The young maidservant beside her answered tremblingly, “Madam, the residence has been stripped bare. Even your favorite white fox fur coat is gone.”
Mrs. Yang felt her head throb with pain and nearly thought she had misheard. She strode quickly toward her own room.
It wasn’t just the coat—even the rouge and face powder were gone.
She sat down on the floor, nearly bursting into tears.
Assistant County Magistrate Yang caught up and berated her, “Tell me quickly, did you take it?!”
Mrs. Yang, already furious, grew even angrier at his words and glared at him. “Me take it? Which of your possessions wasn’t obtained with my dowry?”
“Back then, I brought a full fifty thousand taels of silver out of Jiang Fu. I bought your official position and bought this residence.”
“All these years, my food and clothing have come from my dowry. Why would I steal from my own home?!”
Assistant County Magistrate Yang was momentarily speechless. He let out a long sigh, nearly crying himself, and stamped his feet twice. “Then where did all these things go? This is the fruit of half our lifetime’s labor!”
He had the nerve to call it the fruit of half their lifetime’s labor, when the family fortune had been obtained by Mrs. Yang stealing Madam Jiang’s dowry.
The private stash was nothing but wealth squeezed from the common people.
The couple had simply enjoyed themselves at the expense of others’ belongings.
Mrs. Yang wailed loudly, “It’s gone, all gone! My most beloved bracelet is gone too…”
At the moment, the bracelet was the least of their worries—what was worse was that there was no charcoal left.
It was snowing heavily now, and it was nighttime.
She clutched her clothes, shivering from the cold.
Assistant County Magistrate Yang stamped his foot and said sternly, “No, we can’t let the thieves get off so easily! I’m going to report this to the authorities.”
Mrs. Yang called out to stop him, “You ARE the authority! What’s there to report?!”
Assistant County Magistrate Yang waved his hand grandly, “I’ll go lodge a complaint with the Zhifu! I refuse to believe we can’t find those thieves!”
With that said, he strode toward the front courtyard. But just as he reached the door, a group of officers surged in.
That’s right—before he could go find the Zhifu, the Zhifu had come to him.
“Assistant County Magistrate Yang, where exactly are you off to?!”
Assistant County Magistrate Yang was stunned and asked in confusion, “Zhifu, sir, what brings you here?”
The Zhifu, surnamed Yan, was a well-known upright official who kept his sleeves clean and despised officials like Assistant County Magistrate Yang the most.
When he saw the account books and the amounts recorded in them, he flew into a rage and immediately brought his men to Yang Fu.
And so, Mrs. Yang, who hadn’t even been a madam for many years, was about to lose everything.
“Assistant County Magistrate Yang, you have embezzled public funds, accepted bribes, seized the people’s hard-earned money, and are also suspected of buying and selling official positions. Today, I hereby place you under arrest pending trial!”
“Men! Take him away!”
Assistant County Magistrate Yang was dumbfounded. He had only gone out for a day—how had he fallen so quickly?
Mrs. Yang was even more stunned. When the Jiang family had come, she had been forced to return the heirlooms and had also fallen gravely ill.
Now, their household had collapsed as well.
Assistant County Magistrate Yang was led away, leaving Mrs. Yang alone.
The residence was to be confiscated, the servants dismissed, and Mrs. Yang had nowhere to go. In an instant, she seemed to have become the orphan she was before the Jiang family took her in.
The next morning.
A carriage that had traveled all night came to a stop at a waystation.
Lin Shutang slowly woke up in the warm blankets. The moment she opened her eyes, she saw the same abdominal muscles as in her dream.
Thinking she hadn’t woken up yet, she reached out and pinched them. The texture felt very real—firm yet somewhat soft.
Especially when her hand moved upward, she could even pinch something with a bumpy texture.
She was just about to dig her fingernails in when, unexpectedly, a large hand suddenly reached out and grabbed her wrist.
“Don’t touch…”
A slightly hoarse voice came from above her head, and Lin Shutang froze in place like stone.
It wasn’t a dream…
She stiffly turned her neck and slowly looked up at him, only to see his cold, handsome face flushed crimson, with several dark lines clearly visible on his forehead.
It was only then that she realized she had been sleeping in his arms.
In that instant, it was as if an electric current shot through her brain, and she couldn’t help but blurt out, “I… I… will take responsibility for…”
Before she could finish, she immediately regretted it.
What responsibility or not—he was her husband, whom she had married with a grand eight-person sedan. Just touching him a little didn’t seem like a big deal.
Without waiting for Duan Yanzhou to respond, she lowered her head and seriously pulled his clothes together. “It’s cold out. Don’t catch a chill.”
After saying that, she casually withdrew her hand and prepared to get up.
But perhaps because she had slept awkwardly last night, her waist was sore. As she rose, her bones gave a loud crack, and her whole body tumbled heavily forward into the carriage.
Duan Yanzhou moved swiftly to catch her, pulling her into his arms. “Are you alright?”