Aunt Xu and Madam Xiao's strategy was simple, which was to try their best to maintain the balance in the mansion.
In addition to Zhao Yiming's biological father Zhao Ningbo, his legitimate son, and Zhao Ningsong, his illegitimate son, Duke Zhao also has an adopted son named Zhao Ningyan.
Zhao Ningyan is the son of a subordinate of Duke Zhao. On the battlefield that year, Zhao Ningyan's biological father blocked a fatal knife for Duke Zhao and died on the spot.
At that time, his wife, Zhao Ningyan's mother, was in labor. After learning the bad news, she suffered a difficult labor and passed away after giving birth to Zhao Ningyan.
The only old mother lost her son and daughter-in-law in one day. She was so heartbroken that she died without even breathing. The poor newborn child became an orphan without even a mouthful of milk.
The midwife who helped deliver the baby was so scared when she saw that the whole family had died that she dropped the child and ran away.
Every family in their village was poor. They could barely make ends meet, so how could they care about others? So every family closed their doors, pretended not to know, and didn't care about their own affairs.
Zhao Ningsong spent the entire night with his two closest deceased relatives. When Duke Zhao got the news and rushed over, the baby was found in a ball of feces and urine in the swaddling clothes that Zhao Ningyan had sewn with rags. The little baby was already blue and purple from the cold and was barely breathing.
Duke Zhao took off his outer robe and changed his dirty swaddling clothes, and handed him over to the military doctor who took great pains to save him. He also paid a high price to find milk for him in the village, and only brought him back to the Duke's Mansion after burying his mother and grandmother.
In order to repay his father for saving his life, he was given the status of a young master in the Duke's Mansion and raised directly under the eldest lady.
At that time, Zhao Ningbo was already six or seven years old. He was very caring towards this skinny little brother and would go to see him after school every day.
When he grew up a little, he was always by his side, teaching him to read, write, and practice martial arts, just like a real brother, even better than he treated his half-brother Zhao Ningsong.
Unfortunately, perhaps due to genetic reasons, Zhao Ningsong was not good at studying or martial arts, but he had a talent for business.
It was Zhao Ningbo who personally asked his mother to give him funds to start his own business. Only then did he have his own career and was no longer a mediocre person.
But precisely because of his status as a businessman, even with the support of the Duke's Mansion, the girls from the aristocratic families were unwilling to marry him, and the old Duke and his wife looked down on those whose status was too low.
Later, after Zhao Ningbo and Princess Chaoyang got married, Princess Chaoyang's eldest sister-in-law found out about it and came forward to find a good marriage for him, asking for Jiang, whose family background was better than Wang's.
But because of this, Zhao Ningbo and Princess Chaoyang incurred the hatred of Zhao Ningsong and his mother.
Later, an unexpected incident occurred on the battlefield. General Zhao and Zhao Ningbo died for their country one after another. Madam Zhao and Princess Chaoyang also met with accidents, and the only son Zhao Yiming disappeared.
Zhao Ningsong took advantage of Zhao Ningyan's absence on business to quickly take over the entire Zhaoguo Mansion. When Zhao Ningyan returned, everything was settled.
From then on, Zhao Ningyan's life was not easy. He was just an adopted son. Although the old Duke gave him the surname Zhao, when they were alive, he was the third young master of the Duke's Mansion.
Now that they are gone, Zhao Ningsong does not recognize his identity at all, nor does he allow him to leave, and directly forces him to become a money-making machine for the Duke's Mansion.
What's even more outrageous is that not only did they put all the money they earned into the public treasury, but Zhao Ningsong and his wife also squandered the money they had worked hard to earn, and refused to give Zhao Ningyan a penny more.
He also drove their whole family to the westernmost courtyard, and their food, clothing and other expenses were barely better than those of the maids and servants in the mansion.
Only after Zhao Yiming came back did they have a chance to catch their breath.
With just one sentence of "acting according to regulations", their original expenses and status were restored.
Originally, I wanted to wait until Tian An came in before making further arrangements for them, but I didn't expect such a thing to happen again on the second day after Tian An came in.
Now it seemed as if we were back to the same situation as before. However, this time it was different from the past.
After Aunt Xu went to Zhao Ningsong and Jiang's courtyard and told them about the alliance, they knew that although Aunt Xu was now Zhao Ningsong's concubine, she was on Zhao Yiming's side, so they agreed without thinking.
"Back then, I couldn't help my eldest brother and his wife, and I wasted half my life in this mansion in vain. Now that Yiming is back, it's time for me, the third uncle, to contribute.
Don't worry! At the very least, I will wait until Yiming and his wife return, and I will never let the Duke's Mansion fall into Zhao Ningsong's hands again."
After coming out of Zhao Ningyan's yard, Aunt Xu went to the yards of Zhao Ningsong's other concubines.
Anyway, she has now completely broken up with Zhao Ningsong, so she is not afraid of going too far.
But this time it wasn't as smooth as the previous visit to Zhao Ningyan.
When the concubines heard that she was going to go against Zhao Ningsong, the more polite ones politely refused, while the more impolite ones directly asked the maids to kick them out. After all, they trusted Zhao Ningsong more than Concubine Xu.
Aunt Xu was not angry. She had anticipated such an outcome before she came. After all, women should follow the three obediences and four virtues and regard their husbands as their gods. A woman like her who went against her husband was an outlier to them. How could they possibly "go along with" her?
But soon, their originally unwavering hearts began to waver.
There was no other reason. Wang was released from house arrest by Zhao Ning, and the first thing she wanted to do when she came out was to deal with the maid who had served her these days. Unfortunately, the maid ran away quickly and disappeared long ago.
Wang then turned her attention to Ziyi. After all, Ziyi was half responsible for her injuries! Now was the time to get back at Ziyi for the humiliation she had suffered.
As a result, Zi Yi, who had just become a concubine, was directly sent by Zhao Ningsong to be a maid to Wang's family again.
Zi Yi was dumbfounded when she saw Zhao Ningsong, who had just walked out of her room with a smile on his face but came back with a changed expression.
She foolishly put on a submissive front and begged him. It was a pity that a selfish man who only cared about power would never care about a dispensable toy like her!
No matter how hard Zi Yi begged on her knees, she was still thrown roughly into Wang's yard.
Zi Yi's wailing along the way reached the courtyards of the concubines in each room. Zi Yi and Wang's experiences made them feel disheartened, and they seemed to see their own future endings in them.
Whether it is a favorite concubine or a wife, she is a treasure when she is useful and can be discarded at will when she is useless.
After torturing Zi Yi and venting all the resentment she had accumulated over the past few days, Wang packed herself up, had the servants carry her, and went to pick up her beloved daughter Zhao Qianhua, who had been under house arrest for a long time, from the yard in a radiant manner.
This was also one of the conditions for Wang to agree to "reconcile" with Zhao Ningsong.
All of a sudden, all the evil spirits in the mansion came out.
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