Chapter 91 Apricot Tree Red

The prince and Baili took people to gather the strength sticks.

Only Chen Ji and Chen Wenzong were left standing side by side at the entrance of the kiln factory. One of them was covered in dust, and when he shook his head, some dust would fall off, like a mongrel dog.

A person dressed in white as snow, just like the protagonist in all stories.

Chen Wenzong frowned and looked at the cheerful Chen Ji, not knowing what his half-brother was so happy about: "Chen Ji, I see that you arrange things in an orderly manner and have clear ideas. You are actually a very smart person, why are you willing to get involved in this mud?"

Chen Ji brushed off the dust on his body and replied with a nonchalant smile: "I am very happy today. You look down on this shabby kiln factory and this shabby business, but the more I look at it, the more I like it."

Because, this was the first time that Chen Ji had something of his own in this world.

"You want to make some money?" Chen Wenzong misunderstood. "Although a bastard cannot inherit the family business, I will definitely give you some money to make a living when the family is divided. As long as you are willing to study hard and take the imperial examination, how can I sit back and watch you starve?"

Chen Ji patted Chen Wenzong's shoulder cheerfully, leaving a black handprint on his white gown, and said jokingly: "Brother, you are actually a good person, but I am really not the type to study scriptures. I am more suited to working hard, farming and firing kilns."

Chen Wenzong took a step back to the left, but still failed to avoid the black palm print. He frowned and said, "Confucius said: If this is the case, people from all directions will come here with their children on their backs. What's the point of farming?"

Chen Ji was stunned for a moment: "What do you mean?"

Chen Wenzong explained: "The great sage said that if the superiors uphold propriety and integrity, the common people will naturally come to them with their children. Why would they need to farm themselves? Farming and working by themselves is the worst option. We should set an example for the world in our studies, and then people will naturally follow us."

Chen Ji looked at Chen Wenzong in silence. He did not have a deep understanding of Confucian culture, so he did not know how to use the classics to refute his brother's ideas.

At this time, Bai Li's voice came from a distance: "Chen Ji, I found someone who can modify the kiln. They said that they built all the kilns in Liujiatun, and they can help us."

But behind Bai Li was a hunchbacked old man with a long pipe on his waist and a tobacco bag dangling from his waist like a purse.

Behind the old man, there were seven strong men.

As they got closer, the hunchbacked old man stopped at the entrance of the kiln factory, pressing tobacco into his pipe while looking at Chen Ji: "Are you the one in charge here?"

Chen Ji said calmly: "Yes, I am."

The hunchbacked old man said slowly, "The kilns in the entire Liujiatun were built by our Liu family. If you want to build a kiln, no problem. First give 200 taels of silver. During the construction period, you will get 4 catties of flour, 1 catty of meat, and 2 catties of good wine every day."

"What?" The prince widened his eyes.

The hunchbacked old man looked up at him and said expressionlessly, "This is the rule of doing business in Liujiatun. No one except us Liu family members can build a semi-downdraft kiln, and we dare not build a kiln for you."

Chen Ji asked doubtfully, "Is Elder Liu from the Liu family?"

Behind the hunchbacked old man, a sturdy man smiled and said, "You have some knowledge."

Chen Ji thought for a moment and said, "Please go back, everyone. We really don't have that much money. We have almost used up all our savings to buy this kiln factory."

The hunchbacked old man turned around and left without saying a word: "When you figure it out, you can come back to me anytime."

Chen Ji watched him leave and said, "No wonder Lao Zhou is in a hurry to sell this kiln factory. No wonder there is only a simple rising flame kiln in his broken kiln factory. These days, if you want to make a living, you will be ripped off by the local tyrants and the government."

Bai Li said in embarrassment: "Then what should we do? I'm sorry, I didn't know they were the local tyrants who raised the price here, and I shouldn't have brought them here."

Chen Ji said calmly: "Do it yourself. Without them, we can build a kiln by ourselves. He can build a half-downdraft kiln, so I will build a full-downdraft kiln."

Give them a little shock.

As they walked towards the kiln, he suddenly turned around and looked at Chen Wenzong: "Brother, we are short of manpower, can you come and give us a hand?"

Chen Wenzong stood there in silence for a long time. He looked at the dusty people in front of him, then at the earthen kiln behind them, and immediately took out a silver ingot from his sleeve and handed it to Chen Ji: "I'm sorry, the autumn examination will be the day after tomorrow, and I can't stay here for too long. I left in a hurry and didn't bring much money, so I can only give you some money first. If it's not enough, I'll send some more tomorrow."

Chen Ji stuffed the silver ingot back into Chen Wenzong's hand, stepped back and bowed, saying, "Then I wish you all the best in winning the first prize in the imperial examination!"

After saying this, he led the prince and the princess to dismantle the kiln without looking back.

Chen Wenzong looked down at the silver ingot in his hand and wanted to say something for a moment, but he didn't know what to say.

After a long silence, he put the silver ingot back into his sleeve, turned around, left the yard, mounted his horse, and couldn't say the apology he wanted to say when he came here.

Amid the sound of dismantling the kiln, the white horse returned.

……

……

Liang Maoer exerted great strength, but he destroyed the old kiln without much effort by swinging the hammer. Chen Ji was clearing away the construction waste while exclaiming: "Brother Maoer's appetite is not in vain!"

Liang Mao'er was a little embarrassed: "It takes a thousand days to raise an army and only a moment to deploy it. At least I can contribute a little."

Chen Ji looked at the prince and the princess: "I am a little curious, why are the prince and the princess willing to do this dirty and tiring work? You see, my brother doesn't want to get involved in these things."

The prince laughed cheerfully and said, "It's okay to do it occasionally, but if you really want me to do this every day, I will run away!"

Chen Ji sighed, "I always feel that Prince Jing is very different from other officials and nobles. He seems..."

Princess Baili thought for a moment and said, "Mother said that father suffered a lot since he was young, so naturally he is different from other princes."

"Oh?"

"I heard from my mother that not long after my father was born, he and his biological mother were driven to Yueci Temple in the suburbs of Beijing."

Chen Ji was stunned: "Generally speaking, in the inner palace, even if the mother makes a mistake and is expelled from the palace, only the mother and the child will be expelled, and the mother and the child will not be expelled from the palace together."

Bai Li explained, "The late emperor had 79 sons, and the fight for the throne was extremely fierce. I don't know what happened exactly, but I know that many princes and their biological mothers were driven out of the inner palace and died outside the palace one after another. My father's biological mother also died mysteriously in Yueci Temple the second year after she was driven there. My father was only a little over one year old at the time, and it is said that he barely survived thanks to the secret care of a great eunuch in the inner court."

"Later, my father grew up in a government office in the suburbs of Beijing. He worked with the young eunuchs every day, chopping wood, burning charcoal, and washing clothes. He was not until he was eight years old that he was taken back to the palace by the current empress dowager to live with the current emperor. My father was three years older than the emperor, and the two lived together in the palace for six years, and they were as close as brothers."

"Later, your Majesty ascended the throne at the age of eleven, and my father was sent to a vassal state at the age of fourteen. The young vassal king formed alliances with the northern aristocratic families of Chen, Hu, and Qi. He spent six years secretly cooperating with the Supervisory Censor and other upright civil officials to purge the majesty of the relatives of the emperor and assist his Majesty in ruling the country... Of course, I heard all this from my mother, so it may not be accurate."

"Father has always asked us to do many things by ourselves since we were young. I heard that Prince Fu had someone to feed him and help him dress him since he was young, but we didn't have any of these. Occasionally, when father was free, we had to go to the farm in the country with him to chop wood and make charcoal."

Chen Ji listened silently for a moment, and felt that this short story seemed to contain a lot of important information. Liu was the foreign relative that the princess mentioned, but why did Prince Jing marry the daughter of the foreign relative Liu as his concubine after he eliminated the foreign relatives when he was young?

Is it a political compromise, or is there another intention?

……

……

At night, the moon is bright and the stars are sparse.

Originally, Chen Ji planned to live in the kiln factory, but there was not even a place to sleep in the kiln factory, so he had to go back home.

The oxcart was swaying on the way back to the city. Everyone on the cart looked exhausted and sleepy. After a day's work, everyone had sore waists and backs, and blisters on their hands.

I don’t know whose stomach growled first, but soon everyone’s stomachs started rumbling.

Everyone looked at each other, then burst into laughter: "I wonder if there are any noodle stalls open in the city?"

"Definitely not anymore!"

Liang Maoer said, "When we get back to the clinic, I'll make noodles for everyone. Are garlic noodles okay?"

"Anything is fine. I'm so hungry now that I can eat a cow!"

"I can eat two!"

Liang Maoer said shyly: "I can eat three."

"I don't think Brother Cat is joking."

"Ha ha ha ha."

Return to the door of Taiping Medical Clinic.

With a creak, the prince quietly pushed open the door and led everyone to the backyard, "Keep your voices down and don't disturb Imperial Physician Yao. If we wake him up now, I'm afraid his poisonous mouth will scold us until we cry."

"Oh? Really?" Everyone was startled and looked up into the darkness of the main hall of the clinic, only to see Old Man Yao lying on a bamboo chair with a little black cat in his arms.

He slowly stood up and asked leisurely, "Sir, please tell me how my mouth became poisoned."

The prince's smile was uglier than crying: "You must have heard it wrong, it was Liu Quxing who just said that!"

Old Man Yao didn't argue with him and just turned around and walked towards the backyard: "There are noodles on the chopping board in the kitchen. If you want to eat them, just cook them yourself."

The prince swallowed his saliva and said, "Doctor Yao, you are a living Bodhisattva!"

A moment later, a group of local dogs squatted in a row in the backyard. One of them was holding a large bowl and slurping noodles, using chopsticks to shovel noodles into his mouth.

When the prince looked up, he saw Doctor Yao standing next to the bare apricot tree, looking at them with disdain.

The cat in Doctor Yao's arms also looked at them with disgust.

The prince hesitated and said, "Doctor Yao, it seems like it looks down on us?"

Doctor Yao sneered and said, "Given the way you eat, I will allow it to look down on you."

Prince: “…”

Chen Ji: "..."

Doctor Yao looked at them with compassion and said, "Eight people went out in the morning, and eight dogs came back in the evening. People who know you know that you went to make new things, but people who don't know think that you were revealed by the magic mirror."

He hugged Wuyun and turned back to the house: "I'm going to sleep. After dinner, remember to clean up the kitchen."

After finishing his noodles, the prince slumped down on the ground and sighed, "Chen Ji, can we take a day off?"

Bai Li hurriedly said, "No, he has signed a military order with father. If he fails to complete it, father will really send him to exile in Lingnan."

The prince was speechless, and finally muttered quietly: "You are more active than him."

At this time, Bai Li was standing in front of the apricot tree in the yard, wondering what he was thinking.

Chen Ji sat on the ground with a bowl in his hand, looked up and asked curiously, "What's wrong?"

Bai Li suddenly said, "All the leaves on the apricot tree have fallen off. It doesn't look good... Wait for me for a moment."

After saying that, she climbed the ladder and climbed over the wall into the palace. After a while, she came back, pulling a piece of red cloth.

Princess Baili cut the red cloth into long thin strips, wrote "peace, joy, smoothness and worry-free" on them, and tied them to the branches.

She wrote another piece of red cloth and brought a ladder to hang it at the top of the apricot tree.

Seeing her clumsily carrying the ladder, Chen Ji kindly said, "Princess, can I help you hang it?"

Bai Li said urgently: "No, I will die by myself!"

Not only that, she also wrapped the cloth strips around the branches a few more times, so you couldn't see what was written when you stood under the tree.

Baili slowly stepped down the ladder and greeted everyone with a smile: "Come and write something too."

Everyone looked at each other in bewilderment: "What to write?"

Bai Li smiled so much that his eyes curved up: "Just write down your wishes!"

Liu Quxing said: "I know what to write!"

But he picked up the pen, dipped it in ink, and wrote "Master, may you live a long and healthy life" on the red cloth. She Dengke angrily scolded the flatterer, and then wrote "Master, may you live a long and healthy life."

Liang Gou'er wrote that he had wine to drink every day, and Liang Mao'er wrote that he owned several acres of good farmland.

The prince hesitated for a moment, then imitated Baili and secretly wrote one, which he tied to the highest point of the apricot tree so that no one could see it.

He climbed down the ladder and looked at the bald man beside him: "Little monk, what is your wish?"

The young monk was a little embarrassed: "I can't make wishes casually. I have to fulfill my great wishes. This is closely related to spiritual practice."

"Well, you don't have to write it!"

Red ribbons hung on the branches of the apricot tree, making it look like red flowers blooming.

The yard where a group of grown men lived suddenly had a touch of gentleness and elegance.

Bai Li stood in front of the apricot tree with his hands behind his back, head tilted upward, and admired his masterpiece with a smile on his face.

She turned to look at Chen Ji: "Chen Ji, what are you going to write? You haven't written it yet."

Chen Ji pondered for a moment and picked up the pen. Bai Li leaned over to take a peek, only to see that the boy had only written four simple words: "Tuan Tuan Yuan Yuan".

Bai Li whispered: "I thought you would write something like 'Ten Thousand Pieces of Gold'. Are you looking forward to reuniting with your family? But your family members..."

Chen Ji smiled and did not explain. When he wrote about reunion, he was not referring to his family.

Bai Li looked at the red prayer cloth on the tree branch with a peaceful expression: "Sometimes I envy the lives of ordinary people. I know this is a bit like being in a blessed situation but not knowing how to appreciate it, but I still hope that my home can be warmer and we can have more reunions."

When Chen Ji heard this, he suddenly asked tentatively: "I see that Madam Yunfei gives the princess a lot of money every month, and the prince is not living as well as the princess. Why do you say that?"

Bai Li also smiled: "As for girls, in the eyes of their parents, as long as they grow up well, they don't need to study hard, as long as they can marry according to their ideas. My parents don't have such strict requirements on me, so they will naturally be more tolerant and indulgent. My mother has always wanted to have another brother. You see, when my father finally returned home, she immediately sent people to clean the entire Anxi Street and distributed Yanmen dates to all the neighbors."

Chen Ji was startled. It turned out that distributing Yanmen dates had a meaning, but it couldn't be too obvious, so he didn't distribute peanuts, longans, and lotus seeds to his neighbors...

He suddenly asked, "Princess, the persimmon tree in Feiyun Garden..."

Bai Li smiled and replied: "My mother wanted to cut it down and replace it with a pomegranate tree, but I stopped her because I think persimmons look better than pomegranates."

"Then why don't we pick the persimmons hanging on the branches?"

"We need to leave some food for the magpies that are overwintering."

"So it was the princess' kindness..."

Chen Ji only felt a chill spreading along his spine to his neck. The Yanmen dates meant early childbirth, and the pomegranate tree meant many children and good fortune. Concubine Yun’s desire to have a son was almost obvious.

But can I inherit the title of Prince Jing if I give birth to a son? No, there is still a legitimate brother, the Crown Prince, in front of me, unless the Crown Prince dies in the inner prison!

Until this moment, Chen Ji's speculation had a reasonable logical chain. Concubine Yun hoped that the prince would die in the inner prison. As for whether Bai Li would be implicated, she didn't care at all...

Or maybe, Concubine Yun's original intention was to send Bai Li to the inner prison as well, so that no one would doubt her anymore.

Chen Ji looked at Bai Li with a complicated expression. He wanted to remind him but didn't know where to start.

In front was Liu Mingxian who killed his grandfather with his own hands, and in the back was Yun Fei who was vicious and ate her own child. Compared with these two, Chen Ji suddenly felt that his father in the Chen Mansion seemed a little merciful by only sending him to Taiping Medical Clinic as an apprentice.

This world.

Chen Ji said softly: "Princess."

"Ok?"

"Your kindness will be rewarded."

"Really? I think so too! Let's go, we have to wash off the dust when we get back. See you tomorrow morning!"

"See you tomorrow morning. Tomorrow we'll call some helpers from the city to go and modify the kiln together."

Chen Ji looked up at Bai Li climbing over the courtyard wall and disappearing into the night. He turned back to look at the gentle and graceful red apricot tree and remained silent for a long time.

At a certain moment, he wanted to tear open the highest red cloth strip to see what wishes the prince and Bai Li had written, but he felt that it was not good to pry into other people's privacy, so he just smiled and gave up.

(End of this chapter)