Flowers in full bloom

Chapter 374 Sister-in-law Feeds Cake

At that time, Lord Pei, Rong Jin and Rong Yu would be needed to entertain the male guests in the front yard. Lord Pei used the excuse of training Rong Jin and Rong Yu to put Rong Jin and Rong Yu in the first place to greet the male guests.

Feng, Gu and Hua Lei were required to greet the female guests at the second gate and lead them to Songhe Hall or Feicui Courtyard.

Hualei was responsible for welcoming and seeing off the young ladies of similar age from noble families to the Jade Courtyard. When Zhenzhu got married, it was Jade who did this. But a married daughter was no longer suitable for this task, so Zhenzhu could not help.

This may seem simple, but it is actually a very challenging thing for Hua Lei. These young ladies from aristocratic families usually stay at home.

In addition, Hua Lei was usually obsessed with making money and seldom interacted with these young ladies from aristocratic families, so Hua Lei basically didn't know any of them, let alone their appearance, personality, and habits.

However, as someone who is to greet guests at the second gate, not making the wrong choice is the most basic etiquette requirement. It is also necessary to be able to thread the needle and say a few words appropriately when introducing the female guest to Songhe Hall. However, these are Hualei's blind spots.

Fortunately, Hualei has a helper, Gu's daughter Shuijing. Shuijing looks similar to Hualei, but is actually two years younger than Hualei. However, because Shuijing did not grow up in the capital, although she has had some interactions with these young ladies from aristocratic families in the past two years, she does not know their background very well.

But no matter what, two people are better than one. Hualei thought to herself. But in order to avoid making a fool of herself, Hualei still took Shuijing with her. The two of them went to the Jade Courtyard together and carefully asked Jade about the information of the young ladies from various noble families and recorded them one by one on paper.

Then she put it in her sleeve pocket, took it out from time to time to look at it and memorize it. Hualei thought that if she couldn't remember it, she could secretly look at the cheat sheet, maybe it would work.

In this way, Hua Lei crammed and did a lot of homework, and then anxiously followed Gu and Feng to the second gate.

However, things were not as difficult as Hua Lei thought. With Gu's help, she quickly got the hang of it.

Because she found that the female guests who came to the marquis's mansion for banquets were usually mothers and daughters, mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law who came together. As long as Gu and Feng went to greet the other party and called her Madam Chen, if the lady following her was dressed as a girl, Hua Lei could call her Miss Chen; if she was dressed as a young woman, Hua Lei could call her Young Madam Chen.

In addition, when Gu called the other party, he would turn around and introduce Hua Lei, saying, "Lei'er, take Miss Chen to see the bride's jade."

Or you could say, "Lei'er, take Madam Chen to Songhe Hall for a visit." That way, Hua Lei will follow suit and won't make a mistake.

Then when taking guests to the yard, even if Hua Lei is not familiar with other people's personalities and habits, she will just say nice things. After all, everyone likes to hear nice words.

If the other person is very good-looking, compliment her appearance by saying, "Ms. Chen is very pretty and has very fair skin."

If the other person is average looking, compliment her on her jewelry by saying, "Ms. Wang's hairpin is so pretty, it really suits me."

If the jewelry is just average, then you can say "Miss Zhao's dress is beautiful, and the embroidery is also very good."

Anyway, as soon as they meet, Hua Lei can just take a quick look at the other person and find some nice words to get away with it.

In case two or three female guests come at once, and there are several young ladies and Hua Lei can't tell who is who, there is a way to solve the problem.

When I see someone older than me, I call her "sister" sweetly, and when I see someone younger than me, I call her "sister" affectionately.

When she saw someone who was about the same age as her and couldn't tell whether she was older or younger than her, Hua Lei sweetly called her sister.

After all, the situation in the Great Sheng Dynasty is different from that in her previous life. Women in her previous life liked to act young and tender. Here, calling someone sister is a kind of respect.

Just like that, with the help of Shuijing, Hualei was able to successfully serve all the female guests without any mistakes by taking advantage of the situation and filling in the gaps.

He also left an impression in the minds of the female guests that he was very good-looking, very talkative and easy to get along with.

When the female guests saw Hua Lei's silver-red dress and the white jade bracelet on her wrist, some smiled knowingly while others looked sad.

When they came in by carriage, they saw through the window the son of Zhenbei Marquis, Pei Rongjin, who was also wearing a silver-red robe, with a white jade pendant around his waist, standing at the gate to welcome guests. Of course, these flower buds didn't know.

When seeing the bride off, Hua Lei was forced to feed the bride a mouthful of rice cake.

Originally, there was no such step, but I heard that this is the custom in the groom's hometown. Before the bride leaves her own boudoir, the eldest sister-in-law from her parents' home must feed the bride a bite of special rice cake.

It means that the two families will be prosperous from now on and their granaries will be full of rice and grain. However, Rong Jin and Rong Yu were not married, and there was no girl who had been engaged, so it was difficult to find such a candidate.

But at that time, the bride Feicui was already being carried on Pei Rongyu's back, with Pei Rongjin holding her hand, waiting at the door of her boudoir, while the groom, with his grand wedding procession, was already standing in the main room of Songhe Hall in the marquis's mansion.

At this time, in the Feicui Courtyard, apart from the matchmaker and the maid who was urging the makeup, there were only the women from the Marquis's own mansion. Everyone else had flocked to the main house in Songhe Courtyard to watch the ceremony.

So, Hua Lei, with a confused look on her face, was pushed to the door of Feicui's boudoir, and under Rong Jin's expectant and joyful gaze, she fed Feicui a mouthful of rice cake.

Then, with the matchmaker reciting the slogan "Eldest sister-in-law feeds cakes, step by step rises", the bride was carried out of the boudoir to the main room of Songhe Courtyard to bid farewell to Master Pei and Madam Pei. Soon, the wedding procession meandered towards the groom's house with the sound of gongs and drums.

After taking care of Feicui's marriage, Hualei rested for another day and then reported to the Agriculture Bureau.

This year, the Ministry of Agriculture planted too much corn. In order to get more corn seeds and popularize them, Emperor Shengwu stopped planting other crops that could be planted at the same time for a year.

Therefore, in the current Shangjing City, more than half of the official fields are planted with corn. Although the staff of the Ministry of Agriculture have already experienced corn planting.

However, everyone's ability to accept and do things is different, and of course their attitude towards doing things is also different. Hualei happens to be one of those people with strong comprehensive abilities and a more responsible attitude towards doing things.

There is no doubt that those who are more capable will be rewarded with more work, and Hua Lei was assigned more patrol tasks by her superiors.