Quickly wear salted fish, she won by lying down

Chapter 1736 The Country Girl Looked Down Upon 57
Why did Li Yu's father agree to Consort Cao's absurd request? It's because Li Yu's father had a similar personality to Li Yu; he also disliked meddling in other people's business. Otherwise, he wouldn't have only one wife and two concubines. This personality trait was probably inherited from Consort Zhang, who also disliked meddling in other people's business.

She had originally planned to find a wife for her second son, because Zhao had previously stated that she would not interfere in the marriages of her illegitimate sons and daughters, and that he should make the decisions while she took care of the arrangements.

He was originally worried about what kind of marriage to arrange for his second son, but Aunt Cao insisted that his second son marry her niece.

Li Yu's father naturally did not want to agree, after all, Consort Cao's family was too poor. No matter how much of a son of a concubine he was, he was still a member of the imperial clan with a title. How could he be allowed to marry such a wife?

But he couldn't resist Aunt Cao's harassment, and since he didn't want to worry about it, he went along with Aunt Cao's wishes.

Thinking that since the Cao family would change their status after their daughter married into the family, from being a wealthy country family to a respectable family, it would be better and wouldn't be a disgrace to their son.

Li Erlang complained about how his father could have agreed to the marriage, saying that's exactly how he agreed.

Li Erlang had many conflicts with Aunt Cao over this marriage, and even cursed Aunt Cao many times.

Although Aunt Cao was his birth mother, she was only his concubine. His real mother was Zhao. So what was wrong with him cursing Aunt Cao? He had suffered such a great injustice, couldn't he even utter a few words of complaint?
Aunt Cao wasn't angry. She knew that what she had done had wronged her son, and feeling guilty, she naturally didn't dare to be angry. She just pretended not to hear it. Anyway, relying on being Li Erlang's biological mother, she did whatever she wanted, which made Li Erlang very angry.

Because he was completely dissatisfied with Cao Shi, Li Erlang treated her extremely poorly after she entered the family, and only doted on his own maid, who was a concubine.

Although the maidservant's background was not good, she was just a concubine, so it was normal for her to have a poor background. However, Cao's background was so poor, yet she occupied the position of his principal wife, making him less fortunate than others in the mansion, which was unacceptable.

If Aunt Cao hadn't threatened to kill herself, he wouldn't have shared a room with her.

Although he didn't want to be associated with the death of his birth mother, Li Erlang had no choice but to share a room with Cao Shi, but he rarely visited her and usually ignored her.

Li Erlang treated Cao Shi badly, which naturally made Cao Shi unhappy. However, she dared not cause trouble for Li Erlang, fearing that since he already disliked her, if she caused him trouble, he would dislike her even more and refuse to share a room with her. What would she do if she couldn't have children in the future? After all, she couldn't expect her aunt to threaten suicide every time.

So she didn't cause trouble for Li Erlang, nor did she complain that Li Erlang didn't come to her place; she only kept causing trouble for Li Erlang's concubine.

She knew perfectly well that Li Erlang didn't like her, but instead of causing trouble for Li Erlang, she went after that concubine. This was bullying the weak and fearing the strong, but what good did it do? Even without that concubine, there would be other concubines. After all, the root cause hadn't been addressed, so nothing else mattered.

As for the Li Erlang family's affairs, no matter how much trouble they caused, Linlang's family didn't live with them, so it didn't have much of an impact. After all, as mentioned before, each branch of the family could live in a large courtyard with three courtyards and a garden, and the second branch was no exception.

There was a large courtyard where Li Yu's parents, concubines, and unmarried children lived in the last courtyard and the rear hall.

The married Li Yu and his wife lived in the second courtyard, while Li Erlang and his wife lived in the first courtyard. Each family lived in a separate courtyard, even further apart than modern apartment buildings. They could have lived their own lives independently. And that was indeed the case.

However, after Cao arrived, she changed her mind.

Besides causing trouble for Li Erlang's concubines, she also had time to look around. For example, she was eyeing Linlang's family, since she and Linlang were currently the only sisters-in-law in the second branch of the family.

Upon closer inspection, she noticed that Linlang's family was living a much better life than hers. Dissatisfied, she began to scrutinize Linlang's family, wondering where their money came from and how they could live so well.

Besides keeping an eye on Linlang's family, she also asked Aunt Cao about this question. Aunt Cao said, "It must have been given by your mother-in-law."

Madam Cao, however, was not convinced and said, "I heard that your mother-in-law's family are distinguished scholars, and when she married into the family, her dowry was not much. How much subsidy could she afford? I see that Li Dalang and his wife are very well-off in terms of clothing, food, housing and transportation. It doesn't seem like my mother-in-law could afford that."

Although Li Erlang said that Cao was a country girl, and even if Aunt Cao became a concubine, she wouldn't have enough money to buy a house for her family in the capital, Aunt Cao lived in the Prince's Mansion and would occasionally invite Cao to stay for a few days. Therefore, Cao knew more than an ordinary country girl and knew about Zhao's situation.

Aunt Cao said, "We might not have been able to afford it before, but now that Lady Zhang is in charge of the household, she has plenty of money and gives the second branch of the family a lot of money. Your father should have given a lot of that money to your mother-in-law, so it's normal that she has money to subsidize Li Dalang."

Not only did they give money to Zhao, but they also gave her money when her children got married and needed to buy clothes and jewelry.

If she has it, then Zhao, as the legal wife, must have even more. So, isn't it perfectly normal for her to have money to subsidize Li Dalang?

She actually had quite a bit of money, but instead of subsidizing her son, she gave it to her family. Otherwise, her son would have had plenty of money to spend.

However, there's no need to tell Cao Shi this, lest the words reach their son's ears and make him even more unhappy.

She knew that if she had money and didn't give it to her son, but instead gave it to her own family, she would be letting her son down. However, her son lived in the mansion, where everything was taken care of for him, so she naturally had to give the money to her family. After all, her family lived in the countryside, where their lives were much worse than her son's. She couldn't bear to see her parents and brothers crying and complaining about how hard their lives were in the countryside every time they saw her. Since she couldn't afford a house in the capital, she could only use the money to subsidize her family so that they could live comfortably in the countryside.

Upon hearing her aunt's words, Cao was immediately dissatisfied and said, "Empress Zhang gave it to our second branch of the family. As the legal mother, Zhao received the money from Father. Why should only the eldest brother receive it and not our family?"

Seeing Cao's dissatisfaction and fearing she might cause trouble, Aunt Cao quickly said, "That's not necessarily true. This is just my guess. Your sister-in-law also has a considerable dowry. With just a little of that dowry, she could live a good life."

Cao Shi appeared to listen, but in reality, she didn't take it to heart at all. She didn't believe that Zhou Linlang would give Li Yu her dowry money; they must have other sources of income.

However, seeing that her aunt was worried that she might do something reckless and was trying to smooth things over, Cao didn't say anything more and just kept the matter in mind.