Husbands Seeking Love

Chapter 60

Maternal grandfather’s home was a two compound residence paved with blue glazed brick tiles with around ten servants. Their circumstances could be considered not bad.

The only child remaining in their residence was the eldest son of the principal husband, which was the youngest out of all of his brothers and sisters, and was the two sisters’ maternal uncle. This son had inherited his father’s career and lived his life as an official; he was currently leading soldiers in the war. The daughters in the family had long been wed out and all the concubine-born sons had settled down outside. As the remaining secondary husbands in the residence could not live the rest of their days peacefully, they had been expelled to their respective sons’ homes last year.

When their maternal grandmother found out the two sisters had come, she was so pleased she personally went to the kitchen to cook.

Their maternal grandfather selected a good tea from his collection to receive the two siblings with. The current market prices were excessively high as the tea leaves from Mount Wu Yi were currently within the area occupied by the Red Eyebrow army and simply could not be transported to the capital.

As the tea route was obstructed, the people in the capital could only drink the tea from Jiang Nan. The price of that tea was not expensive, but the old man had drank Wu Yi black tea for a lifetime and was very unaccustomed to this other tea. He knew that the members of the Ruan clan had the same tastes as him. If it was other guests, he would be very reluctant to take out this tea.

Ruan Zhu thought she should say something: “Maternal grandfather, my Ma……”

Her maternal grandfather originally was in a very cheerful mood but immediately became outraged after hearing Ruan Zhu bring up Madam Ruan: “Do not mention that shameful thing.”

“Maternal grandfather, what happened to my Ma?” Ruan Zhu saw the old man had become infuriated and felt there was a secret behind this.

“That evil creature is actually unwilling to give up on that Wei Rong in a whorehouse! The day after arriving in the capital, she wouldn’t stop going from one whorehouse to another to look for him. You don’t know how large the expenses in the capital are; just for this or that brothel, the price of a famous courtesan for one night is tens of taels a night, and several thousands of taels of silver have flowed down the drain just from these past few days. But at long last she has finally found him and it was unexpectedly in a place that was even dirtier than a low-grade brothel.” Their maternal grandfather curled his lip down, his face full of disgust. “I won’t speak anymore, else I won’t have any appetite for this evening’s meal.”

“You damned old man, you knew you’d lose your appetite but still talked rubbish and don’t even feel embarrassed to dirty these young ladies’ ears.” Maternal Grandmother carried a tray from the kitchen on which two bowls of lotus seed soup were balanced and placed a bowl in front of each of the two sisters. “It is not yet time for the meal so first have some soup that I simmered early this morning. It just so happened that there was some leftover and it is still very delicious after heating is up.”

Lotus seeds could help one’s body fight against various kinds of ailments and could also prevent cancer and high blood pressure; this food had these unique and outstanding effects. Ruan Zhu spooned out a mouthful and thought the taste was not very good. There was not enough rock sugar and she also didn’t see any white fungus.

Lotus seed soup with white fungus

(and red dates + Goji berries)

Various types of Chinese rock sugar

Maternal Grandmother said: “It’s a pity that we don’t have any rock sugar and the price of white lotus is enough to scare people. Yesterday, I went to the market with a servant for a look and I simply cannot afford to eat them. Ai, being able to eat lotus seed at this time is already considered not bad. I’ve heard that some families only eat bran. Luckily, our house still has some white rice.”