Chapter 175 Distributing the Second Brother
Madam Wei also got angry and raised her voice, saying, "I don't generate money. All of you only know how to ask me for money. Has anyone ever given me a single tael? This is all I have. If you think it's not enough, wait until your father comes back and ask him for it!"
Lu Yunbo had no patience left to wait for his father to return. Upon hearing this, he turned and walked out, but then suddenly remembered something and said to Madam Wei:
"By the way, I plan to move my whole family back the day after tomorrow, so I'd appreciate it if you could prepare my yard in advance, Mother."
Wei rolled her eyes and asked, "You were living a good life outside, why are you moving back now? Is your wife so stupid that she can't even manage your own little family?"
Lu Yunbo patiently said, "There were reasons why I moved out back then. Now that this job can't be finalized anytime soon, why don't we move back first? It's been so long since I've seen Huai-ge'er. Doesn't Mother miss that boy?"
Madam Wei could only nod: "I understand. Your courtyard is reserved for you. If you want to move back, I'll have the servants prepare it tomorrow."
Lu Yunbo nodded and said no more.
He didn't want to say that the reason he planned to move back was to save money.
Unlike his elder brother, who has always been in business, he still manages the shops of their second branch after the family splits up, so he always has money in hand.
Moreover, besides his own house, my elder brother also owns a small estate. Currently, his family lives with our parents and uses public funds for food and other necessities. Both his house and estate are rented out, bringing in at least several hundred taels of silver a year.
But what about him? All these years he's been a minor steward at the Dali Temple, and the money he earns isn't even enough for his daily expenses. As for assets, besides the two-courtyard house he currently lives in, he has nothing else.
Now that he has no job, he can only rely on his parents to make a living, and he is short of money. He thinks it would be better to move back, at least he won't have to spend money on food and lodging, and his wife and children will be taken care of.
After Lu Yunbo left, Yue Shi, who had been eavesdropping outside for half a day, quietly returned to her courtyard and saw her husband, Lu Yunzhang, sitting at the table, using an abacus to calculate accounts.
Madam Yue couldn't help but sneer. Those two dilapidated shops had attracted a bunch of poor relatives to leech off her. It was one thing when they were under the General's Mansion, but now that they were her own property, she didn't believe her husband didn't understand the principle of how to do things. Why did he have to spend his days staring at the abacus beads, endlessly calculating accounts?
Thinking this to herself, she still maintained her usual gentle and considerate demeanor as she poured her husband a cup of tea, then sat down beside him and whispered:
"My second brother just came back and asked Mother for another three hundred taels of silver."
Lu Yunzhang paused in his calculations, then resumed working, but his expression clearly darkened.
Yue said to herself, “It’s not that I’m stingy, but when the family was divided, our second branch only got a little money. What doesn’t cost money for this big family to eat, wear, and use? But my mother is so fond of him that she gives him money whenever he asks. These days, my second brother has taken at least seven or eight hundred, if not a thousand, of silver from home.”
Although my second brother has been working at the Dali Temple all these years, when has he ever brought back a single tael of silver? Now that he's lost his job, he comes back every few days asking for money, saying he wants to use his connections to get back to work. But after asking for so much money, only my second brother knows how things have actually turned out. To put it bluntly, who knows what he's done with all that money.”
Seeing that her husband remained silent, Yue continued:
"Just now, when my second brother was leaving, he told Mother that he wanted to move back to live here, and Mother actually agreed. But the house we live in now is not as good as the General's Mansion. There are only a few courtyards, and there are a lot of people in the family, young and old. Qian-ge is also grown up and should have his own courtyard. If my second brother's family moves back, do you think Mother will give the courtyard that was reserved for Qian-ge to my second brother?"
Do you think Mother is spoiling my second brother's branch of the family a bit too much?
The Yue family couldn't help but worry. The house they were currently living in had three courtyards. It looked quite large on the surface, but it couldn't accommodate the large number of people in the family.
The second master and Madam Wei lived in the main courtyard. Madam Yue and her husband Lu Yunzhang, as the eldest son and eldest daughter-in-law, naturally lived in the courtyard next to the main courtyard. The remaining courtyards were in remote locations and small in size, and were basically occupied by people, including her father-in-law's concubines, illegitimate sons and daughters, and her husband's concubines, illegitimate sons and daughters. Several people were crammed into one courtyard.
There's only one small courtyard currently vacant, and she plans to ask her mother for it for her son, Qian-ge, after a while.
However, if the second son wants to move back now, the courtyard will inevitably have to be given up for the second son and his wife to live in, which is really troublesome.
“Husband, we can’t just stand by and watch ourselves suffer. What if my second brother’s family moves back…”
Yue kept nagging on and on, and Lu Yunzhang became more and more annoyed as he listened.
"Shut up! All you do all day is gossip about family matters. You should use that time to help your mother with the housework."
Yue Shi An'an rolled her eyes. Did she think she didn't want to share her mother's burdens? It was clearly her mother who couldn't bear to give up her power in managing the household and didn't want her to have any say in it at all.
Her voice was filled with grievance as she said, "Why are you taking your anger out on me, my husband? It's because I feel sorry for you and Qian-ge'er. Logically speaking, we are the eldest son of the eldest branch, but in the end, it's you who suffers. My second brother only needs to say a word, and Father and Mother would give him everything. The little we have at home is almost emptied by my second brother. What will our whole family do then?"
Madam Yue glanced cautiously at her husband: "If you ask me, since my second brother has already moved out and is living on his own, he shouldn't move back. Why don't you go and talk to him about dividing our family?"
"Stop talking nonsense!"
Upon hearing this, Lu Yunzhang immediately rebuked, "We just separated from the General's Mansion, and you, woman, are already thinking about dividing the family again. As the saying goes, while parents are alive, the family should not be divided. I never expected you to actually have the idea of separating your second brother. Are you perhaps cursing our father and mother?"
Lu Yunzhang said this not because he was particularly filial to his parents and loved his brothers, but because the current situation of his second branch of the family, including the division of the family property, would not benefit him in the slightest.
Madam Yue hurriedly explained, "Husband, you misunderstand. I absolutely did not mean that. I just feel sorry for you working so hard for this family, while my second brother does nothing, yet our hearts are always on his side. He gets all the benefits. If you don't want my second brother to be separated from us, then pretend I didn't say anything."
Yue glanced at her husband's expression. She knew to leave things unsaid, and when she saw that her husband was angry, she stopped talking, rolled her eyes, and walked away.
After Yue left, Lu Yunzhang threw away the account book in his hand.
Only he knew how incredibly agitated he was.
He now seems to be in charge of all the properties of his branch of the family, but the total assets of the second branch are just a few shops that don't make any money, a few estates in remote corners of the suburbs, and nothing else. No matter how hard they try throughout the year, they can only earn a pittance. How can it compare to what it used to be?
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