She pondered that Shen Juhua must be much better off in Shen Mansion than before, so there should be no problem in her taking care of the Sanchun Ladies!
"Well, we’ll do as you say!"
Lady Yin took Cai Wei as her main support and followed her advice.
Cai Wei wrote a letter on the small, paint-stripped kang table for Shen Juhua, handing it to Lady Yin, instructing them to find Shen Juhua at Shen Mansion when they got to Qing County. She also told them to pack their belongings simply, then she went to hire a carriage for them, intending to send them away that very day!
The horse carriages that hired themselves out in the county town were usually loitering around the busiest places to find work. As the jobs they found were usually within the county, they didn’t get tired, but they didn’t make much money either. So when Cai Wei found a trustworthy-looking coachman and proposed that he take them to Qing County and offered him two taels of silver as wages, he immediately agreed, nodding his head repeatedly as if he had been struck by a gift from heaven.
Cai Wei gave the coachman a deposit of one hundred coppers, asking him to get ready and rendezvous with her here in half a Shi Chen. Meanwhile, she went to the street, planning to buy Lady Yin and her daughter some biscuits and steamed buns in case they were hungry on the journey.
She entered a shop selling biscuits. Inside, several patrons were munching on biscuits while eagerly chatting.
"Goodness, the fire last night was quite something, it practically lit up half the county town’s sky. I saw it with my own eyes, the entire restaurant was burnt to the ground, not a tile was left and Gao Jia was driven to madness!"
"Not only was the restaurant burned down, I heard that his lovely wife’s face was disfigured, with a three to four inches long cut on her face that revealed her flesh, it was so frightening!"
"Tsk, it’s really tragic. I heard that Gao Jia’s valuables that he had saved for many years and the money he got from selling his daughter were all taken. Apparently, a young maidservant did it — how incredible is that?"
"Oh, Gao Jia is finished now, lost everything both financially and personally!"
"Isn’t that the truth, they say that if you abandon your wife, you’ll be cursed! His downfall is due to his excessive sins..."
Cai Wei bought ten biscuits and ten buns, paid for them, and left with her purchases.
It’s a pity that she didn’t have enough time, otherwise she would have visited the ruins of Gaoji’s Tavern and checked out the desolate expression of the perfidious man herself!
After buying the items, she contacted Old Turtle through her thoughts to ask about Lady Yin’s illness and Sanchun’s injury.
The Old Turtle’s reply was that Lady Yin was suffering from depression, and that her medicine had to be emotional medicine, and Sanchun was both her sickness and her cure. As Sanchun was found, and mother and daughter were reunited, her disease would naturally be cured quickly. As for Sanchun, while her injuries seemed frightful, they were merely superficial. The Old Turtle had taken care of her yesterday in the Space and assured her it was not serious. With time, the wounds would fade away and disappear!
With such reassurances from the Old Turtle, Cai Wei eased her mind and called Long Mei.
It was hundreds of miles to Qing County from here. Lady Yin and her daughter were diseased and weak, if they encountered bandits on the way or if the carriage driver had malicious intentions, they would be like fish on a chopping board - helpless. So Cai Wei, not quite trusting them to journey alone, decided to send Long Mei with them, and only when they were safely delivered to their destination, Long Mei would come back!
Although Long Mei was reluctant to leave its master’s side, it could not resist Cai Wei’s cajoling. Furthermore, the unscrupulous master promised to prepare three delicious meals especially for it. Therefore, when Cai Wei returned to the agreed spot with the coachman, there was an extra white, long-eyebrowed, strangely grimaced monkey at her side!