In ancient times, the powerful and wealthy seized power step by step.

Gu Zhao had spent very little time in the manor since she was a child. Looking back, she did occasionally see female doctors examining her grandmother.

Most of the women who went out to practice medicine were women in their forties or fifties, and because of their age, they rarely had to hide their practice.

Since it was the female doctor who had treated the old lady before, Gu Zhao neither confirmed nor denied it, simply replying that she understood and not pursuing the matter further.

After finishing reading the account book and having a plan for tomorrow's audience with the emperor, Gu Zhao hurriedly ate a late-night snack and lay in bed, unable to fall asleep for a long time.

He always prided himself on being prudent and disciplined, so how could he be so careless and mistaken the person for someone else?

Why would you assume it's her? If it's not her, then who is she?

She had appeared at her grandmother's place, but despite her talent and beauty, she was not chosen by her grandmother, which shows that her status was not suitable for her to be her concubine.

Looking back on the two meetings, it was fortunate that he did not make any frivolous or flirtatious remarks; otherwise, if the noise had spread, it would have been a case of lust clouding judgment and ruining one's future.

Fortunately, he noticed it early, and no one has figured it out yet. It was just a brief encounter, nothing more than a misunderstanding. In a few days, he will surely forget about her and let the matter fade away.

In the study in the front yard, Gu Zhao tossed and turned in the dead of night, unable to fall asleep.

In the backyard, at Fu'an Hall, Zhu Qingyu stayed up all night attending to her.

By mid-morning, Grandma Gu's fever had finally subsided, her breathing had become steady, and she was out of danger.

After leaving behind a prescription for recuperation, Zhu Qingyu bid farewell to Lady Gu, the wife of the Duke of Dingguo.

Madam Gu tried to persuade him to stay:

"It's kind of you, Madam Zhu, to have made this special trip and worked so hard all night. How can we let you leave so hungry, thirsty, and exhausted? It would make us, the masters of the house, seem too impolite. Madam Zhu, please have breakfast and wait until dawn before you leave. I will have the steward arrange a carriage to take you."

Zhu Qingyu politely declined:

"Thank you for your understanding, Madam. It's not that I'm being ungrateful or presumptuous, but today I'm leaving the capital with my husband to return to Yangzhou. We've already booked a ship, so I need to hurry back and pack my bags, otherwise I'm afraid we'll miss the departure time."

Since there was important business to attend to, Madam Gu did not insist on keeping Zhu Qingyu, and instead had the nanny prepare the consultation fee and send Zhu Qingyu away from the mansion.

The Gu family steward was about to arrange for carriages and horses, but as soon as he stepped out of the gate, he saw that the Zhang family's carriage was already waiting outside.

Upon hearing the sound of the gates of the Duke of Dingguo's mansion opening, Zhang Shen, who had barely slept all night, quickly got out of the carriage and went to greet them.

"My wife."

After saying goodbye to the nanny and housekeeper who came to see her off, Zhu Qingyu got into the car with the bag containing the consultation fee. As soon as she got in the car, she opened the bag to look at it.

Zhang Shen lit a lamp to illuminate her path, and also peered longingly into the bag, saying:

"I was so worried! You didn't come back until midnight. The messenger from the Gu family couldn't get the message across. They just said you had to stay for the night. I wanted to come find you, but there was curfew, so I had to wait until after the curfew at dawn before I came out. Oh, ten taels of silver! As expected of the Duke's mansion, so generous."

This time, Zhu Qingyu was invited to come to the capital from Yangzhou for a medical consultation, which would take two months round trip. The Gu family was indeed very generous. When paying for the consultation, they included Zhu Qingyu's travel expenses, two months of lost wages, and the consultation fee. Previously, when they cured the old lady's back injury, the Gu family paid Zhu Qingyu a full one hundred taels of silver for the consultation fee.

With the ten taels added today, it has now exceeded one hundred taels. Zhu Qingyu only provides prescriptions and does not produce medicine when she sees patients at the Gu family's clinic. The medicine is all made by the Gu family themselves, so this one hundred taels of silver is basically pure profit. Zhu Qingyu could not save this much money even if she ran her clinic for a year.

Moreover, the Gu family is not only generous, but also very cultured. Whether it is the old lady of the Gu family, the mother of the Empress Dowager, or Madam Gu, the Duchess, even though they are of such noble status, they are very polite when they speak to Zhu Qingyu, the doctor from a merchant family. They can basically be described as divine family members.

So although she had barely slept all night and was both hungry and exhausted, Zhu Qingyu was in a great mood because she had cured the patient and encountered a wonderful person who had taken care of her. She put away the bag, leaned against the carriage wall, and cheerfully said while holding the money bag:

"Everyone who sees this gets a share. I've made a fortune this time. I'll make you new clothes when I get back to Yangzhou."

Although ten taels of silver was nothing to Zhang Shen, and he probably wouldn't even bother to bend down and pick it up if he saw it on the roadside normally, he had been staring at it expectantly, just waiting for her to say that, so he smiled as well:

"Then please, my lady, have mercy and not be so stingy this time. Now that you've made a fortune, be generous and buy a few more yards of cloth to make me a few more sets. I don't have any undergarments to wear anymore; the ones I had before are all torn."

Although they are husband and wife, Zhu Qingyu has always kept money matters very separate from Zhang Shen.

Because it was agreed from the beginning that they would only cover for each other, Zhu Qingyu initially only took the allowance of twenty taels of silver given to her by Zhang Shen as her salary. As for the Zhang family's money, she never felt that it had anything to do with her.

She used the clothes and jewelry that Zhang Shen prepared for her as work clothes. When she went out as the eldest daughter-in-law of the Zhang family, she wore fine clothes and gold jewelry. When she went out as the physician Zhu Niangzi, she wore cotton clothes that she bought herself and did not wear jewelry.

As they spent more time together, she came to regard Zhang Shen as family. She reciprocated his kindness and didn't want to just use his money. She wanted to use her own earnings to buy him things and treat him better.

She couldn't afford anything too expensive, and anything too cheap wouldn't suit Zhang Shen's status as a wealthy merchant. After much thought, she bought cotton fabric, learned how to embroider from the embroiderers in the mansion, and made several sets of undergarments for Zhang Shen.

After all, outerwear needs to be made of high-quality materials, have a good cut, and be decorated with intricate embroidery patterns, which she definitely couldn't handle.

As for the inner garment, it's worn inside anyway, so no one can see it. There's no need for embroidery; you just need to cut the fabric and sew it up. Zhu Qingyu spent some time on it, and although she still didn't do it very well, she finally learned how.

Moreover, it doesn't matter if it's not done well. She mainly gave the clothes to express her feelings. Who knew that Zhang Shen, this young master who grew up in luxury, actually liked wearing cotton clothes and wore the same few undergarments over and over.

Accused of being too stingy by Zhang Shen, Zhu Qingyu was so tired that she almost fell asleep with her eyes closed, and mumbled a defense in her sleep:

"You can't blame me for this. Do you think we'd be short of clothes for you? We have mountains of silk and satin! Every time the seasons change, the embroiderers always make clothes for you first. The chests full of finished clothes are never worn. You just wear those few plain clothes every day..."

Zhu Qingyu spoke softer and softer, slower and slower, and before she could finish speaking, she had already fallen asleep.

Zhang Shen took a blanket and covered her with it. He watched her silently for a while, making sure she was really asleep, before softly saying:

"That's different."