"The general is back." Aunt Wu happily bowed her head and saluted Li Siye as he stepped across the threshold.
"Well, madam, are you at home?" Li Siye strode towards the backyard, and Mrs. Wu said unhurriedly: "Here you are, just now we were spinning linen and silk in the side room."
"Spinning cloth?" Li Siye smiled. Yes, when he was not at home, she always had to make a living to pass the time. Naturally, she could not wield the sword as before.
Madam Wu raised her eyes and looked behind Li Siye suspiciously. When he turned around, he realized that his maid Daorou was still following him closely. As a maid, there was no need to be so close to her. She was almost never leaving.
.
He turned around and raised his hand to stop her: "Stop, just stand here, and don't come in the inner house without my instructions from now on."
"Here," Daorou bowed and crossed his hands, consciously folded his hands at his waist, exited the inner courtyard, then stood at the door with his hands hanging down, his body upright and motionless.
The female servants in the mansion came over in twos and threes, pointing at the maid brought back by Li Siye with gossip and repulsion, laughing at her for being like a beautiful puppet, standing guard like a sculpture, and being so obedient.
It’s not that she is a maverick, but that the rules in the governor’s house are lax. Neither General Li nor Twelve Niangs have set too strict rules for their servants, and there is no training on how to stand and lie down. They are relatively free.
, as long as you complete the tasks assigned by the master, you can sit whenever you want and lie down if you want, so relaxed that there is no fetters.
As slaves, they and Dorou once lived in two different worlds, and of course there were fundamental differences in their behavior.
Li Siye held his wife's hand and stood in front of the window, reaching out to hold her in his arms. Twelve Niang turned back and asked him with a smile: "Tell me about your Chang'an affairs."
Is this asking him to report his whereabouts? Just as Li Siye was about to speak, Twelve Niang's eyes suddenly looked towards the door of the inner courtyard outside the window. There was a woman wearing Hu clothes standing against the doorpost with her hands folded. Because her sight was blocked,
Because of this, Twelve Niang could only see her profile. Her hair was slightly disheveled on her forehead, but her face was beautiful and plump, and she did not have the features of being hungry, poor, or delicate.
She pursed her lips vigorously, and her expression was unpleasant and her words contained a hint of sourness: "This woman traveled thousands of miles to follow you from Chang'an to Qixi Shule, and you didn't invite people to come to your home to sit down. Instead, you let her
Standing outside the door is not the way to treat guests."
"Oh," Li Siye tried to make his tone as understated as possible: "This time I paid a visit to His Highness the Crown Prince in Chang'an, and he insisted on giving me a maidservant. Whether it is thunder or rain and dew from the superior, I have to bear it and cannot refuse.
.”
The Twelfth Mother poked her head out for another look and said, "You look like you came out of the palace. You abide by the rules much more than the maids in our family. However, you are just a general, not a scholar.
It’s inconvenient to have a maid with you all day long, why don’t you let her stay in the inner house to serve me and Mei’er, or clean the room and do miscellaneous things?”
Li Siye was stunned for a moment, nodded and said: "Okay, it can be done."
Li Twelve Niang laughed: "I'm just joking with you. She is a slave sent to you by the prince. How can I take her away from you? She is also the prince's person after all. Of course, she cannot be treated badly or perfunctorily.
, otherwise it will make His Highness the Crown Prince unhappy. What I said is right."
Li Siye took a step back, crossed his hands and praised, "My wife is worthy of being a lady, she is a lady who understands the righteousness. Siye has a good wife like you, what else should I be dissatisfied with?"
Twelve Niang looked at him with a smile: "Really?"
"Natural, absolutely true."
She stood up with her hands down and shook her head and said: "It's a pity that my mother died early, and there is no power from my mother's family to support you. It must be very hard for you to face all kinds of powerful people in Chang'an, as if your hands and feet are bound."
Li Siye stared at Twelve Niangs, and his heart was like a river surging, and like a tide lapping against the embankment. Did she mean something when she said this, or was the news from Chang'an reaching her ears? No matter what she knew,
He didn't want to make her worry and suffer.
He put his hands around his wife's shoulders and whispered in her ear: "When people live in this world, no matter what they do, they will encounter obstacles, but no matter who is blocking the way, I will not be afraid. Because at home,
With you and Meier, other power, wealth, and the rise and fall of the world are not important compared to you. None of them are important, really."
A smile filled the corners of Twelve Niang's lips. He didn't know if other men would tell their wives this, maybe they wouldn't. Twelve Niang believed that his man was the most unique man in the world.
From the first moment she saw him, she could really feel that he was different. He was a man who was different from others from the inside out and even his soul.
"I believe in you, even though you can't compose poetry."
"That's right," Li Siye smiled resolutely: "My biggest regret in life is that I can't write poetry, but it doesn't matter. There are already enough poets in the world. It doesn't matter if there are more or less poets."
He let go of Twelfth Niang's hand, and she quickly walked two steps to the door, and said loudly to Mrs. Chen who was sitting on the porch sewing boots: "Call the maid who is standing outside the courtyard gate in, don't stand at the door all the time.
, tell her we don’t have many rules at home, sit whenever you want, stand whenever you want.”
Mrs. Chen threw down the soles of her shoes and walked outside. She walked to the door and dispersed the maids who were watching and making fun of her. She called in Dao Rou who was standing with her hands behind her hands.
Li Siye and Twelve Niang stood side by side under the porch. Turning left in front of the porch was a long gallery frame made of plaster, with grapevines twining and climbing all over the top. Daorou lowered his head and walked under the frame to the front of the porch without looking up.
Looking at the bunches of green grapes, she didn't even reach out to pluck away the dead leaves that fell on her shoulders.
She stood in front of Twelve Niangs and bowed low, saying, "Slave, please see Madam."
Twelve Niangs looked her up and down and asked in a low voice, "What's your name?"
"Mrs. Qi, my servant Daorou."
The smile on Madam's face remained unchanged, and the towering cloud bun was like a phoenix with folded wings. The swaying pearls and greenery had a sense of oppression, as if her voice was a little louder: "You should be from the palace, so
The training and rules you receive are far more than those of ordinary slaves, and I can’t teach you anything. I’m just telling you that the rules are just appearances, and no one knows what’s going on in your heart. If you think it’s your duty, it will be your duty.
point."
"You are the slave sent by the prince to A Lang, so you should do your duty as a slave. When you go outside, you should always take good care of A Lang. When you get home, you can have a rest. You don't need to take care of the extra things, and you don't need to.
Come and do it, do you understand?"
Daorou bowed instead, lowered his head and timidly crossed his hands: "This slave understands."
Li Siye looked at the lady beside him in surprise. He didn't expect that she, who was usually as gentle as jade, could actually show a scene as majestic as the sun and the moon in the sky. It was really unimaginable, and he had to look at her again with new eyes.
"Okay, let's go sit on the porch."
Daorou retreated obediently and sat side by side with Madam Chen on the corridor. However, her sitting posture was as straight as a clock, with almost a straight line from head to waist. This made the hunched Madam Chen next to her feel uncomfortable all over.
Li Siye supported his wife's shoulders and returned to the room. He praised her sincerely: "The two words my wife just said were really powerful. They made Siye stand in admiration."
Twelve Niang covered her mouth and laughed shyly: "Really? Did I say it a little too harshly?"
"I think it's not heavy at all, just right."
She lowered her head and smiled again: "How could I say that? It's just that I used to follow my master into the palace to perform birthday celebrations for the princesses. I have seen many of these things. When the wives and concubines taught the servants a lesson, this was what happened.
Some of them are even worse than this, and I just imitated their tone of voice."
"Then you have imitated their essence. Even I thought it was very vivid after hearing it."
The Twelfth Mother raised her head proudly: "Of course, since I am your wife Li Siye, I naturally have to be worthy of being the wife of the envoy of Shule."
He felt that with this kind of life experience and such acting skills, if she traveled to modern times, she would be able to defeat a lot of heroines in palace battles.
After having lunch at home, Li Siye decided to go to Dai Wang's paper mill. He wanted to seek advice from this think tank on some of the problems he encountered in Chang'an. After all, he had worked hard at the bottom of the officialdom.
However, the three views are also consistent with these people, and the strategies given are more in line with the psychology of these people.