Chapter 4: Don’t Like It Anymore
Madam Zhou patted Lin Tingting’s hand to comfort her, her face instantly darkening as she adopted the posture of a mother-in-law and ordered, “Since that’s the case, why haven’t you immediately restored Tingting’s expenses? And by the way, give some silver as subsidy for her wounded heart.”
Jiang Ruanxi was amused by her tone.
She acted as if it were a matter of course, truly thinking her money was blown in by the wind, free for them to use.
On the surface, Jiang Ruanxi showed a troubled expression. “Mother, it’s not that I don’t want to agree, but this matter is a bit difficult to handle.”
“Why?”
“The child is about to enter the manor, as the Marquis and this concubine discussed. Everything must be done according to the rules for a legitimate son of the Marquis Manor. The food, clothing, and expenses must all be meticulous, no sloppiness allowed.”
“But in these years, although the family industry has improved, the income is still limited. One place has expenditure, so another place must be tightened. So after thinking it over, I could only wrong Third Sister.”
“Nonsense, one child, how much money can it cost.” Lin Tingting angrily came forward to retort.
“One child doesn’t cost much money. But Third Sister, you don’t know yet, the Marquis also wants to purchase a courtyard outside. Adding it all up, it’s no small expenditure.”
Madam Zhou’s mouth moved slightly, wanting to retort, but thinking that many matters now were not suitable to mention, fearing to say the wrong thing, she could only silently remain quiet.
Lin Tingting didn’t know the inside story and had long been displeased with Jiang Ruanxi. Now that it involved harming her own benefits, she directly threw a tantrum as usual.
“I don’t care about you all. No matter how frugal, no one is allowed to deduct my expenses and outlays. Deduct from others if you must.”
Jiang Ruanxi looked troubled at Lin Runkun. “Second Uncle, you’ve seen it too. Since Third Sister has spoken, we can only wrong you all a bit. I can only reduce the annual expenses to the clan…”
Before Jiang Ruanxi could finish speaking, Lin Runkun directly opposed, “No, for an outsider, to deduct the clan’s expenses, this defies both reason and emotion.”
That’s not an outsider, it’s my own grandson!
Madam Zhou wanted to shout it out loud, but now she could only swallow her bitterness like a mute eating yellow lotus, unable to speak of her suffering.
“The silver is only so much. We can’t deduct from Third Sister, nor from the clan members… So what should we do?” Jiang Ruanxi pretended to be very troubled and said to Madam Zhou, “Mother, what should I do about this? I can’t make the decision. Why don’t you decide?”
Jiang Ruanxi kicked the ball into Madam Zhou’s hands.
Madam Zhou hadn’t expected Jiang Ruanxi to kick the hot potato back to her. She felt a bit displeased in her heart but said nothing.
She pondered the pros and cons in her mind.
On one side was her own biological daughter, on the other the clan members. According to her selfish heart, she would definitely side with Lin Tingting first.
But opposite her was the Clan Leader, whom she simply couldn’t afford to offend.
After all, Dingning Marquis Manor was no longer the Dingning Marquis Manor of the past. Lin Ningkun’s future prospects still needed the clan members’ relationships to pave the way.
“Clan Leader, this is the Marquis’s matter. Although he is my son, I can’t make decisions for him.” Madam Zhou’s ambiguous words kicked the ball onto Lin Ningkun.
Lin Runkun didn’t want to argue with these women either. He stormed out to find the Marquis of Dingning Manor, Lin Ningkun.
Lin Runkun puffed with anger into Lin Ningkun’s room. No one knew what was said, but according to the information Hong Ye gathered, when the Clan Leader left, his expression was quite unpleasant, looking as if he was very angry.
“Not only the Clan Leader, even the Marquis’s expression wasn’t good. He even went to Third Miss’s courtyard and gave her a thorough scolding.”
Hong Ye described it vividly with flying eyebrows.
Baring her big white teeth in a grin, “The Marquis even scolded Third Miss, whom he usually dotes on the most. Looks like he’s really furious!”
Seeing this, Jiang Ruanxi gently fanned the palm leaf fan up and down, looking somewhat amused at Hong Ye’s delighted appearance.
It seems this girl has long been fed up with the Lin Family members.
Even Hong Ye, a maidservant, could see the Lin Family members’ selfishness. In her previous life, what kind of pig-brained fool was she to not see it at all.
However, she hadn’t expected Lin Ningkun to be so infatuated.
For a widow, he didn’t hesitate to defy his elders, even harshly scolding his closest kin. Lin Ningkun truly loved Jiang Xuerou deeply.
Since that’s the case, she wanted to see how long this scoundrel couple could last.
Her gaze fell on the Red Plum Blossom on the nearby table. She set down the palm leaf fan, picked up the scissors, and without hesitation, snipped it off with one cut.
The more he hid things away, the more she wanted to expose those unspeakable things in public. She wanted that scoundrel couple to be spurned by thousands.
“Madam, isn’t this the plum blossom tree you love most? Why did you cut it?” Hong Ye asked doubtfully.
“Plum blossoms have arrogance. They look displeasing.”
Jiang Ruanxi set down the scissors and instructed, “Throw out this pot of plum blossoms, and by the way, have people dig up all the plum blossom trees in the Marquis Manor’s courtyards for me.”
“Madam, don’t you love plum blossoms the most?” Hong Ye was full of doubt at Jiang Ruanxi’s change.
Actually, Jiang Ruanxi didn’t like plum blossoms at all. She had only unintentionally heard Lin Ningkun say in front of her that plum blossoms were beautiful, so out of affection for him, she planted the courtyard full of various kinds of plum blossoms, carefully serving them daily just to please him.
But who would have thought that the one who liked plum blossoms wasn’t Lin Ningkun, but Jiang Xuerou. Thinking of the full courtyard of plum blossoms she saw in the neighboring courtyard in her previous life, now seeing plum blossoms made her feel disgust.
With a face full of disgust, “I don’t like them now. In the deep winter, instead of hibernating properly, they come out showing off, attracting pity. They surely aren’t good flowers.”
Hong Ye looked bewildered but didn’t dwell on it.
Anyway, she only listened to Jiang Ruanxi. Whatever she said to do, there was her reason, and she just had to follow.
Hong Ye had just reached the door when Jiang Ruanxi thought of something and called her back.
“Hong Ye, wait. I remember there’s a servant in the front courtyard called Shugen, right?”
“Yes, Madam. Last time at the manor, you saw him being bullied. Seeing him pitiful, you let him come back to the Marquis Manor to work, and you arranged for him to help in the front courtyard.”
Jiang Ruanxi had thought of him, so she wanted to arrange for him to help her.
Because she couldn’t trust the people in the Marquis Manor now.
“Go tell him to check if there are beggars at our back courtyard entrance. If there’s a beggar with clean clothes, have him notify me. This matter can’t be known to anyone.”
Remembering the monk’s words before her death in her previous life, she still had questions in her heart to this day.
Whether what that beggar said was true, whether there really was stealing and swapping fate in the world?
With whom exactly had she swapped fate? If her fate had been stolen and swapped, did she still have a chance to swap it back?
She understood the current situation: wanting to divorce Lin Ningkun was already impossible. Lin Ningkun wouldn’t risk the world’s condemnation to divorce her, but once the time was ripe, he would kill her to achieve his objective. So she couldn’t wait for death.
