Records of the Cattle and Horses of Chang'an

Chapter 251: Hidden Rice

Jiang Shangxian was a little worried. Zhao Shan was a living person. He had his own ideas about whether he liked Li Xueyan or not. She couldn't force him to like her, right?

"Wu Niang, what do you think about what I told you last time? Tubo is unstable now, you have to keep this matter in mind. I think Wang Mingqian is not bad..." She really thought that Wang Mingqian looked okay. Although the Wang family is not doing well among the five surnames and seven families, after all, a lean camel is bigger than a horse, right?

She didn't know what Songtsen Gampo looked like, but didn't she know what Wang Mingqian looked like? That figure, that look, that temperament, were all impeccable. If she were to be sent to a club, she would definitely be a top star, the kind that rich ladies would line up with money to order.

"How can that be? How could he not know that I like Zhao Shan?" Li Xueyan unhappily threw the empty cup on the table and crossed her arms angrily: "If we get married, I'm afraid I'll be miserable every day."

Whenever she saw Wang Mingqian, she would think of Zhao Shan. After Jiang Shangxian said this, she would feel uncomfortable whenever she saw Wang Mingqian: "Don't talk about this anymore!"

Xiao Jiang, a "Three Good Employee," quickly grabbed the cup to prevent the company's property from being damaged. He then quickly changed his words, "No, I mean, just by looking at Wang Mingqian, I know that the Wang family's young master is not bad. Why don't I ask Cui Yi if there are any other good young masters in the Wang family?"

She felt that she had too many things to worry about every day. Because she couldn't write calligraphy, she often forgot things. So she took the opportunity to tell Li Xueyan that she really couldn't remember Princess Wencheng's name.

"Think about it, Wang Mingqian looks pretty... decent, right? Isn't he taller than Zhao Shan? Better looking than Zhao Shan?"

Li Xueyan was not convinced. "Being taller than Zhao Shan is fine, but how can she be better looking than Zhao Shan? Why do I think Zhao Shan looks better than Cui Yi?"

This is the saying that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. Zhao Shan is only good-looking and refined, and is still far from being incredibly handsome! As a beauty lover, Jiang Shangxian is quite proud of his taste: "Let me take a look at your eyes, are they blurred by mucus?"

(Eye mucus: eye mucus.)

Li Xueyan, who didn't understand, quickly took out a handkerchief and carefully wiped the corners of her eyes for a long time before moving her face closer to show her: "Is there anything else? Why didn't you tell me? I don't know if he saw it."

Jiang Shangxian:......

Well, she's meddling!

The next day at noon, Li Xueyan came running over in a hurry, her little face full of gossip.

Jiang Shangxian took a look. Gossip? What are we waiting for? The two girls immediately gathered together, while Yanxia watched the door outside.

"What makes you so panicked?" Xiao Jiang, who quickly entered the state of eating melon, had a plate of freshly cooked Tibetan rice in his arms. The dog looked sneaky, just like a badger that had prepared everything and was just waiting to eat the melon.

Tibetan glutinous rice cakes are made by mixing fine sugar bean paste with a little sedge, then wrapping them in a thin, round glutinous rice flour crust. The filling and crust are then wrapped into a delicate tube and steamed. The steamed Tibetan glutinous rice cakes have a translucent outer layer, with the filling barely visible. They're perfect to eat right out of the pot; they're soft and glutinous, with the dense, slightly sweet red bean flavor mixed with the refreshing mint.

(Mint: its history can be traced back to the Western Han Dynasty. The earliest written record appeared in "Ganquan Fu", namely: Cuanjinglu and mint.)

Li Xueyan took a Tibetan cake without hesitation and sipped it in two bites. She then drank the mint water poured by her lackey Jiang Shangxian in one gulp. Only then did she feel the heat in her body calm down. "Didn't I want to be a carrier pigeon for you and Mei Niang? I went to the palace to look for Mei Niang early this morning. You don't know, but as soon as I got to her place, I felt something was wrong. Usually, the palace maids and eunuchs just have expressionless faces, but today, they were all in a hurry. When I saw Mei Niang, oh my! I was shocked when I saw her. Her little face was pale."

"Ah? Is she sick?" Jiang Shangxian could only guess. It couldn't possibly have been frightened by Li Junxian, could it? Over half a month had passed. Even if she was frightened, she couldn't possibly still be ill. A normal, weak woman might be ill, but this was the Martial Emperor, no ordinary man.

"She was sick, but she didn't tell me the details. It was only when I asked the eunuch who sent me off when I left that one of her maids died!" When Li Xueyan said this, she looked like an old woman who was a feudal superstitious woman in the 1970s and 1980s. Her expression clearly showed that she wanted to say that there was a problem here!

Jiang Shangxian is willing to cooperate highly with anyone who is willing to share gossip with her. After all, there were no mobile phones or the Internet at that time, and she had to rely on these people to know gossip and pass the time!

"Ah! How could he die out of nowhere? Did he have some kind of acute illness?" Just looking at her expression. Listening to the tone of her voice, she seemed to be extremely surprised. In fact, she didn't find it strange at all, because in her cognition, death in the palace was very normal. How many rumors were there in the Forbidden City alone?

There were rumors about seeing palace maids walking in groups without saying a word and silently entering the wall one by one, and hearing crying sounds from a sealed well in the middle of the night. These rumors ultimately came from the same source - too many people died in feudal society!

Was it only King Zhou who was brutal during the Shang and Zhou dynasties? Even in the earliest period of Chinese history, human sacrifices were practiced, with individual body parts sacrificed separately. Furthermore, the ritualists shared the offerings afterward, along with other horrific customs. Aren't these all manifestations of feudal society, where the lower classes were treated like animals?

If there was anything strange about the death of a palace maid, it was only one thing - the palace maid beside Wu Meiniang.

"Wasn't he fine when you went there yesterday? How come he died in just one night? Was he one of the people who served Wu Cairen before?" She stuffed a Tibetan cake into her mouth, tilted her head and pretended to be trying hard to recall.

She didn't dare to look around that day, and she couldn't remember what the four palace maids looked like.

Li Xueyan shook her head: "I don't remember that. It's not important who died. What's important is that this person died in the palace!"

Where else could a palace maid die if not in the palace? Jiang Shangxian paused chewing his cheeks like a hamster, his eyes filled with confusion.

"oops!"

Li Xueyan slapped herself on the forehead lightly. "I forgot. You probably don't know the palace rules. Death in the palace is extremely unlucky and can easily ruin the feng shui. Normally, if a palace servant is on the verge of death, they are moved to Shanghaofang as soon as possible before they die."

Therefore, under normal circumstances, ordinary palace maids and eunuchs would be urgently carried away on a roll of straw mat and thrown into Shanghaofang when they were about to die.