Quickly wear salted fish, she won by lying down

As for Cao Shi and Li Yuanniang, because they had previously joined Li San's grandmother in cursing Linlang and his wife, their relationship with Li San's grandmother had soured, and they were now finding it difficult to get close to Linlang. As a result, the relationships among the various families were rather cold, unlike before when the relationship between Li Erlang and Li Sanlang's families was so warm.

Seeing that Grandma Li was using the jewelry from her dowry as money, Linlang thought that this girl was spending money extravagantly, and that she probably wouldn't be able to keep the 500 mu of estate. After all the jewelry in her dowry was pawned, and she couldn't stand being penniless, she would definitely have her eyes on the 500 mu of estate.

There was nothing he could do; Li Sanlang had received a lot of money from Zhao Shi, and he had already spent it all.

Although they were both sons of Master Li and Lady Zhao, Li Yu spent little money. He only liked playing chess and would buy some expensive chess pieces at most. He could resell them when he didn't want them anymore, so he wouldn't waste a lot of money.

But Li Sanlang is different.

He was the youngest son of Master Li and Madam Zhao. He was spoiled from a young age. Madam Zhao doted on him, providing him with the best food, clothes, and things. Now that he's grown up, he still wants the best of everything. Naturally, he spends a lot of money. Although Madam Zhao subsidizes him, the money is only enough for him to do these things.

Although he didn't frequent brothels like Master Li, he did have one hobby: eating out.

He disliked the local dishes at home, saying they were terrible, even the stir-fries weren't as good as those in fancy restaurants, so he always went to fancy restaurants to eat with a bunch of his cronies.

He thought that good restaurants were naturally expensive. He didn't think a meal would cost much, just twenty taels of silver. Twenty taels of silver for a meal at one of the top restaurants in the capital with a group of cronies was not much. It wasn't much in a month, but if he treated his friends to meals five times, he would spend a hundred taels of silver, and a thousand taels a year.

These were all beyond his means, so he could only treat others to meals less than five times a month. The rest of the time, it was his cronies who treated him.

But whether he can invite others back is uncertain. Some people just come to take advantage of him, so he can't manage to do that. He eats and drinks at fancy restaurants every day, and sometimes he has to eat at home. This is also why he resents Consort Zhang for not giving him money. He feels that if Consort Zhang were willing to give him money, he wouldn't have to eat at home and would eat out every day.

—In fact, given his behavior of entertaining his cronies, if he were to eat out every meal, he would need at least a thousand taels of silver a month. And that would be to ensure that he doesn't take advantage of having money to buy more expensive food or invite more than one table of friends, otherwise it wouldn't be enough. After all, some people spend money as much as they have, and they can spend all the money they have.

Just by looking at Li Sanlang, who spends every penny Zhao gives him, you can tell he's a spendthrift and can't keep anything.

Since Li Sanlang has spent all his money, he won't give any money to Li San's grandmother. Li San's grandmother is also a big spender. What will she do if she pawns all her jewelry and uses up all the annual income from the estate?
She can't stand being broke, so she'll definitely think about taking over those 500 acres of land.

Linlang was right.

Because Granny Li entered the family in the spring, and the estate was far from prosperous, she pawned almost all the jewelry from her dowry that year. By the end of the year, with the estate's prosperity, she had spent it all in a short time the following year. She couldn't get used to the rations at the manor, nor could she tolerate the inferior cosmetics and jewelry there. She wanted to buy everything herself, which naturally led to exorbitant spending. Even if she only ordered two small dishes a day, one for lunch and one for dinner—considered very frugal—it would still cost about two taels of silver, totaling seven hundred taels a year. Adding in other expenses for cosmetics and jewelry, it was normal that the estate's meager earnings were quickly depleted. At this point, she had no money left to spend. Unable to endure hardship, she decided to sell some of the land on the estate.

Anyway, that farm didn't do much. At the end of last year, the farm manager came and said that heavy snow had frozen many crops to death, and they hadn't sold them for much money.

She didn't earn much in a year, and she had to work hard and wait for the money to come before she could have any money to use. It was too troublesome, so she wanted to sell some of her land so that she would have money on hand at any time.

She said she wanted to sell land, which was located around the capital, so it was very easy to sell. She quickly sold 100 acres and got 1,000 taels of silver, and now she had money to spend.

Seeing that, just as she had predicted, Granny Li was spending money extravagantly and had to sell her estate because she didn't have enough money, Linlang knew that Granny Li's estates would eventually be spent all by her.

Of course, maybe one day when she's a little older, she'll realize that it will be a lot of trouble once she's spent all her money, and she might stop. But who knows how much of the estate she'll have left then?

Linlang didn't have time to watch Grandma Li's performance right now, because her eldest aunt, who hadn't made much noise in recent years, had started causing trouble.

Ever since the family of the Duke of Zhenguo's daughter-in-law was raided and exiled, and the second aunt became paralyzed, the eldest aunt felt that the Duke of Zhenguo's mansion was a bit strange. Otherwise, how could the three of them cause trouble while the other two got into trouble? She was afraid that it was Old Master Zhou who was behind it, so she kept quiet for a long time.

But recently, as Old Master Zhou has gotten older and his health has started to decline, the eldest aunt has started to make trouble again, probably thinking that Old Master Zhou is about to die and her opportunity has come.

It's normal that Old Master Zhou is nearing the end of his life. You have to understand that in the original world, he would have died long ago by now. In this world, living to his sixties or almost seventies is already quite remarkable, and it's considered a long life in this era.

The eldest aunt then began to send people to instigate the Zhou family, trying to get them to continue with the previous plan to kill the eldest master Zhou. They said that if they didn't act soon, the old master would die and the eldest master Zhou would truly inherit the title, and then their family would be out of luck. Because if the eldest master Zhou inherited the title, even if he died, the title would be inherited by the eldest son, Zhou Dalang, and would not be passed on to his younger brother's family.

Master Zhou had long wanted to kill Master Zhou, but the last time he tried, the person who helped him suddenly disappeared, leaving him with money but no result. This made Master Zhou behave himself for a long time, fearing he would encounter such a swindler again. He didn't know that the person was a man of the Duke of England, and that he disappeared along with the Duke of England's family when they were raided and he was exiled. He only thought that the man was a swindler who took his money and ran away.

But now, with the old master nearing his end and the title likely to fall into the hands of the eldest son's family, coupled with the instigation from his eldest aunt's people, Master Zhou is once again considering taking a risk. This forces Linlang to pay close attention. (End of Chapter)