After Jia Zhu and Jia Lian received the letter, they set out to return to the capital.

The Lin family went to the countryside estate, planning to stay for a while. Lin Ruhai would have to travel back and forth more.

The things in the countryside weren’t as refined as those in the Lin residence, yet they had another kind of natural beauty.

The sky here was also more expansive.

Coming here, looking at the vast fields and forests, one’s mood unknowingly became more open.

Although the younger generation needed to observe mourning and couldn’t eat meat, there were fresh winter bamboo shoots and other fresh vegetables here.

Moreover, dairy products didn’t count as meat. There were cows and sheep here. Cow’s milk and sheep’s milk could be made into various things.

As soon as Yun Shuyao arrived, she often stayed in the kitchen, making delicious food for Luo Yu, and would also send some to others.

Good performance would earn bonuses and increase favorability.

Since she was doing it anyway, and she wasn’t the one doing the manual work—just moving her lips—why not do such a good deed?

This time Luo Yu had lost several pounds, and she hadn’t been very plump to begin with.

Daiyu looked even more pitiable. She was too young. Because of her young age, targeting Daiyu’s tastes, Yun Shuyao specially modified some sweets she liked for her.

She also had people make attractive animal and flower petal molds that were very eye-catching for Daiyu and could make her eat a bit more.

Yun Shuyao was repaying Jia Min’s kindness.

Before her death, Jia Min had distributed many things.

Yun Shuyao and Concubine Mei each received a set of jewelry.

The children—each girl received two sets of jewelry, two pairs of jade pendants, and two thousand taels of silver.

For Chen Yu, the jewelry was replaced with writing brushes, ink, paper, inkstones, ancient books and paintings of equivalent value.

This was what she as the legitimate mother left as mementos for the children, also a dowry fund—for girls to keep as marriage dowry, for boys to keep as betrothal gifts.

Yun Shuyao accepted Jia Min’s kindness with gratitude.

It wasn’t that she herself had money and didn’t lack these things so she could not care. What Jia Min gave was a gesture of goodwill and benevolence.

Now seeing Daiyu looking so wilted, Yun Shuyao reciprocated a little.

Daiyu was born weak, just like Ying Yu when she was young.

However, now Ying Yu was about the same as ordinary people. With careful nurturing, Daiyu could also be well raised.

During the mourning period now, they couldn’t eat meat, but they couldn’t neglect their bodies either.

If Jia Min knew that her funeral affairs had caused Daiyu’s health to deteriorate, she would probably be angry enough to come back to life.

With cow’s milk and sheep’s milk, too many things could be made.

Plus there wasn’t much else to do now, so Yun Shuyao simply brought the three girls into the kitchen together and started cooking lessons.

Double-layer milk custard, cheese, milk pastries, milk candy, baked milk, milk jelly… Her skill in creating food had been collectively certified by everyone in the Lin residence from top to bottom.

Cuifan, who had served her in the past, had long since married out and had now become skilled in the kitchen, especially excelling at these novel snacks that Yun Shuyao came up with.

When their group was in the kitchen, they basically just gave instructions from the side while Cuifan executed the work.

As long as the young misses didn’t handle knives or fire, no one stopped them.

Young ladies should learn some cooking anyway. They didn’t need to be very skilled, nor did the misses need to cook personally—it was just that sometimes making something with their own hands showed more sincerity.

The kitchen was a place where it was easy to feel a sense of accomplishment.

Watching ordinary materials, through various operations, transform into beautiful and delicious snacks, especially when you participated yourself, that sense of satisfaction was very captivating.

To give them more sense of participation, Yun Shuyao had Cuifan bring out flour.

With flour, they could make various vegetarian-filled dumplings, buns, and pancakes.

There was also free creativity—treating the flour like modeling clay to unleash imagination, creating various cute rabbits, monkeys, puppies, kittens, and birds.

The three sisters worked together.

At first Daiyu was still reserved, but led by her two elder sisters, she quickly relaxed.

Children—which one didn’t like to play? She soon pinched out an oddly-shaped panda.

Looking at the final product, her eyebrows furrowed.

Pandas didn’t look like this.

They were much better-looking than this.

She tilted her head and saw the little white rabbit in her eldest sister’s hands. She was pinching two ears for the rabbit—long and pointed, with a series of bumps on the neck. That was… a necklace?

Her head tilted to the other side. In second sister’s hands was a tiger, a naive-looking tiger with its belly stuffed full of filling.

Its face was unusually large. If it weren’t for the character for “king” on its forehead, she wouldn’t have guessed what this was.

Daiyu fell into thought. It seemed… her panda wasn’t so ugly after all.

Before long, these imaginative finished buns were sent to the old lady and Lin Ruhai’s tables.

Looking at this plate of strange dough lumps that looked like nothing in particular, the old lady: “…”

Lin Ruhai: “…”

They didn’t know where to start eating.

This craftsmanship still needed improvement.

That’s what they said, but this was personally made by the three sisters. In the end, the two of them ate every bit clean. When they couldn’t eat anymore, they rested a bit, then continued eating.

Ying Yu and Luo Yu coaxed Daiyu, saying that grandmother and father loved eating them very much, so they must continue tomorrow.

As long as she had something to do, Daiyu wouldn’t constantly think of her mother and then cry sadly.

Without a word, Daiyu nodded: “Eldest sister, second sister, let’s do it together.”

After all, the time they spent in the kitchen each day wasn’t long—taking out one hour a day was quite sufficient.

Concubine Mei had no interest in this activity. When Ying Yu first went to the kitchen, she glanced at it, had no desire to do it herself, turned around and went back to her own courtyard.

She would rather sit idly in front of the mirror.

She was also the one who least wanted to come to the countryside. She looked down on the things here.

With Jia Min gone, a mountain above her head was removed. She was happy about that, but also uneasy, not knowing if the master would remarry.

Another thing was that the master had to observe mourning for Jia Min for a year, meaning he wouldn’t share a room with her for a year. She still wanted to conceive a son—how could she conceive like this?

Moreover, under such circumstances, various entertainment activities were out of the question.

She herself didn’t care, but she still had to consider her daughter’s reputation. When it came to filial piety, there could be no mistakes.

Here there weren’t so many rules. Besides the kitchen, Yun Shuyao would also take Luo Yu up the mountain. This was a perfect place to recognize living medicinal herbs, to know what they looked like. Mother and daughter studied together.

They would gather these medicinal herbs, process them properly, then use them to make medicinal meals, cooling teas, and so on.

Speaking of it, this was still Luo Yu’s filial devotion.

Ying Yu wasn’t interested in this, but later when she discovered that going up the mountain could let her see rabbits and pheasants, she also followed along.

This made Concubine Mei stamp her feet there, earnestly advising her not to go. “What if there are wild beasts? You just run up the mountain?”

Ying Yu was somewhat helpless. “Concubine Mother, we have people around us, a whole circle around us, and this mountain belongs to our family—it’s always been managed.”

Really, there was no need to worry.

When they went up the mountain, female guards followed them closely. Even if there really were wild beasts, they wouldn’t have a chance to get close.

At the estate, the intention was to let everyone relax. The old lady turned a blind eye and didn’t restrict her granddaughters. When she stayed in her room, she either chanted sutras or prayed for Chen Yu’s blessings.

She had made thorough preparations, but with Chen Yu not by her side, her heart was still suspended.

Lin Ruhai was also thinking about Chen Yu.

His only difference from the old lady was that the old lady would mention it many times a day, asking where Chen Yu was now, what he was doing, discussing when he would return, while Lin Ruhai only brought it up once or twice, being more restrained.

Lin Ruhai had also lost a lot of weight after this ordeal.

His figure had been just right before, but now he was too thin and needed to recuperate for a while to regain the weight.

Now he most often came to Yun Shuyao’s place.

Although he didn’t stay overnight, he would come here and sit for half a day at a time.

He wouldn’t voluntarily bring up Jia Min. Aside from that, they talked about everything.

Previously when Lin Ruhai came, they talked about very general topics—poetry and songs, calligraphy and painting, customs and human sentiment.

Lin Ruhai was also half her teacher.

Then there were the children.

Everything about the children.

From what the children ate to how much the children had grown, what they had learned—they discussed everything.

But there was one thing—he had rarely taken the initiative to mention his outside affairs and social interactions with relatives and old friends.

For Lin Ruhai, the division of functions was very clear.

That was the mistress’s domain. Subconsciously he wouldn’t discuss with Yun Shuyao things like whose official’s wife had a birthday next month requiring gifts and attending banquets, or mention that some official wanted to do something and might send people with gifts, reminding the gatehouse not to accept things randomly…

Now he began to bring these things up voluntarily.

Because when the Lin family went back and resumed social interactions, some occasions where the old lady wasn’t convenient to go and Luo Yu and the others weren’t convenient to go, would need her or Concubine Mei to go.

Just like other officials who didn’t bring their legitimate wives with them and had concubines take on some responsibilities.

Clearly, between her and Concubine Mei, Lin Ruhai chose her.

Yun Shuyao wasn’t averse to this.

One reason was that this wouldn’t happen too often. Another was that it was good for her to go out and move around.

The twins were of age.

They couldn’t wait until they were of age to start caring—by that time the good ones would have already been picked.

She would go explore first.

If it weren’t for Jia Min’s funeral affairs, the Lin family should have been making inquiries in these two years.

First was matching social status.

Then political leanings.

Finally, personal character and so on.

Because the Lin family belonged to the Han Banners, generally they had to participate in the selection process.

The old lady hoped for exemption from selection and self-arranged marriage.

Because she worried her granddaughters would be assigned as concubines to those imperial princes and nobles.

Especially Ying Yu.

Her appearance was the same style as Concubine Mei.

But exemption from selection wasn’t that easy.

She didn’t know what methods the old lady would have.

Sometimes Yun Shuyao also sighed—if someone like her traveled to ancient times and still looked at the world with modern eyes, and couldn’t control their heart and fell in love with Lin Ruhai, their heart would probably suffer torment.

The two ways of thinking couldn’t be called right or wrong. In the eyes of people of this era, Lin Ruhai was absolutely a good husband—good family background, good looks, capable, talented, not lustful, respectful of his legitimate wife. His grief at his wife’s death wasn’t fake, and people praised his deep feelings.

But in the eyes of later generations, this peerless good husband would have a big question mark.

Deep feelings?

Just one-on-one fidelity was an insurmountable hurdle.

If you couldn’t get past that hurdle in your heart, life would be very painful.

She had also analyzed Lin Ruhai’s feelings for Jia Min.

In the end, she could only reach a rough conclusion—perhaps there was love, but this wasn’t true love.

Because they weren’t pure enough. Before she and Concubine Mei entered the residence, there were already chamber maids. In this world, it wasn’t that tales of “one lifetime, one person” didn’t exist.

Love—whether from ancient times to now, Yun Shuyao believed this was a luxury that could be encountered but not sought.

In the vast sea of people, to find someone who knew you, understood you, loved you, respected you, tolerated you, understood you, and was willing to give their life for you, while you also knew them, understood them, loved them, respected them, tolerated them, understood them, and were willing to give your life for them—that was too difficult.

In modern times, her first love—she had liked him at first too, thinking that was true love, but as they walked together, she discovered it was an illusion, so they later broke up.

As her work time increased and she saw more and more, she increasingly doubted whether she could have true love.

After breaking up with her second boyfriend, she was certain.

Her heart was as solid as rock.

In male-female relationships, it was very difficult for her to wholeheartedly love someone, to fully give herself for another person.

This understanding made Yun Shuyao view male-female relationships rationally.

When she went to the post-apocalyptic world… there were basically no male-female relationships there.

Only the strong and the weak.

Only survival of the fittest.

It was also there that she deeply understood what it meant to “rather be a dog in times of peace than a person in times of chaos.”

When she first woke up, she almost got dragged off to be cooked—that was a nightmare.

Later she learned that was only the beginning of the nightmare.

The post-apocalyptic world was so difficult, yet she still persisted. There was no reason that coming to such a peaceful society, she couldn’t make it.

She would make herself better and better, more and more adapted to society.

Become the one who survived in the end.

Yun Shuyao was very satisfied with her current mode of interaction with Lin Ruhai and had no intention of changing it.

Their distance was close, yet far.

They were under the same roof, with two children they were proud of and could talk about endlessly.

They were superior and subordinate, also cooperative partners, and could also be called family.

Beyond that, Yun Shuyao didn’t crave anything.

——

Time flowed on, entering the fortieth year of Kangxi’s reign. The Lin family was still observing mourning. From the Jia family’s side, they had completed the major mourning period. News that came in succession made Lin Ruhai frown involuntarily.

The Jia family also belonged to the Banners. When women reached the age, they needed to participate in the selection process according to regulations. Yuanchun went.

She wasn’t selected and was sent home for free marriage arrangements, but then through the route of the bondservant selection, she was sent into the palace to become a female historian.

This was an open secret that everyone knew.

With her status, if she was selected to enter the palace, she would be a master. If she wasn’t selected, generally she would arrange her own marriage. Yet she would rather be a servant to get in.

Female historians were called female officials, but actually they still served others. If the old Duke were still alive, seeing this scene, who knows if he would cough up blood in anger.

Thinking of the old Duke who died early, Lin Ruhai let out a long sigh.

He could guess the Jia family’s thinking. Neither of the two brothers-in-law were particularly outstanding figures, and the next generation needed time to grow. Even if all went smoothly and the next generation’s eldest grandson Jia Zhu passed the jinshi examination in his twenties and climbed up step by step, to reach a high position would take at least ten years.

But if their family’s daughter had status in the palace, then during these ten years their family wouldn’t decline too badly. When the younger generation grew up later, they could still provide some assistance.

Now that Yuanchun had entered the palace to struggle, the Jia family still had other granddaughters. With an elder sister who was a female historian in the palace, when they discussed marriage arrangements… it would be difficult.

The emperor’s age wasn’t young now either. The Jia family must be targeting the Crown Prince, right? But could she be smoothly assigned to the Eastern Palace?

Facts proved she couldn’t.

When news came that Yuanchun had been kept in Consort De’s palace, everyone in the Jia family was dumbfounded.

Consort De was of bondservant origin, had come out of Lady Tong Jia’s palace, and now already occupied a high position.

Would she let people from her own palace walk her old path?

Going to Consort De’s place, she would purely be there to work!

Grandmother Jia was struck by this news and fell ill.

Last year Min’er passed away. Lin Ruhai wrote a letter that made her lose face greatly and let Lady Wang seize power. This time she finally managed to send her granddaughter into the palace through connections. It had been agreed she would be assigned to the Crown Prince’s palace, yet… where exactly did things go wrong?!