Chapter 713: In Daoxiang Village, there was a lot of jealousy
Hengwu Garden.
Ying'er, the head maid, holding a cup of medicine, quietly walked around the screen. When she got closer, she saw Aunt Xue lying on her back on the bed, seemingly sleeping soundly. She looked at Xue Baochai who was standing beside her with embarrassment.
Xue Baochai pointed to the low table at the head of the bed and whispered, "Put it there first. I'll serve mom later."
Ying'er placed the small ceramic bowl on the low table, pinched her earlobes with both hands and said, "This medicine cannot be put back into the furnace. Miss, please remember not to delay it for too long."
After Xue Baochai responded silently, she retreated quietly.
About half a quarter of an hour later, Xue Baochai stood up and tested the temperature of the medicine. She then took off the cooling towel from her mother's forehead, rubbed it in the copper basin for a few times, wrung it dry and put it back in its place.
The cold touch immediately made Aunt Xue utter a few words in her sleep.
"Mother."
Xue Baochai pushed her shoulder and called softly, "Get up and take your medicine."
Aunt Xue then opened her eyes, glanced at her daughter, then frowned asked, "What time is it?"
"Just after 10 a.m."
Xue Baochai picked up the medicine soup, scooped some into her mouth, and sipped it to find it was neither lukewarm nor hot. Then she held the bottom of the spoon with her hand and brought it to her mother's mouth.
Aunt Xue saw this and first supported herself on the bed, half-raised her body, then lowered her head to meet the spoon.
Seeing that when she stood up, two balls of snow squeezed out from under the quilt, Xue Baochai could not help but mutter while serving her, "Mother, what a fool! It's such a bad weather, but you still dress like this. You won't even put on more clothes when I ask you to."
Aunt Xue turned away from the spoon and sighed, frowning, "At my age, how many days can I wear this? On the contrary, you are so quiet all day long. Even if the color is the best, how can you be seen?"
"What did mom say!"
Xue Baochai forced the spoon into her mouth and said angrily, "I only wear it to cover my body and keep warm. I don't wear it to show off to anyone!"
As he said this, he couldn't help but feel a little suspicious.
After returning from Mrs. Wang's place yesterday, my mother seemed to have more "strange words" and had a fever for no apparent reason at night.
Although the doctor examined it, he said it was nothing serious.
But there are still some strange things about this inexplicable illness.
However, although Xue Baochai became suspicious, she continued to chat with her mother calmly. After she finished the bowl of medicine, she wiped the stains from the corners of her mouth with a handkerchief before she put away her smile.
"Mother."
Holding Aunt Xue's wrist, she asked sternly, "Are you hiding something?"
"I……"
"Did your aunt say anything to you?"
"this……"
"Is it related to Brother Bao?"
After three questions in a row, the questions became more and more detailed. Aunt Xue knew that she could not hide it anymore, so she had to tell her everything about the conversation between the two sisters in bed the night before.
"What? One or two years at the shortest, three or five years at the longest."
At the end, she couldn't hide her sorrow between her eyebrows: "It's easy to say, but you will be eighteen next year, how can you afford to delay?"
As a mother, she was just worried, but Xue Baochai felt cold in her heart.
How smart is she?
As soon as I heard it, I guessed that Mrs. Wang was probably thinking twice because her daughter was pregnant with a prince and she felt that her identity was different from before.
If the Defei in the palace really gave birth to a prince, I'm afraid all the "golden and jade marriages" and "wood and stone alliances" would come to an end!
The most hateful thing is that even at this point, Mrs. Wang still did not forget to shift the blame to others, blaming Lin Daiyu for delaying their fate.
“So it’s for this.”
The left hand hidden in the sleeve secretly clenched to reveal the innocent color, but Xue Baochai's face was still full of smiles, and she said nonchalantly: "Aunt was just talking casually, but mother took it seriously!"
"In my opinion, instead of worrying about these trivial matters, you might as well discuss with your aunt first and see how to deal with Xue Ke's family affairs - while the Empress Defei is pregnant, the Zhen family will definitely not dare to offend your aunt!"
She downplayed it because she didn't want her mother and Lady Wang to fall out over it.
Although the Xue family had gained a firm foothold in Zhili after marrying the Minister of Personnel, Aunt Xue's attachment to Mrs. Wang had increased rather than decreased over the past two years.
Now that the overall situation is still undecided, why let the sisters become estranged?
After comforting Aunt Xue with a few words, someone from Daoxiang Village came to invite her, so Xue Baochai took the opportunity to escape from her mother's presence.
Although she enjoyed the snow scenery along the way, when she arrived at Daoxiang Village, Xue Baochai was still very angry.
As luck would have it, as soon as she entered the courtyard, she saw Xue Baoqin in the corridor, talking to Baoyu about something. She gritted her teeth, walked over to pull her cousin under the eaves, and scolded her, "Don't forget that you came to the capital to get married. How can you be so rude?"
"Is my sister jealous?"
Baoqin stuck out her tongue playfully. Seeing that her sister was still sullen, she could only stand properly and said with a pout, "I was asking about the Mei family. Brother Bao had promised to help speak a few words in front of the Empress, but he forgot everything as soon as he entered the palace."
After hearing this, Xue Baochai blurted out, "He is a noble man and is very busy, so it is inevitable that he forgot for a while. What else can we do except bear the consequences?"
It happened that Jia Baoyu saw that Sister Bao had a cold face and seemed to be scolding Baoqin, so he was about to come over to persuade her, but when he heard these words suddenly, he stopped in embarrassment.
I thought to myself that Sister Bao has always been a kind person, so why is she making up stories about me today?
Could it be that I have offended her in some way?
He thought about it over and over again, but couldn't remember anything wrong. Just as he was wondering whether he should ask directly for clarification, his eyes suddenly blurred. It turned out to be a small hand as white as jade, which was raised in front of his nose and waved around.
"Come back to your senses!"
At the same time, Lin Daiyu said bitterly in her ear: "The dead fish's eyeballs are almost embedded in it!"
Jia Baoyu then realized that he had been so busy trying to figure out the reason that he had been staring blankly at Baochai and Baoqin.
His old face immediately turned red. He wanted to say a few words, but he didn't want to spread Xue Baochai's gossip, so he looked around and said, "Where's the second sister? Didn't she say she would come to the garden in a while? How come there's still no movement after such a long time?"
"Pfft~"
Lin Daiyu sneered and said disdainfully, "You, the uncle of the emperor, haven't even started yet, but you've been praised for more than half a day. Now that the second sister has been officially granted an imperial decree, can those servants in your family who are used to bullying others when they are in a high position really let her go?"
After a few words, Jia Baoyu was speechless. Finally, he could only say that he would go and ask his second sister to come over in person, and then he fled from Daoxiang Village in embarrassment.
When he got outside the gate , he looked back at the house covered in snow and couldn't help but sigh and mutter, "What on earth is going on with these two people?"
