Chapter 2019: Overnight in the Suburbs (Part 1)
At that moment, I hired a carriage and personally sent them to Nong'an County.
The three of them, the master and the servant, had very little gifts, and almost left the house empty-handed. Miss Yanran only brought some things that her mother had left for her and her brother before she died, and she did not take anything from the Dong Mansion. Therefore, only one car was more than enough to accommodate them.
The car was on the market, and Miss Yanran asked to buy some offerings to go to her mother's grave to worship her mother.
I knew that they lived under the control of Princess Chaoqing and must have little money, so I used silver to buy them the best incense, candles, paper horses, fruits and three animals, and loaded them all on their car.
The grave of Yanran's mother was not in the ancestral grave of the Dong family, because according to the rules, concubines were not qualified to enter the ancestral grave. She was hastily buried at the foot of a mountain near the ancestral grave, without even a tombstone. There was only a half-dead tree on the grave as a mark!
Seeing that their mother's grave was so simple, the brother and sister burst into tears. Yanran almost fainted from crying. She lay on her mother's grave, crying "mother" in grief. She cried so helplessly and pitifully that even I was moved and felt uncomfortable.
They stayed in the cemetery for a long time. It was not until noon that they barely stopped crying and got on the car with the help of Aunt Zhang.
After being delayed for so long, we must hurry up, otherwise we will not be able to enter the county town of Nong'an County before dark.
After leaving Tongzhou Prefecture, we arrived in the suburbs. The road was smooth and there were few cars passing by. The carriage carrying Yanran and the other two began to run. Nong'an is about 100 miles away from Tongzhou. If it is normal, we should be able to reach Dong'an County before the city gates are closed at night.
However, when the carriage ran more than 20 miles, Yanran's brother suddenly felt uncomfortable.
The little kid had been living a life of eating one meal and starving the next in Dong's house, and he had suffered the pain of losing his mother, so he was always whimpering. Today, the bumpy ride in the carriage made his little body unable to bear it, and he felt nauseous and dizzy.
I quickly asked the driver to slow down, and opened the curtains to let the wind blow into the carriage. Slowly, the little kid got better, but the carriage couldn't speed up anymore. When it went faster, the little kid felt dizzy and vomited, and felt very uncomfortable.
We walked and stopped like this, and when it got dark, we had only walked half of the way.
"We can't get into the city. It seems that we can only spend the night in the wild."
I looked at the completely dark sky, and simply asked the driver to stop the carriage, unload the horses, and let the three of them sleep in the carriage. I also found some hay nearby for the driver, and planned to spend the night outside and continue our journey when it got light.
Miss Yanran felt sorry for me because I had to sleep outside because of them. She took the initiative to help me collect hay and found many dry branches so that I could light a bonfire to keep warm.
The bonfire was lit, and the flames gradually rose. Yanran took out a few cakes and eggs from the car and asked me and the driver to roast them outside.
She was afraid that we would choke on the cakes and eggs, so she ran to the stream to get a pot of water, boiled it on the bonfire, and made a pot of tea for us to drink.
The driver was an honest old man. When he saw Yanran busying around for me, he secretly said to me: "Sir, please take a look. This girl is definitely virtuous and suitable for a family. Don't miss her!"
My heart moved for no reason, and I subconsciously looked in the direction of Yanran. I saw her patiently baking cakes for her brother. Her drooping eyebrows and calm and quiet appearance were really heart-warming!