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Chapter 19

Mrs. Lu took a look and glanced at Li Xia. Although Li Xia did not manage much, Hua Steward was her subordinate. Mrs. Lu knew Hua Steward had a steady personality and was diligent with her work. Mrs. Lu nodded to herself, approving of Hua Steward's thoroughness. Starting with the housekeeper, Mrs. Lu's perspective on Li Xia was also changing.

Li Xia's trusting attitude in employing people made Mrs. Lu look at her in a new light.

"The plan is good, proceed with it," Mrs. Lu closed the booklet.

Li Xia took the plan to the embroidery room to find Hua Steward. Hua Steward was arranging work for the embroidery maids. Seeing Li Xia come over, she put down her work and said, "Second young mistress."

"Mother has approved your plan, arrange for people to carry it out," Li Xia returned the plan to Hua Steward.

Hua Steward was elated that Mrs. Lu approved of the plan she proposed. She busily arranged for people to get to work. Li Xia glanced around the neat and orderly embroidery room managed well by Hua Steward, with everyone attending to their own duties. In her heart, she admired Mrs. Lu for picking capable people.

She turned and went back to her own Iris Courtyard to lie down. "Waking up early to work hard this morning really tired me out," she said as she closed her eyes.

Qiu Shui at her side saw her own young miss finding yet another excuse to be lazy, and felt very helpless. She took a thin blanket and carefully covered Li Xia, then turned to leave to prepare food. The first thing Li Xia would want upon waking was food.

Li Ming gave Mrs. Lu the proper respect due, repaying kindness with kindness. Mrs. Lu arranged for Li Shan to take over management of the kitchen from Li Xin. Li Xin was already familiar with kitchen affairs, so there was no need to keep worrying over it. Li Xin readily handed over the kitchen to Li Shan without any reluctance.

Taking over the kitchen compared to Li Xia's embroidery room, Li Shan felt she had taken on much greater responsibility. She held her little face high every day heading to the kitchen. Aunt Wang was also happy that Li Shan was in charge of the kitchen. In her perspective, the kitchen managed the entire rear court's meals, there was much to be done there, and most importantly the profits there were substantial. Putting her own people in charge, they would be able to skim ample benefits for themselves, mother and daughter fantasized.

But very quickly they discovered this was just wishful thinking, how could Mrs. Lu possibly let them casually switch out people? Kitchen steward Hua Qiaoshou was one of Mrs. Lu's personal servant girls that came with her in marriage. Having followed Mrs. Lu for many years and earned her deep trust, she was specially arranged to work in the kitchen. For Li Shan, a young miss from a wealthy family, it would be very difficult to remove one of the main madam's trusted aides.

Letting go of the kitchen matters, Li Xin followed Mrs. Lu to handle the incoming and outgoing gifts before the new year. Gift giving was a complicated matter, especially since this year was Li Ming's first year serving as Prefect of Liuzhou. They had to send gifts to superiors, as well as handle gifts sent by subordinates and colleagues, consider how to reciprocate them and how to handle them. As well as what to do about the copious expensive gifts sent by merchants under the guise of New Year's gifts etc. There was a lot to consider in this.

Li Xin followed along to learn for a while but still couldn't get a good grasp, feeling somewhat vexed. She came to the Iris Courtyard to chat with Li Xia and unwind a bit.

Li Xia was reclining on a chaise lounge basking in the winter sunlight, warm and comfortable on her body. Seeing Li Xia enjoying herself, Li Xin strangely felt her irritation dissipate significantly.

Having become familiar, Li Xin could easily make out the happiness hidden beneath Li Xia's composed exterior. With a quick turn of thought, she roughly understood the cause of Li Xin's annoyance, and poured her a cup of tea.

Li Xin accepted the tea and drank a mouthful. "Why does this taste so odd?" She said, opening the teapot and seeing it was brewed with chrysanthemum, hawthorn, honeysuckle and other flowers. This was the new fad for floral tea that spread from the Capital City, while Li Xin preferred Dragon Well tea and didn't care much for floral tea.

"I've been having some inner fire the last couple days, drinking some heat-clearing and fire-reducing floral tea," Li Xia said, closing her eyes and drinking down another cup. Compared to these floral teas, she actually preferred plain white water.

Vegetables were scarce in winter, and Li Xia already loved to eat meat. Eating too much meat caused her inner fire to get quite severe. Qiu Shui specially went to buy floral tea for her to drink, keeping an eye on her to drink it. Knowing it was for her own good, Li Xia didn't get angry, if she had to drink it then drink it.

Seeing Li Xia finish a cup, Qiu Shui came over and poured her another cup, "If you're willing to eat more vegetables and less meat, this maidservant wouldn't force you to drink this unpleasant floral tea."

"Not eating meat is impossible," Li Xia said, gulping down another cup of floral tea, then reaching out to pop a sweetmeat in her mouth to improve the taste.

There wasn't much water left in the pot, so Qiu Shui went to pour hot water. Watching Qiu Shui's departing back, Li Xia whispered to Li Xin, "These maidservants, ordering me around like a child."

"Eating more vegetables is good for you," Li Xin laughed. She knew Li Xia also disliked the things.

"Winter radishes and cabbages can't compare to delicious meat," Li Xia said. Cultivating her abilities required massive amounts of energy. The energy provided by vegetables couldn't compare to meat.

Li Xin laughed again. When she was with Li Xia she really couldn't help but laugh, relaxing her mood.

"Is your mood better now?" Li Xia's words made Li Xin murmur in agreement. Those complications of social relationships really made Li Xin distressed, at a loss for how to handle them well.

In Li Xia's perspective, Li Xin didn't need to be so distressed or cautious about it at all. With Mrs. Lu present, Li Xin should let go and try things out. Making mistakes was no big deal.

"You don't know, just the day before yesterday mother told me about the taboos of the Prefect, but just yesterday when preparing the new year gifts, I violated the Prefect's taboos. If it wasn't for mother carefully checking, who knows what would have happened!" Just thinking about it made Li Xin feel awful inside. Yesterday she had prepared gift lists for three nobles, but had accidentally switched the jade Buddha to be gifted to the Prefect's estate with the purple sandalwood rooster that was supposed to go to another elder's estate.

"This is just a trivial thing," in Li Xia's eyes it wasn't a mortal mistake, everything was trivial and needn't be taken to heart.

"It was careless and negligent of me," Li Xin felt very guilty to think she could be so careless.

Li Xia hadn't noticed before that Li Xin was such a perfectionist. "Nobody's perfect, don't be so harsh on yourself. Those people's preferences, you can't possibly remember them all immediately. Besides, you have so many maidservants around you."

What Li Xia said here made Li Xin suddenly recall a situation she had noticed yesterday. Perhaps it wasn't that she had remembered wrong herself, but someone taking advantage of her impatience to make her remember incorrectly.

"Xiaxia, you're right. I've been too harsh on myself. I'll go relax now," Li Xin said as she got up to leave.

Watching Li Xin depart, Li Xia closed her eyes to rest. Some people overreached themselves, and would have to get their claws chopped off. Not a few days later, during a night patrol Mrs. Lu discovered some people gambling, and captured a few servant women. She directly sold off those maidservants.

Hearing about this, Qiu Shui, as the head maidservant of the Iris Courtyard, warned all the courtyard's maidservants and maids to behave themselves and work diligently, not gamble. Discovered offenders would be immediately reported to the madam for sale. The lazy maidservants and maids of the Iris Courtyard became more diligent. As mistress of the Iris Courtyard, Li Xia didn't actually manage the courtyard's maids much. They could do as they wished after completing their duties. The servants accompanied the mistress, the courtyard's servants didn't have ambition, and lived comfortably in the Iris Courtyard, unwilling to leave.