Chapter 5 005 Reputation Damaged

The farce was over, and Uncle Chen and Uncle Bao had nothing more to watch, so they went home.

Du Qingtang hid in the dark and did not leave until the couple took the silver under the stone.

Excluding the one penny of silver for buying the skirt, the remaining silver was enough for them to settle down quickly. At the same time, Du Qingtang also used them to launch a counterattack.

A win-win deal.

Du Qingtang has always believed that an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is the best form of revenge.

Scholars value fame and reputation the most. She wants to destroy the things that Yuan Sheng cares about most step by step, just like Yuan Sheng destroyed her in his first life.

She was not afraid of the Yuan family coming to her house. Who could prove that she was the one who brought that couple here?

Anyone who causes trouble at someone's door without any evidence will be treated as a mad dog biting people randomly.

Passing by Yuan's house, Du Qingtang looked at the magnificent brick and tile house and thought of the Du family's dilapidated yellow mud house. For the hundred and first time, he wanted to hammer Yuan into the wall.

She thought again of the silver that Yuan had given away and temporarily deposited it in the Yuan family. She would make those leeches that sucked blood from the Du family pay it back a hundredfold or a thousandfold.

Not only that, they will have to pay an even more painful price for it.

When they returned to the Du family, the four girls had already turned off the lights and gone to bed. Only the oil lamp in the kitchen was on. Yuanshi was doing needlework at the dining table, waiting for Du Qingtang to come back.

When Du Qingtang entered, Yuanshi immediately came forward to greet him: "How is it? Has Brother Sheng forgiven you?"

"I didn't see him." Before Yuan Shi's expression changed, Du Qingtang took the initiative to attack, "His two lovers came to the house and fought fiercely. The Yuan family was in chaos, so I came back first."

Yuan accidentally dropped the embroidery frame: "My lover?"

Du Qingtang nodded.

"Could this be a misunderstanding?" Yuan Shi hoped, "Sheng Ge'er is a good boy. How could he be in love with two people at the same time?"

Of course Du Qingtang knew it was fake, but it didn’t matter. As long as Uncle Chen and Uncle Bao believed it, that was enough.

"Whatever you think." Du Qingtang returned to her room. She still had study tasks to do tonight.

Yuanshi followed her and said, "Young people make mistakes all the time. As long as Sheng'er breaks up with them, you can forget about these trivial matters..."

Du Qingtang turned around and looked at Yuan Shi coldly: "Shut up and get out."

Yuanshi: "Brother Tang..."

Du Qingtang: "I'll say this one last time. If you keep talking about carrying on the family line, I'll find you a man. You can give birth to the child yourself, and you can carry on the Du family line."

Yuan Shi blushed with embarrassment: "How can this be possible! I can't let your father down. I am a member of the Du family in life and a ghost of the Du family in death..."

"As long as the child has the surname Du, it won't be considered unfair to my father." Du Qingtang said with a half-smile, "But then again, since you are a member of the Du family, why are you still thinking about your parents' family after being married to the Du family for more than 20 years? You are being unfair to the ancestors of the Du family. Be careful or they will come to find you at night."

Du Qingtang's tone was grim when he said this. Yuanshi suddenly felt a gust of cold wind blowing across the back of her neck, and she turned pale with fear.

After being humiliated several times in succession, she finally realized that Du Qingtang would no longer obey her as before. She was unable to say anything to argue and burst into tears.

Du Qingtang pointed behind her: "Go out and close the door."

Yuan choked and walked out, slamming the door.

Du Qingtang: “…”

After this incident, Du Qingtang no longer felt any pleasure from witnessing Yuan Sheng's embarrassment. He pursed his lips tightly, and his eyes and brows were frosty.

Du Qingtang took a deep breath, then took out the Four Books and Five Classics, sat under the lamp and opened "The Analects of Confucius".

After returning from the county town during the day, Du Qingtang had finished reading "Shuowen Jiezi" and recovered most of his memories. He planned to spend a few hours reading the Four Books and Five Classics tonight. He didn't need to interpret them in depth, but just review them.

Du Qingtang had a wide range of interests in modern times, including calligraphy.

After a day of hard work, she has overcome her physical discomfort. She holds the pen in her right hand and her wrist is suspended. Her strokes are smooth, like flowing clouds and running water, which is pleasing to the eyes.

It was late at night, and the cold wind was howling against the walls. The yellow mud house was creaking and groaning like a dying old man.

Du Qingtang read the book attentively, taking notes on paper from time to time.

"ah!"

The yellow mud house had no soundproofing, and Yuan's scream pierced the night sky. Du Qingtang's hand trembled, and ink dripped onto the rice paper, spreading out a large ink mark.

"Don't come over here!"

"Get out! Everyone, get out!"

"I haven't let down the ancestors of the Du family. I'm Ping'er's eldest sister. Isn't it my duty to take care of him?"

"Help! Help!"

Du Qingtang raised his eyebrows slightly, feeling happy, and the discomfort in his eyes from reading under the lamp for a long time was alleviated a lot.

She skipped over the ink stain and continued recording until half an hour later.

The hot water had been warm in the pot for too long and had already cooled down. Du Qingtang didn't want to take a cold shower, so he sat in front of the stove and fiddled with it for a long time. His face was blackened by the smoke. He stumbled and boiled the water, and after washing up, he lay down on the straw-covered kang and fell asleep unconscious in two breaths.

-

The next day, the Golden Crow rises in the east.

Zhu got up with dark circles under her eyes, and Yuan Xue was already in the kitchen making breakfast.

The farce last night made Zhu so angry that she couldn't stand anyone. Without thinking twice, she slapped Yuan Xue's back several times.

Yuan Xue cried out in pain, fearing that she would anger Zhu and bring about even heavier punishment. She arched her back and gasped softly, tears in her eyes threatening to fall, but mixed with numbness, they never fell.

"Money-losing stuff, hurry up and cook!"

Yuan Sheng hadn't gotten up yet. Zhu walked around the yard a few times, muttering, "Everyone in the village goes to bed early. They probably didn't hear anything happening in my house, right?"

"It must be that damned girl Du Qingtang's doing. I'll skin her alive soon!"

And Yuan Shi, who says one thing but does another, should have her mouth torn open and made to break her promise. She also teamed up with Du Qingtang to destroy Sheng Ge'er's reputation.

Zhu thought resentfully, made full mental preparations, pulled out the bolt and opened the gate, looked around and listened carefully, and walked out on tiptoe.

There are fellow clansmen living on both sides of the Yuan family, one is Yuan Ping's cousin, and the other is Yuan Ping's fifth uncle.

The man sitting on the doorstep smoking a pipe was Yuanping's fifth uncle. He looked Zhu up and down with his cloudy eyes, which made her tremble with fear.

"...Fifth Uncle?"

Uncle Yuan Wu knocked his pipe on the doorframe. "Brother Sheng, have all the books you've read over the years been wasted? You're having an affair without a matchmaker, two-timing it. How are you going to get any of the Yuan family's boys to find wives in the future?"

Zhu's heart skipped a beat, and she refused to admit it. "Fifth uncle, what are you talking about? I, I don't understand."

"This matter has spread from one end of the village to the other. Everyone in the village knows about it. Do you really think I didn't hear anything last night?" Uncle Yuan Wu frowned so hard that a fly could be pinched to death. He spat at Zhu and said, "The son is shameless, and so is the mother."

Spread from the beginning to the end of the village?

Everyone in the village knows?

Zhu's eyes went dark, she screamed and fell to the ground, her head hitting the door sill with a loud bang.

......

Du Qingtang opened the door and saw Uncle Chen describing in vivid detail what he had seen and heard last night.

"One of the women said that she had been married to Sheng Ge'er three years ago. She also said that after Sheng Ge'er got married and continued the Yuan family's lineage, she would find a random reason to divorce the woman and live with her forever."

"Wow! Is this true?"

"Fellow villagers, have you ever heard me tell a lie in decades?"

"Not really."

"That's all, I heard it with my own ears. It's more real than gold and silver." Uncle Chen said sarcastically, holding the bowl. "Brother Sheng is really extraordinary. It's okay to be two-timing, but he even secretly had an affair with someone without any matchmaker and got married to us."

The villagers who were watching the fun burst into laughter.

"Yuan Sheng looks like a decent human being, but what he does is worse than that of an animal."

"A while ago, my second aunt asked me to matchmake her daughter with Yuan Sheng. Luckily, I was busy and forgot about it, otherwise I would have harmed my sister."

"She worked so hard to give birth to his child, but in the end she was divorced for no reason. Only someone with a broken brain would marry their daughter off to the Yuan family."

"That's right!"

As Yuanshi listened to the villagers' discussions, the last bit of hope she had was gone.

Sheng Ge'er wants to be with Tang Jie'er. If he abandons Tang Jie'er and finds another lover, isn't this going to kill Tang Jie'er?

Yuan Shi felt uneasy and squeezed into the crowd to the front: "Brother Chen, did you see what those two people looked like?"

"Are they all as beautiful as flowers?" a villager asked.

Uncle Chen's expression was indescribable. He shook his head and curled his lips. "No, one of them is hard to see, but has a nice voice. The other is about the same age as Sheng'er's mother, with wrinkles all over her face..."

This heavy blow made Yuanshi see stars and burst into tears.

Everyone saw this and sighed.

"Yuan Shi really treats Yuan Sheng like her own son. Even when Wu Ya's palm was nearly cut in two while she was cutting wheat, she didn't cry like this."

"As expected of the old Yuan family, they are all not very smart."

"Brother Chen, please continue. I haven't heard enough."

Before Uncle Chen could continue, Zhu's furious voice came from far away, "Bullshit! That's not true at all. If you dare to talk nonsense again, Mr. Chen, I'll tear your mouth apart!"

Uncle Chen looked at the angry Zhu and Yuan Ping and said disdainfully, "If you don't want others to know, then don't do it yourself. It's not me who asked Yuan Sheng to have an affair without a matchmaker."

Everyone: “Puff——”

Yuan Ping was so angry that he fell backwards and swung his fist at Uncle Chen.

Uncle Chen has been doing heavy and tiring work for decades. Even though Yuan Ping is fat, he is not afraid at all. He grabbed and pushed Yuan Ping, and Yuan Ping fell to the ground, unable to turn over like a turtle.

"Ah! I'll fight you!" Zhu shouted and rushed towards Uncle Chen.

Uncle Chen doesn't fight with women, but fortunately his wife, Mrs. Hu, was there. She immediately rolled up her sleeves and started fighting with Mrs. Zhu.

You tickle me and I kick you, the fight is very intense.

"Yuan Ping and his wife are so shameless. It was clearly Yuan Sheng who did the wrong thing, so why are they still picking on Brother Chen?"

"It's not the first time they've been so unreasonable."

"There are many people eyeing Yuan Sheng's marriage. I have to publicize it well later to prevent any girl from being harmed by this bastard."

"I'm going back to my parents' home today, so I'll just tell the villagers about this..."

Du Qingtang's lips curled up slightly. After today, she had successfully overcome her identity crisis.

The attitude of the villagers was also what she expected. What's the point of being notorious only in Taoyuan Village? She wanted to make Yuansheng famous throughout Qingyuan County.