In the next few days, Shuning tried to probe her mother's tone, and on the grounds that "I haven't seen the big Western ship my brother wants to see until now", she grinded for a few days, and finally got permission to go to the vicinity of the thirteen lines of Baietan, and take a look at the foreign ships moored there.

It's a pity that she didn't go alone, not only Chunxing followed, but also a group of palanquin men led by Wang Er and his wife. When she arrived near the dock, she could only get out of the sedan car and look at it from afar.

Thirteen Rows are actually a couple of small two-storey buildings with a bit of Western style, half wood and half brick, next to a row of completely Chinese-style houses. There were many people walking down the street in front of the house, and not far in front of the wharf, where many Western ships were parked, as well as many single-sailed Chinese cargo ships, and many small boats shuttling between the big boats.

As depicted in the books she had read before the crossing, the hulls of Western ships were somewhat trapezoidal, but the ends of the bow were particularly long, with several heavy white sails, and a circular rudder could be faintly seen in the direction of the bow.

There were planks between the shore and the land, and several porters carried goods back and forth, and some merchant-like men were holding pen and paper or abacus, recording and calculating something. A few blonde and blue-eyed foreigners are either negotiating with Chinese merchants, looking into the distance, or walking ashore.

Shuning summoned Wang Er and asked him to inquire about the ships of which countries were parked at the dock. After two quarters of an hour, Wang Er came back and said: "I have asked, the ship that is unloading in front is a ship from France, and the ships in the west are all ships of a small country called Holland, and I don't know the others." ”

Shuning hurriedly asked, "Is there a ship from England?" Wang Er said: "That's not true, I heard that I just left a few days ago, and it came from this British ...... Chicken ...... Anglican. ”

Shuning was a little disappointed, now is not the era of global English. She didn't know French or Dutch, not to mention that there were a bunch of people following her, so she couldn't help it. I'll have to talk about it later. She looked at it for a while, and then went home.

Although it's just an excuse. But she still drew the Western ships very carefully, and prepared to show them to Duan Ning when she wrote to him in the future.

Two days later, Tong asked the Liu sisters to be guests at home and asked them about their situation at home. Da Liu said indifferently: "I have my own body, and I don't need them to support me." It's just a matter of living together for convenience. What's more, my uncle is still here, and the mother-in-law doesn't dare to do anything. Tong asked her, "Do you really want to marry again?" Da Liu paused and said with a wry smile: "Sister Tong, what do you think she found for me is a good relative?" It's just that it's rich, but it's not to mention the trustworthiness of the person, and it's small. I'm not the kind of dead-eyed person, others have lost me, I won't defend him for a lifetime, it's just that I've suffered enough to make a small loss. If you want me to remarry, unless someone carries me through the door with eight sedan chairs to make the main house, I would rather live alone for the rest of my life! ”

She spoke with a firm expression. Tong sighed and stopped persuading her. He turned to ask Xiao Liu: "Then what about you?" You're still young. If you look good, it will be much easier to remarry. Xiao Liu said with red eyes: "I'm just a Kefu land." Why do you want to get married? Da Liu's eyebrows straightened: "Who said you Kefu?!" It's all your aunt, trying to plot the little money left by your dead ghost man, instigating your in-laws to drive you out! Xiao Liu lowered his head and whispered: "Even if he doesn't Kefu, he treated me well before he died, and I don't want to fail him." What's more, I can't see my son now, if I remarry and have children, won't I forget Xiaobao more and more? "Big Liu stomped his feet, and Tong didn't want to talk any more.

After sending them away, Tong deliberately found a famous doctor in the community, and asked him to treat his uncle of the Liu family with the money from the outpatient consultation. She knew that the sisters were not very wealthy, so she sent something over from time to time to help them. I was on the dividing line of midsummer, and the weather was getting hotter and hotter, but it didn't rain, as if the rainy season was over after the first rain known as "dragon boat water". Cicadas chirp in the backyard, in the garden, and in the trees outside the fence, getting louder and louder every day, irritating the heart.

Shuning's family is from the north, and she has lived in Mukden for a long time, so she is really not used to this kind of hot and sultry weather. Tong can only nest in the room and play a fan during the day, and he doesn't want to go outside at all. She didn't think the straw mat she slept on on weekdays was not cool enough, so she specially asked someone to buy a good Shuzhou bamboo mat and came back.

Zhang Bao has never been accustomed to taking a bath every day, even if he is drenched in the rainy season, he just wipes his body with a hot hand towel. But now the weather is so hot, as long as you don't take a shower for a day, the smell of sweat on your body is unbearable. Tong's love is clean and has a clean body every day, so he can't stand the smell of Zhang Bao. Poor Zhang Bao had just moved back to the upper room for less than a month, and was driven back to the room to sleep.

He himself doesn't care much about his hygiene, but he is bothered by the fact that he gets itchy after two days without showering.

Shuning saw that he was always frowning and scratching his back, so he thought it was funny, so he asked someone to cut a few pieces of bamboo, made a "don't ask for help" and gave it to his father, and said with a smile: "Although this thing can tickle, but it only treats the symptoms but not the root cause, Ama is better to take a bath diligently." He was scolded by Zhang Bao and kicked out of the room.

There is still bamboo left, Shuning thinks about it, and simply makes it all into utensils. She drew a few pictures, namely a pen holder, a five-finger massager, a massager and a rollerball foot massager, and then handed it to the bamboo craftsman, and within two days, they were all made, among which the ball-bearing foot massager floor beads were made of wood.

Tong was most interested in the two massagers, and went directly to her room, Zhang Bao took the pen holder and five fingers and did not ask for help, Shuning only got a low pen holder, which was made by a bamboo craftsman with the remaining small section of bamboo.

The bamboo craftsman refused to accept the money, but asked Shuning if he could let him sell those massagers. Shuning originally Yanren Zhang Fei wanted to act according to the previous practice of sprinkling and sweeping the land, but after thinking about it carefully, now that the second sister-in-law is not there, her family is not familiar with Guangzhou, and it is not convenient to collect money as before. Besides, it's just a simple little craft. You can't make a lot of money, and it's easy to be imitated. Now that the family is getting richer and richer, she can have an allowance of one or two pieces of silver every month. You don't have to make that little money. So she said to the bamboo craftsman that if he wanted to sell it, he could sell it. It's just that in the future, she will tell her to do the work on the ground, and he will only accept the material money. The bamboo craftsman immediately responded.

Similar bamboo products soon appeared on the market, and there were many more tricks, and I heard that they were quite popular. When Shuning learned the news from Ah Song, there was no reaction. I was attracted to another thing. It turned out that the boot material version of the raincoat that was only popular in the government before the Dragon Boat Festival is now sold on the street, and there are other materials and colors to choose from, including long-bodied, half-body, sleeved, short-sleeved, hard-bodied, and soft. Hated, unhatted, solid color. Bordered, all sorted. The choice is yours. Although it didn't rain. But the summer in Lingnan is rainy, so it's always a good idea to buy it back in advance. Within three days. All the raincoats were swept away, and the merchants happily put away the shop boards, and after a few days, two or three hundred more pieces came out.

Shuning was once again dumbfounded, greatly admiring the business sense and speed of the ancients. She was very interested, and asked someone to buy a few clothes, in addition to the ones for the servants, there were also "children's clothes" for herself.

Just bought it for a few days and the raincoat came in handy. After half a month of hot and muggy weather, it suddenly began to rain in the sky. Just when Shuning and Tong thought they could cool off for a few days, the wind suddenly blew again, mixed with the rain particles of the bean field poured down, the doors and windows were blown crackling, the roof tiles were about to move, the sand and rocks flying outside the house, and the pedestrians avoided one after another. A typhoon is coming.

This typhoon, with heavy rainfall, ravaged the city of Guangzhou. Shuning listened to the sound of wind and rain outside mixed with sand and stones hitting the window frame, and worried about whether the window would be broken.

The wind and rain were so strong that all the doors and windows of the house had to be closed tightly, and the rain would pour in as long as there was a gap. People walking through the verandah in the backyard with an umbrella will be half soaked. Tong felt that it was too inconvenient to continue to live in the backyard, so he simply locked the upper room and moved to the first room with his son to live with Zhang Bao.

The rain in the courtyard often overflowed the corridors, and several servants in the prime of life made beds out of a few stools and bed boards in the antechamber and stairwell, and slept on them at night for vigil. If the rain really flooded under the porch, they had to get up and put on their raincoats at once, and brave the storm to remove the garbage from the drainage outlets in the yard, and then sweep all the water under the porch.

The typhoon lasted only two days before heading north, but the rain didn't stop until three days later.

Zhang Bao hurriedly took Mr. Su and Changgui to the yamen. He had to inquire about the damage in the city, and he had to go outside the city to inspect the farmland and fish ponds.

The whole family was busy drying things and repairing the house, and Ah Yin was worried about the situation at home, so he asked the Tong family for leave and went home. In order to repair her house, Ah Hua Adi also stopped coming for the time being. Shuning accompanied her mother back to the room, feeling a little depressed.

Tong asked her what was wrong, and she said: "I just went to the back garden, and all the flowers planted before were drowned, and the lotus flowers that had just been planted for two or three months showed a little flower bones, but now they are gone." ”

Tong said softly: "If you don't plant it again, the lotus flower is born in the water, and it won't die because there is more water." And in a little while, it will grow again. ”

Shuning nodded, and smiled again: "Now I finally know what the typhoon day looks like, the strong wind that blew in Mukden that year, my brother also said that there is no more powerful wind than that, who knows that compared to the typhoon in Lingnan, that wind is nothing at all." ”

Tong laughed at her: "You've only seen a few typhoons, so you know that this is the most powerful?" Maybe there's even more wind. ”

At least she hadn't seen a tornado or a hurricane or anything like that, and she whispered next to her mother, "I wonder what my brother is doing now?" I don't know if he received the letter to him? ”

The expression on Tong's face softened, and he said: "It's not reading a book or practicing martial arts, the messenger of Lord Liang's family is fast-paced, and he must have already arrived in the capital." "I am a dividing line thousands of miles away, but the Tong family didn't guess correctly, Duan Ning is not reading a book now, nor is he practicing martial arts.

He was accompanying his grandfather to someone's house with his second cousin Shun Ning. The purpose of this trip, in addition to catching up with the older generation of family members in various provinces, is to see if you can find a suitable marriage partner for Shunning, and by the way, also to explore the tone of each family, to see if anyone is willing to accept Fangning, and it doesn't matter if you continue to fill the house. Fang Ning was brushed off at the first hurdle of the draft, but fortunately she didn't get too much trouble in the process. Probably because everyone knew that she couldn't be chosen, so they focused on others.

In this way, Fang Ning's lifelong decisions returned to his family. After discussing with his wife, the old lord Harqi decided that if even a few acquaintances were unwilling to accept Fang Ning, he would send her out of the capital as well, and come back after a few years when things had faded, or simply let people go out of town.

Duan Ning originally went with him as an escort, but in the middle of the conversation, he found that others were more interested in him, and he was surprised, praying in his heart that his grandfather would not be confused for a while and set a marriage for him.

Fortunately, Halqi had his own ideas about Duanning's family affairs, and he didn't plan to make a decision too early, so he deduced that the child was still young and his parents were not around, so he would wait until the marriage of his two cousins was completed.

As soon as he said this, Duan Ning secretly breathed a sigh of relief, and glanced at Shun Ning, both smiling bitterly.