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Chapter 255: The Guideline of Giving Birth to a Child: Live and Get Pregnant (3)

Translator: Iris

Minglan snuggled up to Hualan, feeling very warm inwardly, “Eldest Sister, you are so nice to me!”

Hualan smiled happily while stroking the hair on Minglan’s temple, saying, “Silly girl!”

A person’s nature was hard to change. Minglan knew better than anyone that Hualan was the big sister type who loved to take care of the people who were weaker than her. The sense of achievement she got from looking after others could cheer her up more than doing her a favor.

“So...” As Minglan recalled something she was curious about, she asked tentatively, “How’s it going?”

She was meant to ask how her idea had worked. When Minglan had entered Marquis Zhongqin’s mansion, she had taken a glance at the new concubine of Old Master Yuan. That woman was very pretty and elegant. Although she was not so young anymore, she gave Minglan a warm and tender feeling. What was more, the new concubine didn’t talk too much and followed etiquette all the time. When she stood beside Old Madam Yuan, she seemed very tame but also not too menial.

Hualan, knowing what Minglan was thinking, glanced at the latter and said complacently, “Very well.”

Countess Shoushan had no intention to bring a sultry girl to make a stir in Marquis Zhongqin’s mansion. Therefore, Concubine Zhang whom Countess Shoushan had found for Old Master Yuan was not beautiful or young enough, but sensible and virtuous and never made any unreasonable requests. Not only did she talk and behave decently, she was also very gentle and thoughtful to everyone in the family. The dry soil inside Old Master Yuan’s heart was finally irrigated by the waterfall of love.

Concubine Zhang was from a decent family. Moreover, Countess Shoushan had sent betrothal gifts by herself and Old Master Yuan had agreed to this marriage. Therefore, Concubine Zhang was a typical respected concubine. Since Old Madan Yuan couldn’t stop Concubine Zhang from marrying into the Yuan family, she then had planned to torture the latter in the future. However, Zhang shi(Concubine Zhang) never made any mistakes in her words or deeds. She always treated Old Madam Yuan reverently. Sometimes when she was slapped on the face or ordered to kneel for no reason as punishment, she only endured all those things and showed the wounds on her face and body to Old Master Yuan at night.

Old Madam Yuan couldn’t explain why she had punished Zhang shi and the only words she could say were, ‘She’s not respectful to me. She irritated me.” Seeing that she couldn’t give a reasonable excuse, Old Madam Yuan flushed with anger and accused Old Madam Yuan of ‘being jealous’, which was one of the seven misconducts of women in the book Seven Reasons. What Old Madam Yuan had been condemned to was much more severe than the punishment for bullying her daughter-in-law.

The most important thing was, Old Master Yuan almost slept with Zhang shi every night. Even if Old Madam Yuan pierced Zhang shi with a needle, Old Master Yuan could still find that injury.

At last, after Old Madam Yuan had reflected on her wrongdoing in the ancestral temple of the Yuan family for two days, she had to swallow her anger and dared not make difficulties for Zhang shi.

After that, Old Madam Yuan decided to bully the weaker members of the family. She proposed to extend the Yuan’s mansion because the rooms were not enough to accommodate all the Yuan’s descendants and then asked for silvers from Hualan.

Zhang shi reacted very fast in this. She knew that she needed to find a patron in this family if she wanted to keep a foothold here and the love from Old Master Yuan was not strong enough to protect her. What was more, before she married into the Yuan family, Countess Shoushan had already instructed her to stop Old Madam Yuan from foolish acts in case this woman tear Yuan family apart.

Before, every time something like this had happened, although Old Master Yuan felt it was not a right thing to do, he still couldn’t endure Old Madam Yuan’s complaints about all kinds of expenses in the family and the difficulties of managing the family affairs. After Old Madam Yuan pestered him endlessly, Old Madam Yuan who got a headache could only agree to her request.

Even if Hualan felt Old Madam Yuan had done wrongly, she didn’t have the guts to report her mother-in-law’s wrongdoing all the time. After all, criticizing seniors was regarded as an unfilial behavior.

However, Zhang shi dealt with this issue more cleverly than Hualan by asking one question, “There are seldom off-the-books incomes in the Yuan family. The incomes from the estates, the stores as well as the men’s wages are all clearly recorded on the account book. What’s more, the people in the Yuan family don’t live extravagant lives or hold large banquets, thus there should be at least some savings in the family. Why the family is always short of money when there are construction works needing to be done?”

For example, a family’s annual income was a hundred thousand ounces of silver and expense was fifty thousand ounces of silver. For several years, this family didn’t hold any large feast(such as building a yard when Yuanchun paid a visit to her parents) or have any member who had a serious disease(Hualan and Yuan Wenshao paid for their own expenses for seeing doctors or establishing contacts), or eat delicacies of every kind and wear silk and satin every day. In a word, without a large sum of spending, the family incomes should be enough to cover the expenses. Moreover, there should actually be some savings.

“I have just married into our family and don’t dare to talk nonsense. However, the situation seems quite serious according to Old Madam’s words. It sounds like if Second Madam can’t give us the silvers, our family might be starved. How... how could this happen?”

Hearing Zhang shi’s words, Old Master Yuan who had been through tough times got alarmed right away. After the pillow talk with Zhang shi, he asked to check the account book of the Marquis Zhongqin’s mansion.

Old Madam Yuan was almost scared to death. First, she made a scene by crying and shouting for a long while and refused to give the account book. However, her behavior made others more suspicious. At last, Old Master Yuan forced her to take out the account book with family rules. After browsing the book, Old Master Yuan found that Old Madam Yuan had withdrawn lots of money from the family savings every year. At first, Old Madam Yuan claimed that she had used the money to help her parents’ family out. However, after Old Master Yuan interrogated her again, she confessed that she had been persuaded by her sister-in-law and used the money to do businesses. Of course, all those businesses had failed.

Old Master Yuan almost vomited blood in rage. He couldn’t believe that half of the money Yuan family had saved through a frugal life was used up by Old Madam Yuan.

As a matter of fact, Hualan only wanted her father-in-law to know that there was still plenty of money in the Yuan family and that her mother-in-law had only wanted to make things difficult for her by asking money from her. She had thought that she could live at ease for a while after Old Master Yuan checked the account book.

“I can’t believe my mother-in-law would be so bold.” Hualan said that. Clearly she was also shocked.

The final punishment was: Old Madam Yuan was deprived of the power of handling the money forever. The incomes and expenses as well as the detailed accounts would be managed by the two young madams in the family. If the two young women had disagreements with each other or couldn’t make a decision, Zhang shi would report the issue to Old Master Yuan. In short, Old Madam Yuan could never ask about the money issues in the family!