Jiang Chun’s lips revealed a trace of a cold sneer.
Jiang Hu agreed to come back and raise money after talking with Matchmaker Wang, and this is how he raised it?
Originally, she thought that the original host’s cheap second uncle was just a bit useless, but she didn’t expect he was actually this cold-blooded and heartless. For the sake of Matchmaker Wang, a woman whom everyone could sleep with, not only did he want to divorce his wife, he also wanted to sell his daughter.
If Jiang Hu were selling their paternal cousin Jiang Tong, Jiang Chun wouldn’t even care, she wouldn’t even frown a little.
If a male member was sold off, unless he looked as outstanding as Song Shi’an, the worst would just be doing heavy physical labor.
But girls were different. If unfortunately sold into a low-grade brothel, then it would truly be a fate worse than death.
To let Jiang Chun sit by and not care, to watch her cousin Jiang Liu step into a pit of fire with eyes wide open, she really couldn’t bear it.
So she wiped her wet hands on the protective cloth wrapped around her waist, and asked Jiang Liu: “Where’s grandmother? She’s not going to step in and just watch your dad sell you?”
Jiang Liu instantly broke down crying: “It was grandmother who gave the word to sell me! Big sister, your scolding is right, that damned old woman really has no conscience!”
Jiang Chun: “…”
Although those words were originally said by the original host, they were well-scolded.
Before she could speak, Jiang Liu cried again and said: “Grandmother said cousin Yin from big aunt’s family was sold by her grandmother to a wealthy household as a servant girl, and ended up being liked by the young miss of the household, now she wears gold and silver, and is more presentable than the daughters of the town’s rich families. Just as the family now needs silver to compensate Matchmaker Wang, she’ll sell me to a wealthy household too, to go enjoy a good life.”
Jiang Chun almost laughed out loud when she heard this, and wickedly retorted: “Since being sold into a wealthy household is so great, why doesn’t she listen to my husband and sell herself into a wealthy household to be the one who scoops chamber pots [lit. a rough-serving woman who dumps night soil] and enjoy the good life?”
“Huh?” Jiang Liu’s crying stopped abruptly, and she widened her pair of small eyes inherited from Li Shi in disbelief: “Brother-in-law actually said that about grandmother? grandmother didn’t blow up?”
Didn’t expect that brother-in-law, who looked like a sickly weakling, would actually dare to say such insulting words to grandmother’s face.
Jiang Chun snorted lightly: “Of course she blew up. She even wanted to kick your brother-in-law. In the end, she scared your brother-in-law so much he fainted and even vomited blood. She saw the situation wasn’t good and snuck away.”
“Ah? Brother-in-law fainted? Even vomited blood?” Jiang Liu cried out in shock and asked with concern: “Is brother-in-law alright?”
Jiang Chun sighed and said: “Yesterday he developed a high fever. I borrowed Sixth Grandpa’s mule cart to send him to the town to see a doctor. Doctor Xiao Qi prescribed five doses of medicine, he’s taking them now.”
Although Jiang Liu and the original host had a decent relationship, and hadn’t done anything to harm her in the past, Jiang Chun didn’t plan to share everything with her.
Jiang Liu said hatefully: “grandmother really is no good. It’s one thing to scheme against me, but she even schemed against brother-in-law. She’s truly a home-wrecker!”
Jiang Chun gave her a praising look. This cousin didn’t seem like she was from Jiang Hu’s seed, rather she resembled Jiang He a bit more — not one of those foolishly filial people.
In that case, she’d give her a hand, point out a clear path for her.
Jiang Chun walked to the window of the west room and called inside: “Husband, I’m going out for a bit.”
Then turned her head to Jiang Liu and said: “Come on, let’s go to Sixth Grandpa’s house.”
In fact, their Jiang family ancestors were once illustrious, even had a pair of double jìnshì [进士 – successful candidates in the imperial exams], but that was more than a hundred years ago.
Nowadays the Jiang family only had about a dozen households, eighty or ninety people in total, all peasant households scraping by in the fields, not even a single tongsheng. [童生 – entry-level scholar who passed the county-level imperial exam]
But after all, with ancestral glory preceding them, the Jiang clan valued reputation more than the other villagers.
This matter of Li Shi selling her granddaughter — if spread in the clan, would be a huge disgrace. Jiang Zhaonian, the clan head, could not possibly ignore it.
Sure enough, when Jiang Chun brought Jiang Liu over and exaggerated the situation a bit, Jiang Zhaonian’s face immediately turned ashen. His walking stick went dong dong dong against the ground as he shouted toward Jiang Wan: “Hua ge’er’s father! Go get Jiang Erlang here for me!”
“Eh.” Jiang Wan responded and quickly walked out.
The two families didn’t live far apart; in just a quarter of an hour, he brought Jiang Hu over.
But Jiang Hu didn’t come alone—Li Shi also came along.
As soon as she entered the house and saw her granddaughter Jiang Liu, she immediately rushed up and twisted her arm.
While scolding: “I said, in broad daylight, what did the clan leader suddenly want with your father? Turns out it was you, you damned girl, stirring up trouble! Watch if this old woman doesn’t beat you to death!”
Jiang Zhaonian’s cane dong dong dong struck fiercely against the floor, as he rebuked: “Younger sister-in-law, what are you doing? Hitting Liu-jie’er right in front of me—are you dissatisfied with me, the clan head?”
Li Shi certainly didn’t dare show dissatisfaction toward Jiang Zhaonian, this elder brother-in-law. Ever since her man died, this elder brother-in-law had helped their household quite a lot.
She immediately stopped, shot Jiang Liu a vicious glare with her eyes, then smiled and explained to Jiang Zhaonian: “Big brother, I was just teaching this loose-tongued granddaughter a lesson, I had no complaints about you.”
Jiang Zhaonian was sixth in the clan hierarchy, but Li Shi, in order to show closeness, always called him “big brother,” and Jiang Hu, Jiang Tong, and Jiang Liu also followed suit.
Jiang Zhaonian snorted coldly through his nose, didn’t respond to her, turned and looked at Jiang Hu, and asked in a cold tone: “Erlang, I heard you’re planning to sell Liu-jie’er—is this true?”
Upon hearing this, Jiang Hu immediately looked up at Li Shi, who winked at him.
He grinned and said: “Aiya, big uncle, don’t listen to Liu-jie’er’s nonsense. This was just a joke her grandmother made to scare the child. How could you, an elder, take it seriously?”
Follow what his mother said—get through this situation first, and once the girl was sold, even if the clan head disapproved, it’d be too late.
At this point, his eyes turned, and he caught sight of Jiang Chun standing next to Jiang Liu. He immediately decided to pin the blame on her.
He said with a tone full of heartache and indignation: “Chun-niang, your grandmother caused your husband to cough blood and develop a high fever. If you felt bad about the medicine money, you could’ve come to our house directly. Us elders—would we not give it to you? How could you, over such a small matter, goad Liu-jie’er into running to your great-grandfather and speaking nonsense?”
When Jiang Chun heard this, she immediately followed the thread and climbed up the pole [idiom meaning to follow the cue smoothly], extended her hand in front of Jiang Hu, and said:
“That little bit of medicine money? That was a whole five hundred and fifty wen, second uncle, you were there in person and saw it with your own eyes yesterday!”
“Also, I clearly said at the time: if anyone from the old house comes over again to disturb my husband’s recovery, I will definitely ask you for the medicine money. And today, Liu-jie’er came crying to my house… Startled my husband so badly he spilled his medicine and was coughing until he was gasping for breath. So hurry up and give me the medicine money. I still need to go to town later to get another batch for my husband!”
Jiang Hu: “…”
His whole person was not well, because every word Jiang Chun said was true—he didn’t even know how to refute it.
His heart was filled with regret—why on earth did he mess with this shrew?
Great. Now she’s demanding medicine money right in front of the clan leader. He didn’t even dare to act shameless.
At this thought, he got even angrier at Jiang Liu. His eyes were shooting daggers at her like they were free. If this damned girl hadn’t run off to the eldest’s place, how could so much trouble have been stirred up?
But Jiang Liu was secretly rejoicing inside.
So just by going to look for big sister once, she made her dad have to pay big sister over half a string of coins, this was simply…
Simply too great!
Anyway, grandmother already said that all the family’s property would go to big brother in the future, and she, a mere girl, shouldn’t even dream of getting a single coin.
Not only would she get nothing, they even wanted to sell her for money.
Since that’s the case, she couldn’t wish more for them to lose money.
So Jiang Liu first made a guilty expression and said weakly to Jiang Chun: “Big sister, I’m sorry, I didn’t know brother-in-law was sick. Startling brother-in-law and making him miss his medicine, it’s all my fault.”
She knew big sister was lying, because she never once entered the west room—but that didn’t matter, she wouldn’t expose big sister anyway.
Then she started crying pitifully to Jiang Hu: “Dad, hurry and compensate big sister the medicine money. Otherwise brother-in-law won’t have medicine to drink, and if his illness doesn’t get better, when big uncle finds out, he’ll definitely want to discuss things with you.”
Last time Jiang He went to the old house to “discuss” things with Jiang Hu, he brought a bone-cleaving knife.
Jiang Hu also recalled that incident and immediately shivered all over. He looked up and pleadingly turned toward his old mother Li Shi: “Mom…”
When Li Shi heard that they’d have to pay Jiang Chun five hundred and fifty wen of copper coins, she let out a wail:
“Aooh!” Then plop—she sat straight down on the floor, slapping the ground with her palms and bawling:
“My life is so bitter! Erlang’s father, why did you die so early? Leaving us orphans and widows—how are we to live…”
Jiang Chun: “…”