novelhk Chapter 253: Hard Battle
Chapter 253: Hard Battle
The eldest lady did not like Zhao Fangyu from the beginning.
Originally, she preferred the tactful and smooth Zhao Fangwei. She even felt that among all the girls in the family, except for her own Mo'er, only Zhao Fangwei looked decent.
Who knew that he would be a sinister person in the end...
If Zhao Fangwei and Concubine Song had not separated, the marriage would not have been possible if Zhao Fangwei had been present on the day of the engagement.
Aunt Song cried until her eyes were almost blinded, her heart and eyes were filled with regret: "Madam! You know, ever since Xiaoliu passed away, Xiaowu has been like my eyeballs!"
"Fang Wei is smart and sensible, so I don't need to worry about her, but Yun'er is different!"
"She was raised by my breast milk, and now she is locked up in the Song family and I don't know what's going on. She's pregnant too. This is more murderous than tearing out my heart, madam!"
Aunt Song cried bitterly, and only at this moment did she feel a trace of genuine regret. She regretted that if she had listened to Fang Wei and been stricter with Fang Yun as Fang Wei said, would they not have become estranged?
But she didn't have time to think about these things. At this time, Zhao Fangyun was still pregnant, and the people in the dowry farm didn't even know which way the door of the courtyard where Zhao Fangyun lived faced, so they were of no use at all.
Soon, a gentle female voice came from outside the door: "Mother."
The one who came in was Mei Xunyin. Mei Xunyin pretended not to see Concubine Song beside the First Madam and bowed to the First Madam: "I have already discussed it with Fourth Sister's people. After the hour of Mao, we will go to the Song family together."
When she heard that they were going to the Song family, Concubine Song immediately got up, not caring about her nice clothes. She wiped her face and hands clean before carefully holding Mei Xunyin's hand and asking hopefully, "Song family? Are you going to see Yun'er?"
Mei Xunyin had a proper smile on her face. She put a handkerchief under her hand to comfort Song Yi Niang and patted her on the back of her hand. "Fifth Miss is a newcomer from home. How can we just ignore her?"
After coming out from the eldest lady's place and seeing Mei Xunyin get into Zhao Fangyu's carriage with her own eyes, Aunt Song had been standing at the door waiting.
She always wanted to be respectable, but now she didn't care about that. The maid who followed her suddenly seemed to think of something, turned around and said, "Go to my room to get some silver, and go to the kitchen to get some lotus cakes and Pingqiao tofu soup that Yun'er likes to eat."
After the head maid left, Concubine Song was the only one left at the door. The wind and snow started again, so she moved to a position where she could see the carriage outside the door and stood there motionlessly.
Here, Mei Xunyin and Zhao Fangyu meet.
Zhao Fangyu was dressed luxuriously today, wearing a long-sleeved dress with embroidered patterns of sea and sky and hundreds of birds. The birds were embroidered with silk thread made from peacock tail feathers. The exquisiteness gave off a hint of extraordinary wealth.
Not to mention that her shoes were decorated with pearls the size of quail eggs, round and flawless, sparkling...
The two had not seen each other for a long time since they killed Zhao Fanglan that day. When they met now, they exchanged a few tacit greetings and mostly asked about Zhao Fangyun's recent situation.
But there was no letter, and the dowry was nowhere to be seen, so how could there be any news?
Zhao Fangyun copied down the two files that Zhou Qinghe showed her yesterday and handed them to Mei Xunyin. After reading them, Mei Xunyin also found something wrong and looked at Zhao Fangyu in surprise and doubt.
No one expected that a country gentleman could be so bold.
She just found out about it today.
"Their family wants to become a royal merchant."
People go to high places and water flows to low places. The Song family is wealthy, so naturally they want to go further.
However, the way they wanted to go further was to ask for Zhao Fangyun's hand in marriage.
"Maybe he thought that although his family was temporarily in trouble, he still had connections in the Forbidden City. At worst, his father still had old friends in the Ministry of Revenue..."
After the Song family failed several times in their attempts to become the imperial merchant, they began to have evil ideas.
But Aunt Song was stupid, and they really came up with this idea.
Mei Xunyin shook her head and sighed: "Look at the children in the main courtyard, they are all good..."
Zhao Fangyu twitched the corners of his lips, revealing a hint of sarcasm.
The children raised in the main courtyard are all good, and they are taught by the same teacher, but there is such a big difference in their performance. Isn't it because one of them likes to teach according to the students' aptitude and is not a good father who treats girls as human beings?
There were some things that Zhao Fangyu was reluctant to say. After all, in this dynasty, it was emphasized that sons should not talk about their fathers' mistakes. If it were in modern times, she would have scolded Zhao Minshan to death.
"Fifth sister is probably not well. The Song family can't get used to it. Sister-in-law, remember not to hurt yourself."
Mei Xunyin nodded. She did not come empty-handed today. She had a dagger in her sleeve.
They came to the Song family suddenly, and it was already noon when they arrived.
The concierge saw an absurdly large carriage parked in front of their house. He didn't recognize that the carriage was printed with the family crest of the Crane Palace, so he came over to ask, "Which family? Do you have a visiting card?"
The Song family is arrogant, and even the doorman looks down on people.
The one who went down was Chun Shao, who slapped the flattering doorman in the face. Her pretty face was stern, her almond eyes were like knives, and after two sharp glares, the doorman did not dare to stand up.
"Princess He's carriage, how dare you be so disrespectful?"
"Our princess was traveling with her friends and passed by here. She was worried about your young lady, so she came to visit her sisters."
Seeing that something was not right, the other doorman immediately invited the person in.
When Zhao Fangyu entered the mansion, he saw a bean green figure flashing in front of him, most likely going to inform someone.
When Zhao Fangyu saw someone leading her to a small path, she guessed that they were going to take her on a detour, so she immediately called Xingzhi to follow them to look for Zhao Fangyun first.
"It's noon now, I won't bother your old lady. I heard that your young mistress is pregnant, so I brought the imperial concubine's doctor to take a look at her."
In a word, blocking is possible.
When Mother Cui came to the Song family, she waited and was rude, and she immediately noticed something was wrong.
Who would have thought that after checking, it was found that Zhao Fangyun had cut off all contact with the dowry sent by her family after she got married.
The excuse the Song family used to stop Mother Cui was that Zhao Fangyun was pregnant. Song Yuan felt sorry for Zhao Fangyun, so he only kept Mother Cui for a meal before sending her away.
Zhao Fangyu has come to visit with the imperial physician. Don’t say that the pregnancy is not good. The worse the pregnancy is, the more you have to see him.
No matter what excuse she had, she came in person. Even the old lady of the Song family had to be carried over to pay her respects.
Xingzhi grabbed a little maid at random. When she came, she had asked the names of the several maids that Zhao Fangyun brought as dowry. Now that she found out the location of Zhao Fangyu's personal maid, she asked her directly to lead the way.
Zhao Fangyun's maid was called Liuyao.
This name was given by Zhao Fangyun in imitation of the incense and medicine that accompanied Zhao Fangyu.
The maids beside Zhao Fangyun were named Chunshao and Xiangyao, which together mean peony flower.
Zhao Fangyun liked pomegranate flowers, so most of the maids around him had the word "pomegranate" in their names.
As the head maid of the Zhao family, no matter how poor she was, she still had good food to eat, good clothes to wear and nice accessories. When Xingzhi saw Liuyao with holes in her clothes, she realized how difficult today's battle would be.