Farmer girl swaps husbands: buys a sickly villain and pampers him

Chapter 265 Blackmail

A servant brought tea and placed it in front of Zhou Wangshu.

Zhou Wangshu picked up the teapot and started drinking, only to find a note underneath.

He glanced at the servant.

The servant withdrew.

Zhou Wangshu unfolded the note, and his lips twitched when he saw the words on it.

Lady Cheng'an contacted his men, offering a high price for his head.

A playful look flashed in Zhou Wangshu's eyes.

He walked to the study, picked up a pen and wrote a few words: "Take money, do nothing, and then extort money from you."

Lady Cheng'an heard that the assassination organization had accepted her job, but the job would cost 50,000 taels of silver.

Fifty thousand taels of silver is no small sum. When she got married, her dowry was only ten thousand taels of cash, and even with other dowry items, it was no more than thirty thousand taels. Now, to kill a bastard child who should have died long ago, she has wasted so much money.

Lady Cheng'an was heartbroken, but upon closer reflection, she realized the money had to be spent. Otherwise, everything in the Cheng'an Marquis's mansion would belong to someone else. Once she resolved this major concern, all of the Cheng'an Marquis's assets would belong to her and her son, and it wouldn't be a mere fifty thousand taels.

"You all keep a close eye on the movements of Huiyuan recently," Lady Cheng'an instructed her trusted confidante.

That evening, Lady Cheng'an learned of the commotion at Huiyuan. She sent people to keep watch, and they saw a group of men in black surrounding Zhou Wangshu. However, the men Zhou Wangshu brought from the General's Mansion were highly skilled and were fighting fiercely with the black-clad assassins.

"Madam..." the subordinate returned to report, "Young Master Zhou is fine. His men were only slightly injured. Most of the assassins are dead, and only one escaped."

Bang! Lady Cheng'an slammed down the cup in her hand and said angrily, "Are you brainless? I want him dead, not unharmed."

"However, those assassins in black were no match for the people from the General's Mansion. Today's assassination attempt failed."

"How could this be? Those are all professional assassins, they've never failed. How could they have fallen into the hands of that bastard today?" The more Lady Cheng'an thought about it, the angrier she became.

That's fifty thousand taels of silver.

She spent such a huge sum of money, only to get a result that was all talk and no action. No, since she'd spent the money, she had to get a satisfactory outcome.

"Contact the people over there immediately and tell them I'm not satisfied with this outcome. I want them to continue sending assassins to kill him, to ensure he dies a gruesome death. I don't care what methods they use—poisoning him, luring him out of the capital before launching a surprise attack—the important thing is to make him suffer a horrible death."

The people Lady Cheng'an sent out soon returned to report on the other party's attitude: "They said they're not doing it anymore. They said we didn't explain clearly how powerful our opponent was, causing them heavy losses. Of the twenty top assassins we sent out, only one returned alive. If they want to continue negotiating cooperation with us, we have to pay them a sum of money as compensation for their losses."

"They're insatiable. I've already given them 50,000 taels of silver, how much more do they want?"

"The other party said that it costs them tens of thousands of taels of silver to train a top assassin, and this time nineteen of them died, so they suffered a huge loss."

Lady Cheng'an frowned and said, "If they want to make a living from this, then they're destined to go hungry. It's impossible for them to hold me responsible for this debt. I spent 50,000 taels of silver to buy their lives. In short, I paid the money but didn't achieve my goal, so I absolutely cannot let it go."

Zhou Wangshu was reading the notes passed to him by his subordinates.

When his subordinates reported that Lady Cheng'an had indeed fallen for the trick and had paid an additional three thousand taels of family compensation,

Su Yaoguang walked over from the side, put her arm around his shoulder, and followed his gaze to see the words on it.

She pinched Zhou Wangshu's cheek and said, "You call me a shrewd businessman, but I think you're the shrewd businessman. This Lady of Cheng'an Marquis spent 50,000 taels of silver to buy your life, and you had your people put on a show here. The so-called fighting and killing was all fake, even more fake than the fight on the stage."

The performance fee for a single play was a staggering 50,000 taels of silver. With such easy money, it's no wonder Zhou Wangshu was reluctant to end things just like that, and was still trying to catch the big fish that was Lady Cheng'an.

Zhou Wangshu put his arm around Su Yaoguang's slender waist and kissed her forehead: "It's so late, go to bed early."

“I’ll wait for you…” Su Yaoguang said, “Look at the dark circles under your eyes. You haven’t been sleeping well these past few days. You should go to bed early.”

Zhou Wangshu put away all the notes and carried Su Yaoguang to the bed. Su Yaoguang stopped him when he started to get restless.

Su Yaoguang held his arm, not allowing him to bother her anymore, and just told him to go to sleep quietly.

For several days in a row, sounds of fighting and killing could be heard coming from the roof of the Cheng'an Marquis's residence.

The neighbors went from being tense and worried at the beginning to being calm and relaxed later.

For half a month, Zhou Wangshu faced assassination attempts every day. The matter even drew a memorial from the censors, who said that Zhou Wangshu was living a life of unbearable hardship at the Marquis of Cheng'an's residence.

Lady Cheng'an was sorting out all the accounts when she discovered that Zhou Wangshu was still alive and kicking even after she had spent 70,000 taels of silver, and she was furious.

The other party is an assassin organization; they can't simply return what they've taken. Besides, they've lost so many assassins; if she dared to ask for the compensation money back, the next time they set foot in the Cheng'an Marquis's residence, they'd kill her and her son Xia Zhen. Therefore, she dared not offend that organization.

Zhou Wangshu is not easy to kill because he is surrounded by many skilled fighters.

If the mission target is changed to her, her corpse will probably be hanging on the city wall in less than an hour.

That's why, even though she lost 70,000 taels of silver and gained nothing, she could only endure it.

"Seventy thousand taels... The accounts in the manor already don't match up, and now another seventy thousand taels of silver have been used. If the Marquis finds out, he'll probably behead me." Lady Cheng'an had no choice but to give up.

“Madam…” the old nanny ran in from outside and said to her, “The doctor from Taoyao Workshop has returned, and I have invited her over.”

Lady Cheng'an immediately stood up and rushed towards Xia Zhen's courtyard. Just as she reached the gate, she heard a sharp scream coming from inside.

"Zhen'er..." Lady Cheng'an Marquis pushed open the door and entered.

Jiang Jing then inserted several needles into Xia Zhen's eyes, leaving several silver needles around his eyes.

Lady Cheng'an breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that Jiang Jing was only giving Xia Zhen acupuncture.

"I was so scared! I thought something terrible had happened. Doctor, how is my son? He said his vision is a little blurry."

Jiang Jing said calmly, "His eyes were damaged by smoke. It would be quite expensive to repair them. Would you like to discuss it?"

"How much?" asked the Lady of Cheng'an Marquis.

"Thirty thousand."

Lady Cheng'an: "..."

If she hadn't used the money to hire someone to kill him, she would have been willing to pay a mere 30,000 taels to restore her son's eyesight. But the biggest problem now is that she doesn't have that much money.

"You're from Taoyaofang, so you should know that your mistress has married into our family. Does a family like yours still need to collect so much money?"

“Madam, the medicinal herbs your son is using are extremely expensive, and no one can guarantee their effectiveness. If you can't afford that much silver, then don't proceed with the treatment. I recently met other wealthy people who need those herbs, and they are very generous. I was originally thinking of letting you use them first, out of respect for our master, but if you can't afford them, then forget it.”

"Treatment, 30,000 is a bit expensive, but we'll treat it no matter how expensive it is," Lady Cheng'an said through gritted teeth.

Xia Zhen was the key to her turning the tide. If Xia Zhen had lost her sight, leaving such an obvious disability, she would have had no chance of winning the position of heir apparent.

Taoyaofang. Su Yaoguang fiddled with the abacus, checked and tallied all the accounts, and finally handed a list to Zhang Yingdi across from her.

Zhang Yingdi took it and looked at the numbers on the list.

This is a statistical chart showing the past six months, clearly illustrating how much they spent, how much they earned, and how much their net profit was during this period.

Expenses include raw materials, labor costs, and various losses.

After deducting those expenses, the net profit for the past few months was several tens of thousands of taels of silver.

"Yaoguang, Jing'er went to treat Xia Zhen's eyes. Aren't you going to stop her?" Jia Chunni said. "That family is so wicked, especially Xia Zhen. He should be blind for the rest of his life and become a cripple. That way, he will cause less harm to the people."

“Jing’er is a doctor. Why should I stop her from coming to the patient’s house to treat him? Besides, the Lady of Cheng’an Marquis is foolish and rich. She not only has to serve these suckers who come to her door, but she has to serve them well. If Jing’er earns this money, she will have more money to waive some fees for those poor people.”

This can be considered another form of Robin Hood-style redistribution!

Zhang Zhaodi walked in from outside, her face beaming with joy.

"I just heard some news, would you like to hear it?" Zhang Zhaodi said, "The first wife of the Marquis of Jing'an can walk again. She just sent someone to find Jing'er, meaning she wants to invite our family to our home as guests, she wants to thank our family properly."

“She wants to thank Jing’er, so let Jing’er go to the banquet,” Jia Chunni said. “Why invite us too? We didn’t do anything.”

“We didn’t do anything, but we have the General’s wife and the future wife of the Marquis of Cheng’an among us,” Zhang Yingdi said. “The original wife of the Marquis of Jing’an’s family is also a smart woman. She has been ill for too long and is no longer favored by her husband. It won’t be easy for her to rashly regain her power. She is befriending us because she wants to take advantage of our connections and let the Marquis of Jing’an know that she has connections.”

The current Jing'an Marquis's residence is likely entirely under Jiang Yihuan's control. If the Marquis's first wife wants to reclaim power, she must first secure a significant place in his heart. For a man whose heart has changed, the only thing he'll care about is his usefulness.

“In that case, let’s go to the banquet!” Su Yaoguang said. “To be honest, I’m quite interested in the Marquis of Jing’an’s mansion. Putting everything else aside, I want to know how Jiang Yihuan wields absolute power in the Marquis of Jing’an’s mansion. I love watching her gradually lose what she cares about.”

"Should I send someone to tell them that I'll be attending the banquet tomorrow night?" Zhang Pandi asked.

Su Yaoguang nodded: "Okay, let's go back. We'll go to the Marquis of Jing'an's residence tomorrow. By the way, we finished calculating all the accounts today, so we can distribute the bonuses to everyone according to the table here. The reason why our Taoyaofang business is doing so well is because of everyone's joint efforts."

Jia Chunni took the slip of paper from Su Yaoguang, carefully looked at the data on it, and said, "Everyone will definitely be very happy."

They had just received their wages two weeks ago, and now they were receiving bonuses based on their work throughout the year. Taoyaofang was always fair; a person's share of the profits corresponded to their workload. The staff were always attentive and welcoming to the guests, making them feel right at home. Aside from those who deliberately caused trouble, most people had a very high opinion of Taoyaofang.

“Oh, right, I also met some guests from the palace today,” Zhang Pandi said. “The man spoke in a high-pitched voice, and you could tell he was a palace eunuch. I thought people from the palace would be difficult to deal with, but he was very polite, so I was worried for nothing.”

"Before we came to the capital, everyone was worried that there were so many important people here that it would be easy to offend someone we couldn't afford to offend. But now, even the people in the palace are so polite to us. Would other guests dare to cause us any trouble?"

“We never dreamed that our brother-in-law was still alive, and doing so well,” Zhang Pandi said. “By the way, sister, since our brother-in-law is still alive, shouldn’t you take some time to go back to your hometown? You should at least go to the family genealogy there and change his information so that everyone knows that you’ve been protecting the Su family and Yaoguang all these years, and you’ve finally made it. Those people have bullied you a lot, so you should show them how happy you are now.”

Zhang Zhaodi said, "I used to think the same way, but since I reunited with my husband and saw Yaoguang and Wangshu living better and better lives, I've become less concerned about what others think. We definitely need to go back to the old house, but we need to choose a suitable time. My husband is in his prime, so he certainly won't retire so early. I'll discuss it with him tonight and see if we should go back to our hometown after the New Year to spend some time paying respects to our ancestors and sweeping the tombs, and also record his experiences over the years in the family genealogy. This would be a way to bring honor to the Su family."

In the afternoon, Taoyaofang distributed bonuses, and the entire Taoyaofang was filled with cheers.

Everyone received a bonus, with the highest being five hundred taels of silver and the lowest being one hundred taels, demonstrating how generous Su Yaoguang was to them.

Jia Chunni counted her silver notes and found that she actually had two hundred taels of silver.

Zhang Pandi has 150 taels, and Zhang Yingdi has 180 taels.

Jia Chunni had more than the two elders because she also helped Jiang Jing take care of the patients she saw, and occasionally she could also see some patients with colds.

"We'll have hot pot in the backyard tonight, just to relax," Su Yaoguang said. "Let's close the shop early tonight."