Wei Tingyu chuckled. He had never seen another person of Wen Renyang's age who was as simple as him. Some people might have as little experience as him and not be that complicated, but his mind was as pure as that of a child. He was absolutely unique. Although he was a little embarrassed, he did not feel any ill-will at all.
Wen Renyang was a little puzzled by Wei Tingyu's young age. Looking at him, he seemed a little silly, a little... cute. If it weren't for his age being clearly visible and his sharp words when debating with others, one would really doubt whether he had the mental faculties of only a few years old.
Wei Tingyu's casual words drew Wen Renyang's attention elsewhere. It can be seen that if this "child" is not paid attention, he might be abducted by someone. Of course, it should be quite difficult for ordinary people to do this. After all, you have to attract his attention first, which is not easy.
Later, the two chatted about other things, and all in all, they had a very pleasant conversation.
The wife of Marquis Pingyang and Wei Tingyu left the Wenren family in the afternoon. Han brought Xiaocao to see them off personally. The atmosphere was obviously very different from the previous time when Marquis Pingyang came to the house and wanted to beat him out. The servants also knew it. It seemed that Marquis Pingyang was really annoying.
Normally, the servants in the house will have the same attitude as their master. When Wei Tingyu visits again next time, I believe that the servants of the Wen family will at least not show their displeasure overtly.
After Lady Pingyang Marquis had dealt with the affairs of the Wenren family, it was time for her to deal with the affairs of the Marquis's mansion. In the past two days, the people below, because of Aunt Zhou's relationship, pretended to obey but actually disobeyed, and deliberately procrastinated in doing things, making mistakes everywhere. Lady Pingyang Marquis seemed to be oblivious to it. Many people thought that she had not been in charge for more than ten years and had long forgotten what to do, and she was quite disdainful of her.
Just as Wei Tingyu thought, now that he was gone, there was probably no need for Lady Pingyang to stay in this house. However, she had already left the Buddhist temple and didn't know when she would leave. She would not give up her rights. Besides, she always had a fluke. What if her daughter-in-law could cure her son? Apart from anything else, even if it was just to extend her life by a few years, then the daughter-in-law would definitely marry in. She was obsessed with medicine, so naturally she couldn't let her be disturbed by worldly affairs. It would be better if the mansion was cleaned up.
Wei Tingyu had almost the same idea. Naturally, he supported his mother to be in power. If the servants were disobedient, that was easy. He could just replace them. It was such a simple thing.
Therefore, the people below were jumping around as much as they could, and they took Lady Pingyang Marquis less and less seriously. Aunt Zhou sneered secretly, and when Lady Pingyang Marquis came to her for help, Lady Pingyang Marquis, with the help of the people she got from her son, had already found out the details of the servants without leaving any trace. She already knew which ones could be kept, which ones had to be sent away, and which ones could be kept temporarily for later processing. She also had all the evidence she needed to find ready.
Two days later, when the Pingyang Marquis's mansion was in complete chaos, the Pingyang Marquis's wife summoned all the stewards, big and small, and sat at the top. She looked like an ordinary noble lady, or a noble lady without much worldly airs. Such a person did not look like someone who could manage mundane affairs well. However, the people standing below were inexplicably uneasy. After all, it was the first time she summoned everyone after coming out of the Buddhist temple. To be honest, most of the people were seeing her for the first time.
When Aunt Zhou got the news, she thought about it and came straight over. When she arrived in front of the wife of Marquis Pingyang, she was also very respectful and showed great politeness.
The wife of Marquis Pingyang raised her hand slightly and had someone move a chair to the side for her. This development was somewhat beyond Aunt Zhou's expectations, so she calmed down and waited and saw what would happen.
The wife of Marquis Pingyang had no intention of dragging her feet. She handed the booklet that was on the table under her hand to the maid next to her. The maid took it, opened it, and began to read it one by one.
However, after just a few short words, the people below were completely panicked, and the first person who was named knelt on the ground and shouted that he was innocent.
The wife of Marquis Pingyang didn't even raise her eyelids before two burly servants came in and dragged the man out without any courtesy.
The maidservant was not affected enough and finished reading out the charges against the steward who had been dragged out. Then the wife of Marquis Pingyang spoke slowly and ordered all the people who were closest to him, such as her husband, daughter, son, daughter-in-law, etc. to be cleared out. This was clearly a plan to "eliminate the roots."
Not only that, a servant also brought in a bag of gold, silver, jewelry, and banknotes confiscated from the house of the little steward. The evidence was irrefutable.
It would be fine if he didn't take action, but once he did, it was with such force that the remaining people were trembling with fear and sweating profusely.
Aunt Zhou, who was sitting on the side, also had a very ugly expression on her face. Not only because the Lady of Pingyang Marquis had purged her people in front of her, but also because the purged steward had embezzled thousands of taels of silver. A steward, in a year, plus various rewards from the master, probably only had a few dozen taels of silver. However, as the saying goes, too clear water will not have fish, so usually they are allowed to eat a little. But what does thousands of taels mean? Moreover, this was only the embezzlement in the past one or two years. How much more would he have embezzled in the past ten years
If Aunt Zhou had always thought that she was a good housekeeper, this incident was like a slap in the face.
After the person was dealt with, the wife of Marquis Pingyang nominated two people to replace the previous manager. One had a close relationship with the previous manager, and the other had a grudge against him.
The man whose legs were trembling at first did not expect that a pie would fall on his head in an instant. Not to mention the grudges, the close relationship, in the face of interests, who cares about the person being dealt with. However, the matter was obviously not over yet. Although he was happy, his heart was still hanging.
After pulling out a radish, a pile of mud came out. The wife of Marquis Pingyang continued to pull out another radish, and this time, she directly took action against a manager of the outer courtyard. Even though this person was highly regarded by Marquis Pingyang, she did not show any mercy. She did what she had to do, even though this radish was bigger and brought out more mud.
Similarly, after the attack, other people will be brought up. After all, no area can be short of manpower.
Aunt Zhou at the side was a little excited and a little uneasy. After all, she didn't dare to touch the manager of the front yard easily. If she did something wrong, it might cause the dissatisfaction of the Marquis. He would deal with the person without saying a word. The Marquis would be humiliated and would be angry. However, since the lady dared to do this, she must have something to rely on.
Several more people were dealt with one after another afterwards. Of course, the number of people who were dealt with incidentally was much smaller. A small number of positions were filled in time, and I'm afraid that the remaining ones will have additional people added.
Those who were more astute secretly calculated in their hearts that after this round, the entire Marquis' Mansion was under the control of the Madam. Some special positions seemed to be still occupied by the previous people, but they had been greatly restrained. If they were not careful, they might become the next batch of people to be dealt with. Anyone who still wanted to continue staying in the Marquis' Mansion should know what to do.
I unconsciously glanced at Aunt Zhou secretly, so, as expected, a madam is a madam. No matter how capable you are as a concubine, your business of more than ten years has been knocked down by a blow.
The matter was almost dealt with, and Aunt Zhou could no longer sit still. She had wanted to speak several times before, or someone had directly knelt down and begged her. The wife of Marquis Pingyang glanced at her lightly, and the emotions contained in her eyes were the same as Wei Tingyu's. Aunt Zhou shuddered unconsciously and swallowed back the words she had about to say by the water. She stood up and left in a hurry with obvious panic.
The wife of Marquis Pingyang didn't even glance at them. After the matter was settled, she gave them a few words of lecture, telling them to keep their duties to themselves and be rewarded if they did a good job. If they did anything else, they would be severely punished.
"Let's go."
After these people dispersed, they found that the positions they thought were still vacant were filled with familiar and unfamiliar faces. Leaving aside the unfamiliar ones, the familiar ones were clearly people from the manor. Most of the people in the mansion were domestic children, and many of them, young and old, lived in the manor. People from the manor might come to the mansion to serve, especially the girls and boys of the right age. In order to get ahead for their own families, they naturally had to find out the situation of other people's families.
So, the Madam had chosen someone on Zhuangzi before, but they didn't even know about it?! This realization made them feel even more threatened.
No matter what they thought, the wife of Marquis Pingyang completely replaced the people in the main courtyard, and the people she is using now are all her former dowry, whether it is the family members who married with her and managed other things for her, or the personal maids and others. Although some of them are gone and the young ones have entered middle age, their descendants have also grown up and can be used immediately if they are needed now. Obviously, Wei Tingyu was well prepared.
So, the person who cleaned up the entire mansion was nominally the wife of the Marquis of Pingyang, but in fact it was Wei Tingyu. However, after handing the manpower over to the wife of the Marquis of Pingyang, Wei Tingyu would not interfere anymore.
The wife of Marquis Pingyang did not touch the courtyards of the concubines, young masters and young ladies in the backyard, but they also knew clearly that the situation in the marquis's mansion had completely changed.
There were some who rolled their eyes and then found the wife of Marquis Pingyang and started crying, saying that a certain slave in their yard was bullying her and asked their mother (madam) to take charge.
The wife of Marquis Pingyang was also straightforward and did not even ask whether it was true or not. "There is still a group of people selected from the farm. Take the people you selected back and replace the original ones, and then deal with them all together." She dismissed them straightforwardly.
Perhaps she didn't expect it to be so easy. However, as the master, she dared not say anything about those people in her courtyard who relied on Aunt Zhou's power to bully others. She was ruthless in replacing them. Although, these replacements might be Madam's spies, so what? She bet that Madam was not as narrow-minded and intolerant as Aunt Zhou.
Only Aunt Zhou smashed all kinds of things in the house, but she still couldn't vent all her anger. She paced back and forth. Marquis Pingyang was not in the house at the moment. She went to look for Wei Jincheng angrily, but he was not there either. After asking him, she found out that he was basically not at home in the past few days, and he even did not come home at night. It was obvious that his injuries had not healed yet. Aunt Zhou almost fell backwards with anger.
How could she know that because of Wei Tingyu's presence, he didn't dare to go home. Although, he didn't provoke Wei Tingyu, and Wei Tingyu basically wouldn't do anything to him, but when he thought of his past actions, he was always worried that Wei Tingyu would settle the score with him later and would want to kill him directly.
After waiting for a long time for Marquis Pingyang to return, Aunt Zhou started to cry and complain to him, exaggerating the matter, especially making a fuss about the steward whom Marquis Pingyang valued. Knowing that this man was very concerned about his reputation, she did her best to fan the flames in this regard.
As expected, Marquis Pingyang went to settle the score with his wife angrily before he even finished listening.
Probably knowing that he would come, Lady Pingyang Marquis was not surprised at all. She simply explained the matter to him, telling him how he was fooled by his steward, and that the person he thought was his confidant was actually brought in by his uncles and cousins. "Tingyu has more other information. If the Marquis is interested, you can go and take a look."
Speaking of Wei Tingyu, Pingyang Hou and I's faces turned even darker. Thinking about the evidence of those clansmen's crimes, he didn't want to see that evildoer at all.
She came in a hurry and left with even more depression. Lady Pingyang Marquis did not even raise her eyelids. After a moment, she murmured softly, "It's been more than ten years, and the methods are still so old-fashioned." This was referring to Aunt Zhou. In the past, she always suffered because she cared about others. Now, what use can she be
Marquis Pingyang went to the study and found two young and beautiful maids, one was gentle and considerate, the other was charming. Both of them were quite talented. It didn't take long for Marquis Pingyang to forget his anger. He was very happy to have the beauty of the maids around him.
When Lady Pingyang got the news, she just hummed, and when Aunt Zhou got the news, she was so angry that her eyes went dark, and she cursed the Lady of the Marquis for such a mean trick! However, no one paid any attention to her. What could she do with Concubine Shun and Prince Dun as her backers? No matter how long the hands of these two were, they could not reach the backyard of the Marquis of Pingyang's mansion.
In the past, Lady Pingyang Hou and Wei Tingyu were weak and could not control the sovereignty, but now it is different.
Whether it is Aunt Zhou or Wei Jincheng, it is obviously impossible for them to let them go just like that, but they will not spend all their energy on them either, as it is not worth it.
The wife of Marquis Pingyang was preparing a birthday gift for the Empress Dowager. The previous one was prepared by Aunt Zhou, but it obviously did not satisfy her, so she prepared another one.
These days, the imperial city was also very lively. Elderly people from various places arrived in the imperial city one after another, and birthday gifts for the empress dowager also arrived from local officials. There were gifts every day, and it was extremely lively. Some of the birthday gifts were leaked, causing people to talk about them with relish.