The System Wanted Me to Be a Landlady (GL) - Chapter 51: No Disdain Allowed

Chapter 51: No Disdain Allowed

Song Yuyan looked at Tang Zhi in confusion. Based on her understanding of this little girl, she absolutely would not come wandering over here for no reason.

Her sharp eyes spotted the corner of a cloth bag peeking out from behind Tang Zhi. Although she did not know what was inside, her intuition told her it had something to do with Tang Zhi coming over. But since the other person had not brought it up on her own, Song Yuyan did not want to rush in and ask. So she said, “It does not matter if there is nothing. Come in and sit for a bit.”

Tang Zhi lied for the first time, and her heart felt hot with embarrassment. Hearing Song Yuyan’s words without any suspicion, she felt a bit disappointed but also slightly relieved.

Once inside the room, she discovered that a large open space had been cleared in the courtyard on the west side of the Song house. Many bamboo pieces and bamboo weaves had been moved into the main hall.

She remembered Song Yuyan saying she wanted to repair the rooms on the west side, so she asked, “Are you planning to start repairing the west courtyard now?”

When this came up, the corners of Song Yuyan’s mouth turned up. “Yes, it took a lot of effort to save up enough money. Better to fix it early, so Ye’er and Bing’er do not have to squeeze into one room anymore. Right now Bing’er is still young, and not many people talk about it, but if they grow a bit older, there will definitely be more loose-tongued folks.”

In the eyes of outsiders, Song Yuyan’s relationship with Ye’er had improved quite a bit by now, so the two of them sharing a room was no problem. Song Yuyan should clear out a room on the east side for Bing’er. But the key was that Song Yuyan was not really a young man, so Tang Zhi never advised her to do that.

Song Yuyan poured Tang Zhi a bowl of water with sugar added, so Tang Zhi felt it was sweet and silky when she drank it. Seeing her sit down but still clutching the cloth bag, Song Yuyan could tell the thing inside was quite important to her. This made it even less appropriate to ask about it directly.

After Tang Zhi finished the water, another little voice in her heart urged her to take this chance to give away the carving knife. She looked around and decided to find a topic first, then get to the main point when the timing felt right.

But her heart was tense, and as soon as she opened her mouth, she said, “Bing’er is not here?”

As soon as she said it, she wished she could bite off her own tongue. Bing’er was at the Tang house doing lessons with her little sister, and before she left, she had reminded the two little ones to watch the house well.

She could almost see the puzzled, teasing, and curious look in Song Yuyan’s eyes. Thinking of this, her face flushed with embarrassment, and she avoided Song Yuyan’s gaze, not daring to look straight at the person.

But she had thought wrong. Although Song Yuyan was indeed looking at her, she did not mock her for asking a question she already knew the answer to, as she had imagined. What Song Yuyan was pondering was:

“Could it be that this little girl just came back from outside and has not gone home yet?”

She said, “Young lady, you just came back from outside, right? Bing’er went to your house. Lately she has started learning to draw too, so in her free time, I let her go over and practice with Little Ye together.”

Of course Tang Zhi knew about this, but Song Yuyan’s explanation eased her embarrassment.

“The vegetable garden has not had any thieves lately, has it?” Song Yuyan asked again.

Tang Zhi shook her head and suddenly remembered a piece of good news to share with Song Yuyan. She livened up all at once. “There are not many thieves daring to steal vegetables from my family’s garden anymore. I heard Big Brother say that the prefectural yamen seems to want to transfer him over. If the performance review goes without issues, it could happen as early as the end of the year.”

Song Yuyan was slightly surprised. From the county yamen to the prefectural yamen, on the surface it was just changing places to work as a clerk, but in reality it was a promotion.

In the Tang dynasty, clerks had a path of advancement called “entering the inner flow from the outer flow,” which meant that clerks, like officials, started from the bottom as clerks. Every five years, if they passed the government’s examination, they could rise up. Although it might take ten or twenty years for a clerk to truly enter the officialdom, clerks were still very sought after.

Although the Zhou dynasty’s policies no longer had the official term “entering the inner flow from the outer flow,” in practice there was still much room to maneuver. Because the Zhou dynasty’s policies stipulated that even ordinary commoners, as long as they made outstanding contributions, could be granted an official position—although it was the lowest ninth-rank sesame official, and the path of promotion was not like that of scholars, a ninth-rank sesame official was still an official!

Of course, Tang Haogen’s “promotion” was still a long way from becoming an official, but working as a clerk in the prefectural yamen was certainly much better than in the county yamen.

Normally, promotions prioritized clerks with more seniority. Tang Haogen had only been a clerk in the county yamen for three years, far from enough to meet the conditions for promotion. So there must be someone deliberately promoting him… Song Yuyan thought of Liu Chuo.

Since Liu Chuo canceled the policy of conscripting civilians to dredge the two lakes last time, he had been devoted to relieving the disaster-stricken people. First he organized the wealthy households in Mingzhou to contribute money and effort, then he led the officials below to console the disaster victims everywhere, and he was also busy supervising and inspecting the post-disaster reconstruction work…

None of these measures touched the interests of those powerful families, so they were implemented smoothly without any obstruction.

Liu Chuo had indeed felt the threat from the local powerful families’ influence, which had already infiltrated the yamen. He sighed that to smoothly implement policies, he still needed his own people around him.

When he took office, he only brought his wife and children along with two servants, and the servants only took care of the Liu family’s daily life, unable to help with yamen affairs. Even the clerks in the prefectural yamen were all locals from Mingzhou, and he could not tell which clerks were the eyes and ears of the powerful families.

For this reason, he urgently wanted to place some of his own people around him, and he thought of a very suitable candidate—Tang Haogen.

Tang Haogen had once reminded him to be careful of Mingzhou’s landlord powerful families, so he absolutely was not standing on their side. Plus, he had no father or mother, and his family could not achieve much, posing no threat to him. Using Tang Haogen would give him no worries later.

Now the development of history had already deviated greatly from the original host’s memories, so Song Yuyan could no longer be sure of the future direction—if Tang Haogen followed Liu Chuo and things succeeded, Liu Chuo’s achievements would be impressive, and his status would naturally rise; if it failed like in the previous life, Tang Haogen would definitely be implicated.

Song Yuyan fell into thought. It was impossible to tell Tang Haogen not to side with Liu Chuo, and to make sure Tang Haogen avoided being implicated, the best way was to let Liu Chuo win this battle…

Song Yuyan had no ambitions in politics, and she did not want to get involved in these intrigues and struggles. However, she had no respected and prestigious grandfather here, no high-ranking and powerful father, and no tactful and versatile mother, so some things she did not have to experience or bear before now had to be faced by her personally.

“Things have not reached such a difficult stage yet, no need to think too much now.” Song Yuyan said to herself. She temporarily set aside these bothersome worldly affairs and followed Tang Zhi’s words to congratulate her.

Tang Zhi suddenly said, “When Big Brother is happy, he will definitely drink wine. At that time, you must not drink with him.”

Song Yuyan said, “I know, I know. My house has no wine left. Even if he comes, he cannot drink any.”

Meng Shuituan had previously sent quite a bit of wine to her and the Tang family. He said the wine affairs had been checked strictly lately, and the batch they brewed later had not sold much, so they simply sent it out as gifts.

And Tang Haogen did not take his wine for nothing. When the Meng family was reported by neighbors for privately brewing wine, he stepped in and told Cixi’s wine affairs supervisor: “A farm family brewing their own wine at home is no big deal. They did not even take it out to sell. Give them a hundred times the courage, and they still absolutely would not dare to hide it from you all, right?”

For this, he also pulled along the timber yard supervisor and the salt field supervisor to go with the wine affairs supervisor to the pleasure quarters and listen to music all night. And although Cixi’s wine affairs supervisor was a not-small official, he still worked under those supervisors after all, so he naturally had to give Tang Haogen this bit of face.

Only then did the Meng family have peace, so they were even more grateful to Tang Haogen, and sent over this wine as if it cost nothing.

With Tang Zhi this family wine supervisor at home, how could Tang Haogen dare to accept so much wine? He sent most of it to those supervisors he was on good terms with. He kept a few jars for himself and secretly hid two jars here with Song Yuyan.

But he forgot that in this matter, the “future brother-in-law who in his eyes was restrained by his little sister and did not dare to drink but actually still very much wanted to drink” Song Yuyan stood on the same side as Tang Zhi. So he was betrayed by Song Yuyan.

Tang Zhi took his wine and gave it to the neighbors, and Song Yuyan also gave the wine to Aunt Fierce, so at this moment Tang Haogen could not find any wine here with Song Yuyan.

“Your brain is pretty quick!” Tang Zhi praised Song Yuyan.

Song Yuyan felt both amused and exasperated. Her gaze fell on Tang Zhi’s hand, and she felt the timing was just right now, so she asked, “There is something I have wanted to ask young lady Tang for a long time, but I worried it might be too abrupt for young lady… I do not know what is in this cloth bag of yours. I see you have been carrying it for quite a while. Is it some valuable item? Otherwise, why would you even keep it with you when sitting down?”

Tang Zhi, who had been quite calm just now, panicked instantly. Her heart pounded wildly in her chest. She hurriedly said, “This is not some valuable knife tool at all. It is all worthless stuff!”

Song Yuyan: “…”

Why did it feel like trying to cover up only made it worse?

Tang Zhi’s heart thumped and thumped, as if it would jump right into her throat. She fumbled in a panic to take out the cloth bag and handed it to Song Yuyan. “J-just, just considering how carefully you teach Little Ye, something bought casually!”

After saying that, she glared fiercely and threatened, “No disdain allowed!”

Song Yuyan smiled as she took the cloth bag and looked inside. She saw the carving knives there: slant-mouth knives, flat-mouth knives, round-mouth knives, and curved knives, each in large and small sizes, adding up to eight in total. The blade of each carving knife was very sharp, and the handle was fixed with wood, so she did not need to wrap the handle with cloth strips anymore.

Although the set of carving knives Tang Zhi gave was much less than what Lou Er had sent—because Lou Er’s had been detailed down to large, medium, and small sizes, plus knives for handling other marks, totaling over ten—Song Yuyan still took a liking to the carving knives Tang Zhi had given at first glance.

She knew Tang Zhi absolutely had not bought them casually, because at this time few people would go to the trouble of using wood as handles in such detail. Even among other hand carvers, the most common way was like hers, wrapping the handle with cloth. This was both simple and ensured it did not slip.

But the carving knives Song Yuyan used in modern times either had handles processed from plastic or from wood, which felt more comfortable to hold. Compared to cloth-wrapped handles, she naturally preferred this wooden handle.

She could see that Tang Zhi had carefully selected these tools for her. This was not the first time she owed Tang Zhi a favor, but the feeling it produced now was quite subtle. In her heart, it was like a wisp of spring breeze brushing over the lake surface, rippling silently.

“I do not disdain it. On the contrary, I like it very much.” Song Yuyan looked fondly at these carving knives.

Tang Zhi’s heart, tense with nowhere to settle, finally calmed down with this smile of hers. She also laughed. “That is good!”

Just as she relaxed, Song Yuyan suddenly asked, “But why could young lady Tang buy this kind of carving knife just by getting something casually?”

Tang Zhi: “…”

She felt both shy and annoyed, and in the end turned angry from embarrassment. She glared at Song Yuyan. “I have good luck!”

Song Yuyan said “Oh” and said regretfully, “I thought young lady had specially asked someone to put wooden handles on them!”

“How would I do such a boring thing!” Tang Zhi retorted. After saying that, she found an excuse and ran home.

Seeing her appearance almost like fleeing in defeat, Song Yuyan smiled silently. Sure enough, she was still just a little girl, unable to hide her thoughts at all.

Thinking of this, her smile faded slightly. After being mocked by the System last time, she had finally remembered her persona of disguising as a man, so Tang Zhi’s change in attitude toward her made her feel a bit uneasy. After all, the effect the System mentioned of the external aid had held true so far—no one had paid attention to her real gender.

After pondering for a moment, Song Yuyan smiled self-mockingly. “Influenced by the System, I have become narcissistic too. What young lady Tang expresses toward me is not necessarily affection. It might just be kindness!”

System: “…”

I am not narcissistic, thank you!

After thinking it through, Song Yuyan took the carving knives Tang Zhi had given and tried them out. Feeling there was no problem, she wrapped them in oiled paper and put them into the brush holder. She used oiled paper to wrap them because she worried they would rust after a long time—since they were carving knives specially given by young lady Tang, she certainly would not use them to carve ordinary bamboo carvings, so the frequency of use would definitely not be too high.