There is a tablet for his father at home, and now candles and incense are lit.

　　They burned incense one by one.

　　Fubao put on his festive new clothes and shouted “yeah yeah yeah”. Gu Zhao and Li Zhouzhou also greeted their father and said auspicious words, wishing him a safe and healthy new year. Li Da gave red envelopes to the three of them for good luck.

　　Only then did they sit down to eat.

　　The base of the big bone soup was cooked to a milky white color without any fishy smell. There were only two vegetarian dishes, frozen tofu and Chinese cabbage. The frozen tofu was cooked for a while longer to absorb the soup, which made it especially delicious. The cabbage was also crispy. There were more meat dishes, such as lamb slices, which were fat and lean, and were especially fragrant when eaten with sesame paste.

　　For those with a slightly stronger taste, then there are the dry braised foods. For hot pot, duck offal is much more delicious, such as duck intestines, duck tongue, duck blood, duck liver, especially duck blood, which is softer and more tender than tofu after cooking, but the taste is slightly stronger.

　　Gu Zhao remembered the duck blood vermicelli soup he had eaten before, which was delicious with noodles.

　　It’s not enough, the staple food is noodles and dumplings.

　　As they ate and chatted, they couldn’t help but talk about Fubao’s name. Li Da said, “Fubao is already two years old, it’s time to give him a name, hurry up, if you don’t want to give him a name, I will. I think the name of the second child is Li Jianan, it’s good, let’s think of one too.”

　　Gu Zhao looked at his son’s little teeth as big as rice grains and realized that his Fubao was only one year old not long ago.

　　”Dad, what do you want to change the last word to?”

　　Li Da: “I think blessing is good. Being healthy is a blessing.”

　　Gu Zhao finished speaking, “Li Jianfu.”

　　”…” Li Da seemed to think it didn’t sound very good, especially when Fu Bao looked at him with big eyes. He immediately denied it and said, “No, no, as a father, how can you give such a name? Our Fu Fu is not happy.”

　　Gu Zhao thought it was best if he was not talented, so he just took the blame.

　　”Actually, I’ve thought about it before. Xi is good. The sun came out when Fubao was born.” Gu Zhao also thought about it. He came up with so many names, but he couldn’t choose one. He thought he should wait and see. In this way, it would not be appropriate for his Fubao to have no real name.

　　Li Da finished reading it, “Li Jianxi.” He nodded and said, “Okay, it sounds better than Li Jianfu.”

　　”Zhou Zhou, what do you think?”

　　Li Zhouzhou actually had an idea in mind. He said, “I want to use the pronunciation of my husband’s name for the second word. Is that okay?”

　　”Okay.” Gu Zhao was stunned for a moment, but soon became happy. In fact, he didn’t care about these things. He was an outsider and alone. Fubao was his and Zhou Zhou’s baby, and was conceived by Zhou Zhou with great effort. It was natural for him to have Zhou Zhou’s surname.

　　He was happy because he knew Zhou Zhou was thinking about him and caring about his reputation, although he didn’t think it was shameful to be Zhou Zhou’s son-in-law.

　　Li Da nodded, thinking this was a good idea, and he called her Li Guxi and Li Zhaoxi in different tones.

　　Finally, Li Zhaoxi was chosen.

　　Gu Zhao chose it. “It sounds good.”

　　On the last day of the 56th year of the Kangjing reign, Fubao got a famous name, Li Zhaoxi.

　　On the first day of the Lunar New Year, the Gu family took Fubao to visit the Yan family to pay New Year’s greetings. Logically, it was the husband and wife who should take Fubao, the younger generation, to visit. He called Yan Jinxin the second brother, and Yan Jinxin and Liu Fulang would come to visit him later. This was to pay New Year’s greetings to Dad. But Dad said that those rules didn’t matter. After you left, I was bored, so I went to talk to Old Yan, so the whole family went out.

　　Li Zhouzhou brought some braised food, sweets and wine.

　　Gu Zhao wrapped Fubao tightly in a rabbit fur cloak, leaving only a pair of big, bright black eyes exposed.

　　The snow that fell outside yesterday had not melted yet, and the whole place was white. Fubao sat in his father’s arms, kicking his legs to reach out to look, and was curious about everything. Gu Zhao secretly lifted a corner of the curtain for Fubao, allowing him to peek successfully.

　　Li Zhouzhou saw everything the father and son did, but said nothing and let the two of them have their childish fun.

　　When we arrived at Yan’s house, we exchanged warm greetings.

　　Everyone went into the main room to talk. The main room of the Yan family was the warmest because of the charcoal stove. Originally, Yan’s mother, Yan grandma, had said that they would bring Dabai over so that they could take care of him at night. Since the main room was warm, Dabai would sleep with grandma.

　　If Liu Shu had agreed in the past, it would have saved him the trouble of getting up at night. Most of the children in the village are raised by their mothers-in-law and grandmothers after giving birth. These are good mothers-in-law and should be praised. Liu Shu had always asked for such mothers-in-law in the past, but he should have agreed now. However, he hesitated as he thought of Brother Zhou Zhou, the lucky baby he had brought up.

　　So I refused.

　　Sleep in the same room with them in the middle of the night.

　　They started chatting, and Liu Shu said, “…My Dabai rarely gets up at night and is very easy to take care of. I have never heard him cry.”

　　Li Zhouzhou was surprised and immediately praised it, saying that it was very good, because his baby Fubao would cry at night during the confinement period.

　　But Liu Shu didn’t know that he was sleeping soundly. As soon as Dabai in the crib groaned, Yan Jinxin, who was sleeping beside the bed, got up and started taking care of Dabai to see if he was hungry or had urinated.

　　After talking about the children, he moved on to the matter of giving gifts to Lord Shi.

　　”My family is planning to send a braised duck and a bottle of wine.” Li Zhouzhou knew Xiaoshu’s personality and said directly, “Are you tight on money?”

　　Liu Shu was in charge of the money of the Yan family. He knew that Zhou Zhou was worried about him, so he didn’t hide it. He said, “After the confinement, I had more than ten taels of silver. I spent two taels of silver a month, and I could save more than one tael of silver from the monthly silver that Jin Xin brought back. It was enough. There was also the rice and meat brought back for the New Year. My family couldn’t finish it, so we sold some of it.”

　　That is not rich but not tight either.

　　Li Zhouzhou stopped worrying and turned to talk about the business of braised duck. He ordered boxes for snacks to pack the duck. When Zhouzhou mentioned the business, he became interested and said, “I was just about to tell you, Brother Zhouzhou. I thought about it after I came back. How about we take on banquets? We only take on large courtyards with three entrances and three exits.”

　　”It’s too troublesome to host a banquet and there’s a lot of preparation to do. If we don’t make arrangements properly once we enter the mansion, do you still remember the time when that country squire’s steward bullied us?”

　　“That’s true.”

　　”Choose a shop in an alley close to the main street, with a bigger yard, and sell ducks by the box or by the piece.”

　　Liu Shu continued, “Why don’t we make more for the New Year and send some to the Hanlin Academy so that we can spread the word of mouth.”

　　”That’s fine.”

　　It was a two-pronged approach, it helped to build up the reputation of the company, and it also helped her husband to build good relationships with his colleagues. If it was a normal gift, it might seem strange, but it was okay to give a piece of food during the Chinese New Year, and it wasn’t a very expensive gift. Li Zhouzhou made up his mind.

　　I have to ask the carpenter’s shop when it opens to make lunch boxes.

　　The two families don’t have many relatives in Beijing, so when Zheng Hui is free, they can just visit him and wish him a happy new year.

　　On the evening of the second day of the Chinese New Year, Lan’s mother came back. She was holding a jar of pickled vegetables in her hand. They were homemade and had never been opened. They were very clean. She was still worried whether the lady would want them, but she thought that if the lady didn’t want them, she could keep them for herself.

　　This time when she went back for the New Year, she couldn’t even carry all the meat, duck, lamb legs, and rice distributed by the Li family. So she took advantage of her free time to ask the clerk in the street shop who lived in the same alley as her family to pass a message back, and her son came to get it by pushing a cart.

　　When he saw so many, he was stunned and didn’t dare to take any. He asked her if the noble man knew about them.

　　”This is a reward from a nobleman. How could your mother do such a sneaky thing?” Mother Lan almost pinched her son.

　　The son quickly apologized and tried to coax his mother, “I just didn’t expect there would be so many.”

　　That’s true. Mother Lan worked in various mansions in Beijing. The last one she worked in was the longest. She was an assistant in the kitchen of a fifth-rank official, doing jobs like cutting vegetables and meat for more than ten years. Why did she leave?

　　Mother Lan was forced to leave because of a setup that found fault with her.

　　At that time, the monthly salary was more than it is now, and the kitchen was well-oiled. Although chopping and washing was a bit hard work, the previous owner was a very particular eater and generally would not eat the leftovers. The servants would fry these things in a pot and eat them well. Although the monthly salary was less, it was not as good as the maids who served closely, and they did not have to look at the mistress’s face to do things.

　　But there were only two people working in the kitchen, and the cook had a good relationship with her and they used to chat and laugh together. But it turned out that the cook set a trap for her. As soon as she left, the one who took over her job was the cook’s cousin.

　　Mother Lan was disappointed. As she got older, it was hard to find a job, especially a work contract, which was not a contract to sell one’s body. She had been unemployed for two months. Fortunately, she ran into the Li family.

　　The monthly salary was fifty cents less than her last job, and there was more work to do. She was the only one in the kitchen and had to do laundry. However, the master of the house had a very kind temper and was never harsh on her. After working for a few months, Mother Lan felt a lot more at ease.

　　Unexpectedly, when the New Year came, the Li family was very generous in giving New Year gifts.

　　Even more than the previous owner. Although the lady^[1]Zhaozhao said it was an accident and there were more this year, Mama Lan thought that if he didn’t give it to the servants, he could sell it for money.