Chapter 1409: Chapter 1387: Detoxification 1 (October Monthly Ticket Bonus 3)
Early the next morning, Manbao woke up from bed, first took medicine from the system, found a clean porcelain bottle to fill with the medicine, and then glanced at the video Keke recorded yesterday. She had forgotten; yesterday, her mind was overworked. Even though her body was tired, her brain was in a constant twitch, making it hard to sleep.
She thought about entering the palace today, so she didn’t dare to watch.
Manbao sighed, then clicked to pay a ten thousand-point fee to have Keke monitor the Crown Prince, deciding to wait until she returned from the palace to see the video before deciding whether to continue paying points for surveillance.
Manbao corked the porcelain bottle, placed it in the medicine box, then stretched lazily, picked up the wooden basin, and headed out.
Early in the morning, there was a long queue in the kitchen for hot water.
After washing up, Manbao patted her face and turned to get water for Mr. Zhuang to wash his face. The Three Heads, who were at the front, let her cut in line and moved to the back themselves.
Bai Erlang yawned and lined up behind her. Manbao turned back to him and said, “Tomorrow it’s your turn to serve the teacher.”
Bai Erlang felt like he hadn’t slept enough, and his eyes were about to tear. He turned his head to look at the Three Heads who had given way to Manbao, and said, “You’re all studying with the teacher, you should also serve the teacher. This is called serving your teacher when needed, understand?”
The Three Heads expressed no problem, the Four Heads said, “But it’s still you first, tomorrow it’s still your turn.”
Bai Erlang yawned again, asking, “Aren’t you guys sleepy?”
The Three Heads were used to it, “We’ve gotten used to it. If we dare to laze in bed, our grandfather will use the fire poker to pull us out of the bed.”
He said, “Grandfather said, he’s old and still can’t sleep in. Why should we?”
Manbao said nothing silently, scooped hot water from the pot into the wooden basin, picked it up, and walked away, feeling a silent complaint in her heart. The villagers often said that her dad was the laziest in their family. When he was young, he wouldn’t help out, even going backward despite persuasion. Her mom alone had to raise all the children.
Yet she didn’t know how her mother managed to train her dad. Though her dad was still stingy and cheap now, he wasn’t too lazy.
Mr. Zhuang washed his face, cleaned his hands, returned the wooden basin to Manbao, and pondered slightly, “Today in the palace, be cautious and prudent.”
Although he didn’t know what happened in the palace, Manbao never hid her feelings. Yesterday she stayed in her room all day looking so haggard; if he said nothing was wrong, he wouldn’t believe it.
Only the children have grown up, and he can’t force them to speak.
Manbao opened her mouth, almost blurting out about the Crown Prince being poisoned, but thought better of it and closed her mouth.
Telling the teacher about this wouldn’t help; it would only make him worry. Also, letting the Eastern Palace know the teacher knew these things might even put the teacher in danger.
Manbao nodded, picked up the wooden basin, and went out to pour water.
Behind Bai Erlang’s room at the corner of the wall, there was a big stone jar specialized for holding wastewater after washing up. Once poured, it could be used for watering the garden later.
The North is dry; even though they have a well at home, water can’t be wasted.
Because the well doesn’t have as much water and isn’t as deep as the outside wells, during droughts or deep winter there’s often no water, and they can only go to the bigger outside wells or buy water from street vendors.
Since coming to the capital, they slowly got used to conserving water.
Especially since they have a small garden at home that needs a lot of water.
Sanya also brought water to pour. Seeing her little aunt staring at the garden in a daze, she followed her gaze and asked, “Little aunt, do you also want to pull out the ugly flowers in the garden and plant vegetables?”
Manbao:…
She looked at Sanya in surprise, shaking her head, “No, what I’m thinking is spring is arriving, and it seems we’ll soon be able to appreciate the peony blossoms.”
She was thinking about whether to find a few annoying candidates soon so that she could sell them beautiful peonies and make some money, trying to buy more flowers, plants, and animals she hadn’t seen before, so Keke could record them and earn points to upgrade.
In recent years, its scanning range subtly increased, but still wasn’t enough. If the Crown Prince goes a bit farther, it can’t scan him.
Although Sanya liked beautiful flowers too, she preferred something practical, “Little aunt, I brought a few sections of packed yam vines and ginger pieces this time. We can buy some medicinal herbs and vegetable seeds to plant, and then we can make money.”
Manbao said, “Liru, you really resemble Second Sister-in-law.”
Sanya protested with pursed lips, “I obviously resemble my dad.”
Manbao turned with the wooden basin, “I don’t mind, you can ask others’ opinions. This garden belongs to everyone.”
Sanya noted down the idea, deciding to seek everyone’s opinions later.
Manbao returned the wooden basin and then entered the room to carefully comb her hair. As Zhou Lijun passed by and saw her, she couldn’t help but stop, leaning against the window and watching for a while before shaking her head, “Little aunt, don’t fuss too much. So much hair, you’ll end up pulling it all out.”
She said, “Just wait, I’ll come help you comb in a bit.”
Zhou Lijun finished tidying herself and then came over to help Manbao change into a new hairstyle.
Manbao had a lot of jewelry, all gifts from people, as she hadn’t bought herself any jewelry.
Some pieces were quite precious, not suitable for her at her age, but there were many she could wear. Zhou Lijun abandoned the few pearl flowers she commonly wore, picked anew, and chose a string of gemstones to attach to her hair to secure them, asking, “Little aunt, why are you dressing up so beautifully today?”
“Someone said, to enlighten a person, you need something to catch their attention, so they can listen to what you say,” Manbao said, “So many people around him are speaking bitter words, I decided to take another path?”
“The beauty strategy?”
Manbao shook her head, “The Crown Princess is much prettier than I am. This isn’t a beauty strategy; it’s just to catch his eye, to make him notice me, then I can talk to him. But that’s not the main thing.”
“What’s the main thing then?”
The main thing was that she had a kind of fear entering the palace now; the Crown Prince’s rebellion was far scarier than the Prince of Yizhou’s, especially as she kept getting close to the Crown Prince.
So she had to cherish her time alive.
Manbao regretfully looked at the various jewelry in the dressing box, heart aching, “Back then I was too focused on studying, forgetting to properly dress myself.”
After all, even without the Crown Prince’s rebellion, life is limited, can’t waste one’s youthful days, right?
Manbao picked out a piece of jewelry she didn’t especially like and stuffed it into Zhou Lijun’s hand, patting her hand, “Erya, time flies, you should also dress up more, okay?”
Zhou Lijun looked at the hairpin in her hand with a dazed expression, just a little help with combing her hair, why did she get a hairpin?