As soon as the heavy rain passed, the weather became hotter and hotter. The imperial court sent people to set up a tent, gathered all the victims outside the city in one place, and distributed food and wages on time. The doctors sent by the Huimin Bureau went over, and all those who encountered someone suspected of having a fever were all dragged to the abandoned nunnery for isolation. As soon as the weather was hot, the dead and starving corpses on the roadside soon became rotten, mosquitoes and flies were infested, and the camp members walked all the way, and everywhere there were corpses wrapped in mats and lying horizontally. In order to prevent the plague from spreading, the claimed corpses were given three batches of sackcloth for burial expenses, and the unclaimed government ordered people to dig several large pits, sprinkle lime, and bury the corpses in one place.

On the second day after the flash flood, the imperial court sent a history inspector to Yuncheng to deal with the disaster. When Lord Wei arrived in Yunxi Town, Cloud City, he was shocked by the devastated scene after the disaster. Patches of houses were submerged in the mud, the water had not completely receded, occasionally there would be corpses floating, after many days, the corpses had been soaked white and swollen and could not see the appearance of people, rowing by boat, bursts of rotten smell wafted, Lord Wei was wearing a handkerchief all the way, stunned or unable to stop the stench of the attack, holding the boat board and vomiting many times. Some people went to the temple in another town the day before the flood and were lucky enough to escape, and when they came back, they saw that their homes were completely ruined, and their relatives were gone.

Ships weave through the ruins, and officials struggle to salvage corpses and search for possible survivors. In addition to Yunxi Town, some townships were more seriously affected, poor and remote, people outside couldn't get in if they wanted to, and people inside didn't know whether they were dead or alive. If we want to completely rectify this situation, we have to wait for the water to recede, remove all the sediment, bulldoze all the crushed houses, and dispose of all the corpses.

In addition to the grain allocated by the imperial court, the officials and businessmen in the capital also contributed grain and contributed money. The Ji family is a big family, and they have to give porridge every two days. These days, my wife has a life, if there is nothing important, stay in the house and do not move around at will, and the morning and evening greetings are also waived.

"When will this day pass, on such a hot and stuffy day, you can't use ice, and you can't go out of the house." Zitang took a fan and fanned the seven girls.

"It has been eleven or twelve days since the flood, and the lords have allocated food and sent men, and the plague is still under control, and when the plague is brought under control, the gates of the city are opened. I just don't know what happened to my grandmother, the weather is so hot, I don't know if I can eat it. The seventh sister fanned with a handkerchief, and the smoky smell of the room, and she couldn't eat anything when she smelled it every day, so she lost a lot, and her jaw became more and more pointed.

"The old lady is deeply blessed, and she will be blessed by the Bodhisattva. It's just that the girl has been very thin these days, so the seventh sister eats more at every meal, don't let the wife and the old lady worry. ”

"I see. Now that the letter has been cut off inside and outside, the plague has broken out, and I am afraid that Qingzhou City will be chaotic for a long time, I don't know what happened to my uncle, but my mother has relatives over there......" Zitang didn't know how to reply when she heard it, her seventh sister was thoughtful, thought a lot, and worried a lot.

Qingqing and Yuebai were panicked when they had nothing to do, and found a red thread to turn over the hand rope, a fish basket for a while, a bridge for a while, and a dragonfly for a while, their fingers flipped flexibly, and they didn't have to think about it.

"Oh, I'm playing with the bracelet, and I'm not afraid of it falling again as soon as the rain stops." Zitang Road. There is a local saying that turning over a bracelet is a change of day, and if you turn over a bracelet today, it will rain tomorrow.

"We're only going to play for a while, and tomorrow it's going to rain a little bit to cool off the heat." Blue winked at Zitang.

"Teach me." Ying Ning watched the red rope flip, a trick for a while, and simply moved the activity, so as not to lie down on the bones, and the girl was naturally happy to hear that the girl was going to play together.

In the midst of this hardship, another ten days passed. Ying Ning heard the mother-in-law outside in Liuyun Xuan say that the gate of Kyoto was open, but she couldn't get in or out. After another three days, the Holy Lord lifted the ban and was allowed to enter and leave the capital, but there were still guards to strictly check it. In this case, the epidemic should be slightly controlled.

The displaced people were sent back to their homeland, settled down, the imperial court was exempted from forced labor and taxes, and Yuncheng, which had been hit hard, had a chance to breathe.

At this time, the sky is not as hot as it was a while ago, and only a piece of ice needs to be placed in the house. Ying Ning was playing chess and studying chess games, but her mother came. Mrs. Ji hadn't seen her daughter for a few days, and she felt that she had lost weight again, but thinking about the girl's fast, she naturally looked thin.

"What's wrong with Mother?"

"You can't come and see my daughter."

"Mother laughs, Ning'er can't wait to see her mother every day."

"This disaster has caused me not to sleep well every day, and your father also enters the palace every day, and no one in the house can live in peace. It's finally time to come and sit here. Mrs. Ji saw the chess game that Yingning had just fiddled with and said, "Seventh sister, come, play chess with your mother, we haven't sat together for a long time." Mrs. Ji sighed, when she was a boudoir lady, she also did not fall behind every day in piano, chess, calligraphy and painting.

Seeing that her mother was not in a high mood, Ying Ning didn't ask much, so she ordered Zitang to make a pot of tea and sit down with her mother.

"Yesterday I received a letter from Cloud City."

"Cloud City? Did my mother have relatives there, I never knew? Yingning's black chess player paused.

"It's a sister of my mother, called Yan Su. I've been playing with me since I was a child, and I'm always screaming at my sister. Later, she married into the Lu family in Yuncheng and never saw her again. ”

"That's a big disaster?" Ying Ning was a little surprised.

Mrs. Ji rubbed her eyes": "suffered...... "I was a little choked up halfway through speaking": the whole family suffered, and even she herself couldn't escape the plague in the end...... There's only one girl left......"

"How is her daughter? Where is it now? Yingning's hands trembled a little, and she suddenly thought about how to survive if she encountered this incident.

"Her daughter has no one to rely on, so she has to ask me to come, she is outside the city, and I plan to send someone to pick her up tomorrow."

"It's a poor man, my mother will go early tomorrow, and I guess the girl has suffered a lot of sins." ……

Jingzhu never imagined that one day she would come to such a rich family. Her father is a small county magistrate, and this county is the only county magistrate whose ancestors have ever been the biggest official. Her maternal grandfather was a five-grade official, but her mother insisted on marrying her father, and she had already turned against her family, and she would be driven out of her grandfather's house, so she begged to go to Jifu. She had only heard her mother say that there was a Mrs. Ji in Kyoto, but she never thought that the Ji family was so prominent.

In front of you is a dark green tube tile mansion, gorgeous and magnificent. Follow the Ji family's descendants from the side door in, enter the side door is the jade white stone wall, after the wall to enter the hanging flower door, there are four carved wooden screens in the hanging flower door, along the left hand copy verandah all the way, the courtyard in the middle is murmuring, the shape of the Taihu Lake stone rockery is strange, creating a sense of tranquility. Jingzhu didn't know how many houses she had entered the courtyard, and the front was so big, her eyes couldn't help but sneak around along the way, and Mother Qian behind her was a little trembling when she even walked. After passing through another moon door, I reached the front porch of the back hall.

When Mrs. Ji saw Jingzhu in the hall, she was wearing plain clothes, the bottom of her skirt was torn, she had nothing to do, and there was only an old woman by her side. A small face was dusty, only a little angry in the eyes of Danfeng, this face instantly made Mrs. Ji think of Yan Su, and her nose suddenly became sour.

"Say hello to Mrs. Ji." Jingzhu stepped forward and knelt down, prostrate on the ground, and the mother-in-law on the side also knelt down and kowtowed. Jingzhu had already died of her relatives, and she also suffered along the way, and her tears didn't have to be squeezed and flowed down.

"Good girl, I must have suffered a lot all the way." Mrs. Ji told Yan Yan to quickly help Miss Jingzhu get up and take a seat.

Jingzhu wiped her face with a handkerchief, raised her head slightly, and the Ji family's housewife in front of her was sitting on the chair of the Carved Lotus Taishi, dressed in a satin plate and gold embroidered clothes, surrounded by beads, graceful and luxurious. There are a few young women standing on the side, it should be the girls of the Ji family, all of them are dressed in brocade and have a dignified temperament, and one of them is the youngest, even the maids around them are all bright silk, wearing beaded silver hairpins. Jingzhu thought about when she could wear such clothes and jewelry......

Ying Ning felt that this Jingzhu girl was very good-looking, and her demeanor was not atmospheric, but when she cried, it was pitiful and distressing, and when she looked at people with those eyes, where did she feel uncomfortable.

"The whole family left you alone?" Ji Mu asked.

Jingzhu was thinking about some things, but Mrs. Ji didn't want to ask, so she hurriedly sat down and blessed her body": Back to Mrs. Hui's words, the day before the flood, I went to other counties with my mother to visit relatives, and happened to escape the disaster, and when I came back, the whole house was gone, how could there be relatives...... Later, the plague broke out, and the mother and the two girls did not escape......" Ji's mother wiped her tears as she listened.

"My poor girl, from now on you will live with the girls in the house, and you will recognize me as your godmother, and I will be your mother from now on. Yuqing Xiaoge has been cleaned up, just tell me if you have anything missing, don't be restrained. Mrs. Ji asked Yan Yan to go to the outer courtyard to pick two girls and send them to Yuqing Pavilion.

Jingzhu kowtowed happily when she heard this, and sweetly called her godmother, and her tear-stained little face finally smiled.

Mrs. Ji introduced a few sisters next to her, and Jingzhu screamed one by one, sweet and greasy.

"Look at her, she is going around to be clever, but she should not be an eventful person." The second sister bit her ear at the seventh sister. "It's too arbitrary to say now, let's see people's hearts over time." Yingning Road.

Jingzhu followed a mother-in-law to her residence, heard the laughter of the girl's family in the distance behind her, looked back and saw that it was a few girls from the Ji family, her footsteps gradually slowed down, and she called the mother-in-law in front of her and said, "Mom, walk slowly, my feet hurt." The woman didn't think much about it, and it was estimated that her feet were grinding.

The second sister saw that it was Jingzhu girl walking in front of her, and she didn't think to call, and the two of them were talking about yesterday's embroidery, and Yingning was not a troubled person. Jingzhu waited left and right, and couldn't wait for the girl of the Ji family to talk to her, so she paused in her footsteps, and turned around to call her sister and sister.

The girls replied, and the follow-up was gone. Jingzhu walked slowly with the girls, trying to find a conversation. The second girl looked cold and didn't seem to be a good talker, the fifth girl and the sixth girl were all concubines, and only the seventh girl looked at the face of kindness": Sister Ning, but she beat herself? It's really fine. ”

Ying Ning didn't expect her to see the veil around her waist": The fifth sister called, if you like it, ask her to call you one. ”

"I'm new here, how can I let Sister Yao call me, I should send something." Speaking of which, Jingzhu remembered something": Since I was a child, my mother also taught me to embroider a handkerchief to make a sachet, and I made a sachet for my sisters and sisters. Jingzhu was taught by her mother how to be a lady since she was a child, and she also wanted to marry a good family, and she worked very hard in embroidery women, only when she came to Jifu to see these young ladies, she knew the gap between people. Originally, it should be the age of the kiss, but she is pitiful and lonely, and the marriage can only rely on the mother of the Ji family. Cloud City is in great trouble, and I don't know the blessings and woes.

"If Sister Zhu likes me, I'll play one for you, anyway, it's okay to be idle, it's all for fun." The fifth sister said.

"Then there's Sister Lao." Jingzhu thanked her, and then found a conversation with the seventh sister without a word, until the fork in the road, the second sister and Yingning were in the same direction.

"My sister is so good-natured, she replied to her every word. Looking at her sister Ning Ning's call for geore, she doesn't know what to think, she looks restless. The second sister remembered Jingzhu's earnest appearance, rolled her eyes helplessly, and then suddenly remembered that she had been rude, so she covered her mouth with a handkerchief and coughed.

"She is also pitiful, alone, without her father and mother, and without relatives. Anyway, it doesn't bother us, so why bother. What Yingning didn't expect was that what Jingzhu did later made her unable to forgive herself for being careless and unguarded.

Jingzhu entered the Yuqing Pavilion, and her eyes couldn't stop looking around. Entering the door is a colored lacquer case, a jade porcelain bottle is placed on the case, I don't know what kind of jade, anyway, it looks good. There were two large carved chairs on the side, soft mats were laid on them, and even the windows were made of silk cloth. The inner room and the outer room were separated by a screen, and when she entered the inner room, Jingzhu looked even more happy. The bronze mirror dresser, the weaving and embroidery soft couch, the embroidery basket and embroidery frame, and the mahogany lock cabinet...... All of them are good things, Jingzhu touches this for a while, and sits and sits for a while.

The mother-in-law who led the way glanced at her and said, "Miss Zhu will live here in the future, and if she is missing, she will tell her mother who is in charge of the yard that everything in the house is valuable, and you should be careful on weekdays." ”

Listening to her mother-in-law say this, Jingzhu was a little unhappy, but thinking that this Yu's mother was in the wife's courtyard, she raised a smiling face: I know, my mother is busy with something. ”

Mrs. Yu went back to the wife's courtyard and went back to the whole thing in a proper manner.

"His father's side is all white, and it is inevitable that the daughter raised will be a little angry. Fortunately, her mother is a knowledgeable person, and Jingzhu is better than ordinary girls, so we can't ask for too much. Mrs. Ji sighed.

"That's what Madame said." Yu's mother said.

Mrs. Ji thought for a while and said, "You order, let Crimson and Ai Lu serve by Miss Zhu's side, and report anything to me." "After all, it's an outsider, although there is nothing wrong with a girl's family, but it should be guarded against. I am your mother