Quickly wear salted fish, she won by lying down

Chapter 1875 Cousin 46
For example, if a potted plant only costs one or two taels of silver, the father and brothers of Second Madam Chu could quote a hundred taels, because they could make a hundred times the profit. Since the Prince's mansion is large, in order to decorate every place, they could only buy cheap goods. Otherwise, the prices of flowers and plants provided by the Prince's mansion are fixed. If they quoted a higher price, the Prince's mansion would not reimburse them, or they would be asked to switch to another merchant. Because the prices are fixed, her family could only desperately buy cheap goods to decorate the Prince's mansion in order to make more money. This caused everyone to notice that something was wrong. In the end, Prince Zhou and his heir found out and caused her family to lose their jobs.

She asked her father and brothers why they were taking advantage of her so obviously, which caused her to lose her job. Her father and brothers could only helplessly tell her that if they didn't make the most money, the family would soon be bankrupt in order to pay off their debts. She didn't want the family to go bankrupt and lose face in her husband's family.
Grandma Chu finally understood why. Knowing the family's situation, she knew she couldn't blame her father and brothers for all this, since the family had accumulated a lot of debt.

Although it was Chu Er Nainai's family that was at fault, Chu Er Nainai always felt that these letters of complaint might have been arranged by the Crown Prince's wife. Because if she was suppressed, her power to manage the household would be taken back, which would be most beneficial to the Crown Prince's wife. Based on the principle that who benefits most when someone else suffers misfortune, the Crown Prince's wife was the most suspicious.

She came from a merchant family, and business people are shrewd, so she always thought the worst of people and suspected others of the worst possible intentions.

But at this moment, the Prince of Zhou had already stopped her from her job. Even if she told Chu Erlang that the Prince of Zhou's wife had done this, Chu Erlang would not take her side. He would definitely say, "Who told her family to be so greedy? If her family hadn't been so greedy, and the Prince of Zhou's wife hadn't found fault, would this matter have reached his father and grandfather?" So who is to blame for losing her job?

Because she felt that Chu Erlang would not stand on her side, even though Chu Er's wife had doubts about the Prince Zhou's wife, she did not voice them.

Fortunately, she didn't say it aloud. Otherwise, if the Crown Prince's wife knew that she had made fun of her, she would definitely have dealt with her. Her days in the manor would have been difficult.

However, because Second Madam Chu lost her job, Second Brother Chu immediately disliked her.

Originally, he was quite satisfied with how well Madam Chu was doing in the mansion, and how much money he had made following her. But now, seeing how foolish she was, handling these superficial tasks so poorly that it was obvious to everyone, leading to her losing her job, it would be strange if he still liked Madam Chu. He thought, she's supposed to be a merchant's daughter, how could she be so stupid? Even people who aren't from a merchant family know that no matter how greedy you are, you can't be so obvious to everyone. But she's too greedy, so much so that everyone can see through her greed. What else could it be but utter stupidity?

She couldn't earn money, came from a poor background, and wasn't even chosen by him, but by Consort Han. Even if Chu Erlang didn't like her, he could feel at ease, unlike with his first wife, Chu Erna. Because he chose her himself, although he was angry at Chu Erna's behavior, he couldn't blame anyone else since it was his own choice, so he didn't immediately dislike her.

As soon as he saw that the other person had implicated him and caused him to be scolded by his father, he immediately felt disgusted with him.

Chu Erlang didn't like it, and naturally Consort Han didn't like it either. After all, she had arranged for her son to marry a merchant's daughter of low status so that she could support him financially. Now, the family business was failing, so how could she support her son in the future? The woman's dowry was simply not enough, because she had carefully examined it and found that the woman's dowry was not worth ten thousand taels of silver. Indeed, the family was already broke, so where would they get the money to prepare a ten thousand tael dowry?

Fortunately, the other party stole public funds, not her son's money. She was slightly better off than her first daughter-in-law, but the first daughter-in-law had a much higher social status and was more respectable in public. So, all things considered, they were about the same. The thought that her son had married equally bad wives in both marriages nearly drove Consort Han to madness. She regretted urging her son to reject the marriage arranged by the Crown Prince's wife; she'd heard the girl was quite nice, now married, and had two children without causing any scandal.

She's starting to regret it and is thinking about whether to divorce him again and have the Crown Prince's wife help her son choose another one.

But having already been married twice, it was not a good idea to divorce her and marry a third time. Moreover, she had heard that her second son's wife was pregnant, making it even more difficult to divorce her. This left Consort Han with a belly full of anger but nowhere to vent it.

After losing the job at the Zhou Prince's Mansion, the financial situation of Second Madam Chu's family quickly became unsustainable. They came to Second Madam Chu for help, hoping that she could find a way to keep the job so that they could still be saved. Otherwise, the family would soon be bankrupt. But how could Second Madam Chu possibly keep the job?

She cautiously discussed this matter with Chu Erlang, saying that her family's improved financial situation would benefit their branch of the family. She wanted Chu Erlang to intercede with the Prince of Zhou on her behalf, hoping to return the job to her family and, ideally, give them some more money. This way, her family could make money and cover up the previous mess. Once the mess was covered, her family could prosper by relying on the Prince's mansion.

If her family becomes successful, doesn't that mean they, as a couple, will become successful too?

Since they were using the Prince's money anyway, it was essentially like transferring the Prince's money to their own small family. How wonderful! None of the Prince's sons could do that. How wonderful it was that they could steal the Prince's money.

This wasn't entirely unreasonable, but how could Chu Erlang dare to say such a thing to his father again? Getting more assignments was even more impossible, because he had heard that his grandfather, the Prince of Zhou, also knew about the matter of the flowers and plants in the mansion, and that his father had given the assignments to his second daughter-in-law. So he gave his father a severe scolding, scolding him for meddling when his stepmother was managing the household so well, and for causing such a disgraceful incident.

His father was scolded, and then he scolded him back. He was so angry that he didn't dare to ask his father to continue to do chores for his wife, or even pay her more. So he ignored Second Madam Chu's request.

Because he knew that his wife's family had a lot of money to spare, and if they got more jobs in the Prince's mansion, they would still embezzle money. Then, the people in the mansion would be dissatisfied with this and that, and sooner or later they would make trouble in front of his grandfather and father, and his grandfather and father would scold him.

He didn't want to be scolded again and again because of his wife's family, so even though he knew his wife's idea was good and made sense, he didn't follow Chu Er's advice to handle it that way. He just told Chu Er's family to find their own solution, saying that he had already been more than kind to her by not divorcing her.