Chapter 48: This is the kind of life the unfavorable Gege lives
Seeing Song Gege's sad face again, Shu Jin understood that he was missing the two little Geges who had died young again, so he quickly changed the subject with a smile: "By the way, Li Gege's fetal image is becoming more and more stable now.
Why don't we go take a look at her."
Li Gege is almost five months pregnant, so she is happy to have saved her pregnancy.
Song Gege smiled and nodded: "She has always loved visiting, but now she can bear her temper and has not shown her face for several months."
As he said this, Song Gege suddenly said: "Just in time, I made a little swaddling clothes a few days ago and was about to send it to her." - Then he asked a maid named Yan Lan next to him to get it.
Shu Jin couldn't go empty-handed, so he asked the eunuch Zhang Shoufa to bring the rather exquisite small Suzhou embroidery screen on the table as a congratulatory gift.
In fact, when other concubines are pregnant, they don't have to give gifts. Even if they do, they don't need to give anything too expensive. Other princesses usually give some needlework, but Shu Jin's female beauty is really not available.
There are only seven or eight courtyards in the backyard of the palace. There are large courtyards such as Danhua Hall and Lihua Courtyard, but there are more exquisite small courtyards, and there are even more than one princess living in some courtyards.
For example, Li Gege lives in a long and narrow courtyard at the end, and he still lives with the old Gege Zhang.
Zhang Gege has a dull temperament and an ordinary appearance, but her temperament is very gentle. She politely came to greet Li Gege who was inconvenient to come out to blow the cold wind.
Because she was pregnant, Li Gege's house had plenty of charcoal fire. It seemed that Zhang Gege also stayed in Li Gege's house all day long to warm up the heater and help with needlework. There was also a pair of half-finished baby shoes on the table.
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Li Gege, whom I haven't seen for a long time, has finally put on some weight, but he is still not fat. His lower abdomen has obviously raised a gentle arc. Li Gege also has a gentle smile on his face, "The weather in the twelfth lunar month is so cold.
Sisters, please drink some hot tea and warm yourself up."
A smart little maid brought two cups of hot black tea. Shu Jin and Song Gege drank it with a smile, and then presented their respective gifts.
Song's Baifu swaddling clothes are made of bright red satin material, and various blessing characters are embroidered with goose yellow silk thread. Although there are obviously not as many as a hundred, it can still be regarded as Baifu.
"Sister Song's embroidery skills are really getting more and more outstanding." Li Gege couldn't put it down and stroked the word "福" on the little swaddling clothes.
Mrs. Song smiled slightly: "I am short of money and can't bring out anything else, but Sister Geng has brought you a very rare treasure."
Shu Jin was a little embarrassed, "Where is the treasure?" But he had to ask Zhang Shoufa to lift up the small screen.
It was a rosewood glass screen - these days, it is difficult to make glass, so it is considered a valuable item. In fact, this table screen is just a decoration, with no practical use, so Shu Jin looked at it for a long time
Since it was an eyesore, I took it as a gift.
The colorful glass is quite beautiful under the sunlight.
Li Gege's eyes were a little blurred when he saw it, and he couldn't help but said quickly: "This is too expensive!"
Song Gege smiled and said: "The value is secondary, but the important thing is that this glass screen was given by the prince when Sister Geng was pregnant with Brother Tianshen. The red sandalwood shelf is also engraved with the words "good luck and longevity", which means the same thing.
It’s excellent.”
Li Gege couldn't help being a little surprised and said quickly: "It's so valuable, how can I accept it?"
Shu Jin hurriedly laughed and said: "Actually, Tianshen almost knocked down this screen several times. I'm really afraid that if he smashes it one day, the prince will definitely blame him. I might as well give it to you, just as a blessing.
Longevity."
The screen is small if you drop it. The key is that if the glass breaks, it will hurt your hands! If you are raising a child, it is really not suitable to have such fragile items in the house!
Li Gege chuckled and thought it was Geng Gege who helped her step down, "Then I'll be ashamed."
While they were joking, a young eunuch quickly came in and reported, "Miss Danzhu from Danhua Hall is here."
It can be said that this direct descendant Fujin has been very virtuous recently. Since Li Gege's fetal image has been stable, she has still been asked to continue to rest and recuperate. The level of use has also been improved a lot compared to ordinary Gege, especially the charcoal fire has doubled.
You must know that the charcoal quota of Geges has always been insufficient. If you want to avoid the cold, you have to spend money to exchange for charcoal. Old princesses like Zhang Gege who can only live on charcoal can only come to use other people's heating.
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Seeing that Danzhu had brought some fine furs, Shu Jin and Geng Gege looked at each other and stood up to leave.
On the way back, it started to snow again, so I had to slow down to avoid slipping.
Fortunately, Shu Jin was wearing a new mink coat made this year and holding a flat gold hand stove filled with red charcoal in his hand, so he didn't feel cold at all.
It was just that Song Gege was so thin and was not dressed as warmly as she was. Moreover, the hand stove was given to the maid Yun Xiu. Shu Jin knew that her hand stove was only filled with ordinary black charcoal, and it was probably no longer hot.
Shu Jin hurriedly stuffed his still warm hand into Song Gege's sleeve quietly.
Song Gege felt the warmth in her sleeves and couldn't help but be startled.
Shu Jin hurriedly smiled and said: "Let's walk faster, I'm going to have a cup of milk tea somewhere." - By the way, he asked someone to change some red charcoal into Song Gege's hand stove.
The charcoal they use is just ordinary black charcoal, but this kind of charcoal is extremely smoky and can usually only be used as stove charcoal, that is, to make tea or something. If you want to use it indoors, it must at least be white charcoal.
Charcoal is as white as frost, so it is also called silver charcoal or silver bone charcoal. This charcoal is smokeless and difficult to extinguish - and the red basket charcoal in the inner court is actually a kind of silver charcoal. It is so named because it is packed in a red basket.
The quantity of red charcoal is limited, and black charcoal is too choking. What Shu Jin uses is this ordinary white charcoal. Before winter, the Geng family asked someone to send it to the palace, weighing two hundred kilograms. Shu Jin has now
I have used most of it. A few days ago, I was asking someone about buying more silver charcoal, and then I realized that this silver charcoal costs one tael of silver per pound!
You know, Gege’s monthly allowance is only two taels of silver! Shu Jin only mentioned five taels because he gave birth to Tianshen!
Even thinking about it, Song Gege couldn’t possibly use one month’s salary to buy those two kilograms of silver charcoal!
Alas, winter expenses are huge. Even though Shu Jin has various subsidies from her parents, she can’t help but lament how expensive the heating bills were in ancient times!
In Shu Jin's small hall, the charcoal fire was burning brightly. Once he entered the room, he took off his mink coat and drank milk tea with Song Gege, which was slightly scalding, talking and laughing.
Song Gege couldn't help feeling envious when she saw the maid Han Shuang quickly adding silver charcoal to the charcoal basin.
Fortunately, in the evening, the wind and snow stopped, and Shu Jin sent Song Gege out of the hall.
Song Gege was stuffed with the hand stove by the maid Yun Xiu, and her sleeves were filled with warmth. She was stunned for a moment, but felt warm in her heart.
After sending Song Gege away, Shu Jin couldn't help but ask Lan Ruo: "Can this black charcoal... really be used indoors?"
Lan Ruo then whispered: "The black charcoal sent to the palace is actually of high quality. It's just that when it is first lit, it will inevitably be smoky. It must be hot outside now, so it can be brought indoors, and it can be used barely. It's just that
It won’t burn for too long, so you have to add more charcoal outside…”.
Shu Jin couldn't help but sigh, it turned out that those unpopular Geges lived like this.