Wu Baozhang didn't know how she got back. She only knew that she fell down as soon as she entered the room. When she woke up, it was already time for lighting. Her personal maid was holding a bowl of medicine and looking at her with a sad face. When she saw her open her eyes, she shouted happily: "Grandma is awake, Grandma is awake."
It was her wet nurse and another maid who rushed into her room in surprise. They stood at the head of the bed and cried, "Grandma, you finally woke up. The doctor said you caught a cold and have been in a coma for two days and two nights. If you don't wake up, we will have to go to Xinglin Hutong to ask Madam Yuan for help!"
Caught a cold?!
Wu Baozhang struggled to sit up.
Her wet nurse and maid quickly brought a pillow and placed it behind her.
Wu Baozhang asked, "Where is the master?"
The maid and the nurse exchanged glances and said, "Master's wound has not healed yet, and he is lying in bed to recuperate. Knowing that you have caught a cold, the servant came to see you, but the doctor did not let you get out of bed, saying that he was afraid that the wound would relapse, so Master did not come to see you for the past two days."
lie!
Cheng Nuo hated her so much, why would he come to see her
But Cheng Nuo is a very soft-hearted person, maybe he really came to see her
Wu Baozhang felt a faint hope and said to the nurse, "Help me put on my clothes. I'm going to go see the master!"
The nurse looked a little flustered, and said hurriedly: "You should rest for a while. It won't be too late to go see the master after you take the medicine and feel better..."
Wu Baozhang was puzzled and pushed the nurse away, ordering the maid: "Change my clothes!"
The maid looked at the wet nurse and dared not move.
Wu Baozhang was furious: "Do you still have any regard for me, your grandmother? Do you all want to be driven out?"
The nurse started crying when she heard this and said, "Grandma, the master is not in the room. The day after you fainted, the master was able to get out of bed, and he left the house as soon as he was able to get out of bed, and he hasn't come back yet. The servants around him don't know where they went. The master was very worried and sent people to look for him. The people who came back said that the master went to look for that Kang Liuniang. As a result, the Kang family's shop was sold to someone else, and Kang Liuniang returned to Huixian. The master, the master chased after her and said that he wanted to give that Kang Liuniang an explanation and wanted to divorce her..." After saying this, the nurse burst into tears, "Grandma, what can I do? If you are divorced, even if the master loves you, he still has his wife? You have been unconscious for the past two days. I don't know if there is a letter from Jinling City saying that Master Wu has been engaged to the second daughter of his uncle Yin's family..."
Wu Baozhang was so angry that he almost suffocated.
Her biological mother's surname was Yin, and this uncle of the Yin family was her biological mother's brother. He was a well-known rogue in Meizhou. Later, his father became an official, and he bullied the neighbors in his father's name several times. His father had no choice but to find someone to beat this uncle severely, and her uncle was considered to be more obedient. But even so, her father still had to take out a certain amount of money every year to subsidize this uncle. What good is there in a daughter raised by such a family, and she is the second daughter. Isn't this going to ruin her brother's future
Who else could have done such a thing except her good stepmother
Wu Baozhang forced himself to ask, "Is this Madam's idea?"
The nurse wiped her tears and nodded, saying, "Madam said that Uncle Yin always comes to ask for money. If you give him money, he will rely on it to make a living and will not work at all. If you don't give him money, people will say that the master doesn't recognize his first wife and his reputation is not good. Besides, the second young lady is going to marry into the Shen family. The Shen family is also a well-known family in Jiangnan. We can't let the second young lady marry and be laughed at. It would be best to marry a girl from the Yin family. If there is any problem in the future, the girl from the Yin family will come forward to help mediate. At worst, the girl from the Yin family will deal with the Yin family - after the girl from the Yin family marries, she can't ignore her husband's family and only think about her own family, right
“The master agreed.
"The wedding date has been set for October this year."
In other words, it was useless for her to object.
Wu Baozhang lay limply on the bed.
But no one from the Cheng family came to see her.
Wu Baozhang's mind was in a fuss. One moment, she saw Cheng Lu smilingly pinning a silk flower on her hair and looking at her with a look of relief and joy. The next moment, she saw Cheng Lu holding a copy of the Classic of Mountains and Seas and telling her a story with a gentle smile. The next moment, she saw Cheng Lu pushing her to the ground, pointing at her nose and scolding her for being a slut. When she looked up, she saw Zhou Shaojin standing behind Cheng Lu with a smile on her face... All those random scenes kept spinning in her mind like a revolving lantern, making her unable to distinguish what had happened and what was her fantasy. She gradually became confused.
By the time she fully regained consciousness, it was already early August, and it was time to start sending New Year gifts.
When the nurse came to ask her for instructions, she was too lazy to even think about it. She just asked the nurse in a hoarse voice: "Isn't the master in charge these days? Why don't you go ask the master?"
The nurse's smile seemed forced, and she said, "The wife should be in charge of household affairs, but you were not feeling well a few days ago, so you handed some things over to the master. Now that you are awake, you have the final say on household affairs..." Then she whispered, "The eighth day of the eighth month is the hundredth day of Master Yun of the fourth master's family in Chaoyang Gate. You haven't been out for a while. Do you want to pack up and go for a walk over there?"
It implies that if she has any grievances, she can take the opportunity to talk to the elders of the Cheng family.
Now Cheng Wen has to rely more and more on the Cheng family's eldest branch. If the elders of the Cheng family's eldest branch speak, Cheng Wen dare not disobey.
Wu Baozhang's mind once again echoed with Cheng Lu's words, "You are not even worthy of carrying Shaojin's shoes."
She gritted her teeth in hatred and clenched her fists.
Asking her to curry favor with Madam Guo and see what Zhou Shaojin thinks... No way!
But if I don’t go... how can I break this situation
After waking up, Wu Baozhang quickly began to face his own predicament.
"Master hasn't come back yet?" she asked the nurse, "What has the master been doing these days?"
The nurse looked at her timidly and shook her head, whispering, "Master hasn't come back yet, and the master has been busy in the shop these days." She hesitated for a moment, then continued, "However, the brother over there came over a few days ago, and I heard that he brought six hundred taels of silver to the master, which is the income from the farm over there. He also said that the brother over there asked him to come and discuss with the master, saying that he wanted to sell the two top-quality paddy fields over there, and use the money from the sale to subsidize the expenses here..."
The one over there is Cheng Wen’s mistress.
Zhou Shaojin sneered as he listened: "Six hundred taels of silver, who is she trying to fool? The shops that the master gave her have an annual income of two to three thousand taels of silver..."
The nurse said helplessly: "Ke Shan can coax the master. Look at the madam, she doesn't give a penny. Last month she brought a letter asking the master to send her two thousand taels of silver, saying that her nephew from her mother's family is getting married soon, and she must give a big gift. Look at the brothers over there, they even sit at the same table with the servants when eating..."
"Alright, alright." Wu Baozhang got a headache after hearing this and said, "Don't tell me these things anymore in the future."
The wet nurse dared not say anything.
She also felt that it was wrong to meddle in her father-in-law's affairs, but wasn't this what Wu Baozhang had instructed her to keep an eye on before
Wu Baozhang felt that it would be better for him to just sleep.
She sighed and told her nurse, "Prepare my clothes! Let's go to Chaoyang Gate for a drink on the eighth day of the first lunar month."
The wet nurse went to prepare happily.
Wu Baozhang sent someone to pay respects to her father-in-law - since she was awake, she should at least go and say hello to her father-in-law, but Cheng Nuo was not at home, and the father-in-law and daughter-in-law had to stay away from each other, so she sent someone over.
The person who came back didn't see the father-in-law, and reported to her: "The master was talking to the brothers over there. He heard that you woke up, so he took some ginseng and asked the kitchen to stew chicken soup for you. He said that you should rest well and go to Chaoyang Gate on the eighth day of the first lunar month to congratulate Master Yun."
Wu Baozhang nodded absentmindedly.
In the study, Cheng Wen's brows were furrowed so tightly that they could kill a mosquito.
He walked around the room, asking, "Is this your idea or your sister's?"
There was another man in the room, he looked to be about twenty-five or twenty-six years old, with regular features and ordinary clothes, but he had a calmness that made people feel that he was reliable and trustworthy.
"That's what I meant." The man said, "Sister doesn't feel tired following you. But the children are grown up, and they will have to go to school in a few years. What should I do in the future if I am confused like this? Sister wants to go to Hangzhou Prefecture. I ask you to find a way to register the children's household registration in Hangzhou Prefecture. She and the children will live in Hangzhou Prefecture in the future. That is also our hometown. When I came to Beijing and saw the situation at home, I thought you might as well help me marry Mrs. Kang.
"You are the son of an official family, so you don't know some things. Hui County is mostly populated by businessmen. Many of them have been out doing business for more than ten or twenty years without returning home. It's impossible for them to be alone and have no one to serve them. All the children they give birth to are illegitimate, right? Just marry a wife locally and have both ends..."
Cheng Wen had also heard of this kind of thing.
I used to despise such people.
But now... He couldn't help but feel moved.
If Cheng Nuo followed the Sixth Lady of the Kang Family to Hui County, he could send Wu back to Nanjing to honor her mother-in-law, and the child he raised outside could live with him in Beijing with the child. Although the Sixth Lady of the Kang Family was from a merchant family, she had a clean background after all, and Wu had no children. When she gave birth to a child in Nanjing, she would go back to Nanjing to register it in the family tree. Without a legitimate son, everyone would be the same, and there would be no distinction between legitimate and illegitimate children.
The more Cheng Wen thought about it, the better he thought this was a good idea, and the more he thought about it, the more he felt that it was feasible.
He excitedly called the butler in and asked him to prepare a generous gift and send it to Chaoyang Gate: "... to celebrate Yun'er's 100th day."
This is a big deal as it concerns the heirs. If the eldest son of the family can give his approval, then this matter will be a sure thing.
After all, Wu's father was a fourth-rank official. Who knows if he would be promoted to a third-rank provincial governor one day. By then, it would be one problem for Wu to rely on her natal family to not acknowledge the child born to the Sixth Lady of the Kang family. But if they said that the Sixth Lady of the Kang family was their concubine and had no private property, it would be troublesome if they took over the Sixth Lady of the Kang family's property and did not leave a penny to her grandson but instead subsidized her natal family!
This matter must be arranged in a way that the Wu family won't have a chance to turn things around!
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Dear friends, please give more updates for Shuihualing.
O(∩_∩)O~
PS: I saw everyone’s comments saying that they don’t like to read Wu Baozhang… It’s just that this article has reached the end stage, and some people and things need to be explained clearly, and I can’t skip it…
The evening update is still around ten o'clock.
※(To be continued)