In other words, not only did her parents' family not get any help from her husband's family, they didn't even get any betrothal gifts for their daughter's marriage. It was like giving a good daughter away to her husband's family to work like a slave and be beaten and scolded.
And because she was married, it was difficult for her family to take advantage of the restaurant owner.
The situation of losing everything and not getting the chicken and losing the eggs is exactly what they mean.
They did not dare to hate their relatives who were officials, and the girl did not dare to hate her husband and mother-in-law, so they hated the restaurant owner and his family who had brought them here even more.
So they took advantage of their relatives who were officials (although they were only indirect relatives of a low-ranking official, it was enough for them to bully others among ordinary people) and began to retaliate against the restaurant owner's family in a targeted manner.
First, the restaurant owner's second son had his hands and feet broken, and then his youngest daughter was targeted by a notorious street bully, who insisted on taking her as his concubine.
Not only was that thug a whole generation older than the restaurant owner's youngest daughter, but he was also a scumbag who would even beat his own women and children. How could the restaurant owner be willing to let his daughter be a mistress to such a person?
But he refused, so the other party sent a few of their men to their restaurant every day to cause trouble, making it impossible for them to continue their business.
The restaurant owner's second son needed treatment for his injuries, which required money and a good doctor. However, the local bully not only ruined their business, but also spread the word to the clinics in several nearby streets, saying that if any clinic dared to treat the restaurant owner's second son, he would send his gang of younger brothers to cause trouble at a fixed time and place every day, and would ruin all their businesses.
When the owners of those clinics heard this, they no longer dared to let their own doctors treat the restaurant owner's second son.
A kind-hearted doctor secretly recommended a clinic to the restaurant owner, whose owner was a high-ranking official. Indeed, as he said, the clinic was not something that the local thugs could afford to offend, but the problem was that, as he said, the fees for consultations and prescriptions at the clinic were far beyond what those of ordinary clinics could offer.
To raise money for his son's medical expenses, the restaurant owner sold his shop and house to someone else at a low price. However, even so, his son never fully recovered. His left leg was lame, and his right hand could no longer lift heavy objects.
The restaurant owner's youngest daughter was a hot-tempered woman. In order to avenge the bully who had ganged up on her brother, she walked out of the clinic that served as their family's temporary refuge and deliberately delivered herself into the hands of the bully.
The restaurant owner discovered that she was missing. When he went to look for her, he found out that she had already killed the bully who had harmed her family with arsenic obtained from the clinic. However, in order to gain the trust of the bully, she also drank the pot of spiked wine.
The living daughter walked out, but soon turned into a cold corpse and was brought back by her husband. The restaurant owner's wife could not bear the successive blows and died of illness soon after.
The restaurant owner's hair turned white overnight. He took the coffins of his son, wife and daughter and left Beijing to join his eldest daughter as soon as the city gates opened.
It was not until the restaurant owner's eldest son, who had luckily survived and made military merits, got the opportunity to follow the commander back to Beijing, and found out why all the letters he sent home had fallen into the sea and the whereabouts of his family members, and went to find them as soon as possible, that the restaurant owner and his second son realized that the tragic experience of their family was actually the work of their former relatives.
The time when Yu Zizhen appeared happened to be when the restaurant owner's ex-in-laws had already promised their daughter to someone else, but the two families had not yet set a date for the wedding.
At this time, the biggest worry for the restaurant owner and his family was that their eldest son had not been heard from for several months, and that every day there were annoying guys who came to take away all the ingredients they had prepared.
In this situation, even if Yu Zizhen jumped out, it would be of no use, so she did nothing and just acted as an ordinary customer of Zheng's restaurant.
After finishing his meal here, Yu Zizhen said, "It tastes good" as a prelude to coming back next time, then paid the bill and left.
After coming out of Zheng's restaurant, Yu Zizhen did not continue to wander around. She got on a carriage and returned to the Prince of Zhenbei's Mansion under the protection of her attendants and guards.
In the following days, Yu Zizhen lived a busy life, getting up early to practice martial arts, entering the palace in the morning, staying in the palace to continue classes in the afternoon, or going to the Hanlin Academy to ask the Hanlin scholars to give her special lessons, and returning to the palace in the evening to continue recharging herself.
After a few days of this, her teachers and classmates had a rough idea of what she was good at, what she was not good at, what she liked and what she disliked.
Unlike the eldest prince, who, despite putting in minimal effort, was still far ahead in his studies and considered one of the top students, Yu Zizhen portrayed herself as someone who had to put in more than twice the effort of an average person to barely achieve the same results. In other words, she was the kind of person who was diligent but not very smart...
She comes to class early and leaves late, and listens very attentively. After class, she not only actively completes her homework, but also often goes to the Hanlin Academy to read books and ask questions. She is a rare diligent student in the eyes of her teachers.
However, as Lu Heng had privately complained to Wan Jingrong about her, "He worked hard, but his parents didn't give him a smart brain that would allow him to memorize the Four Books and Five Classics quickly."
What Lu Heng, who looked down on and despised Yu Zizhen's intelligence, didn't know was that Yu Zizhen was actually pretending.
Others thought that she spent all day in the Hanlin Academy, working day and night to catch up with her classmates under the guidance of her teacher. However, they did not know that although she went in and out of the Hanlin Academy under the banner of "making up lessons", her real purpose was to be able to enter the Hanlin Academy's library openly.
Unlike those students who studied to gain fame and fortune, she studied to better understand her environment. If she had the chance, she would even like to go to various government offices in the capital and surrounding counties to read their documents, case files, county annals, etc.
Yaoguang and Yuheng, who knew very well that their own prince was not stupid at all, spoke up for her, but Yu Zizhen herself did not care about her reputation of being "stupid" at all.
More precisely, this was what she wanted, something she deliberately created. As a proton, her lack of knowledge and skills was what would please and reassure others. But she didn't want to be treated like a fool, so she chose the persona of a "strong limbs, simple mind" reckless woman.
In order to teach his two young followers, who were still young and had a strong desire to win, to hide their weaknesses, Yu Zizhen deliberately taught them with a serious face, "The rafters that stick out will be rotten first. People who are well-rounded in both civil and military affairs are easily envied. In order to prevent those petty-minded people from targeting us, we should not be too high-profile in our behavior and work."
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