Cao Mo arrived at the rear annex courtyard.
In the central room, The Zhang Family was packing their belongings.
“Elder sister, you must keep that silver ingot safe—it’s a full four taels! Whatever you do, don’t let Mother know!”
“Why hide it from Mother?”
“If Mother finds out, will the money ever end up in your hands? I’m doing this for your own good. Don’t you want to bring four shiny taels of dowry silver when you marry?”
“…I understand. Then, what about all those copper coins?”
“If we take so much money back, we won’t be able to hide it. How about we only bring one string of cash back? We can use the rest to buy things—that way we’ll get an extra share, won’t we?”
“—Oh, look at my memory! We can also buy a few extra feet of cloth to make your wedding dress. Let’s pick the reddest one!”
“Good! Good!”
The east room was quiet.
Cao Mo knocked twice, then pushed the door open and walked in.
Sister Gui and Ding Ju were sitting in the outer room, silently weeping. One of Sister Gui’s hands was wrapped in a handkerchief.
He looked into the inner room. Old Madam Ding sat blankly in front of the bed, muttering something under her breath. Ding Wang lay on the bed with his eyes closed, though it was unclear whether he was asleep.
After staring blankly at Cao Mo for a moment, Old Madam Ding finally reacted and hurriedly stood up, calling out, “Master!”
Ding Wang opened his eyes and looked over, struggling to get out of bed.
“No, no, just stay where you are!” Cao Mo noticed that his senior seemed to have aged ten years in this short time, his spirit completely gone.
Ding Wang still managed to sit up. “Steward Cao, we’ll leave in a moment.”
“Oh, there’s no hurry about that.” Cao Mo took out a small bundle and placed it on the table with a thud. “Twelve taels and over three hundred copper coins. Count it.”
Old Madam Ding looked at the small bundle, her expression growing complicated.
Back when the old man wanted Amáo to marry into their family, she had agreed. But later, when He’er became obsessed with climbing the social ladder, she couldn’t sway her daughter and had harbored a bit of selfish ambition herself.
After returning earlier, the old man had asked her if she knew about the two of them.
She truly hadn’t known!
After thinking it over, could it be that He’er regretted it after following the young master?
And with such a scandal, wealthy families would only cover it up, never exposing it themselves. So had the Shen Family kept it hidden all this time?
But her one misstep had dragged the entire family down!
Old Madam Ding was filled with regret—she should never have listened to that wretched girl!
Seeing that neither of them moved, Cao Mo didn’t mind. He took a silver note from his sleeve, unfolded it, and spread it on the table.
“This is from the Master.” Watching the astonished expressions of the Ding elders, Cao Mo said, “The Master said that Ding He was, after all, with him for a time. Even if we disregard the affection of those years, both she and Lu Amao were house-born servants. When they married, he, as their master, should have given a reward.”
“The Master also said that you should return to the estate. Those two did wrong, but they’re gone now, so he won’t hold it against you.”
“Although that farmland property was sold, the Master kept that small courtyard. You can live there peacefully from now on, as a way to honor the bond you once shared with the old master.”
Ding Wang flushed with shame, the lingering resentment in his heart vanishing instantly, replaced by overwhelming remorse. He felt too ashamed to accept it, but if he didn’t take it, how would the family survive?
Old Madam Ding couldn’t help but pick up the silver note—thirty taels!
With over forty taels of silver in total, they could prepare some dowry for Ju’er and slowly find a young live-in son-in-law for Sister Gui. Life would surely get better and better.
Ding Wang understood the plea in his old wife’s eyes. With tears in his eyes, he knelt facing the direction of the Main Courtyard: “I, Ding Wang, have let down the Old Master and have no face to see the Master again. I’ll kowtow here to apologize! I’m afraid I’ll never be able to repay what I owe the Shen Family in this lifetime, wuwuwu…”
Cao Mo waited in the courtyard, responsible for escorting these people out of the mansion. If another scandal like the Hu Family incident happened again, he would lose all face as the steward.
He didn’t rush them, just stood in the courtyard, poking at the two dried loofahs while lost in thought.
That day, after leaving the mansion, Ding Wang first went to the medical clinic the Shen Mansion usually frequented. But he only stayed for a short while before rushing to another highly renowned clinic in the city.
The latter specialized in the Gynecology Department, exactly where Madam Wu had sought treatment a few days earlier.
Ding Wang spent most of the day there receiving acupuncture and massage. It was said he even hit it off with the clerk in charge of dispensing medicine and insisted on treating him to tea.
The clerk also mentioned that Ding Wang had been subtly inquiring about what prescriptions the Resident Physician had issued the previous day…
Upon hearing this report, Cao Mo was so startled he spat out his tea.
First secretly swapping medicine, hiding a pregnancy, and now snooping into the mistress’s prescriptions—what was the Ding Family planning to do next?!
They had all grown up eating the Shen Family’s rice, so why did Ding Wang only grow bold without growing any brains?!
Last night, when he reported to the Master, he hadn’t dared to look up, but the Master’s voice seemed to carry shards of ice.
Today, although he only waited outside the main hall, he had heard everything clearly. That Ding daughter had already become a Concubine, yet she committed Adultery with her childhood sweetheart servant, and even tried to pin her Illegitimate Daughter on the Master!
Hiss, the Ding Family didn’t just grow bold—it was as if their boldness had grown a person!
However, the Master had actually let the Ding Family off so easily and even gave them silver? His master was not such a merciful pushover…
“Hey, I came first! First come, first served—you should call me brother!”
“Came first?” Shen Yiyi was baffled. This is your home; you were born here. What do you mean by ‘came first’?
“I recognized Madam as my mother first, so I should be the eldest!” Little Fatty was getting a bit anxious.
?
!!!
Little friend, do you have any idea how terrifying what you just said sounds?!
While the front hall had turned into a melon field of gossip, Little Fatty An Ge’er also dropped a bombshell on Shen Yiyi.
After the two arrived at the eastern wing where An Ge’er lived, Little Fatty obediently showed Shen Yiyi around first, but then he didn’t know what to do next.
The two sat awkwardly on opposite sides of the luohan bed, with Xiao Man placing fruits and pastries on the small tea table between them before standing by the door to wait.
Seeing no one else around, Little Fatty immediately brought up the important matter of dignity that had been weighing on his mind. And he successfully blew Shen Yiyi’s mind.
Thinking for a moment and eyeing the distance to the door, Shen Yiyi whispered, “I don’t believe it. When did you come, then?”
Little Fatty counted on his fingers: “I’ve been here for almost ten days!”
“Oh. But I’m older than you.”
“I’ve been back to my hometown in Meizhou Prefecture, and you’ve never been there!”
“Oh. But I’m older than you.”
“I—I’ve even been to my maternal grandfather’s house in Fu Cheng! You’ve never even met Grandfather!”
“Oh. But I’m older than you.”
Little Fatty grew anxious, his voice rising higher and higher, drawing Xiao Man over.
Shen Yiyi quickly tossed him a childish, taunting expression: “Tsk, tsk, tsk! Can’t win the argument so you call for help?”
Little Fatty flared up: “Xiao Man! Don’t come over! Get away!”
Xiao Man had no choice but to retreat from the room.
“Further away!”
This retreat took her all the way outside the main gate. Peering nervously through the half-open window, Xiao Man feared the two children might start fighting.
“Alright, this time I’ll say you didn’t cheat. Just don’t start yelling for someone to rescue you later~”
“I won’t!” Little Fatty lowered his voice. “So, did I come first? I should be the big brother!”
“When did the Madam acknowledge you? What if it was later than me?”
“Madam acknowledged me almost two years ago! How could it be later than you?”
Through their bickering exchange, Shen Yiyi discovered that this Little Fatty was not Wu Shi’s biological son.
However, unlike her own wild recruitment, he genuinely had a formal position.
An Ge’er’s mother was Wu Shi’s dowry maid.
It sounded like another common plot from ancient romance novels: “The young lady can’t bear children, so the dowry maid steps in.”
But after the child was born, Wu Shi still felt somewhat awkward and unwilling to take the baby in.
She wasn’t capable of doing anything truly malicious; she simply left the mother and son in the backyard, though she didn’t skimp on their provisions.
Concubine Lan, who had just changed roles only to become completely unemployed, thus became an invisible presence in the backyard.
She had been bought and raised by the Wu family since childhood and was naturally of a simple, honest disposition. She didn’t dare complain about Wu Shi; as long as she had food and drink, she obediently stayed put and raised her child.
However, perhaps suffering from a bit of postpartum depression, Concubine Lan would hold An Ge’er every day, grumbling about Shen Rusong’s new favorite.
“It’s all that little vixen Bi’er, seducing the Master and making the young lady take her anger out on us!” “It’s all that little vixen Bi’er, upsetting the young lady again! If it weren’t for her, the young lady would definitely like you!”
She muttered like this for over two years. Bi’er thrived more and more, even becoming pregnant, but then the County Magistrate Shen died.
After the funeral, Shen Rusong had to escort the coffin back to the Shen family’s ancestral home in Meizhou Qinghe County for burial—a journey of over a thousand miles.
Coincidentally, at this time, An Ge’er fell ill, and the two-year-old toddler was quite seriously sick. Bi’er, meanwhile, was heavily pregnant and confined to bed for rest.
But County Magistrate Shen had come to Anyang alone to take up his post, with no relatives in the area.
So, Shen Rusong sent Concubine Lan and her son, along with Bi’er, all to the Wu family in Fu Cheng. His father-in-law, Wu Tianheng, was then serving as the Qingzhou Prefecture Assistant Judge—a close friend his father had known since youth, with over twenty years of friendship.
Shen Rusong was quite straightforward about it; after all, he had long lost his mother, and now his father was dead. From then on, he would rely on his father-in-law for support.
Thus, without any sense of being an outsider and completely unafraid of causing the host family any discomfort, he dumped the sick child and the pregnant woman onto his in-laws.
The unfortunate father-in-law, Wu Tianheng: ?!!!! Are you even human?!
His son-in-law had handed over his only one-and-a-half illegitimate sons and two concubines into his care. While it represented immense trust, it was also a huge, enormous trouble.
But what could he do? Refuse to help and disturb his old friend’s final rest? Wu Tianheng had no choice but to grit his teeth, grumble, and accept these hot potatoes.
After recuperating at the Wu family for over a year, An Ge’er grew lively, active, and fatter by the day.
Bi’er died from difficult labor, leaving behind a boy. Wu Tianheng, the cheap grandfather, gave him the childhood name Ping Ge’er.
He sincerely hoped these hot potatoes would stay safe and sound, and not reduce their numbers while staying at his home.
Not long after, Wu Tianheng’s term of office ended, and he had to return to the capital to report to the Ministry of Personnel, then see what new official position he could snag. An Ge’er and his mother were sent back to Shen Rusong, who was observing mourning in Meizhou.
After a long and arduous journey, when they arrived in Qinghe County, An Ge’er—who had everyone holding their breath in worry—was in excellent health, while Concubine Lan fell ill and, after struggling for half a month, still died.