from school in the evening, I might not be able to come back at that time, so you can have the mule cart pick her up. You see, I come and go every day, so it won't take much trouble. Xiaoxue can certainly do the same. Besides, we can let her stay at the academy."
"Of course, this is just my suggestion. You should discuss it with your uncle first. If you want Chongwen to leave, it's fine not to rent a house. Just tell me when the time comes. I'll take care of it for you, don't worry about it."
Xu Xue couldn't help but mutter, "Of the whole family, only my mother disagrees."
Madam Xie glared at her daughter but said nothing.
As they spoke, the carriage entered the city gate. After traveling a little further in, Zhao Ruxi pointed ahead and said, "We're almost there."
Since they were close friends and treated the Xu Family as proper relatives, Zhao Yuanxun and Lady Zhu personally came to the gate to welcome them.
Zhao Yuanxun welcomed Xu Yongyi into the main hall to entertain him, while Lady Zhu and Zhao Ruxi accompanied the remaining three members of the Xu Family to the Rongxi Hall to pay their respects to the old lady.
"Oh my, these two children are so good-looking."
The old lady first looked at Xu Chongwen, then at Xu Xue, and seeing that both of them were handsome and had clear eyes, she immediately took a liking to them.
She pulled Xu Xue to sit beside her and said to Madam Xie, "Madam Xu is truly blessed to have such a complete family. You, too, have even more good fortune ahead of you."
Seeing that Madam Xie Lady Zhu was kind and generous, and that the old lady had a kind face, Madam Xie's initial nervousness upon entering the mansion eased considerably, and she quickly responded to the old lady with a few words.
The old lady then had her maids present Xu Chongwen and Xu Xue with gifts.
Xu Chongwen's set naturally included the Four Treasures of the Study, while Xu Xue's consisted of a gold-inlaid jade hairpin and a pair of jade bracelets.
The old lady was actually somewhat sexist, favoring her grandsons over her granddaughters.
But Zhao Ruxi was truly capable. In just a short time since she returned, she had made many connections and even paved a bright future for Zhao Jingtai. The old lady was very grateful to the Xu Family couple.
She had intended to give the two children some nice gifts to express her gratitude. However, the Earl's mansion was now just an empty shell, and she had to save the good things she had for her grandchildren. Therefore, the gifts she gave could only express her feelings.
The old lady thought the gift was a bit shabby, but Madam Xie considered it an extremely valuable gift, and she tried her best to decline.
"Take it. We are grateful to you for how good you are to Miss Xi. This is just a small token of our appreciation, nothing compared to the kindness you have shown Miss Xi," said Lady Zhu.
Zhao Ruxi also persuaded Madam Xie to accept it.
Madam Xie reluctantly agreed.
Lady Zhu also gave the two of them a gift. According to etiquette, the value of her gift should not exceed that of her mother-in-law.
What she gave Xu Chongwen was a box of exam papers, containing the papers from the previous ten years of the Beining County preliminary exams, county exams, and the Great Jin and metropolitan exams.
Three of these exam papers were written down by Zhao Ruxi after she finished practicing at the Women's Academy, and she intended to leave them for Xu Chongwen; the vast majority were specially requested by Lady Zhu Shi from her brother, a scholar who had passed the imperial examinations, after she returned to the Zhu Family.
Lady Zhu gave Xu Xue a guzheng (a traditional Chinese zither).
Xu Chongwen and Xu Xue were overjoyed to see their gifts and turned to look at Madam Xie with eager eyes.
Madam Xie laughed and scolded, "Why are you looking at me? Go thank Aunt Zhao." As she finished speaking, her eyes reddened.
Although Lady Zhu's gift may not have been as valuable as the old lady's, it was full of affection and truly touched their hearts.
Leaving aside the exam papers, given the Xu Family's wealth and influence, finding so many exam papers would be like climbing to heaven. With these exam papers and diligent study, Xu Chongwen would definitely be a Xiucai (a successful candidate in the lowest level of the imperial examinations) without any problem.
This is the advantage of being from a scholarly family; they have a stronger foundation in all aspects compared to others.
As for the guzheng, Madam Xie knew that in her daughter's academy, her classmates chose large instruments like the guzheng, guqin, or konghou for their music lessons. She had always wanted to buy her daughter a guzheng, but when she inquired about the prices, she was shocked to find that even the cheapest ones cost several tens of taels of silver.
Even though the Xu Family has made some money, it's far from enough to spend tens of taels of silver on such inappropriate food and clothing, so Madam Xie had no choice but to give up.
But every time she saw her daughter practicing the flute at home, Madam Xie felt sad. Now that she had received this gift, she couldn't bring herself to ask her daughter to refuse it.
Lady Zhu patted Madam Xie's hand and smiled, "Miss Xi, Chongwen, and Xiaoxue are just like real siblings. We will grow old, and they will grow up. When they grow up, they can help each other. We can be more at ease knowing that Chongwen and Xiaoxue are successful. So you don't need to worry about these things."
Madam Xie nodded.
Zhao Ruxi had also offered her similar advice.
They had also prepared gifts for the Earl of Suiping's Residence. However, Zhao Ruxi was worried that this would put them in a difficult position, so she specifically asked Xu Xue to convey a message to them, saying that it was enough to express their feelings, and there was no need for anything too expensive or beyond their financial means. In the future, when the two residences exchanged gifts during festivals, they should not concern themselves with the value of the gifts, but simply express their good wishes.
Hearing these words warmed Madam Xie's heart.
After chatting for a while, they moved to the dining hall.
After the meal, Zhao Ruxi had a servant lead the family to a guest courtyard, ostensibly to let them rest for a quarter of an hour, but in reality to discuss matters concerning the house.
Fifteen minutes later, Zhao Yuanxun, Lady Zhu, and Zhao Ruxi accompanied the Xu Family to the place where the Zhao Family family members lived.
"I'm going with Brother Xu and Chongwen to pay our respects to the clan school teacher. You all go and look at the house," Zhao Yuanxun said.
"Okay," Lady Zhu replied.
So the two groups separated, Lady Zhu led a few people to a house.
She pointed to the house and said, "The mistress of this house, you can call her Fourth Old Madam. Her family originally had a large house, but after the division of the family, they got these two courtyards. Because there were only a few people in the family, just her and her son's family of four, they couldn't live in such a large house, so the old lady partitioned off one of the courtyards to rent out, so she could earn some money to make a living."
Hearing this, Madam Xie felt even more at ease. She enjoyed associating with people in similar circumstances.
Matron Zhou went up to knock on the door, Tenth Madam Zhao, the daughter-in-law of the Fourth Madam, personally came out to greet them and led them to the hall.
Zhao Ruxi looked around at the house where they lived.
This was also a two-courtyard house, the buildings were neither new nor old, but they were kept quite clean. They did have servants, though not many. Zhao Ruxi saw a male servant chopping wood in the backyard and a woman and maid bringing in tea; it seemed they had bought the house from the same family.