Contentment with modest wealth

Chapter 4: I want to watch the show!

Zhang Qiuniang staggered a few steps until Xie Yi supported her and she regained her balance.

Her eyes blazed with fury, and a string of words rushed to her lips, but then stopped short behind her teeth.

"Her background is none of your business! Whether she's my daughter or not, none of you should be eyeing her!"

After saying this, Qiu Niang turned and walked out.

"How can it not be my business? She was raised on the Zhang family's money!"

Madam He caught up and blocked her way: "A girl of unknown origin, eating and wearing the clothes of the Zhang family. How many years have you made us the fools of the Zhang family?"
“We started raising her when she was five years old and continued until she was twelve or thirteen! We treated her like a young lady of high birth, providing her with fine clothes and delicacies, and she received the same monthly allowance that our Ru-jie had!”
"To put it simply, the cost of several hundred taels of silver a year adds up to several thousand taels over eight years!"

"Why should she, an outsider, spend the Zhang family's money? Isn't it enough for the Zhang family to support the Xie family? Are we going to help you support an outsider too?!"

"Pah!" Zhang Qiuniang turned around: "No matter who we support, it was my father who invited us back. No matter how much money we spend, it's still the old man who's in charge. What does it have to do with you?!"

"What about the three hundred taels?!" Madam He slapped the receipt repeatedly. "This is the cost of registering Jia'er's household registration. This is not money for daily expenses. You can't include this, can you?"

“If you don’t give it to me, I’ll go to the county government office to demand an explanation! The county government office must still have the documents from back then. Whether she is a member of the Xie family or an illegitimate child, the county magistrate will definitely give an answer!”
“As long as she’s not a nephew of the Zhang family, then this money was paid on her behalf by the Zhang family, and she has to pay it back to us!”

Qiu Niang trembled with rage: "Dream on! Whether she's my daughter or not, she's still my daughter, Zhang Qiu Niang's daughter! If you dare touch her, I'll fight you to the death!"

"Do you think you can decide for yourself?" Madam He sneered, pressing closer step by step: "If she can't repay the three hundred taels within three days, then you can take the house as collateral!"
"If you can't provide the house, then she'd better marry into the Li family obediently!"

He didn't stammer when she said this, and who knows how many times she had planned it out in private.

Zhang Qiuniang was about to step forward to argue again when Xie Yi, seeing the old women surrounding He Shi, quickly half-carried and half-pulled Qiuniang out the door.

But Zhang Qiuniang was still furious and kept pointing at the Zhang family while cursing.

Only after entering their own home did Xie Yi let go of her hand, panting and wiping away sweat, and ask, "Mother! Is what she said true? My sister, she, she really—"

"Shut up!" Qiu Niang glared at him. "You believe whatever dog spouts out of your mouth? If you dare to say anything like that in front of your sister, I'll beat you to death!"

……

Lu Jia ate the water and the bread, then lay down for a while longer, and her strength gradually returned.

Unexpectedly, after she chose to perish together with Jiang, her soul returned to this fifteen-year-old body!
Two months before deciding to escape, Lu Jia received the devastating news that her mother and Xie Yi had died in poverty in Tanzhou. Before that, she had clearly written a letter saying that she would definitely be able to escape the Yan family and return to Tanzhou to reunite with them before Qingming Festival at the latest, but she still didn't make it in time.

Lu Jia was abandoned when she was five years old. If it weren't for her adoptive parents, she would have died in the wilderness long ago. It was also during the ten years she spent with the Xie family that she experienced a period of unparalleled happiness, regardless of whether she was rich or poor.

As an adopted daughter who had received kindness from the Xie family, how could she possibly stay in the capital after learning the devastating news?
As the lawfully wedded young mistress of the Sun family, Lu Jia should not have been absent from the Yan family's mourning hall, but this funeral was her best chance to escape.

So she deliberately angered that beast Yan Qu, who ordered her to be confined to the backyard.

Although she was beaten badly, she didn't care about being beaten again as long as she could get what she wanted.

The reason for fleeing the Yan family was not only because of the deaths of his mother and Yige'er.

All the injustices Lu Jia suffered in her previous life were committed by Yan Qu and the Yan family, who were the executioners, while the Jiang family was the culprit.

From the day she was married into the Yan family, she was thinking about leaving every moment. She wanted to accumulate strength, settle everything, and then return to the capital to settle accounts with Madam Jiang and demand repayment!
The pain of swords piercing her chest and abdomen still lingered. Returning from a desperate situation to the present moment when her mother and younger brother were both safe and sound was only a fleeting moment of closing and opening her eyes. If she had known this would happen, she wouldn't have been so preoccupied with that burden before she died.

—Oh right, I wonder if that masked assassin managed to escape?

Lu Jia had spent six years in the capital, but rarely went out. The man's mask was made of gleaming pure silver, and his slightly disheveled hair was jet black. His clothing was exquisite; beneath an elegant mink cloak was a dark brocade robe, and his shoes were nearly new, embroidered with fine silver thread. Furthermore, Lu Jia examined his hands; they were long, slender, and ruddy, and adorned with jade thumb rings.

Lu Jiazhen had no idea that even assassins had to dress so elaborately these days.
Wearing a fur cloak worth several hundred taels of silver to wipe out an entire family, you think you can behead them faster?

"Auntie!"

She was steaming taro in the kitchen when Xie Yi's call from outside interrupted her thoughts.

Looking out the window, she saw Xie Yi hurrying towards the backyard.

Lu Jia stepped out the door: "Mother's back?"

Xie Yi glanced at her, then at the inner courtyard, and then stomped her feet and ran over: "Is she not coming back? I knew I was right, Mother and He Shi are fighting!"
"Luckily you got me there in time, or the stick would have hit my mother's leg!"

Lu Jia was relieved to hear that Qiu Niang was alright. In her previous life, it was Qiu Niang who had injured her leg by the Zhang family, which plunged the family into an even more difficult situation.

She wiped her hands and went to the backyard to see Qiu Niang.

Xie Yi pulled her back: "You'd better not go. Mother is furious! Madam He pulled out a note from somewhere and said, said, said we owe them three hundred taels of silver and we have to pay it back! If we can't pay, we'll have to mortgage this house, and if we can't mortgage the house, we'll have to marry you off to Li Er! That must be more than just talk. Mother's momentum weakened in the end."

He was afraid of being beaten to death, so he could only omit the beginning and end of his story.

Lu Jia asked, "A written agreement?"

Xie Yi pursed his lips and nodded heavily.

Lu Jia's eyes narrowed: "What exactly happened?!"

Xie Yi couldn't hold back any longer and stamped his foot, saying, "Mrs. He said that was a written document from my maternal grandfather for registering your household in Shawan County!"

Then he poured out everything he had heard about pouring beans out of the bamboo tube.

"Don't you think the Zhang family is going too far? My maternal grandfather was indebted to our Xie family back then, so when he learned that the Xie family was in trouble, he immediately told us to come back to the Zhang family. He said this in front of everyone in the Zhang family, saying that my mother would always be a member of the Zhang family! Later, considering that outsiders would talk about my father, my maternal grandfather set up this house for us to live in."

"A written agreement was drawn up at the time, stating that this was Xie family property. Although he was the one who invested in it, it was to repay his grandfather for his help back then!"
"Now she's actually using this roundabout way to ask for money and a house, forcing you into marriage, trying to get what she wants. What about the help the Xie family gave the Zhang family back then? Without our Xie family, would He Shi and the Zhang brothers be living the life they have today? These ingrates! How can they be so heartless?"

Amid Xie Yi's indignant curses, Lu Jia finally understood that the reason the Zhang family had pulled this stunt was because they had guessed that she was not the Xie family's daughter.
With this leverage, they began to extort money from the Xie family without restraint, and then threatened to sell her to Li Er.

Lu Jia sneered twice, thinking that He Shi had really lost her mind because of the door.

However, on the other hand, even if Madam He had leverage over her background, it wasn't a big deal. Was it making a mountain out of a molehill to force her to repay the money or get married based on that?
The Zhang family's business isn't huge, and they're always busy. They're not that idle. Why are they going through all this trouble just to annoy themselves?
After standing there for a moment, Lu Jia dismissed Xie Yi, saying, "I remember that Li Chang's mother, Aunt Liu, works for the Zhang family. Ask her to get a set of Zhang family servant's clothes for you to wear."

Xie Yi straightened up: "What do you want to do?"

"Want to see a show?" Lu Jia glanced at him. "After you get the clothes, immediately go and tell Li Er that I've woken up." She then whispered a few more instructions.

After listening, Xie Yi looked at her with a complicated expression, as if he were really looking at a demon.

Only after she urged him with a stern face did he turn around and run out.

Lu Jia dusted off the patches on her apron, glanced at the Zhang family's house to the east, and walked steadily back to the kitchen. She took a bamboo tray, picked out a large bowl of steamed taro from the pot, sprinkled some white sugar on it, and then took another small dish with some crispy radish cubes pickled in chili oil. She carried the tray to the backyard.

I will try to update in the morning from now on.
(End of this chapter)