Quickly wear salted fish, she won by lying down

Originally, given the conditions of the Duke of Chengen's mansion, and the fact that Song Yuanniang's brother was going to marry the Empress's sister, she could have married quite well.

But after her mother pulled this stunt, many people thought her mother was too vicious and that she was probably no good either. As a result, respectable families no longer wanted to marry her, causing some families who were originally interested to become indifferent to her, clearly showing that they were no longer interested in her.

Seeing this situation, Song Yuanniang complained to her mother for being careless and letting her bad deeds be exposed; at the same time, she was jealous of Linlang, thinking that even though she was so good, the marriage she would find in the future might not be as good as Shen Linlang's, which made her furious.

Linlang naturally didn't take Song Yuanniang's jealousy to heart, because she knew that the other party couldn't cause any trouble at all.

It's quite remarkable how Liu Si Niang is such a love-struck fool. The reputation of the Duchess of Cheng'en has been ruined. Originally, both the Empress in the palace and the Duke of Anguo's mansion advised her to break off the engagement, saying that even if she broke off the engagement, no one would say anything bad about her, given what the Duchess of Cheng'en had done.

As a result, Liu Siniang was infatuated with the heir of the Duke of Chengen and refused to break off the engagement, which made the people of the Duke of Anguo's mansion think that Liu Siniang was not smart and they all gave up on her.

The heir of the Duke of Chengen was originally worried that his mother's actions would be exposed and affect his marriage, but he did not expect that Liu Siniang was so infatuated with him that she was unwilling to leave him no matter what. This put his mind at ease, and he waited for the wedding to take place.

Just as Lady Chengen was preparing for her son's wedding, Linlang and Chu Yue cleared up their misunderstanding and started going out together frequently again.

Generally, when engaged couples meet, they are a little awkward and rarely play together. However, because the two of them had been playing together for so long, Chu Yue was a little embarrassed at the beginning of their engagement, but afterwards he became more natural and the two of them played together as before.

Why did Chu Yue get engaged to Lin Lang? It was because he wanted to play with her. Now that they've made it official and can play together, they should naturally play together. There's no reason for them to not go out and play together after getting engaged.

However, when engaged couples go out together, they are sometimes teased by their peers. Fortunately, both of them are generous, so when they go out and people make fun of them, they are not shy, but will generously let others tease them. Others say that they are indeed like family, their personalities are really similar.

Just as Linlang and Chuyue were going out to play together from time to time, Liu Siniang entered the room.

The Chengen Duke's mansion spent a lot of money on the wedding of the heir of the Chengen Duke and Liu Siniang, and as a result, the already strained public funds quickly ran out of money.

So, Linlang made the right decision to store the betrothal gifts in her own storeroom. Otherwise, with the Cheng'en Duke's mansion currently short of funds, who knows how much the Cheng'en Duke's wife would covet Linlang's betrothal gifts of twenty or thirty thousand taels? What if she switched the jewelry inside? She could replace the gold jewelry with gold-plated copper jewelry, then pawn the gold jewelry to raise money to support the Cheng'en Duke's mansion. Who could possibly find out? If they discovered it later, they would have suffered a complete loss.

Linlang never underestimated the malice and greed of the Duchess of Chengen, so she carefully kept the betrothal gifts.

Not only did they receive the gifts and dowry, but they also felt uneasy. After sealing the gifts and dowry, they put them all into their own space to ensure that nothing went wrong.

In the original world, after Liu Siniang entered the family, the Chengen Duke's Mansion was not in trouble for the time being because the original owner's dowry filled the gaps.

But in this world, Linlang's dowry had already been taken, so now they were out of money, and Lady Cheng'en didn't know what to do. The family was used to a good life, and lowering their standard of living was practically impossible.

But if we don't lower our living standards, where will the money come from?
She asked her husband about this frustrating problem, but he was at a loss and could only say that he would first ask the old Duchess if she could lend a hand.

His mother has managed the household for many years and must have accumulated a considerable amount of savings.

Although his mother had retired when the Chengen Duke's mansion was at its most glorious, and his wife was in charge of the household, his mother wouldn't have much private savings. But even so, there would still be some left, enough to get by for a while.

In fact, the wife of the Duke of Chengen had more money, but the Duke of Chengen was embarrassed to ask his wife to use her private savings to support the whole family, so he did not mention it.

Of course, even if she did bring it up, Lady Cheng'en would never agree. After all, her money would only belong to her son and daughter. How could she possibly use it to support her entire family, or even her husband's concubines? She's not crazy.

If it really came down to her, she would definitely have the Duke of Chengen send those concubines away. After all, it was barely acceptable for her to support her husband, but why should she support her husband's concubines?

Fortunately, the old Duchess heard about the family's predicament and agreed to use her private savings to tide them over for a while.

However, it was also mentioned that the household expenses were too high, and some unnecessary expenses should be cut as much as possible. It would also be best to reduce the number of servants, as one person does not need dozens of people to serve them.

If she doesn't find ways to increase income and reduce expenses, her little bit of savings won't last long.

But people who are used to a good life can't stand cutting back on expenses. So when Lady Chengen saw that the household was in such a difficult situation, she wanted to increase income. Where would she get the income? Naturally, she would get it from Linlang. So she hinted to her husband that Linlang had a lot of dowry and wanted Chengen to ask Linlang for a dowry.

But how could the Duke of Cheng'en possibly bring himself to say that?

You see, she's engaged to the Prince Zhou's family, she has a powerful backer. If they dare to forcibly seize her dowry, and she complains to the Prince Zhou's family, they'll be in deep trouble—even if they're the emperor's maternal uncle's family, they can't do anything to them, but the matter will still spread throughout the capital, and then what good reputation will they have left? Their reputation was already ruined because their wife obstructed the Prince Zhou's family from arranging the marriage for Linlang, if they were to steal their niece's dowry, their reputation would be truly unbearable.

Even if Lady Chengen said that she was not taking Linlang's dowry, but borrowing it and would return it to her later, it would not be considered that the Chengen Duke's Mansion wanted to seize her niece's dowry.

But only a fool would believe such a thing. Everyone knows that if the Duke of Chengen's family borrows money, they will definitely not repay it. Because the Duke of Chengen's family has no money to repay, the Duke of Chengen did not say such a thing to Linlang. This made the Duke of Chengen's wife quite resentful, feeling that her husband was weak and incompetent. Knowing that the family had no money, he did not know how to find a way to get money.

Unable to "borrow" money from Linlang, the Duchess of Cheng'en pondered who else to ask for funds. After all, once the old Duchess's private savings were drained, they would still be starving. Don't count on her; she wouldn't lend them any money. (End of Chapter)