ALL NOVEL Old Madam Yuan never realized that the people of the Sheng family would directly question her. She thought that they would say something nice and give her an out. Right now, she was choked by Minglan’s words. She couldn’t say yes, but saying no would humiliate herself.
Minglan squinted her eyes slightly and looked at Old Madam Yuan with a fierce look, saying slowly, “Old Madam Yuan, please make yourself clear! Do you want your son to divorce my sister!”
Although Sheng’s family was not the most influential family, it was still more powerful than Yuan’s family. Old Madam Yuan was well aware of that. If Hualan was divorced by her son, she would be kicked out of Yuan family afterwards. Then Old Madam Yuan turned around in anger and stopped talking.
Aunt Zhang who had sensed the tension came forward to smooth things over, “My lady, you only said those things because you were in anger. My old sister only meant to ask her daughter-in-law to recuperate in Sheng’s mansion. It’ll good for her health, right?”
“So that is what it is.” Minglan chuckled with a scornful look in her eyes, “My mistake.”
Then she, having walked over to Rulan, pulled the angry girl to sit and said with a gentle smile, “Madams, please forgive my sister’s frank speech. She is the most straightforward girl among us. Never have I seen her hide her feelings.”
Minglan had been ennobled as the second class madam and was in the highest status among all the women in the room. The guests only wanted to fawn upon on her and under no circumstances would they question her. A few of the madams even replied, “That’s right, that’s right.”, which made Old Madam Yuan turn away in a huff.
Then Minglan smiled and said, “We can’t blame my fifth sister to make a random guess. It is just so coincidental that every time my eldest sister was pregnant, something bad would happen to her. Someone might say, ‘What a coincidence!’ The others might think Old Madam Yuan has treated my eldest sister harshly on purpose and only biased her own niece! But we all know about Old Madam Yuan, she wouldn’t do anything like that!”
That was nonsense! Even if Old Madam Yuan had done those things unintentionally, she should have been more careful this time after Hualan had run into so many accidents during her former pregnancies. How could she still make troubles for Hualan! Right now, with her chest moving up and down, Old Madam Yuan felt her heart being about to explode. But she couldn’t say anything. The guests all looked at her with indifferent or ironic look in their eyes, which made her almost faint with anger.
“What an eloquent girl,” Old Madam Yuan sneered that bitterly, “How lucky it is to marry a girl from the Sheng family!”
Minglan said smilingly, “I’m flattered. But I was only telling the truth. If I have said any wrong, please don’t blame me. Just point out my mistake and I’ll correct myself next time!”
With the look on Wang shi’s face turning eased, she finally gave vent to her anger. While she was in a better mood, she said loudly, “Old Madam Yuan, you don’t need to worry about our family’s business. All the ladies of Hualan’s generation have already got married! Now the only girl who hasn’t been betrothed yet is my chubby granddaughter who was just born dozens of days ago. It’ll be a long time before she gets married.”
On these words, the whole room burst into laughter. Since the tension had been released, the guests all started to chat and laugh with each other.
Old Madam Yuan looked at Rulan who still had the intention to abuse her, then at Minglan who wore the genial look all the time. One of the two girls was penniless and the other was a smiling tiger. Then she knew that she could never take advantage of the Sheng’s girls today. So she just stopped talking. Being in a sulk, Old Madam Sheng even canceled the lunch with everyone else and only complained about her headache and illness. The other guests then bid their farewells seeing Yuan family was not willing to keep them.
Minglan observed calmly that lots of the guests were not satisfied with that. A few of them even uttered some sarcastic words. Then she assumed that Old Madam Yuan didn’t have good relations with other people either.
Wen Yanjing had come to pick up Rulan as expected. Minglan wondered if he had waited around Yuan’s mansion all the time to make Rulan look good. Under the jealous gazes of others, Rulan made a high-key leaving with joy. As Minglan was about to leave, a page boy of Yuan family came to report,
“Second Master said that he would come back with Commander Gu after a short while. He has just heard that Old Madam Bo has fallen ill. So our Second Master has asked Madam Gu to stay and wait for Commander Gu and him to visit the patient together.”
After Bo Tianzhou had given back the commander’s seal, he almost lived a retired life and had been staying in his manor by the countryside, which near Marquis Zhongqin’s mansion. After Minglan had pondered for a while, she looked at Old Madam Yuan and said smilingly, “What should we do now?”
Wang shi added right away, “Old Madam Yuan, if you feel inconvenient to let her in, our Minglan can wait at the door.”
What had happened today really had blew Old Madam Yuan’s top off. This woman almost got cerebral hemorrhage arguing with the women from Sheng family. If she really let Minglan wait at the door, Yuan family would be mocked by the whole capital. Then, with her teeth gritted, she finally managed to restrain herself and ordered the maid beside her, “Go serve the tea for Madam Gu!”
…
Minglan walked slowly to Hualan’s room. Hualan had already got the message that she would come. Seeing Minglan coming in, Hualan laughed and told Minglan to sit by her side. Then she ordered the maids to serve tea and snacks while asking about Minglan’s married life. When hearing of the interesting part of Minglan’s life, Hualan took out her handkerchief to cover her eyes, feeling happy for her sister. As Minglan talked about things that bothered her, Hualan then gave her lots of ideas. The two sisters chatted for a long while intimately.
Minglan looked around and gave Cuichan a hint to watch the door. Then she said in a low voice, “Sister, what have happened? You really don’t want to say anything? Since Old Madam He already told you about the matters that need attention, I know you won’t mess up with your body during your pregnancy.”
Hualan got dazed hearing Minglan’s words. Then her eyes were moist right away. Thinking that a woman who had just given birth to a body couldn’t cry, she held the tears back quickly and only said chokingly, “I know it… Others might be fooled. But I can never hide something from you.”
“What on earth have happened!”
Hualan suddenly said loudly, “Cuichan, go fetch Shi here. And bring Zhangjie’er here too. Yinjie’er, watch the door!”
The two maids answered from the outside at once.
Then Hualan held Minglan’s hand tightly and sobbed, “That, that… old bitch! She has gone too far this time! After I was pregnant, she proposed that Shi should stay in her room!”
“What?” Minglan cried out.
Hualan said bitterly, “It is not a rare thing grandmas raising their grandsons in ordinary families. But, but… that old bitch has been creating difficulties for me all the time. How can I be at ease leaving Shi to her?!… Your brother-in-law was not willing to obey her either. So her proposal has been delayed until two months ago, that old bitch suddenly pretended to be sick and groaned all day. She even found a daoist who kept on saying that Shi’s eight characters would bring her good luck. Then she insisted that letting Shi stay with her was the only way to cure her disease! If your brother-in-law still disobeyed her will, he would be accused as an unfilial son! What else could he do!”
Minglan was speechless. This move of Old Madam Yuan really was dirty and outrageous!
Old Madam Yuan had picked the time when Hualan’s bpdy had been in the weakest condition to make trouble. Since she hadn’t known the gender of Hualan’s unborn baby and Shi was the only son of Hualan, as long as she took Shi away, Hualan would definitely be filled with anxiety day and night. Therefore, Hualan had forgotten about caring for her own body and had to obey everything Old Madam Yuan had ordered.
After Hualan had wiped her tears with a sorrowful look on her face, she continued, “I don’t know how I managed to survive those two months. Every time I closed my eyes, I dreamed of something bad happening to Shi. I couldn’t eat or sleep well and almost went crazy!”
Minglan sympathized her sister a lot and only stroked one of Hualan’s hands gently. Actually, Hualan knew that Old Madam Yuan wouldn’t hurt her own grandson. But if anything happened to Shi, it was not like Hualan could ask Old Madam Yuan to pay with her life. By then, Old Madam Yuan could only use her own carelessness as an excuse and Hualan would have to keep her grievance to herself.
“About ten days ago, I heard noise coming through from the front yard. After I asked about what happened, I almost blacked out.” Hualan said that with her face turning pale, “That darkminded bitch left Shi taking the afternoon nap alone without anyone around him! She and the others went to chat and have tea together at the outside! Shi has already learned to crawl. When he woke up, he started to crawl on the bed. But there was a censer beside his bed. My innocent boy has knocked the censor and fell from the bed. The flames and the ashes all fell on Shi’s body!”
“Ah!” Minglan shouted in shock, “Was he injured?!”
“My poor Shi, he has cried for a long while but no one noticed of him.” Hualan’s voice was filled with fear. She said tremblingly, “Luckily Zhuang was there…”
“What was Zhuang doing there?”
With a guilty look showing on Hualan’s face, she answered, “… It’s all my fault. I kept thinking about Shi and neglected her. My daughter knew about my concern. So she always dumped her wet nurse and sneaked to the front yard to check on her little brother. No one would guard against a little girl like her. So the people there never found out about her. When her wet nurse told her off to me, I was still being upset so I scolded Zhuang fiercely. On that day, Zhuang sneaked out again. After she had heard Shi crying in the room, she ran inside right away. Then she saw her brother rolling on the ground and crying out loud. There were glisters all over Shiger’s face and head due to the burn! Zhuang was not strong enough to carry her brother, so she could only brush the hot ashes off her brother’s body. My poor daughter, even her hands got burnt too… Ah, come in, Zhuang, your Sixth Aunt is here!”