On the other hand, when Cui Xingzhou made a big fuss at Qingguo Residence, Miantang was personally cooking tonic soup for her sister.
Miscarriages are more harmful than confinement, and one must be extra careful in everything. If one falls ill, it can be a lifelong thing. Servant Li shook her fan and sighed slightly, “I don’t know if the prince can straighten things out smoothly?”
Miantang didn’t worry, “Your Highness has taken the initiative and there is nothing impossible. Besides, what the Duke and Old Lady of Qingguo do is not authentic. Even if we go to the government to file a lawsuit, we are at an advantage… By the way, our sister can’t work hard now. You can call her intimate maid to come and sort out her dowry list later so that the prince can send someone to collect it. There will be no shares for the Qingguo Residence!”
Servant Li was a senior, and she naturally thought differently than Miantang. She only said, “I haven’t told the Old Princess Consort about this yet. If she knows about it, she will definitely worry about the young lady.”
Miantang smiled slightly and said, “My sister is still young and can afford to lose her youth. There are many young and handsome people in the capital. This time, I have to choose a reliable and clean mansion for her. Once my sister’s second marriage is established, I will inform our mother. This will also save her from worrying.”
Servant Li felt that the sky was about to collapse, but in the eyes of the prince and his wife, it was like a landslide, as if it was no big deal. She couldn’t help but sigh that she was old and couldn’t keep up with the current customs.
Miantang looked at the stew of sea bass and eel in the pot, which was almost cooked, and instructed Servant Li to personally take care of the pot. She untied her small apron and left the small kitchen with several servant girls and Bicao.
When she walked to the moon gate connecting the inner courtyard and the outer courtyard, Miantang saw Lu Yi and his two brothers waiting there.
So she asked several other maids besides Bicao to stand further away and then walked over to ask, “Did your act been exposed yesterday?”
Lu Yi clenched his fists and whispered, “There is no one on the back of the mountain. We used the wine we carried with us to help ignite the fire, drew a Guanyin-shaped enclosure to burn it, and then hid in the dark. Shortly after, a monk rushed to extinguish the fire. The monks saw that the fire was in the shape of a Bodhisattva and was so scared that they knelt and chanted sutras. We had already left by then.”
Miantang nodded and said, “Go to the street market and find some children. Write a rhyme about the situation where the Duke and Old Lady of Qingguo forced their daughter-in-law that provoked the Bodhisattva to appear and then promote their bad reputation of the Duke of Qingguo… In addition, many people have been implicated this time. In fact, upon closer investigation, it was also our fault… Go and distribute some silver to prevent them from poverty due to injuries.”
Lu Yi disagreed and said, “We just set the fire, but we didn’t rush the people with carriages. Why should we compensate for the money? Only the woman surnamed Sun should admit this account.”
Although among the four loyal brothers, Lu Yi was considered to be the smartest, his banditry was still hard to change, and his stubbornness was beyond the reach of nine donkeys.
Miantang said with a stern face, “That lady is now a concubine in the palace. To ask her to fork out silvers is to make the emperor admit his mistake. I don’t have this ability. Why don’t you go to the palace and set fire again to see if she can give the silver.”
Upon seeing this, Lu Yi realized that his retort had caused displeasure to the leader. He quickly responded to her commands and turned to work.
When Cui Xingzhou returned, he sent the documents of divorce to his sister and said that the Guo family had agreed.
Cui Fu doesn’t care about any dowry, just afraid that the Guo family won’t let Jin’er be by her side. Now it was written on the document that before the age of thirteen, Jin’er would be raised by her side, and she breathed a sigh of relief. Jin’er was the legitimate son of the Duke of Qingguo and will inherit the title in the future. Naturally, she cannot change to the Cui surname. At the age of thirteen, even if she doesn’t leave Guo Yi, Jin’er should still go to school and leave her parents for the academy.
Thinking of not having to face Old Lady Guo again, Cui Fu felt much more relaxed.
However, when asking back for the dowries, there were some twists and turns. Miantang was pregnant and unable to go to the Duke’s Residence, so she asked Servant Li to take the three butlers to verify the loading.
When the eldest lady got married, it was a good time for the Huaiyang Prince’s Residence. To match the identity of the Duke’s Residence, the old Huaiyang Prince prepared a lot of dowries for his daughter.
But after Cui Fu married over, she realized that she was not living more comfortably in the Qingguo Residence than her own family. After all, the old prince has made outstanding achievements in the war, with countless rewards and abundant fiefdoms, which naturally have a lot of advantages, much stronger than the empty Qingguo Residence.
However, the Qingguo Residence follows a path of scholarly tradition and does not encourage children to go out for fun. Therefore, after Guo Yi got married, his monthly schedule was also limited. Guo Yi was naturally sociable and often struggled with his classmates when going out, which was not very dignified.
Cui Fu couldn’t see her husband like this, so she naturally needed to make up for it. After a long time, the Old Lady of Qingguo also took it for granted, pretending not to know that her son’s silver was not enough to spend and asking Cui Fu to make up for it.
Later on, Guo Yi became an official, which made his life better, but what he had spent before became a hole.
Servant Li asked one by one about the cost of silver with a stiff face. Old Lady Guo couldn’t resist it any longer, so she angrily said, “She is very particular about food and clothing. She always goes for all kinds of expensive accessories and hairpins. Naturally, she spends her own money. Why do we still need to repay them now?”
Servant Li’s face was as if she had knocked over ink. With a long face pulled, she said, Our young lady said that she was too lazy to ask for the small amount of silver, she will treat it as helping the poor with money. However, when you held your 50th birthday banquet, Madam, you despised the lack of exquisite furniture in your own house, so you took a liking to the set of amboyna furniture of our young lady’s dowry and had to buy the exact same one and decorate it as usual. However, your son’s salary for six months was not enough to even purchase a fully carved bed, so it’s worth noting that our young lady borrowed a sum of money as a gift of filial piety. The entire set of amboyna furniture is still well arranged in your room, Madam. Don’t you think this transaction should be settled?”
The silver was originally obtained from the shop where it was given to Cui Fu as a dowry when she was married, and there was evidence to trace it. They are reasonable even if they were to go to the government to file a lawsuit. The old lady was so angry that her hairpins were shaking wildly, and she only said with hatred, “Since she is not my daughter-in-law anymore, I naturally don’t care about her hypocritical filial piety. You may go to my house to tidy up and have them carry away all that tattered furniture from the Cui family.”
Servant Li flipped over another page without hesitation and said, “Lord Guo needed to establish some connections when he came to the capital. He also borrowed a sum from our eldest lady, but now that he is promoted, the one who lives in ease and comfort is not our young lady. This sum of money also needs to be compensated.”
Upon hearing this, the old lady raged and said with a stern expression, “This transaction was negotiated by their husband and wife themselves. What does it have to do with the Qingguo Residence?
Servant Li received Miantang’s order earlier, curled her lips, and said with a smile, “This silver expenditure has been spent in exchange for Lord Guo’s gradual rise. Otherwise, how can he establish a foothold in the capital? All the old and young in your residence have benefited, so why has it nothing to do with your Qingguo’s Residence?”
The Old Lady glared and said, “Don’t mention these things to me! Go and find whoever spends the money!” Anyway, Guo Yi has already used an excuse to patrol the countryside and temporarily left the capital to avoid the spotlight. What can the Cui family do if she refuses to admit it?
They are all royal residences, how could they behave so recklessly? How do they have the face to ask for these silver notes one after another?
Servant Li was not in a hurry at all, she spoke out the words that Miantang had taught her without missing a word, “If there are any difficulties in the residence, our eldest lady will not embarrass you either. She is a woman who has lost her husband’s family and has nothing to rely on. She can simply give up her face and beg from door to door according to the threshold that Lord Guo had previously worshiped. I think those princes and masters also need a face, and will not be shameless enough to occupy the dowry silver of the divorced women. In this case, we will leave first, and while it is still early, we should be able to ask for three or five mansions.”
Upon hearing this, the old lady became very anxious. If Cui Fu really acted rashly, wouldn’t her son offend countless dignitaries in the capital? How can he still have a foothold in the court?
“Stop right there!” the old lady urgently called to Servant Li. She was so angry that her dead fish eyes rolled over and over again. Finally, she held back her anger and said,” This silver, I’ll pay!”
After counting the silver and verifying that the dowry had not been stolen, Servant Li asked someone to carry the boxes and leave.
The long convoy, filled with ten large carriages, roared back to the Huaiyang Prince’s Residence.
Because there were many decorations, they were all borrowed by Guo Yi, creating and boosting a scene of a new residence in the capital when they first came for settlement. After clearing it up for a moment, the entire hall of Qingguo Residence looked empty.
Although the old lady did not miss Cui Fu, she couldn’t bear to part with so many things. Seeing them taken away one by one, her heart was filled with sorrow.
Guo Yi’s new concubine, Yurao, looked at her mother-in-law’s displeasure and obediently walked over to comfort, “Mother, it’s good if they took it away, so you won’t be even more upset when you think of that woman.”
The Old Lady of Qingguo had no place to vent her anger when she saw Yurao and said, “At least when she got married, she brought boxes of dowries. What about you? Although you are a concubine, don’t you also need something to boost your reputation? You came in almost empty-handed, only bringing a mouth to eat, Can these help to increase the reputation of your husband?”
Now that Cui Fu was gone, the Old Lady of Qingguo looked at her personally chosen concubine as a disgrace, and her sharp and sarcastic demeanor greeted the concubine of her own family. She just wanted to find a more respectable family-in-law than the Cui family in the future, and let the Cui family see that her son doesn’t need to worry about having a good daughter to marry!
Yurao’s eyes turned red when she was scolded for a moment, and she could only endure the anger and kneel to be disciplined.
Seeing the servants of Qingguo Residence shaking their heads in their hearts, no wonder the nice Young Lady couldn’t tolerate it and insisted on making a scene to divorce! Such a mother-in-law, anyone who meets her will be unlucky!
Having returned her dowry, Cui Fu also had confidence in her heart and could be relieved in recovering from her miscarriage.
However, Miantang couldn’t rest at ease. When Cui Xingzhou returned, he saw Miantang flipping through several thick books.
Cui Xingzhou walked over and kneaded her slender shoulder, saying, “Didn’t you feel tired yesterday? Why are you straining your eyes?”
Miantang pointed to the booklet and said, “This is the list of servants in the residence. I need to reorganize it… I’m afraid this courtyard is not very clean.”
Ruth Ibale On TSFLIP Chapter 1133