Quickly wear salted fish, she won by lying down

Chapter 1689 The Country Girl Looked Down Upon 10
Although the Zhou family is now a Duke, their former steward had said that the money shops in the capital are all backed by powerful and wealthy people. Even if they are Dukes, they wouldn't dare to offend them. After all, they have learned that although their family only holds a title and is part of the upper class, they have no real power and cannot compare to those with real power or those who are favored by the emperor. How could they dare to cross paths with the wealthy and powerful families in the capital?

So the Zhou family could only watch helplessly as Old Master Zhou used all that money to pay off his debts. In the end, they could only console themselves by thinking that they originally had to borrow new money to pay off old debts, but now that they had paid off a lot of debts and didn't need to borrow new money, it was already good enough. They shouldn't be too greedy.

However, the fact that over 40,000 taels of silver were confiscated from the head steward made the Zhou family wonder if other prominent servants in the mansion had also embezzled a lot of money. They could have confiscated a considerable amount, but without evidence, they could only whisper among themselves. They dared not directly confiscate the money from the servants, lest the servants deny it and they be accused of trying to seize the servants' property.

Although on the surface servants are considered the property of their masters, and they supposedly have no property of their own, in reality they do possess some. If the master were to take their property under the pretext that they have no private wealth, and word got out, who would want to work for their household? Moreover, their reputation would suffer. The Zhou family were respectable people and didn't want to be ridiculed as soon as they arrived in the capital. So, even though they suspected that other servants might have embezzled a lot of money from the Duke of Zhenguo's mansion, they didn't do anything about it and only talked about it privately.

It was Old Master Zhou who spoke with the head steward, and the steward and his family were then released. A sum of money was added to the household, which was used to pay off many debts. Soon, the rest of the household knew about it. Old Master Zhou didn't know how he talked to the head steward, but it was clear he had dealt with the steward's family. Not only were they kicked out—ostensibly released as a favor, but they were essentially kicked out, since servants like them were far more comfortable being head stewards in the Duke's mansion than minor officials; who would willingly leave unless they were expelled—but the money they had embezzled was also confiscated. They were all somewhat frightened and became more cautious around Old Master Zhou, as he seemed to have many tricks up his sleeve, dealing with the family so quickly.

They still felt that the Zhou family wouldn't stay in the Duke of Zhenguo's mansion for long, so they had to stand on the right side. However, they couldn't afford to fall before dawn and be kicked out of the mansion. After all, if they were kicked out, new people would take over, and who knew if they could come back? So they had to be more careful in their actions in the future, and they had to restrain their disdain for the Zhou family.

—They didn't realize that it was Linlang who provided the evidence, which led to Old Master Zhou dealing with them. This was because no outsiders were present when Linlang provided the evidence, and the Zhou family members, after being instructed by Old Master Zhou, kept their mouths shut and didn't tell anyone. So outsiders didn't know that it was Linlang who provided the evidence.

Not only were the others cautious, but many also asked the aunt and great-aunt whether they should get rid of Old Master Zhou, otherwise this man was too shrewd and might affect their plans.

The aunt and others naturally agreed, after all, they had also received news from the steward and his wife that they had been kicked out of the mansion by Old Master Zhou.

They had thought that Old Master Zhou was too shrewd and shouldn't be kept around. Now, seeing how long he had been in the household, he had already come up with a way to easily drive away the head steward and his family, and even recovered more than 40,000 taels of silver and paid off a lot of debts, they felt even more that he shouldn't be kept around. Otherwise, if he continued to do things like this, the household's debts would be paid off, and they could save a lot of money and live a better life.

They naturally didn't want the poor Zhou family to occupy their maternal family's mansion and live a good life, so they thought that getting rid of Old Master Zhou should be officially put on the agenda.

Fortunately, Old Master Zhou is old and easy to get rid of. After all, they heard that Old Master Zhou was so excited when he heard the imperial edict that he had inherited the Duke of Zhenguo's mansion that he almost died. So they don't even need to poison him. They just need to spread some exciting news to provoke Old Master Zhou, and maybe they can send him to the Western Paradise. That's not a difficult thing.

The most frustrated one was the great-aunt, because she had originally planned to have one of her children take the surname Zhou and then have it adopted by her younger brother to inherit the Duke's mansion. After all, she was the daughter of the previous Duke, and it was quite reasonable for her child to be adopted by her younger brother.

In other words, the previous Duchess was a bit unlucky because her great-aunt wasn't her daughter, but a concubine's daughter, or even the daughter of a favored concubine whom she disliked. If the son of a concubine's daughter had inherited the Duke's mansion, the previous Duchess would probably be furious in the afterlife. But so what? Her son was dead, and the title was rightfully hers to inherit.

That old lady was calculating her plans meticulously, but an imperial edict shattered her beautiful dream.

The emperor would rather find someone from a collateral branch of the Zhou family to inherit the title than let her child be adopted. How could she not be angry?

But if she can't deal with the emperor, can't she deal with the Zhou family? As long as the Zhou family makes a mistake and is driven away, she will still have a chance.

It wasn't that she was stupid and didn't realize the emperor didn't want her child to inherit the title; rather, the emperor acted too quickly. She thought the emperor was unaware of her intentions, which was why he did this. Once he knew her plans, the emperor wouldn't choose an outsider to inherit the title.

Leaving aside the fact that the aunt and others wanted to get rid of Old Master Zhou, after driving away the head steward's family, Old Master Zhou asked Linlang which steward would be more suitable to take over the position of head steward of the mansion.

After discovering that Linlang was becoming increasingly capable, Old Master Zhou has now become quite dependent on her. The reason is simple: Old Master Zhou is getting old and sometimes doesn't have the energy to think too much. At such times, he wants an external brain to help him think. And in the Zhou family, apart from Linlang, no one else can be this external brain, so Old Master Zhou can only ask Linlang.

Linlang did not answer, but let Old Master Zhou choose for himself—anyway, every manager in this mansion had sucked a lot of blood, and it wouldn't be difficult to deal with whoever went up in the future.

Old Master Zhou thought that Linlang meant anyone could be the head steward, and he agreed. After all, they were all strangers to his family, so it didn't matter who was the head steward. If it didn't work out, they could just remove him.

So he immediately promoted one of the stewards, whom he knew a little about, to the position of general manager.

This family was naturally happy, while the former steward's family wondered if this family had reported them, since whoever benefited was the most suspicious. So they began to collect evidence of this family's embezzlement and wanted to report them to Old Master Zhou and others.

Since they're having a hard time, this family shouldn't expect to have one either.