Xu Mingwei's eyes immediately lit up, "Big brother's letter? Where is it? Bring it here and let me see. "
The few girls all covered their mouths as they laughed. Wan Rong was the most generous one as she took out the letter from the drawer of the dressing table. After carefully opening it, there was only a thin piece of paper inside. After looking through it a few times, there were only a few lines of words on it, without a doubt, they had already arrived at the ancestral home. The letter even mentioned that on the day he started writing, the clan elders had been called to open ancestral halls, and they had complained about how boring and hilarious the Buddhist monks were. Finally, they mentioned that they would be home in around ten days. Of course, Xu Mingbai and Xu Mingzhang were not part of the returning army. Once the matter of offering sacrifices was settled, they would have to return to the academy to study.
With a little melancholy, Xu Mingwei folded the letter and stuffed it back into the envelope. There were still ten days left, adding that they would have to delay on the road, it was most likely that they would be back in May. Lady Helan and the others didn't feel it before, but now that they were no longer by their side, they felt a sense of loneliness.
Seeing her expression suddenly change, Wan Rong and the others thought that the letter was bad news, and looked at each other in dismay for a moment, not daring to ask.
Seeing their nervous expressions, Xu Mingwei laughed and said, "Big brother's letter said that Grandfather and the rest will be back in ten days. It seems that they will be delayed until May."
Only then did the girls understand. The lady was missing her parents.
Wan Rong laughed, "Sooner or later, you will have to come back. In front of us, I forgot to tell the young lady, and the young master had even sent someone to bring something back. Wan Rou did not enter the warehouse yet, she was just waiting for the young lady to come back and take a look.
Xu Mingwei guessed that it was the zither that Xu Mingbai promised when he returned home. Her hind legs followed Wan Rou and the others into the inner room. Sure enough, she saw a huge guqin box laid horizontally on the table.
"Miss, quickly open it and take a look." Wan Ting squeezed beside Wan Yi and urged him excitedly. Those that didn't know the answer would think that she was the one who accepted the gift.
Xu Mingwei opened the box, revealing the Ancient Phoenix Zither that was placed on top of the brocade cloth. The body of the zither belonged to Pauline, Rosewood for Jiao Wei, Yue Shan, Dragon Gums and other parts. Xu Mingwei looked for a long time, before suddenly flipping over the guqin. As expected, she found a row of small characters at the bottom, "Withered wood at the Spring, another year."
Wan Rong and the others stayed at the side and watched for a long time. Recently, they had been learning how to read and write, so they asked her curiously, "What is carved on the top of this lady's head?"
Xu Mingwei pointed to that line of small words and read it one by one, then explained, "It means that this bad thing will eventually pass, and good things will eventually happen."
Wan Ting really liked this line of small characters, which made it so that Xu Mingwei had to teach her how to write.
Wan Rou laughed at her superstition, then said: "Since you don't want to, I'll take this as a good omen."
However, Wan Yi was curious, and asked: "Miss, what words are written behind the zither?"
A few of the girls were also intrigued, they looked towards Xu Mingwei waiting for her to explain, making her laugh instead.
"Every guqin that comes out of an ancient pavilion has these words written on the back. "My big brother has always been lazy. It seems like all the other shops are closed except for his." Xu Mingwei fondled the word engraved, and laughed.
"The Eldest Young Master treats the young lady so well." Wan Ting sighed in envy. Not to mention them, even the commoners outside the pavilion were very clear on how expensive the things inside were.
Her big brother only had her as his sister, who could he treat better than her? Xu Mingwei thought.
At this time, Wan Rou pulled her to the side and said with a proud tone, "Miss, there's more over here."
Only now did Xu Mingwei realize that there was actually a Phoenix Box that was around the same size at the side, and she asked curiously, "What is this again? Could it be that my big brother's pocket burned so much that he bought two of the same guqin? "
Wan Rou thought, the young master did not burn so much money in his pockets. Every year, he would fall into their courtyard and buy some strange things. Some of the things he bought were things they recognized, but some were things they had never seen before.
Xu Mingwei went over and opened the lid. Fortunately, it was not a zither, but a zither made from sandalwood.
She was just about to be moved by Xu Mingbai's intentions when Wan Ting once again pulled her hand and flipped open the dressing box for her to see.
Xu Mingwei would usually play around with the things inside, but she saw two extra little Taurus in one glance. One of its eyes was inlaid with rubies, the other was embedded with diamonds.
She had never seen anyone in the Tianqi who could make jewelry from diamonds before, so she couldn't help but take a second look. At this time, Wan Rou also followed along, her mouth pouting, "The stone that Fourth Young Master gave me, I wonder what kind of stone is embedded inside, it's bright, but I wonder if it's valuable?"
Wan Rong tapped her lightly, and laughed, "It is all Fourth Young Master's intentions whether or not you're worth the money, why are you so vulgar today?"
Xu Mingwei looked at them and explained, "This is a diamond, it's also called a diamond. It was hard to tell how long the craftsman had taken to make such a small one. Fourth brother must have spent a lot of silver to buy this. "
Wan Rou was speechless, she did not dare to casually throw the little Taurus into the toilet box anymore. After snatching it from Xu Mingwei's hands, she wanted to lock it in the warehouse, making everyone not know whether to laugh or cry.
Other than giving her a present, Xu Mingbai did not forget to bring something back for Xu Mingmei. Wan Rong took it and showed it to her. It was a new set of embroidery patterns from the south, and a chess piece made of ivory. The former suited Xu Mingmei's intentions the most, while the latter took up the word 'valuable'. It could be seen how diligent Xu Mingbai was in choosing these gifts.
"There are also two colorful cloud brocades over here. First Young Master specifically selected them for you to send to five girls." Wan Rong added, "Does Miss want the servants to send them over now?"
Xu Mingwei shook her head, "Let's wait until tomorrow, then we can talk about it. We should tidy up these things first, and occupy this place for free."
The girls agreed and happily put away the box. The snowball that was annoyed by Xu Mingwei just now squatted on top of the cabinet and looked at the people walking around while holding things, yawning out of boredom. Seeing Xu Mingwei walking towards the cabinet, it suddenly jumped at her head, causing Wan Ting, who was the closest to him, to turn pale in fright.
Fortunately, the snowball landed on Xu Mingwei's shoulder steadily and did not extend its claws. Wan Rong and the rest looked at Wan Ting's pale face, only then did they realise how dangerous of a scene had just occurred. It was fortunate that she did not shout out in fright, otherwise, if the snowball made any mistakes in the middle, then if her claws landed on their girl's face, wouldn't she be skinned alive by the master and his wife!
With a pale face, Wan Rong grabbed the evil cat from Xu Mingwei's shoulder and threw it out of the window. Xu Mingwei didn't even have time to stop it before the snowball meowed shrilly and landed on the flowers.
Fortunately, they lived in bungalows!
Xu Mingwei saw that the snowball had gotten up from the flowers and walked away while shaking its fur. She then turned to look at the people and sighed, "Why would I need to do this, cats don't know anything. Just teach them slowly."
Xu Mingwei knew that if she was injured, they would all be punished, so she didn't say anything more and instructed Wan Yi to go to the courtyard to get the cat so that they wouldn't have to face the fleas again.
Wan Yi and the others searched the courtyard for a long time, but they could not find any snowball s. After saying that to Xu Mingwei later, Xu Mingwei could only give up. After being thrown out like that by Wan Rong, would probably need a long time before she came back. It was only after a long time did she barely open her eyes. A pair of green eyes stared fixedly at her under the feeble oil lamp, and she almost lost her soul in fright. Only later on did she recognize that the snowball had come back, but she did not know where it had come from.
She yawned and touched the snowball, then whispered, "Little bastard, where did you run off to before coming back in the middle of the night?"
The snowball was naturally unable to answer her. It meowed tenderly, and let out happy snores from its throat.
Xu Mingwei could not help but laugh bitterly, this little snore was as though someone was snoring at the side, how could he still sleep?
Early morning of the next day, Wan Yi and the others came to open the curtain and a white ball of fur suddenly jumped out.
Wan Yi immediately looked into the bed. She saw that Xu Mingwei was sitting up with clear eyes and a tired expression.
Wan Ting held onto her chest, still having some lingering fear, "Mother, you scared me to death. I thought Miss had turned into a cat and ran away."
"Pei pei pei, what nonsense. The snowball clearly came back in the middle of the night. It was you who was on duty last night. How could you not know that the cat went to the girl's bed? " Wan Yi rebuked.
Wan Ting wanted to defend herself, but she was not confident in her own abilities. After all, she had indeed slept for a while last night.
Xu Mingwei impatiently listened to their bickering early in the morning, and stopped, "Alright, enough, the snowball is willing to come to my bed to sleep, no one is allowed to stop it, have you heard it?"
Wan Rong still had a few words of advice she wanted to give, but after seeing the warning look in Xu Mingwei's eyes, she gave up. All the servants in this room knew clearly in their hearts that there was no room for change in any of the girls' words. She could only remind her in a low voice, "Miss, it's getting late. We should prepare to enter the palace earlier."