The Daily Life of a Down-on-Hard-Life Medicine Girl Supporting Her Family

Chapter 62 Tang Liu Tells Stories

"Mmm, delicious! This tastes amazing. It's the best pastry I've ever had in my life." Tang Liu almost choked, but after swallowing hard, he kept praising it: "Young Master Zhao, the things here are really good."

"You brat, how old are you? You've already lived this lifetime." Zhao Minghua glared at him. "If you like good food, when you go to the capital, you'll have more ears to listen to. Tell my cousin about it later. My cousin loves hearing stories from the capital."

"No problem." Tang Liu didn't stand on ceremony and grabbed another piece of pastry, stuffing it into his mouth. "Let me tell you, there's an even bigger story behind this trip to the capital. Do you want to hear it?"

"what story?"

"The story I'm about to tell you is about the Xiao family again," Tang Liu said while eating. "Tsk tsk, you can't underestimate the granddaughter of Physician Xiao."

Zhao Minghua looked at Xiao Chunnuan: He had never underestimated her!

"After Physician Xiao's incident, his son and eldest grandson were exiled to the northern desert. Old Madam Xiao then led a group of women and children back to Sichuan, reportedly on the orders of the Empress Dowager."

"Why would the Empress Dowager give special treatment to someone who is truly guilty?" Tang Liu said. "That's why many people are speculating that Physician Xiao died unjustly!"

Xiao Chunnuan appeared calm on the surface, but in her heart she was thinking: the eyes of the masses are discerning, and the people have a scale in their hearts.

"The eldest granddaughter of Physician Xiao is called..." Tang Liu slapped his forehead: "That's right, her name is Xiao Chunyu. She married the second son of the Wu family, the Vice Minister of Works. When the Xiao family was convicted, she was six months pregnant. She gave birth to a baby girl three months ago, but was disliked by the Wu family and divorced on the grounds of jealousy and a serious illness."

Xiao Chunnuan's fingers, hidden in her sleeves, clenched tightly into her palms. So that's how it is!
Zhao Minghua was also surprised. He wondered why Chunnuan wanted to meet the people going to the capital. It turned out that her elder sister... How pitiful!

"The Wu family is really too dishonest. How could they do such a thing?" This is in Shu, in Changzhou. If this were in the capital, he would take a few brothers, put them in a sack, and beat that Wu guy so badly that even his own parents wouldn't recognize him.

"And then what happened? What became of Miss Xiao?"

Knowing that Chunnuan shouldn't press the matter directly, Zhao Minghua quickly became her mouthpiece.

"The second young master of the Wu family has many unethical traits. He slept with a maid while he was still in mourning."

As soon as Tang Liu finished speaking, Zhao Minghua glared at him with a sharp look.

"Watch your mouth, my cousin is still a young girl."

This rude man is hopeless!
"Ah, oh, I'm so sorry, Miss, I didn't mean to." Tang Liu scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "But that's how the story goes. Do you want to hear it?"

If you want to hear it, you'll have to talk about sleeping with a girl; it's unavoidable.

"Go on."

Zhao Minghua asked quickly.

"He pressured his wife to say that he wanted to take a concubine. Miss Xiao said that she was in mourning and told him to be careful about his reputation, as it would not sound good if word got out. He got angry and stormed off. Later, Miss Xiao encountered a dangerous situation during childbirth. If it weren't for the midwife's skill, she and her unborn child would have died. In the end, she was fine and never had another child. So the Wu family spread the word that they wanted to take a concubine."

Xiao Chunnuan's palms were clenched so tightly they hurt!
She knew that the Wu family was utterly despicable.

"Miss Xiao naturally disagreed and said she wanted a divorce. As a result, Wu Yunping, who is also the second young master Wu, directly divorced his wife, didn't even want his own daughter, and kicked them out along with the maids and servants who had accompanied them on their dowry."

"Does divorcing a wife mean she doesn't get a single penny of her dowry?" Zhao Minghua vaguely understood this principle.

"That's exactly right," Tang Liu said. "It was precisely because the Wu family went too far, leaving Miss Xiao no way out, that Miss Xiao, in a fit of anger, personally wrote a ten-thousand-word complaint, directly sounding the alarm and appealing to the emperor!"

"Mother, are we going to file a complaint with the emperor? That's so serious!"

Zhao Minghua looked at Xiao Chunnuan in disbelief, asking with his eyes: Are the girls of your Xiao family really not afraid of death?
"Well said! Miss Xiao is truly a heroine!"

Qiuyan's letter, though brief, couldn't fully express her elder sister's bitterness and tears. Having heard Tang Liu's description today, Chunnuan's blood boiled: Very well, elder sister doesn't cause trouble, but she's not afraid of trouble either.

"What then?"

Zhao Minghua listened to the story with trepidation: "Is it so easy to file a lawsuit against the emperor? The play says you have to be flogged a certain number of times before you can see the emperor, is that true?"

"In the Great Xia Dynasty, they don't use boards; they roll nails on boards."

Xiao Chunnuan's voice was cold, her heart bleeding: "She rolled over a board of nails, the nails embedded in her flesh..."

She hasn't dared to close her eyes for the past two days, because every time she does, she dreams of her elder sister's bloodied and mangled appearance.

"Yes, it was rolling on an iron plate. I heard that after Miss Xiao beat the Wendeng Drum and rolled on the iron plate, her clothes were soaked in blood. After reading the complaint, the Emperor sent people to arrest the Wu family. When the Empress Dowager and the Empress heard about Miss Xiao's ordeal, they felt sorry for her and immediately sent the imperial physician to treat her. They also rewarded her with a thousand taels of silver, and the Empress also gave her a hundred-acre estate."

"After Miss Xiao brought down the Wu family, her life became difficult. I heard that people in the capital are avoiding her. Even her maternal relatives, her former in-laws, are avoiding her. No one has come to visit her."

There are still some!

Spring warmth silently remembers the kindness of Qiu's family in her heart.

Qiuyan said that her elder sister and Panpan were both well, and promised to take good care of them. Chunnuan believed her!

"too……"

Zhao Minghua suddenly felt that he hadn't read enough and didn't know what adjective to use to describe his lack of knowledge.

The look in his eyes as he looked at Xiao Chunnuan was also very complicated.

Honestly, I think the girls from the Xiao family are all so brave and fierce.

Suddenly, I remembered the first time I met her. Even though her fingers were hurting from being pinched by a crab, she refused to put the crab back into the water. She was determined to bite off a piece of its flesh, even if it meant death.

The Xiao family is not to be trifled with!
Zhao Minghua swallowed hard.

There was a different kind of calm in Xiao Chunnuan's eyes.

She had considered the various aspects of Tang Liu's story, but hearing others recount it firsthand was a different matter entirely.

"Has the news spread far and wide?"

Chunnuan was worried that this matter would reach the ears of her grandmother and aunt, so she later arranged for them to move to the town.

No, it would be better to move to town.

After all, villagers are better informed.

They can exaggerate and embellish even the smallest rumors they hear.

In this small courtyard in town, anyone who wants to enter has to get their permission, unlike in the village where they can just rush to pass on the news to you.

Furthermore, the women of the Xiao family have always stayed at home and rarely ventured out. Apart from their close friends Mrs. Zhao and Mrs. Zhang, there were no other women in the town. With less social interaction, there was less gossip, and the possibility of leaks was smaller.

My darlings, please add this to your favorites, give me your monthly tickets, and recommend it! Thank you so much!
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(End of this chapter)