The two maids are fat and thin, the fat maid on the right is the fat maid, in fact, she looks pretty good, her skin is very white and her facial features are also very delicate, but her body is too fat, it is estimated that there are 150 pounds up, as the so-called "one fat destroys all", the aesthetics of the early Tang Dynasty were not as plump as they did later, and it is estimated that this is also the reason why she was given to Li Xiu.

I saw that the fat maid hesitated for a moment, and then said in a crisp voice: "Master Qiqi, slave...... The slave's name is Yuechan, and she is in the year of Jilu! ”

Li Xiu didn't expect that this fat girl's voice was quite good, and her speech was also very elegant, and she was fifteen years old when she was young, but her body shape looked a little older than her actual age. Then Li Xiu looked at another girl, this girl looked twelve or thirteen years old at most, she looked thin and small, but she was a bit like Liu Lao's mother.

"The slave's name is Liu'er, fourteen this year, I salute you, master!" Although this thin girl is younger, she is very clever, and her speech speed is fast and crisp, and at the same time she salutes Li Xiu, and her whole body is full of intelligence.

"Very good, Yuechan, Liu'er, now we are a family, all kinds of housework at home in the future need to be taken care of by the two of you together, and the two of you live in the West Wing, now I give you a task, that is, to clean the room together!" Li Xiu tried his best to make a kind appearance and said, the two maids were minors in the next life, so it always made him feel a little awkward, as if they were illegally using child labor.

"Yes!" Yuechan and Liu'er agreed, saluted Li Xiu and then turned around and went to the wing, they are all official slaves who have entered the lowly status, to put it mildly, their life and death are in the hands of Li Xiu, and if they escape, it is a dead end to be caught, so unless the master is too harsh, ordinary officials and slaves rarely dare to escape.

The west wing has been empty, and there are some messy sundries piled up in it, Li Xiu was too lazy to clean it up before, and it was full of dust, but the two girls were not too dirty at all, and they went in to clean it up with their heads wrapped in handkerchiefs, and the useful things were wiped clean and put away, and the useless things were piled up in the yard, planning to throw them out later.

It was getting late, and Li Xiu suddenly realized that he had neglected one thing, he patronized and asked Yuechan and the two to clean the room, but he forgot that there was only one bed at home, and there was no extra bedding, which made them sleep at night, do you want the three of them to sleep together? I'll go, this idea is just too evil!

"Uncle Liu, they have a lot of children in their family, they definitely don't have extra beds and bedding, so they can't go to Uncle Ma to borrow them again, right?" Li Xiu said to himself at this time, if it was before, he would definitely borrow it without hesitation, but the last time he borrowed a piece of pancreas, he had already angered Ma Ye, and this time he really didn't have the face to borrow something again.

At this time, not only Li Xiu noticed the problem of the bed, but the two maids also discovered the problem, and then the two glanced at each other, and then discussed a few words in a whisper, and then ran to the kitchen and began to hold wheat straw into the room, that is, the wheat stalk left after the wheat was threshed, this thing is very flammable, so it is generally used as fuel.

"What do you do?" Seeing this, Li Xiu hurriedly stopped them and asked, it was not easy to clean the room, and then carry the wheat straw in, wouldn't it be dirty again?

"Master, I don't see that there is an extra bed at home, so I discussed it with Sister Yuechan, and I am going to hold some wheat straw to keep warm, we have slept like this before." Liu Er saw Li Xiu stopping them, and said a little timidly at the moment, although she was clever, she was still a little afraid of Li Xiu, the master.

"You ......" Li Xiu was a little sad when he heard Liu Er's words, he didn't expect this well-behaved little girl to have such a past, and now he suddenly thought of something, so he asked, "Liu Er, I forgot to ask just now, who were you before, why were you used to be used as official slaves?" ”

Hearing Li Xiu ask about his past, Liu Er and Yuechan glanced at each other, and then saw Yuechan say softly: "Master, we used to be palace maids in the Nanliang Palace, and later Nanliang was destroyed, and we were also escorted to Chang'an, and then we were used as official slaves, some sisters were given to the ministers of the court, and Liu Er and I were sent to the Yeting Palace to wash clothes, and we were selected to give to the master yesterday!" ”

"You are actually the palace maids of Nanliang?" Li Xiu couldn't help but be very surprised when he heard this, and then said to himself, "This is really a coincidence, I just saw the emperor of Nanliang Xiao Mo killed during the day today, and then I saw you, it seems that I am really destined for this Nanliang!" ”

As soon as Li Xiu's words fell, he saw that Yuechan on the other side suddenly turned pale, and the wheat straw in his arms also fell, as if he was greatly frightened, which made him say strangely: "Yuechan, what's wrong with you, are you uncomfortable?" ”

"I didn't ...... No! Yuechan suddenly looked a little panicked at this time, and at this time, Liu Er suddenly asked with some eagerness, "Master, has His Majesty the Emperor really been killed?" ”

"yes, what's wrong?" At this time, Li Xiu found that Liu Er also showed a sad look on his face, they didn't know the news of Xiao Miao's killing today, and Liu Er called Xiao Mi His Majesty, if this is heard by others, I am afraid it will be enough to kill the head.

"Alas, we Jiangnan people all say that Your Majesty is a good emperor, and Your Majesty took the initiative to surrender, I thought that Your Majesty could save his life, but I didn't expect him to die." At this time, Yuechan also said with tears in the corners of her eyes.

Seeing Yuechan and Liu Er's sad appearance, Li Xiu was also a little surprised, it seems that Xiao Miao's rule in the south is very popular, and even the two little palace maids are grateful to him, but the more this is the case, the more it shows that Li Yuan is really a little wrong this time, because for the Tang Dynasty, it is easier to appease the people in Jiangnan by leaving Xiao Miao's life, and now that Xiao Mi is dead, I am afraid that the south will be a little unpeaceful.

But the above is none of Li Xiu's business, the most important thing for him now is to find a bed for the two girls to sleep in, seeing that it is almost dark, it is too late to go into the city to buy it, but this is not difficult for him, looking up and seeing that there is still a period of time before it gets dark, so Li Xiu opened his mouth and asked, "Which of the two of you can cook?" ”

"Me!" Liu Er was the first to jump out and say.

"Very good, Liu'er, you go to the kitchen to cook, Yuechan, you stay and help me make something, and if you do this thing, you will naturally have a bed!" Li Xiu immediately instructed that he was going to make the soap, and then went to Ma Ye to borrow something in the name of sending the soap.

Liu Er agreed, and happily ran to the kitchen to cook, but Yuechan stayed at a loss, I don't know what Li Xiu wants her to help? However, Li Xiu quickly instructed her to raise a fire, and then fetched half a bucket of clean water, and then Li Xiu poured the oil he bought into it to let the pigments and impurities in the oil enter the water, which was also a simple purification of the oil court.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, Li Xiu poured the bought flour alkali into a large cauldron, then added water to dissolve it, and finally put quicklime into it, quicklime dissolved in water to obtain calcium hydroxide, and then reacted with sodium carbonate to form calcium carbonate precipitation, and the rest was an aqueous solution of sodium hydroxide. Next, Li Xiu poured the oil into the aqueous solution, heated and stirred.

The alkali reacts with the oil, and soon a white and yellow soap base appears, and it is all in a clump, which looks a little disgusting. For this series of magical changes in front of her, Yuechan seemed a little absent-minded, relying on Li Xiu's command to do things, and during the period, she was almost burned by the sodium hydroxide solution, which made Li Xiu a little helpless, it seems that Yuechan is a little stupid in addition to being fat, and she can only arrange some simple work for her to do in the future.

The soap base is taken out and put into a clean small porcelain basin, and the next thing is to heat the soap base to make it liquid, add spices and then cool it to form, so that a simple piece of soap is made, which is called handmade soap on the Internet in later generations.

However, the soap base can not be directly heated on the fire, but to put the porcelain basin in hot water, because the melting point of the soap base is very low, it can be turned into liquid in hot water, as for the spice Li Xiu did not dare to buy indiscriminately, only bought some rosin to add it, and put some soybean flour into it, which is said to protect the skin from roughness, and finally Li Xiu found a square box and poured the liquid soap base into it to solidify, so that the most primitive soap was completed.

"Master, what are you doing here?" At this time, Liu Er had already cooked the meal, and was looking at Li Xiu's movements with his little head in both hands and asked.

"This is also a pancreas, you can wash your hands and bathe, and of course you can wash clothes, but the production cost of this thing is too high!" Li Xiu also said a little distressed at this time, just such a large piece of soap, the cost alone costs nearly six yuan, which is not counting the labor cost, if you calculate it in this way, the soap is really not something that ordinary people can use.

"This is the pancreas, I've only heard of it before, but I haven't seen it with my own eyes!" Liu Er was very happy to hear this, she was a little palace maid doing chores when she was in Nanliang, and she didn't have the opportunity to contact any nobles, let alone after coming to Datang, so naturally she hadn't seen what a pancreas looked like.

Compared with Liu Er, Yuechan seemed to have some insight, and when she heard Li Xiu say that the soap was pancreas, she also showed a puzzled expression on her face, as if she wanted to say something, but in the end she still didn't say it.

The soap was ready, Li Xiu used a knife to cut the soap into four small pieces, and he didn't have to think about any aesthetic problems, anyway, the pancreas he borrowed last time was not very good-looking, so he directly packed the two pieces of soap in the box containing the pancreas last time, and the remaining two pieces were used by himself, and then let Yuechan and Liu'er eat at home, and he swaggered to Ma Ye.