Du Xiaoli brought Xia Yuan and the other two with her as she left the Northern Qi women"s courtyard. She planned to see if Lu Junqi was done packing up and wanted to deliver her share of persimmon cakes at the same time.
After returning to their own courtyard, Ying Ge couldn"t hold back the question in her mind and called out to Du Xiaoli: "Miss."
"Ying Ge, what"s wrong? That expression of yours… Why do you look like you"re constipated?" Du Xiaoli asked with a smile upon looking at Ying Ge"s appearance.
"Miss, I have a question. This servant was holding it back this whole time, but I still couldn’t come up with an answer," Ying Ge said.
"You want to ask me why I gave the recipe for the persimmon cake to the Northern Qi?" Du Xiaoli asked in understanding.
Ying Ge nodded and replied, "That"s it. Miss, why did you give it to them? Aren’t they from another country?"
Du Xiaoli went to the courtyard pavilion and sat down before saying: "Ying Ge, did you know that we were in dire straits two years before you and the others went down to the village?"
"This servant didn"t know that," Ying Ge said.
"I was ten years old that year. It rained very little throughout all of Zhou County. There was simply not enough water for crops to grow, and not a single grain was reaped in many of the fields," Du Xiaoli recalled. It was like she had gone back to that time.
"That must have been really horrible," Qiao Zhu said.
"It was. There were many impoverished people. They were already poor to begin with, so many families ran out of food during this period. We grew tangerines and grapes in our village, so we managed to avoid the extensive losses the farmers suffered from not being able to harvest their crop fields. Unfortunately, many old people and children starved to death in other villages," Du Xiaoli explained with a frown. "Meanwhile, those who managed to survive that year became all skin and bones. Moreover, since there were no rice seeds left from the year before, there were no seeds to sow the next year."
"The people of the lowest cla.s.s in society truly have a difficult life," Xia Yuan said with a sigh.
"Then what happened to those people?" Qiao Zhu asked.
"Later, the government official went to another region and sent back some emergency provisions to those villages. Originally, we as a family intended to send some food over too, but we simply didn’t have enough to spare. It just so happened that we earned a little extra money at the time, so we told Lord Sun that he should dispatch some soldiers to each village to work with the villagers in setting up a temporary stove. With it, they cooked large pots of rice and had everyone in the village eat in one place to eliminate waste. After that, we ran out of money, so we started getting donations from the rich in the village and eventually went to collect donations from other areas too. Additionally, the Imperial Court suddenly gave us some money, so we used that and the money we raised to buy some inexpensive ingredients. However, the entire county was full of victims of the drought. There wasn’t enough money and ingredients, so we could only make gruel to drink. Did you know? For five months—five whole months… All those people drank gruel for five whole months. We drank so much gruel that for some time after those five months, I wanted to throw up just from the sight of porridge."
No wonder Du Xiaoli rarely drank porridge in the morning. It turned out that she had lived through such an experience before Ying Ge and the others went to Du Village.
"What happened later on?" Xia Yuan asked. "When we went to Zhou County, it didn’t look at all like it had suffered through a disaster. On the contrary, it looked very prosperous."
"Did you notice that there are many irrigation systems in Zhou County?" Du Xiaoli said. "During that time when we couldn’t farm crops, we gathered all the people together. Be it men or women, the young or the old—everyone went out to dig wells and ponds, and we built many irrigation systems. It was only later, after the drought had pa.s.sed, that everyone"s life slowly returned to normal."
"Miss, weren"t you only ten years old at that time? It’s unbelievable that you could come up with these solutions!" Qiao Zhu looked at Du Xiaoli with admiration.
"Your Mistress’ intelligence has nothing to do with her age. Got it?" Du Xiaoli said and patted Qiao Zhu"s head.
"Mistress, you’ve experienced a time when food was scarce. So that’s why you decided to help when you talked to Princess Yu about how the people of the Northern Qi often ran out of food in the winter," Xia Yuan said.
Du Xiaoli nodded and said: "As the saying goes, ‘Food is the G.o.d of the people’, and people have the right to live regardless of whether they are n.o.ble or lowly. Northern Qi’s terrain is largely situated in the northern region, so their winters are cold and long with frequent heavy snowfall. It is difficult to grow crops in the winter, so there always are food shortages. Actually, they have a lot of food in other seasons, but they don’t know how to preserve them. The method for this persimmon cake is simple, and there are many persimmons over there. This is merely one little method. If it can help them get through the winter, it can simply be considered as I’m acc.u.mulating good fortune for myself."
"Mistress, you’re really kind!" Qiao Zhu said emotionally.
Du Xiaoli smiled when she heard this. Was she a good person? In her previous life, she killed so many people for her organization, staining her hands with blood. She had never considered herself a good person.
Originally she thought she was just a spectator of this world. However, Du Xiuheng had given her familial affection, and Uncle s.h.i.+ and the others had taken care of her. So after experiencing the natural disaster that year, her way of thinking gradually began to change, and she slowly integrated into this world. Nevertheless, the mark of her previous life still had a heavy existence in the depths of her heart.
"Moreover, I am not doing this purely for the people of Northern Qi," Du Xiaoli said.
"Does Mistress want to develop a good bond with 7th Prince and the others?" Xia Yuan a.n.a.lyzed.
"That’s right," Du Xiaoli said. "On the surface, it doesn’t seem like 7th Prince wants to fight much, but it cannot be denied that he is a man of strategy and ability. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to let Beiling Yu grow up so pure amidst the intense internal struggle of the royal family. Such a person will certainly be able to achieve great things in the future. The most important thing is that he is a prince who thinks of the people. This kind of person isn’t so bad. He’s worth befriending. Therefore, I’m merely using this small favor to exchange for a gain with great potential.”
"So that’s how it is!" Qiao Zhu said with a look that showed she understood.
"But if the Emperor finds out, will Mistress be blamed?" Xia Yuan said worriedly.
"Probably not. First of all, this is not a state secret. It’s merely a fruit-processing method. Furthermore, it’s like how the saying goes, ‘Befriend distant states while attacking those closeby’. The Northern Qi does not have many areas that share a border with Feng Ming, but it is a formidable country. Feng Ming has only just stabilized, so the Emperor would rather have peace than war. The Emperor would also want to be able to develop a good bond with the Northern Qi."
"It’s fine as long as the Emperor doesn"t blame Mistress," Qiao Zhu said.
"But if that’s the case, you also have to tell the citizens of Feng Ming about this method. Otherwise, it"s hard to keep the Emperor from a.s.suming the worst," Xia Yuan a.n.a.lyzed.
"I thought about this a long time ago. I’ve already given this recipe to my father and asked him to offer it to the Emperor. I suppose that my father should have already told the Emperor about it by now," Du Xiaoli replied.
"It"s just such a pity. If Mistress were the only one who knows this method, you’d be able to make a huge fortune again!" Qiao Zhu said with some regret.
"Pfft, do you only have your eyes on the money?" Du Xiaoli laughed. She suddenly recalled the memory of a voice saying this same line in that dilapidated courtyard.
"——Girl, do you only have your eyes on the money?"
Those days had been simple and beautiful, and all the people in those memories were forever unforgettable...MoonWhisperer, BlackieMeow"s Thoughts
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