Fortunate Life of the Rural Beauty
Chapter 142 - 141: Need Silver

Chapter 142: Chapter 141: Need Silver

Chen Afu was sitting on the bed, not moving. He saw how Mrs. Wang was flustered as she hurriedly put away her ongoing needlework and the basket of needles and threads on the bed into the cabinet. She then grabbed Alu’s silk gown, which he was supposed to wear the next day, and stuffed it into the cabinet as well. Then she locked the cabinet. She got up again to put away a set of fine porcelain tea bowls she had bought in Dingzhou into another box and locked the box as well.

Everything she did looked like she was preparing for robbers.

Once Mrs. Wang finished these quickly, she saw Chen Afu still sitting on the bed in a daze. She hurriedly helped her up from the bed and led her from the west room to the east room across the way. She told her "Afu, listen, don’t come out no matter what."

Just as Mrs. Wang was closing the door to the east room, Zhui Feng and Wang Cai, who constantly cling to her, squeezed their way in too.

Mrs. Wang pulled herself together, then went out and opened the wicker door. Her face was calm as she said, "Mom, third brother, why have you come?"

Mrs. Ding said, "Since you didn’t come home to see your mother, then your mother had to come and see you."

Wang Cai greeted Mrs. Wang with a smile, "Big sister, you’ve put on weight, your life seems to be quite good." Then he turned to Mrs. Ding, "Mother, it has been so long since we saw big sister. Weren’t you saying that you missed her? Why are you being so hard on her now?"

Mrs. Ding snorted but did not reply.

Mrs. Wang asked again, "Is my father’s health still okay?"

Mrs. Ding replied coldly, "If you want to know how he is, why don’t you go see him yourself?"

Seeing that Mrs. Wang didn’t invite them into the yard, Mrs. Ding and Wang Cai walked in from beside her without any politeness.

They walked ahead with Mrs. Wang following behind them. Upon entering the house, they went directly into the west room which had the door open.

Once they entered the west room, Chen Afu made a small gap between the east room’s doors to eavesdrop.

As soon as they entered, Mrs. Ding kicked up a fuss, saying loudly, "Wang Juanniang, despite how much I’ve done and thought of you as my own daughter, how come you haven’t bothered to come and visit your parents now that you’ve become rich? You’re really unfilial."

Mrs. Wang kept a straight face and said, "We are not wealthier."

Wang Cai grinned, "Big sister, we’ve heard that your family bought a huge piece of land and are about to build two two-story mansions. My goodness, even our village landlord isn’t so extravagant."

Mrs. Wang replied, "That land was bought by my daughter and she’s the one who’s going to pay for the mansions. I didn’t contribute a cent. I have no money for you guys, please leave."

Mrs. Ding and Wang Cai noticed that there was only Mrs. Wang in the house. They weren’t afraid, so they went and sat on the bed. Mrs. Ding took out a long smoking pipe from her waist and put it in her mouth. Wang Cai quickly held a lighter for her.

After Wang Cai lit Mrs. Ding’s pipe, he looked around, patted the big lock on the cabinet on the bed.

Mrs. Ding took several puffs on her pipe and said, "Wang Juanniang, how are you treating your mother and brother? We came all the way here to see you, and you don’t even offer us tea or water, let alone killing chickens or buying meat. And you even want to kick us out. We can leave, but you need to give us twenty taels first. We heard that your dimwit daughter is not only recovered but also become a needlework master at Tang Garden. She must have made quite a lot of money. Your daughter knows how to care for her parents, you, as her mother, should learn from her."

She looked at Mrs. Wang’s silver hairpin and the silk gown on her, and then said, "Oh, you are wearing gold and silver now and you are still fooling around saying that you have no money. Quick, get your money out."

Wang Cai also laughed, "Big sister, the twenty taels of silver aren’t for us. It’s for dad, who is sick."

Mrs. Wang did not pay any attention to Wang Cai. She said to Mrs. Ding, "My father watched me being sold twice. He took fifteen taels of silver on the surface, but I’m aware that you took more secretly. That amount of money has already repaid his kindness in raising me. Also, after you sold my younger brother, I cut my ties with that house." At this point, her voice began to choke. She suppressed her resentment and raised her voice to say, "Please leave. Don’t come here again in the future. Also, don’t think about wringing even one cent out of me."

It was the first time that Mrs. Ding saw Mrs. Wang since she married her off to the sickly Chen Ming. In all these years, Mrs. Wang had never visited her birth family. That damned Chen Ming did send Wang Cai to the Chens to see Mrs. Wang a couple of times. Not only did Mrs. Wang never bring anything back for her birth family, she even only gave Wang Cai a corn cake to eat and did not even invite him for a meal.

According to Wang Cai, Chen Ming was lying bedridden, gasping for breath more than he breathed. Mrs. Wang had given birth to an imbecile, and their household was so poor...

After hearing all these, Mrs. Ding became more fearful of being associated with this family.

However, a few days ago, some people from our village visited Xiangluo Village and they told us that Mrs. Wang’s family was now quite well-off. The dimwit daughter had recovered. Because of her nimble hands, she became a needlework master at Tang Garden and earned quite a lot of money. They were even planning to construct two large mansions...

Upon hearing this, Mrs. Ding and Wang Cai became unsettled, thinking about how this daughter was truly an ungrateful wretch, who did not even think of showing filial piety to her birth family now that she was wealthy. Mrs. Ding wanted to take the old man with her, but he simply refused to come. He even said that he did not have the face to see his daughter.

Having no choice, Mrs. Ding brought her biological son to Xiangluo Village, hoping to get some money from Mrs. Wang. She also hoped to rekindle their familial ties, so that they could reap more benefits in the future.

In Mrs. Ding’s memory, Wang Juanniang had always been timid and fainthearted, so she was always easy to manipulate from her childhood. But she did not expect that Mrs. Wang was no longer afraid of her and would dare to speak such words.

After all the trouble she went through to get here with her old arms and legs, she wasn’t going to leave empty-handed.

Mrs. Ding’s face fell and she cursed, "You heartless wretch. Can you not remember how I fed and clothed you, raised you up? And yet you dare to spout such outrageous words. Speak. Are you going to give the silver or not? If you dare not to, I will go and talk to the neighbors about how you haven’t come home for over a decade since after your marriage. You never even showed any good conscience towards your stepmother. Your father, at least, is your own blood father, isn’t he?"

Mrs. Wang was ready to risk it all. She raised her voice, "You better spread the word. Tell them how you sold a ten-year-old stepdaughter as a child bride. You coaxed me into going to the Chens promising that you would take care of my younger brother. But what did you do? You sold me and then two years later, you sold my younger brother who was barely six years old." Mrs. Wang broke down into sobs, and cursed, "Your conscience must be dead! I told you that once I grew up, I would earn money and take my younger brother back home to raise him. But you still sold him. Let me tell you, don’t even dream about getting a single cent from me, even if I had the money, I’d rather throw it into the river than give it to you."

Mrs. Ding was furious. Wang Juanniang was actually resisting. She got up from the bed, lifted her long pipe and aimed it at Mrs. Wang, cursing, "I will kill you, you disobedient and unfilial wretch. How dare you backtalk your mother..."

Mrs. Wang dared to talk back, but she was afraid to fight back, and was hit several times which made her cry out in pain.

Chen Afu had been listening by the door in the east room the whole time. When she heard the sounds of tables and chairs being knocked over in the west room and Mrs. Wang’s cries of pain, she hastily pushed the door open and ran towards the west room. On her way there, she grabbed a fire poker from the stove.