“When are we making our move?”
Lu Xiao could hardly contain his eagerness. His heart burned with anticipation, eyes gleaming brightly, wishing he could start digging up the grave right that instant.
As they say, money emboldens the timid. At this moment, what were all the ghosts rumored to haunt the mountain?
They were all family!
“The sooner, the better. Let’s do it tonight,” Lu Yue suggested after a moment’s thought.
Pausing briefly, Lu Yue suddenly straightened his expression and warned Lu Xiao and Lu Chuan, “Second Brother, Fourth Brother, let me make this clear upfront: after we retrieve the silver, it’s fine for the three of us to split it equally.”
“But you must never let Mother find out.”
“We still have a younger brother below us. If the silver ends up in Mother’s hands, there’s no guarantee it’ll remain ours. Besides, there’s no telling if Lu Yuan might try to claim a share. Dividing it among three is vastly different from dividing it among six.”
“Absolutely, absolutely,” second brother Lu Xiao nodded hurriedly.
He wasn’t foolish; he’d already been thinking along those lines even without Lu Yue’s reminder.
Lu Yue nodded and continued, “Good that you understand. Father definitely isn’t coming back, so we must never breathe a word about him still being alive.”
“With Father gone, Mother is technically a widow in name. She’s only forty this year—who knows if she might grow restless and start clamoring to remarry someday? We can’t let her take a single coin from this family.”
“Ah, Third Brother, no need to say more. Fourth Brother and I know what to do. Even if I had silver, I’d rather give it to Aunt Tao than to Song Jinyao.”
Lu Xiao’s address for Song Jinyao had shifted directly now, unwilling to even call her “Mother” anymore.
As he spoke, a trace of resentment flickered in Lu Xiao’s eyes.
If Song Jinyao hadn’t stubbornly refused to let him marry Xiaotao and bring her into the household, how could Xiaotao and her son have suffered such humiliation—raised outside without status or recognition?
He had long held a grudge against Song Jinyao for this.
If it were Aunt Tao, she would never have stood by and let her grandson remain displaced.
Sometimes Lu Xiao found himself thinking how much better it would be if Aunt Tao were his birth mother—gentle, considerate, and broad-minded, nothing like Song Jinyao who meddled in everything.
“Also, after we get the silver, let’s temporarily drop the matter of dividing the family estate.”
“Why?” Lu Xiao sprang to his feet. He couldn’t agree to this! No division? How would he ever bring Xiaotao and her son into the household in the future?
Did they expect him to live under Mother’s watchful eye every day, subject to her control?
Lu Xiao firmly objected: “This won’t do. I disagree!”
“I promised Xiaotao I’d bring her into—”
Before the final word “household” could leave his lips, he caught sight of Lu Yue’s displeased expression and abruptly remembered that his third brother also disapproved of Xiaotao. Swallowing his words, he softened his tone and rephrased:
“She doesn’t have much silver left anyway. The days ahead will surely be frugal and strained. With silver in our pockets, we could be living in luxury—why should we suffer alongside her?”
Lu Yue shot him a knowing look before explaining, “What’s the rush? I didn’t mean never dividing the estate, just postponing it for now.”
He raised an eyebrow meaningfully. “Have you forgotten? Mother still has her dowry.”
At the mention of the dowry, Lu Chuan snorted derisively. “What are you two brothers thinking? Those dowry items Mother had—she’s been subsidizing the household with them all these years. There’s hardly anything left!”
Moreover, in families, a woman’s dowry has always been passed down to her daughters as their own dowry. Though Lu Chuan might be a bit of a scoundrel, he had never actually considered embezzling such things.
Hmm?
Earlier, he had wanted a Ferghana horse, which wasn’t worth much silver—that didn’t count!
Lu Chuan somewhat disapproved of his third brother scheming to take their mother’s dowry, but—
He cautiously glanced at Lu Yue and saw that Lu Yue was also looking at him, his gaze icy. Immediately, Lu Chuan switched to a fawning tone: “Hehe, whatever Third Brother says goes! If Third Brother says it’s there, then it’s there!”
Seeing that he had won one over, Lu Yue withdrew his gaze and continued, “What I mean is, let’s wait until we’ve coaxed her dowry into our hands before dividing it.”
“Earlier, we wanted to divide the family because only by doing so could we get the silver to support Father’s side. Now, even without dividing the family, we can still achieve our goal, so there’s no hurry to split. We should wait and see for sure how much Mother still has.”
As he finished speaking, a faint glimmer flashed in Lu Xiao’s eyes.
He had heard from his father that their mother was once a noble lady from a prominent family. Later, her family committed an offense, angered the emperor, and was expelled from Jing City, which was why she came to Taihe Xian.
His father also said that their mother’s maternal family had declined and was no longer of any benefit.
But Lu Xiao thought differently: a starved camel is still bigger than a horse. How could such a family not have left behind some contingency plan or hidden treasures?
In recent years, their maternal grandfather and grandmother passed away one after another, leaving their mother as the only descendant of the Song Family.
If there were truly valuable items, they must have been secretly passed down to their mother.
His father had tried for years to probe but got nothing—that was because his father was foolish!
But he was their mother’s son. It’s said that a mother’s love is greater than heaven. Given how much she had always doted on them, he believed that if he coaxed her and staged a few acts of feigned suffering, their mother would willingly hand over the treasures.
It must be said that Lu Yue was truly the most cunning among the brothers.
This layer of thought had never even occurred to the other two brothers.
At that moment, Lu Xiao was still pacing around the room.
He was considering whether to listen to his third brother and postpone the family division. But the thought of his little beauty’s disappointed, tear-filled eyes made his heart ache with distress.
“Second Brother, what do you think? Give us a definite answer,” Lu Yue asked Lu Xiao.
Lu Xiao stopped pacing.
Gritting his teeth.
After all, Xiaotao and her son had waited so many years—what was a little more time? After a moment’s contemplation, Lu Xiao said, “Fine, I’ll listen to Third Brother.”
Outside the window, Lu Wenhui listened for a while, her eyes blazing with anger, and then left.
Lu Wenhui walked hurriedly.
She was going to tell their mother about the plans of her three ungrateful brothers.
Fortunately, as an unmarried woman, she was not allowed to follow the funeral procession to the burial site. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have overheard her brothers’ conspiracy, and their mother would have no idea how she was being manipulated.
How could her brothers be like this?
Completely disregarding their well-being.
Was money really that important?
More important than flesh-and-blood kinship?
As anger surged within her, Lu Wenhui’s heart ached sharply.
It was one thing for her brothers to bully her ordinarily, but how could they be so unfilial toward their mother?
The thought chilled her to the bone, and tears streamed down her face.
“Second Sister?”
Lu Wenyin, being married, was also not permitted to follow the funeral procession to the gravesite according to custom. She had stayed behind at the residence to help prepare for the upcoming banquet.
Having just finished her tasks and thinking of returning to her room for a short rest, she unexpectedly came across her younger sister secretly wiping away tears on the way.
Her heart clenched with pain, and she hurriedly took out a handkerchief: “Don’t cry. Even though Father is gone, you still have us.”
“We have Mother, and we have our elder brothers.”
Mentioning the brothers only made Lu Wenhui cry even harder.
Such a father and brothers might as well not exist. Sometimes Lu Wenhui couldn’t understand—were those ungrateful wretches truly born of their mother?
“Eldest sister, you don’t know—” Lu Wenhui didn’t continue with what she was about to say. Their mother had said it wasn’t the right time yet, so she must keep her lips sealed.
Their eldest sister had a soft temperament. Even if told, she probably couldn’t help much and would only worry needlessly.
The most urgent matter now was to quickly inform their mother.
Thinking this, Lu Wenhui wiped her face fiercely, lied to Lu Wenyin that she was tired and needed to rest in her room, then turned a corner and ran out of the estate.
By the time they returned from the burial, it was already noon.
The family was to hold a funeral banquet, commonly known as tofu rice. The dishes were primarily vegetarian, with no alcohol or meat consumed.
Lu Xiuyuan was only forty-five years old, so his passing couldn’t be considered a joyous occasion, and there was no need for an elaborate ceremony.
Even so, because the Lu clan had many relatives, fifteen tables were still set up.
After seeing off all the guests and when the courtyard finally quieted down, the sun had shifted westward, though the summer sky was still bright.
Song Jinyao lay down inside the room, exhausted.
Lu Wenhui entered, closed the door, and tears immediately began to fall.
“Mother—” the young girl called out softly, her voice terribly hoarse. Seeing this, Song Jinyao felt heartache and called her to sit beside her.
“Why cry? There’s no hardship in this world that cannot be overcome. Don’t worry, your three brothers won’t gain any advantage this time. Your mother has a plan.” On the way back from the cemetery, Lu Wenhui had found Song Jinyao and recounted everything she had overheard.
Song Jinyao showed little emotional fluctuation. In her previous life, she had already known the true nature of those three ingrates. Having been reborn, if she let such matters trouble her again, allowing resentment to harm her health, wouldn’t that be a wasted life?
She refused to grieve; she would focus on dealing with them.
Besides, the matter of grave robbing was something she had deliberately hinted at in front of Lu Yue, guiding him to take action. Why should she be sad? She had been waiting for this moment.
But Lu Wenhui was different. She still held some affection for her brothers and was suddenly confronted with their ugly true nature, feeling the pain of betrayal.
“But, Mother, those burial goods—”
“Don’t worry.” Song Jinyao chuckled lightly and patted her second daughter’s hand. “Your mother already switched them out long ago.”
Lu Wenhui’s eyes widened in shock, her tears stopping. She had personally seen her mother place the burial silver inside the Coffin Guo. When had it been swapped out? How did she not know?
Her mother was simply—
Amazing!
Song Jinyao smiled faintly without speaking.
At this time, the Coffin Guo consisted of an inner and outer layer.
The inner layer was the coffin itself, where the deceased was placed.
The outer layer was the guo, forming an independent space around the coffin. Burial goods were typically placed in this space.
Before the coffin was sealed, Song Jinyao had already tampered with the panels of the outer guo. After the burial goods were placed inside, the coffin was sealed.
At that time, she had claimed she wanted to bid a final farewell to her husband alone, deliberately sending everyone away. In truth, she used that opportunity to slide open the bottom panel and retrieve the silver and silver notes. She had hidden them under the altar table in the Ling Tang, and by the time of the burial procession, Fang Momo had already helped her move them away.
Thinking this, Song Jinyao patted the bed. At this moment, all the silver and banknotes were hidden in the secret compartment of her bed. When the night grew deep and all was quiet, she would move them to a safer location.
That would be much more secure.
Suddenly, for some reason, Lord Pei’s face flashed through Song Jinyao’s mind.
The light in her eyes dimmed.
She had heard this man was extremely cunning—as long as he didn’t come to investigate—
Time quickly passed, and it was deep into the night.
In the quiet Lu family cemetery at Western Hill, a furious roar suddenly erupted.
“Lu Xiao! Lu Yue! Lu Chuan! You three wretched brats! Stop right there!”
At that moment, the three brothers were staring dumbfounded at the opened Coffin Guo.
Where was the silver?
Could it be that while they were feasting in the afternoon, tomb raiders had already paid a visit?
While they were still bewildered, they heard the furious roar from behind. The Great Elder and Second Elder, leading the clansmen, were charging over with overwhelming momentum. The three brothers stumbled in shock, nearly falling headfirst into the coffin.
“Outrageous! Outrageous! This is sheer madness!”
Buried just that morning, and by night the grave was dug up—and by their own sons, no less!
The Great Elder and Second Elder of the Lu family were wide-eyed with rage, completely enraged!