Gasp! She's a Time Traveler Using Modern Tech to Improve Ancient Life-Chapter 374 - 371: Housewarming Banquet in Xiaoxi Town

Chapter 374: Chapter 371: Housewarming Banquet in Xiaoxi Town

The death of Lin Mengyi didn’t cause much of a stir at Lin Family Manor, and the family of Sun Sanlang, who had been disgraced and humiliated, couldn’t find any clues there.

His parents and brothers didn’t gain anything from Lin Family Manor. Out of sheer desperation for her beloved son, the elderly woman brazenly waited for several days on the curb near the County Government, just to catch the day when the County Magistrate would hold court.

In the end, the case was finally brought to the government, but of course, she couldn’t directly approach the County Magistrate. Such matters fell under the jurisdiction of the County Magistrate.

The County Magistrate sent government officials with some local enforcers to the countryside twice for investigation. Each time, the Sun Family spent a considerable amount of money, yet the case made no progress.

Neither alive nor seeing a corpse, merely claiming that Lin Family Manor had captured someone was not credible enough.

Moreover, the one who had personally witnessed Sun Sanlang being taken away by people from Lin Family Manor, Xiaoliu, now denied everything, saying he had no knowledge of the event.

He certainly wouldn’t oppose such a large clan like Lin Family Manor for a dead man, especially when their family had a Village Lady present.

The relationship between Le’an Village Lady and Xiao Mingfu was known to anyone who cared. Was Xiaoliu foolish enough to ruin himself for a dead person?

As for the old woman’s pitiful pleas, he didn’t care; he had plenty of troubles of his own and dared not have much contact with government officials, better to avoid them!

Not to mention in ancient times when a commoner disappeared, even in modern times, a missing person is just missing.

A disappearance and a homicide with a body are entirely different concepts, and they receive a totally different degree of attention, both in ancient and modern times.

In matters like this within the county, the County Magistrate handled them first. It was just a wastrel who went missing; the County Magistrate didn’t care, made a couple of trips, and considered the procedure followed.

They were placed among other pending disappearance cases, left to gather dust.

Xiao Chong, being the County Magistrate, was busy with endless affairs every day. If the County Magistrate didn’t report this, he wouldn’t know anything about it.

If he personally attended to every matter, dividing himself into eight hundred pieces wouldn’t suffice to handle all the trivialities.

This conclusion also made Lin Wanwan once again feel the formidable strength of clan power in feudal society.

The Tang laws governed the town’s commoners, but the countryside had its clan’s own private punishments. The so-called royal power not reaching the countryside was exactly this. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Now, under Li Shimin’s control, it was still fairly tight, but with future emperors less adept, many areas couldn’t even collect taxes, all taken by the gentry and local forces.

In mid-August, Lin Wanwan’s residence in Xiaoxi Town was completed, and the day for the housewarming was set.

To uphold the occasion, Chief Steward Sun Chuyao, after reporting to Lin Wanwan, went to the broker to buy a batch of new slaves and took in a few clever vagrants from the docks as attendants under his command.

The new arrivals this time included young vagrants aged fifteen or sixteen and little girls of eleven or twelve. The young ones were, of course, managed by Sun Chuyao, while all the little girls were entrusted to Yun Shang for training.

With more people, naturally, expenses increased.

Having followed Lin Wanwan for a long time, Yun Shang had already learned Lin Wanwan’s compound accounting method and managed the accounts with ease. Lin Wanwan only checked the accounts once a month, basically hands-off.

She was now shuttling between Lin Family Manor and Xiaoxi Town. Lin Family Manor was a utopian life, while the beauty shop and embroidery workshop in Xiaoxi Town required her constant effort and supply replenishment.

She wished she could lie around counting money, but alas, lying around counting money was too risky.

In the Great Tang, it was easier with a convenient senior brother as a cover, but not in modern times, where unexplained wealth could cause trouble, so she had to work hard as a time-travel trader.

Besides making money, the beauty shop was a place for information exchange; she needed to frequent it to hear the upper-class gossip, while the buyers of the embroidery shop also needed her to find (most were actually moved to modern times).

So now, Lin Wanwan spent ten days a month in Xiaoxi Town.

To prevent the children’s education from being interrupted, Lin Wanwan hired a mathematics teacher for the school to substitute when she wasn’t at Lin Family Manor.

On a day when her life was thriving, Lin Wanwan dressed little Qingyu up beautifully to hold her second housewarming since arriving in the Great Tang.

Her first was a country family wine, and this time, she invited the gentry and nobles frequently in contact with her from Xiaoxi Town for an upper-class housewarming.

The banquet was buffet style. With several experiences hosting banquets, Lin Wanwan was now proficient at hosting a housewarming.

High-quality fruits and various types of Great Tang local pastries filled twenty plates; a three-tier cream cake bought in modern times was placed at the center, along with cold fish tataki beloved by Tang people, and summer fruit shaved ice popular in Great Tang.

The ice was filtered from mountain spring water in the Great Tang and frozen in modern times, far more hygienic than the ice stored by Tang aristocrats themselves in ice cellars.

From the hour of Si, Lin Wanwan started welcoming guests, and gradually they arrived.

First came the Zhang Family and the Wang Family next door, enjoying the flowers in the garden with Lin Wanwan.

The eldest daughter-in-law of the Zhang Family, Lady Wang, had relatively close relations with Lin Wanwan, often corresponding with her. Seeing the flowers planted in the garden, she couldn’t stop praising, "Wanwan, who is your gardener? Quite the skill, I see several unique blooms."

"I picked these from the mountains myself and planted them just for fun," Lin Wanwan replied with a smile.

There was no gardener after all; the household had no dedicated florist, and the servants took on multiple roles each.

And these flowers were not nurtured by a gardener; most were finished products Lin Wanwan bought from modern flower and bird markets, directly transplanted with nutrient soil.

As for why the exotic flowers and grasses in the garden thrived so well, it was simple — whenever one died, Lin Wanwan would buy a new one from modern times and replace it, making it impossible not to flourish.

"Le’an, you really are remarkable; tending these must take quite some effort?"

"Not really, hehe."

Lin Wanwan didn’t delve deeply into flower research, spending a lot of time daily on medicine and music, some time working in a modern company, writing novels, and teaching the family’s children. Even with the time bug between the two worlds, she had no extra energy for floral studies.

Her flower arranging skills were casually learned from Heng Wu. Fortunately, Yun Shang and Hong Yan were eager to learn from Heng Wu.

Decorating the main courtyard with elegance and high quality was a noble family’s rightful etiquette. As the lady’s personal maids, they held themselves to high standards.

In the countryside of Wanghai, it didn’t matter much, but in the city, they couldn’t allow their lady to be ridiculed, everything had to be done to perfection.

Soon after, those with invitations started arriving successively.

Lin Wanwan greeted everyone, seated together in the main hall outfitted with gauze doors and surrounded by large ice blocks, eating shaved ice and chatting leisurely, utterly content.