Transmigrated into the Scumbag Ex-Wife of the Prime Minister - Chapter 8
The rich aroma of the wine made people feel tipsy just by smelling it. The taste was strong yet smooth, mellow, and after one sip, there was a sweet aftertaste and a burning sensation in the stomach.
Having brewed wine for over thirty years, this was the first time Lu Hualin discovered that wine could be brewed to be so sweet and intensely potent.
He closed his eyes, savoring the taste in his mouth.
“Master? How is the wine? Is the sourness all gone?”
Qi Nan waited for a long time, but Lu Hualin didn’t speak, assuming the wine was spoiled.
Lu Hualin reluctantly opened his eyes, his gaze sweeping over the anxious faces of the workers. He smiled broadly and said, “It’s a success!”
“Y-You, all of y-you, t-try it, t-too.”
When everyone heard this, they rushed to grab bowls and receive the new wine.
It was fortunate that the wine didn’t pour out quickly, and each person could only have a small sip, otherwise Lu Sheng was truly worried that the courtyard of the winery would soon be filled with drunkards.
Seeing someone trying to get another cup after the first sip, Lu Sheng quickly stopped them, saying, “This newly distilled wine is very strong, you can’t drink too much.”
“The remaining sour wine still needs to be quickly distilled. We need everyone to work a little harder. Once all this wine is distilled, we can sit down and have a proper, hearty drink.”
“R-Right, w-when that h-happens, I-I’ll c-cut s-several pounds of m-meat for y-you, so everyone can eat and drink well,” Lu Hualin added.
Everyone smiled and agreed, rolling up their sleeves with renewed vigor.
Lu Hualin instructed his two apprentices nearby, “Qi Nan, Liu Zi, y-you, y-you bring the r-remaining s-several pots, w-we’ll build t-two m-more stoves.”
Hearing the lively commotion, Clan Elder Lu walked over, leaning on his cane.
“Sheng’er’s method is truly effective.” Lu Hualin quickly poured some wine for her when he saw her. “Mother, try it quickly. This wine is so clear and strong, the smell alone can intoxicate people.”
The wine was as clear as mountain spring water. If not for the sharp and rich wine aroma, at a glance, one would only think it was a bowl of plain water.
Unlike Lu Hualin who gulped it down, Clan Elder Lu held the wine bowl, first sniffing it under her nose, before taking a small sip.
“Strong but not harsh, rich and mellow. This wine is truly excellent!” Clan Elder Lu put down the wine bowl and praised.
Clan Elder Lu had been brewing wine her whole life, and getting her approval made the joy on Lu Hualin’s face even greater.
“Good child, this time it’s all thanks to you that these hundred or so vats of wine weren’t wasted. Tell me, how should your grand-aunt thank you?” Clan Elder Lu looked at Lu Sheng with satisfaction.
The scale of the winery wasn’t large. After deducting labor costs, the annual profit left in Clan Elder Lu’s hands was less than a hundred taels of silver.
She considered their family relationship and also sympathized with the plight of the first and second branch families, which was why she was willing to bear the loss.
But over a hundred taels of silver was not a small sum. She was naturally heartbroken to waste it like that.
Now that the loss could be recovered, Clan Elder Lu was naturally overjoyed.
However, more gratifying than salvaging the loss of these hundred vats of wine was the fact that Lu Sheng had truly reformed.
Earlier, although she had given Lu Sheng the silver, she still had a hidden worry, fearing that the child was only pretending to be earnest and making confident promises just to borrow money from her.
But just now, seeing her completely abandon her former laziness, working with the winery workers to distill the wine, without the slightest impatience or complaint.
Clan Elder Lu saw it all and sincerely felt that this child had truly turned over a new leaf.
“We are all family, there’s no need for thanks. Grand-aunt, you sound too formal,” Lu Sheng said, waving her hand with a smile.
“Aiya! Our Sheng’er is truly sensible.”
Lu Sheng’s words made Clan Elder Lu both relieved and touched.
She became even more convinced of her own guess, looking at Lu Sheng with a loving face, “Sheng’er has helped so much. How about Grand-aunt makes you two new outfits? We’ll use the peach blossom satin you like.”
“No, no need.”
Remembering the colorful dresses she had just sold yesterday, Lu Sheng quickly called a halt to Clan Elder Lu’s frightening idea of making her clothes.
“Grand-aunt, I have enough clothes, I don’t need new ones.”
“You child, still being modest with your grand-aunt. A couple more sets of clothes won’t hurt. Winter will arrive after this month is over. Tomorrow, I’ll have A-Zheng take you to the tailor shop to make two sets of winter clothes.”
“I really don’t need them, Grand-aunt.”
“Listen to me, it’s settled!”
Seeing that she really couldn’t stop Clan Elder Lu’s enthusiasm for buying things, Lu Sheng changed her request, “How about this, Grand-aunt. I really don’t lack clothes. How about you get a bookshelf made for my house?”
“A bookshelf?!”
Why ask for a bookshelf instead of good clothes?
Clan Elder Lu was puzzled at first, then immediately understood and smiled meaningfully, “Is it for A-Shu?”
Lu Sheng purely felt that her home lacked a bookshelf more than clothes, so she said it casually. She never expected that this action, in Clan Elder Lu’s eyes, would be interpreted with a completely different meaning.
But since the words were already spoken, she was too embarrassed to change them and could only bite the bullet and agree.
“Yes.”
Receiving a definite answer, Clan Elder Lu was truly overjoyed.
The person who loved wearing new clothes the most would actually give up making new clothes just to get a bookshelf for Qi Zhenshu.
This child still cares about A-Shu after all!
If she wasn’t concerned about having other people present, Clan Elder Lu might have shed tears of joy.
“Good, good, good. We’ll make a bookshelf.”
Clan Elder Lu agreed repeatedly, looking at her with a beaming smile, her joy evident.
Lu Sheng blushed at being stared at and quickly brought up another matter.
“Oh, right, Grand-aunt, Eldest Uncle, does that Ding Laizi have any dealings with our winery?”
The sour wine problem was solved, but the person who deliberately caused the damage had not yet been found.
“Ding Laizi? Ding Aldehyde?” Clan Elder Lu asked, puzzled.
Lu Sheng nodded.
Both Lu Hualin and Clan Elder Lu shook their heads. “No dealings.”
“Is there something wrong with him?”
Clan Elder Lu was shrewd and capable. Hearing Lu Sheng bring up Ding Laizi out of the blue, she sensed something amiss.
“When I went out last night, I seemed to see him loitering around the entrance of the winery, but it was too dark at night to see clearly.”
Although the sparrow wouldn’t lie, the event wasn’t witnessed by Lu Sheng personally, so she couldn’t definitively accuse Ding Laizi.
“So it was him!” Lu Hualin said angrily. “I-I’m going to find him to s-settle the score!”
Clan Elder Lu quickly stopped him. “Sheng’er only saw him appear at the winery entrance. We have no other evidence, so how can you settle the score with him?”
“T-Then what should we do?! We can’t just let him off the hook!”
The wine they had painstakingly brewed was almost completely ruined. Lu Hualin was furious and wished he could just tie Ding Laizi up and give him a beating.
“Calm down for a bit. If it was Ding Laizi, it was likely at someone else’s instruction.” Clan Elder Lu pondered for a moment and then asked, “Have you had any arguments with anyone recently?”
“I’ve been at the winery all these days, I haven’t even been to the county town, so how could I have made an enemy?”
After the autumn harvest, the winery was at its busiest, and Lu Hualin was so busy he didn’t have time to go out drinking with anyone.
“Could it be the work of other wineries in the county?” Lu Sheng guessed.
If it wasn’t a personal grudge, then it might be something done by a competitor.
Clan Elder Lu shook her head. “There are over a dozen wineries, big and small, in Binhe County. Our winery is small-scale and has nothing special about it.”
“Since that’s the case, let’s turn the tables and claim that the wine is indeed ruined, and see what the person acting in the dark does next.”
“R-Right, w-we’ll follow S-Sheng’er’s i-idea. W-We’ll flush out the s-snake, and s-see w-which b-bastard wants t-to h-harm us.”
It was mid-morning, and Lu Sheng saw that there was nothing more at the winery, so she didn’t stay any longer.
Before going home, she took a detour to a family in the village that raised chickens and bought about ten eggs and a few hens.
The climate in Liang Kingdom was warm, and there were many types of grains and vegetables, but the livestock industry was not well-developed. The prices of meat were relatively expensive, and given the current situation of her family, they couldn’t supplement their nutrition by eating meat for the time being.
But Tangtang was growing up, and a daily protein supplement was essential.
Raising a few hens to get eggs was relatively convenient.
Lu Sheng carried the chicken cage home. She also had a plucked rooster in her hand, which she had specifically paid an extra ten cash for the chicken seller to prepare.
Perhaps the sight of its companion’s corpse startled the hens in the cage, as they kept clucking the whole way home. To Lu Sheng’s ears, it sounded like the chickens were constantly shrieking for help.
Entering the courtyard, she put down the chicken cage and said to the hens inside, “No need to scream for help. I bought you back to lay eggs, not to eat for meat. If you lay eggs obediently every day from now on, I won’t butcher you.”
Lu Sheng could understand the language of birds, but not all birds could understand human speech.
The hens continued to cluck incessantly. Lu Sheng was helpless and stopped talking to them.
She carried the chicken cage towards the backyard, preparing to put them in the vegetable garden at the back, where they could also catch some bugs.
As soon as she turned back, she saw Qi Zhenshu standing at the door of the study.
Lu Sheng walked two steps forward and said with a smile, “I bought a few hens, so we’ll have eggs to eat at home from now on.”
Qi Zhenshu nodded with a calm expression, but the look in her eyes was unusual.
Lu Sheng thought she had seen her embarrassing posture of squatting and talking to the chickens. She felt a bit awkward and held up the chicken in her hand, saying, “I bought a chicken. I’m going to stew it for lunch. This chicken was raised by Old Yang’s family. It runs on the mountain every day, so the meat is firm, and it will definitely smell delicious when stewed.”
She hadn’t eaten chicken for too long and felt a little greedy just thinking about the taste, so she subconsciously swallowed her saliva.
“I’m going to put them in the backyard.”
Noticing how silly her actions were, and not wanting to embarrass herself further in front of Qi Zhenshu, Lu Sheng quickly said this and hurried to the backyard with the chicken cage.
Qi Zhenshu gazed at her retreating figure until her shadow disappeared around the corner. The color in her eyes shifted repeatedly, and her delicate eyebrows slowly furrowed.
After a long time of contemplation, Qi Zhenshu turned and returned to the study, looking at the opened Records of Hundred Ghosts on the desk. Her gaze lingered on the sentence: Those haunted by a ghost dislike sunlight, stay dormant during the day and come out at night, casting no shadow in the sun.
Closing the Records of Hundred Ghosts, her slender fingers picked up the Miscellaneous Talks on Yokai next to it and flipped to a certain page.
A moment later, the fair fingertips clamping the page paused, and then gently trembled.
Fox Demon: Can possess a person, likes to eat chicken, favors beautiful people, skilled in enchantment.
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Hahaha Fox demon