Ran Yan nodded her head, "This is necessary."
Ran Yan thought hard, still having no concept of fifteen pieces of silver, and sighed involuntarily. The original mistress really knew nothing about the ways of the world, and she couldn't continue like this to survive, so she asked, "How much rice can one piece of silver buy?"
Wan Lu felt distressed. Originally, if her mistress were still in the main residence, she would have already learned to manage household affairs, but now she didn't even know how much a dou of rice cost...
Though her heart ached, Wan Lu still explained very carefully to Ran Yan, "One piece of silver is one guan, which is a thousand wen. One dou of rice costs five wen. Ten dou of rice is one dan, which means one piece of silver can buy twenty dan of rice. This is in an average year. If there's a good harvest, it's common in Jiangnan Road for rice to cost only three or four wen per dou."
Ran Yan nodded. One dan of rice was about fifty-nine kilograms, which she knew. What she hadn't expected was that one piece of silver in the Great Tang could buy more than a thousand kilograms of rice!
She also marveled that the lifestyle of the ancient nobility was truly extravagant—one hairpin could be exchanged for that much rice!
"My mistress, your health isn't good, so I bought some green jing rice. This green rice comes from Hebei Road and isn't available locally. It costs forty wen per dou." Wan Lu sighed. Most of the green rice was transported to Chang'an to be sold. Little was sent elsewhere, as merchants preferred to curry favor with the nobles by delivering it to their houses, which made it not only expensive but also hard to get. Wan Lu had to nag and push hard just to secure fifty kilograms.
"Tsk tsk, what a pity," Wan Lu suddenly sighed.
Ran Yan gave her a questioning look.
Wan Lu said, "That gemstone-embedded butterfly hairpin comes in a pair, selling a single one resulted in quite the financial loss. If you had pulled out the other one from Miss Eighteen's head as well, we could have sold it for forty pieces!"
Ran Yan burst into laughter, "You really are ruthless!"
"Ruthless, so be it! It's just that holding other people's money in my hand makes me feel relieved. My mistress indeed demonstrated immense power, just like an Overlord!" Wan Lu recalled how a few days ago Ran Yan had that "Mount Tai collapsing in front of her yet remaining unchanged" demeanor, and her eyes sparkled with excitement.
Ran Yan smiled as Wan Lu chattered beside her. They entered the courtyard and took off their wooden clogs in the corridor, walking with their socked feet on the wooden floor, a style that Japan later adopted from the Tang Dynasty.
With her living problems resolved, Ran Yan's health also improved day by day, adding a certain joy to the small courtyard.
Wu Xiuhe, for some reason, suddenly decided not to leave. With someone providing food and drink, he no longer went to the city to hold a clinic but occasionally went up the mountain to pick some herbs to enhance his private collection. His days were leisurely and carefree.
The few servants in the house only looked after the manor and weren't responsible for attending to Ran Yan, so Xiang Niang and Wan Lu were always busy with chores, never having a moment of peace.
Only Ran Yan was idle enough to grow moss. She was a workaholic before, but in the Great Tang, there were no corpses for her to examine. After her mental support had collapsed, she seemed somewhat dull. Even though Xiang Niang and Wan Lu offered many suggestions, reciting poetry and painting were not to Ran Yan's liking, so she still felt somewhat at a loss.
Holding a brush, she wrote a neatly formed "Quiet" character on the paper and began to zone out again. She had not only inherited the memory of the original mistress but also her skills, although how good those skills were, Ran Yan was not very clear. She felt the character was neat and elegant. In her opinion, as long as the writing was visually pleasing, that was enough; she pursued nothing else.
"Wan Lu, I want to go out for a walk," Ran Yan put down the brush and looked at Wan Lu, who had finally managed to take a break.
"Divine Doctor Wu says your health has improved well; going out for a walk would be good." Wan Lu was straightforward; if it was okay, then it was okay. She immediately got up to fetch a veil to put on Ran Yan.
Many believe that in the Tang Dynasty, voluptuous figures were considered beautiful, and it was an open and passionate culture, but this wasn't entirely so, especially not in the early years of the Zhenguan era. Women still needed to cover up when going out, not casually showing their faces to outsiders.
The veil was like a kind of broad-brimmed hat, coming with a black gauze around it, covering her whole body once put on. The future headscarf evolved from this veil. Ran Yan found it quite novel.
It was early morning, and the heat hadn't yet arrived. The summer breeze carried a slight chill, which was very comfortable.
Ran Yan stood on a small earthen hill at the edge of the village, overlooking the village, where paths crisscrossed and smoke spiraled from kitchen chimneys. Occasional barks of dogs filled the air, and the low houses bathed in the orange morning light seemed quiet yet lively. For the first time, a joy of being reborn surged in her heart.
Ran Yan took a deep breath, feeling the purity of this world, but her mind suddenly filled with many thoughts. The Ran Yan who had once dominated the forensic field was dead. As for her murderer, she believed he would be brought to justice very soon.
Ran Yan was meticulous; her office contained many confidential files, so she had secretly installed a camera inside the room. The police, while investigating, would surely detect it. Assistant Zhang had gone back for that document which definitely had a record, and combined with the fingerprint on the document in the safe, these two pieces of evidence would be enough for the police to classify him as a major suspect. Ran Yan trusted the capacity of Captain Li from the Criminal Investigation Team. She wouldn't be wronged...
What concerned her now was her precarious situation, and she needed to think carefully about how to survive henceforth in the Great Tang.
Become a forensic doctor? The elders of the Ran family would rather see her dead than agree to it, wouldn't they? Moreover, she wasn't clear whether women during the Zhenguan period could hold such a position. Even if she could become a forensic doctor, she might face the same fate as in her previous life, and no one would dare to employ her! Although she loved the forensic field dearly, she had to be objective about it.
Being alone in the Tang Dynasty, Ran Yan suddenly longed for the warmth of a family.
Opportunity gave her a chance to live again. Ran Yan felt she shouldn't tread the same old path. Thinking of her medical skills, she believed she could develop them, but suddenly acquiring medical skills might arouse suspicion. It might be better to start by apprenticing herself to Wu Xiuhe...
Ran Yan thought this plan was quite reliable. After making up her mind, she sat again for a while, listening as village women gradually started calling their children out of their houses for a meal.
"My lady, shall we also return?" Wan Lu said.