The Jie Residence’s Second Young Master proved to be a man of his word. The very next morning, he personally brought the consultation fee for Gu Youyou’s visit to the Jie Residence.
For the medical examination of his former wife and concubine, he paid a basket full of silver, amounting to a thousand taels.
Gu Youyou, who usually dealt with large sums in silver notes, saw such a vast amount of actual silver for the first time. She reached out to lift it, but it was so heavy that her slender arms and legs could hardly bear the weight.
It became an embarrassing scene.
In fact, it wasn’t Gu Youyou’s fault; a thousand taels of silver at that time weighed over sixty jin. How could an ordinary young girl carry that, let alone Gu Youyou with her slight frame?
Seeing this, the Second Young Master suggested, "How about I help Doctor Gu carry it inside?"
Gu Youyou forced a laugh and hurriedly said, "No, I’ll call my maids to carry it."
She didn’t like the Second Young Master’s character and was determined not to deal with him in the future. How could she let him help her?
Having received his payment for the consultation, they were even.
Afterward, Gu Youyou was confined again. If she wasn’t at Jisheng Hall, there were always people from other residences coming to invite her for consultations. Madam Lin, after dealing with it for a few days and finding it bothersome, allowed her to go out for four hours a day.
The prerequisite was that she was accompanied by two martial house servants and four old maids and two young maids.
This was a requirement set by her Uncle Lin Xingyi.
She didn’t mind having a few strong bodyguards with excellent martial skills, but what was the deal with the maids, a pile of snacks, the warmers, and the bedding in the carriage?
The medical hall was only two streets away from her home, which left her speechless.
Lin Qianqing, on the other hand, was filled with envy.
"You should be content. I can’t even go out if I wanted to."
Gu Youyou said, "Freeing one is the same as freeing two. Why can’t you go out?"
She thought to herself: Aren’t you able to climb over walls?
With a sigh, she sat on the doorstep and said, "The Empress’s birthday is in a few days. My mother is planning to take me to the Imperial Palace, and these days she is personally supervising the preparations, having matrons from the palace teach me the palace etiquette."
"Oh!" Gu Youyou assumed that Madam Lin went to the capital for the Empress’s birthday.
"Then you learn slowly, I’ll be leaving now."
"Hey, wait a minute!" Lin Qianqing got up, pulled Gu Youyou back down to sit on the doorstep and said, "Don’t you still have half an hour before you go to the medical hall? Sit with me for a while."
Gu Youyou raised an eyebrow and looked outside the courtyard, asking, "When do you start learning the palace etiquette?"
"In half an hour, when you leave, I start."
Gu Youyou felt a sudden urge to laugh and said, "Looking at your listless appearance, it seems learning that palace etiquette is as tiring as a farmer turning over two li of land."
Lin Qianqing suddenly became interested and eagerly asked, "Cousin, have you ever seen how the rice we eat is grown?"
...Gu Youyou was taken aback.
Did her maternal grandmother’s yard grow vegetables without planting rice?
Women like her were often confined to large houses for a lifetime, starting in their family home until they married off, and then in their husband’s home until death, most never knowing how the everyday crops they consumed were cultivated. It was indeed a sad thought.
Especially for a cousin like Qianqing, whose heart was as wide as the sea, filled with the vast blue sky and the whole world, she was constrained by her social status to a life confined to a small corner.
Women working in the fields envied their life of leisure, while they longed for a carefree existence, even if it meant plain food every day.
Gu Youyou patted the back of her hand and said, "After the Empress’s birthday has passed, I’ll take you to the countryside to have a look."
Lin Qianqing’s eyes suddenly widened in disbelief, "Can we really do that?"