Chapter 83 Chapter 83 The next morning, Shen Xuan picked out a…
The next morning, Shen Xuan picked out a plain dress and put it on. Although the material of this dress is good, the color is a low-key misty blue and the style is simple and plain.
Chen Xuan has gained some weight since coming to Beijing, and his complexion has improved a lot. His skin has gradually become fairer after a winter. Now wearing such simple and elegant clothes, he looks tall and slender, with a unique temperament.
After thinking about it, he took out a yellow rosewood hairpin and put it on.
This hairpin may seem plain, but the material of the dark wood has a faint fragrance, and its color glows dimly in the sun. If you are not a connoisseur of value, you would not be able to tell that his clothes are actually very expensive.
"Jinzhi, Jingui. You stay at home today and let Suyun and Suyue accompany me to the Marquis' Mansion." Chen Xuan said to Jinzhi and Jingui.
After hearing this, Jinzhi Jingui's originally nervous mood relaxed a little.
Although their indentures had been returned to Chen Xuan by Xue Fenglin, he had been a servant of the Xue family since childhood, and his parents and family were still working in the Marquis' Mansion.
If they went to the Marquis' Mansion and were threatened by Bai and the housekeeper, they would inevitably show their cowardice. Chen Xuan did not let them go, which made them feel relieved.
Su Yun and Su Yue were both attendants sent by the Ye family, and Chen Xuan usually did not treat them very closely. But at this time, it is very useful.
After hearing Chen Xuan's instructions, Su Yun and Su Yue knew that they had to go to the Marquis' Mansion and might even have to fight with the mansion's stewards such as Mother You. They were full of energy and seemed to be ready to fight.
After breakfast, Chen Xuan took the two of them out, and in less than half an hour, the carriage arrived at the gate of the marquis' mansion.
The servant at the gate of the Marquis's mansion did not open the door when he saw them, but pointed to the small door on the west side and said, "Go to the side over there."
That small door was the passage for servants and stewards to come in and out. The Marquis' Mansion asked Shen Xuan to go through the side door as soon as he arrived, because they had received a hint from Mother You and wanted to give him a warning.
However, the carriage did not continue to move forward as the servant requested, but stopped at the gate of the marquis' mansion.
After a while, Su Yue and Su Yun lifted the carriage curtain and jumped down, glaring at the servant fiercely.
Su Yun stretched out her arm, and Su Yue lifted the curtain again and said to Shen Xuan, "Brother Shen, please get out of the car slowly."
Shen Xuan then held their arms and walked down.
Shen Xuan got off the carriage directly from the main gate and asked the driver to stop the carriage in front of the Marquis's mansion.
He walked to the door with Suyun and Suyue and said to the servant, "Madam Xue invited me to the Marquis' Mansion to discuss matters. Please let me know."
The servant was stunned. He didn't expect that Brother Chen would not play by the rules and go in from the west side obediently.
He didn't know what to do for a moment, and after hesitating for a moment, he had to let Shen Xuan wait, and then went in to inform Mother You of the matter.
Mother You was also annoyed. She didn't expect that Brother Chen had become so tough after not seeing him for several months.
She simply followed the servant to the door, and after seeing Shen Xuan, she said, "Brother Shen, since you are here, follow me into the mansion."
As he said this, he was about to take Shen Xuan to the small door on the west side.
Shen Xuan heard this but stood still. Su Yun and Su Yue, who were standing beside them, jumped out with their hands on their hips and said, "Oh, the guest is already standing at the main entrance, why is there a rule to take him to the side door instead of the one near by? When we were at the Ye family, we had never heard of this way of waiting for guests. Is it a rule of the Marquis' Mansion?"
"How could there be such a rule in the Marquis' Mansion? This old woman must be resentful of Chen Ge'er for driving her back to the Marquis' Mansion, so she is taking revenge? Madam Xue is the Marquise after all, how could she be so ignorant of etiquette?"
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Su Yun and Su Yue are sharp-tongued people to begin with, and when they meet You's mother they bring up new and old grudges.
Just a few words from them made Mother You blush, but now they were at the front door and there were people passing by on the road, so she couldn't get angry.
Seeing that someone nearby was looking over curiously, Mother You didn't dare to linger at the door any longer, as it would bring shame to the Marquis' Mansion. So they had no choice but to ask the servant to open the door and invite Shen Xuan and the others to go in through the main gate.
Shen Xuan then smiled and said, “Thank you, Mother You, for showing me the way.”
Then he took Suyun and Suyue and walked in through the main gate in a swagger.
In the first round early this morning, Shen Xuan had the upper hand. Mother You looked a little unhappy, so she had to lead the way with a gloomy face. After leading Shen Xuan to a side hall, she asked him to wait inside.
After Mother You left, Su Yue rolled her eyes and said, "This is still the Marquis' Mansion. I don't know where the rules came from. I invited Brother Chen here, but they just left him here without even a cup of tea."
Su Yun also nodded and said, "No wonder Madam Ye has always been critical of the Xue Mansion. With such rules, they don't even care about respectability. They are worse than small merchants."
"It's okay, let's wait and see." Shen Xuan was calm and just sat in his seat waiting.
Bai specifically called him over, it couldn't be just to intimidate him. If no one comes out after an hour, he can just go back.
After a while, a maid in pink clothes came in with a tray with a pot of tea, several teacups, and some fruit snacks on it.
"Brother Shen, I am Jinzhi's sister Yinshuang, serving in Madam Wen's courtyard." The maid came to Shen Xuan and introduced herself. She put the plate with tea and snacks on the table and said, "Madam Wen heard that Madam invited you to be a guest, so she asked me to come and bring you some tea and snacks."
Shen Xuan took a closer look and saw that the maid had a round face and a pair of almond eyes. She really looks 70% similar to Jinzhi.
He had heard Jinzhi say earlier that her sister was on duty in Madam Wen's room, so he thought it must be this person.
"Thank you for your concern, Madam Wen." Chen Xuan thanked Madam Wen with a smile. After thinking for a while, he took out a piece of silver and gave it to Su Yue next to him.
Su Yue understood and took Yin Shuang outside, stuffed the silver into Yin Shuang's hands and said, "Miss Yin Shuang, you have worked hard. Take these and have some tea."
Yin Shuang did not refuse. She took the silver in her hand and weighed it. The silver change weighed about three cents, and she was overjoyed.
He immediately bowed to Yin Shuang and said, "Thank you, Brother Chen, for the reward. I also appreciate your care for Jin Zhi!"
After he finished speaking, he looked around, then pulled Su Yue aside and whispered, "The elders of the Xue family are now in the lobby, and they will probably come over to call Brother Chen over in a while."
"In addition to them, there are a few unknown guests who came to our house today. They are also surnamed Shen and are relatives of the former Lord Shen."
"They also brought a young lady and two young men, all of whom seem to have just reached the age of marriage, about the same age as Brother Shen. I'm afraid they are here to compete with Brother Shen for the position beside the prince, so please be careful, Brother Shen!"
Su Yue was shocked when she heard this, she didn't expect that the Marquis' Mansion invited Shen Xuan to come with such a plan.
He hurried back and told Shen Xuan about this matter, and Shen Xuan nodded and said, "So that's how it is. My parents passed away early, and I don't remember any relatives in the Shen family at all."
"Besides, something happened to the Shen family. I have been living in the countryside for many years and have never heard of any relatives from the Shen family coming to visit me. But now they show up! This shows that this relative is either fake or has no connection with my parents for a long time."
Soon after Shen Xuan finished speaking, Mother You came over again and said to Shen Xuan: "Brother Shen, Madam asks you to go to the lobby."
After she finished speaking, she glanced at the refreshments in front of Shen Xuan, and her face froze. When everyone saw that look, Su Yun and Su Yue immediately said in a somewhat sarcastic tone, "Just now, the maidservant beside Madam Wen came to bring us tea and snacks. She was very polite and courteous."
"Alas, it's a good thing that there are such polite people, so that we know that not all servants in the Marquis's Mansion are mean, otherwise it would ruin the reputation of the Marquis's Mansion."
The expression on Mother You's face changed again and again. She knew they were talking about her, but she didn't want to argue openly.
I could only snort and said somewhat sarcastically: “Brother Chen, you should have some snacks before going, otherwise I’m afraid that after a while, you won’t be able to eat anything.”
Shen Xuan, however, smiled and stood up and said, “Mother You, please lead the way quickly. If you keep people waiting for a long time, I’m afraid you will be blamed again.”
After saying this, he no longer cared about her and walked towards the lobby with Su Yue and Su Yun in big strides. Only then did Mother You trot after them.
As soon as Shen Xuan walked into the main courtyard, he saw a lot of people sitting on both sides of the lobby. In addition to Lord Xue and Lady Bai, on one side were the elders of the Xue family, all of them were old men in their fifties or sixties, and on the other side were the eldest master and mistress of the Shen family, as well as three brothers and sisters of the Shen family.
The reason why Shen Xuan recognized the eldest master of the Shen family at a glance was because he looked somewhat similar to his father.
Although Shen Xuan lost his parents at a young age and his parents' faces had long been blurred, when he saw Master Shen, all the memories of his childhood and the appearance of his biological father suddenly appeared before his eyes.
But Mr. Shen looked mediocre, far less imposing than Shen Xuan's father.
As soon as Shen Xuan walked into the lobby, several brothers and sisters of the Shen family set their eyes on him at the same time, carefully sizing up this stumbling block on their road to ascension.
These descendants of the Shen family also dressed up specially today.
Take the girl Shen Congxin for example, she was wearing a goose yellow short shirt and a pink skirt. The front of the dress was embroidered with tender green leaves and inlaid with beads as big as rice grains.
The hem of the skirt was also embroidered with flowers in crimson and silver threads, which was elaborate and exquisite. She wore a gold-thread headpiece inlaid with tourmalines on her head, and it was obvious that she was wearing the most respectable clothes in the family.
Besides her, her brother Shen Congyu was also dressed just as well. He was wearing a royal blue gown with silver embroidery all over. The headpiece is also inlaid with gold and jade, and looks very rich.
The only one who was dressed simply was the illegitimate brother Chen Congshuang. Although the bean green dress was made of good material, it was only embroidered on the collar, and she wore only silver silk jewelry on her head.
But this outfit is made of summer material and it’s still a bit cold to wear now. It can be seen that he also found his best clothes, but because he was born out of wedlock and his biological mother was not valued, he could only do so.
At this time, they saw Shen Xuan coming over and found that he was dressed in plain clothes, without even a single embroidery on his body, and only had a plain hairpin in his hair, and they immediately looked down on him.
After Shen Xuan arrived in front of Bai and Lord Xue, he bowed to them.
Although Lord Xue was not very satisfied with Shen Xuan, he still nodded, and Bai Shi did not even return the greeting, but just looked at him and said: "Since Brother Shen is here, let's talk about the marriage between you and the eldest young master."
Before she could speak, she suddenly heard the servant outside the courtyard running in to report: "Madam, Madam Ye suddenly came and is heading this way."
Bai was startled, then glanced at Shen Xuan, and seeing his understanding look, she knew that he had colluded with the Ye family in advance. At this time, he sneered and said, "The Ye family is trying to interfere in the family affairs of our Xue family and the Shen family again."
Before she could finish her words, Madam Ye walked in with Mother Han and several servants. After meeting Lord Xue and Lady Bai, he said, "Although this is the Xue family's business, this marriage was also arranged by my sister from the Ye family. It concerns the prince's lifelong event, so we, as elders, must pay attention to it."
After she finished speaking, she did not wait for Bai to speak, and sat down directly on the empty seat next to Lord Xue. Then she smiled at Lord Xue and said, "My dear, you have always been the most reasonable person. Everyone is doing this for the good of the prince. Do you think I am right?"
Lord Xue is a man who cares most about his reputation. Even if he is very unhappy, he would never lose his temper with Madam Ye, a female relative.
At this time, he could only mumble and say, "Of course, this is all for the sake of the prince. As a father, how can I harm him?"
After he finished speaking, Bai smiled and pointed to Master Shen who was sitting opposite Madam Ye and said, "This is Master Shen, who has just returned to Beijing to take up the post of a fifth-rank official in the Ministry of Revenue."
"He is the elder brother of the late Duke Shen, and now the head of the Shen family. He knows the most about the Shen family's affairs."
After Bai finished speaking, she asked Qiongzhu beside her to go to Master Shen and ask him to take out a booklet, put it on a tray, and then bring the tray to Madam Ye.
"What does this mean?" Mrs. Ye took a look at the booklet, which had the words "Shen Family Genealogy" written in large letters. She didn't understand why Mrs. Bai put this thing in front of her.
Bai curled her lips and smiled, "This booklet is the genealogy of the Shen family. It records the identities of all the Shen family members. However, Duke Shen and his wife and the eldest son are all recorded, but this Brother Shen is not on the genealogy?"
"Since even the Shen family tree is gone, how can we confirm that this Shen is the flesh and blood of Duke Shen and his wife after so many years? Has he been replaced by someone else?"
"After discussing with the elders of the clan, our Xue family felt that the marriage certificate of the late Madam stated that she was marrying a descendant of the Shen family, but it did not specify which descendant it was."
"Instead of marrying this country boy of unknown identity, it would be better to choose one of the children of the Shen family who is of the right age to marry Lin'er. After all, she is a child raised in an aristocratic family, and her appearance and status are more suitable for Lin'er."
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