The road to wealth of a peasant widow

Chapter 107: Yamen Gate

The day when Chen Cui brought a few children and drove a mule cart to the county town was four days after the heavy rain stopped.

Because of the high temperature and sunshine in recent days, the road surface has almost dried up. Since it was stepped on by people and animals before it dried, traces were left on it, making it even more bumpy to walk on now.

Today is the ten-day holiday. In addition to the four children, there are six jars of canned fruits in the car, including cherries, lychees and apricots, two jars of each.

This time, Chen Cui planned to go directly to the back house of the county government office to ask for a meeting with Mrs. Zhang, give her these jars of canned fruit as gifts, and then talk about the cooperation at an appropriate time.

Chen Cui thought about it carefully. Although she had mastered the ancient method of making canned fruits, she lacked the resources.

Without an orchard to provide her with a large amount of raw materials, and without a store, finding a sales channel for the canned food after it is made is also a problem.

This is not a daily necessity like charcoal, which can be put on the shelves in grocery stores and people will buy it. If you can't target your customers, it's useless to make delicious canned food.

More importantly, she did not have the ability to keep this way of making money, so she had to find a strong partner. Now the county magistrate's wife was the most powerful person she could find.

When the mule cart arrived near the county government office, Chen Cui got off and asked Changping to wait in a cool place with the children. She then went over to ask for a meeting with two jars of canned lychees.

The county government office was not as tall and majestic as Chen Cui had imagined. Instead, it looked a bit dilapidated, and even the stone lions at the door did not look majestic.

No one knows when this rule came into being, but in order to show that they are honest and upright, successive officials would not use the money in the government office to repair the county government office even if there was money, in order to prove their own innocence.

The consequence of this was that every successor would take over a dilapidated county government office and would not repair it unless it was absolutely necessary.

The county government office is generally a "front hall and back house" style building, with the front half being the hall for hearing cases and doing business, and the back half being the house where officials live.

Chen Cui was going to the back house, where the county magistrate and the families of other officials lived. Although it was connected to the front yamen, there was another way in and out, which was in the alley on the side of the county yamen.

It was now mid-morning and no one was seen coming in or out of the alley. The gatekeeper at the back of the county government office was picking his teeth out of idleness, so Chen Cui plucked up the courage to step forward and report.

"My dear, I would like to see our county magistrate's wife, Mrs. Zhang. Please go and report it."

The man was a young man in his twenties. He saw that the peasant woman in front of him was only wearing a plain hemp summer dress and a wooden hairpin on her head. It was obvious that she came from a poor family.

He said lazily: "What do you do? What do you want to see our lady for?"

Chen Cui smiled and said, "My husband's surname is Liu, and we live in Liujiaping, Shangde Town. I heard that our wife loves to eat lychees, so I brought some canned lychees that I made, and wanted her to taste them."

Menzi looked at the two inconspicuous small jars in Chen Cui's hands and thought it was a bit strange.

Lychees are a rare commodity and are expensive. He had once begged a maid from the inner courtyard for one. How could this peasant woman possibly have one?

Besides, the lychee season has long passed. Even if the wife is as rich as she is, she can’t eat lychees.

This peasant woman must be lying. She might be here to extort money. She just brought some pickled vegetables from her home and hoped to sneak in and get some money.

The doorman frowned and was about to send the peasant woman away, but the woman suddenly stuffed a small piece of silver into his hand. It felt quite large, at least two cents.

Menzi held the hard silver coins in his hand and stuffed them into his sleeve smoothly, and his expression changed.

His serious expression disappeared, and he smiled and asked, "Sister Liu, please wait a moment. I will go and tell the sisters in the inner courtyard whether the lady wants to see you or not. We still have to wait for the inner courtyard's reply."

Chen Cui smiled and said, "Of course, I understand. Thank you, little brother."

The doorman nodded and said that it was good enough to understand the rules. He was only responsible for going in to report, but he could not guarantee that the lady would definitely meet her.

Don't be like those ignorant people who think that just because they have taken the money, they can guarantee that people can get in. They don't have that much power. It's not up to them to decide whether people can get in or not.

The doorman turned and entered the second gate, and said to the gatekeeper, Madam Liu, "Madam Liu, there is a sister-in-law at the door who said she has some lychees to give to Madam. Please go in and ask if Madam wants to see them."

Mother Liu said "Pah" and scolded with a smile: "You kid, you took money from others and spread nonsense. Where can you get lychees at this time of year? You can't even tell a decent lie."

Menzi was anxious and quickly explained: "Mother Liu, I didn't say that. It was the eldest sister-in-law who said that. She brought all the things and was waiting to see the lady so that she could present them to her personally."

Seeing this, Mother Liu couldn't help but look serious: "I'll go take a look first. If you're talking nonsense, watch out for your skin!"

Then, Chen Cui saw a maid in her forties standing inside the door, looking at her, especially the two jars in her hands.

"My dear sister, are those lychees you hold in your hand as you said?" Mother Liu asked in a loud voice.

Chen Cui replied in a neither humble nor arrogant manner: "Sister, I really dare not lie to you. These are lychees, and I want to present them to our wife in person."

"You know that our madam has a seventh-rank imperial decree. If you lie in front of her, you will be beaten with a stick!" Mother Liu suddenly became stern.

"I know that what I said is false. I am willing to accept the punishment and will never cry out for injustice!" Chen Cui also made a loud and unambiguous guarantee.

Mother Liu nodded secretly.

This peasant woman still did not change her words after being threatened by me, and she did not seem to be lying. If there really was some way to preserve the lychees until now, I would have to report it.

I heard that the lady hasn't had a good appetite these days. If there were really lychees to eat, she might be so happy that she would get a reward!

Mother Liu turned around and went inside to find someone to pass the message to the Madam.

It was quarter of an hour later when Chen Cui was allowed in. When she stepped through the door, she breathed a sigh of relief.

As she followed the maid inside, she couldn't help but complain in her heart that the backyard was not big, but there were quite a lot of rules.

She only wanted to see the county magistrate's wife. If she wanted to see the prefect's wife, she would have to wait for at least half an hour.

Of course, this was just a thought. For a commoner like her, it was already a great fortune to be able to meet the wife of a county magistrate. How could an ordinary person get the wife of a prefect?

As Chen Cui followed the maid and gradually went deeper into the inner house, she saw several maids and old women along the way. They all stood with their hands behind their backs and looked very well behaved.

After going around several doors, they finally stopped at the door of a flower hall next to the back hall.

The maid in front turned around and said to Chen Cui, "Wait here, I'll go in and tell her."

Chen Cui nodded in agreement.