Chapter 114 Removal
Jiang Mansion.
Before the carriage stopped, Jiang Baizhou and Jiang Songyan, who had already received the news and were waiting anxiously at the door, hurried forward to greet them.
"Mother, you are finally back..."
Jiang Baizhou stepped forward with a deliberately flattering smile on his face, and reached out to help Old Mrs. Jiang, who had just stepped out of the carriage with a dark face.
"Ruyi is back too. You must be exhausted. Come, come to the mansion and rest. Father asked your mother to prepare something for you..."
“Bang!”
A loud and crisp slap landed heavily on Jiang Baizhou's face.
Old Mrs. Jiang used all her strength and hit Jiang Baizhou's shiny face with her skinny palm, leaving five clear red marks in an instant.
Jiang Baizhou was stunned. He covered his face and looked at the furious Old Lady Jiang in disbelief: "Mother?"
Jiang Songyan, who was standing by, was so frightened that he shuddered and subconsciously took half a step back.
"Tired, rest?"
Old Madam Jiang stared at her two good-for-nothing sons. "I was nearly driven to death by your good niece Jiang Qingning at the gate of Ning Pavilion, and you still have the nerve to ask me if I'm tired?"
She pushed away Jiang Baizhou's outstretched hand, leaning on a crutch, her chest heaving violently.
His eyes swept over his two sons, and then over this old house that symbolized the Jiang family's former glory but now seemed exceptionally empty and desolate. He felt a surge of evil fire rising to his head.
"Look what you've done!"
"Separate the family! Separate the family! This is the result of your clamoring for separation. Now the Jiang family is no longer a family, and the people are no longer human. You have brought shame to the Jiang family."
"Now even that divorced woman, Jiang Qingning, dares to ride on my neck and poop and pee, pointing at my nose and saying she wants nothing more than to be expelled from the family tree. Are you satisfied?"
"What?"
Jiang Baizhou and Jiang Songyan screamed in shock at the same time, and the blood drained from their faces.
They never expected that Jiang Qingning would accept it so readily.
Jiang Ruyi supported the shaky old lady Jiang, her voice tinged with tears: "Grandma, please calm down. Don't let those ungrateful bitches make you sick."
"Father, you didn't see how arrogant Jiang Qingning and her two slutty sisters were. They even slandered my daughter!"
“That’s right!”
Old Madam Jiang laughed in anger, pointing her cane at Jiang Baizhou. "Your lovely daughter has become so independent before she even married into the Marquis of Pingjiang's mansion. She dares to collude with outsiders and openly humiliate Grandmother and my sisters!"
"Ancestors of the Jiang family, if I don't clean up this house and uphold this tradition today, how will I face them after my death?"
The four words "clean up the house" hit Jiang Baizhou and Jiang Songyan's hearts like a heavy hammer, and an ominous premonition arose spontaneously.
"Mother, please calm down. Qingning must be so angry that she is talking nonsense..." Jiang Baizhou tried to make amends.
"nonsense?"
Old Madam Jiang interrupted him harshly, "I think she planned this all along. Together with your dead brother in Lingnan, and that little bastard Jiang Yuerou who ran off with the Shang family, their eldest branch has long harbored ulterior motives to destroy the Jiang family. Today, I will grant their wish!"
She suddenly straightened her hunched back, pointed her finger in the direction of the ancestral hall, and said in a resolute voice:
"Open the ancestral hall! Take the family tree! I will personally write and remove all of these Jiang family scourges, those who are disobedient and unfilial, and those who bring disgrace upon the family from the Jiang family tree. They will never be allowed to return to the ancestral family!"
"Mother, you can't!"
Jiang Songyan looked terrified, and fell to his knees with a thud. "Brother... after all, he is your eldest son, and Qingning and the others are your granddaughters. Removing their names from the family tree would cut off their roots. We absolutely cannot do that. The elders will not agree to it!"
"Elder?" Old Madam Jiang sneered, her eyes filled with venom. "I am a royal consort, and I need no one's interference in my quest to clean up the family. Anyone who dares to stop me is an enemy of the Jiang family's ancestors. Open the ancestral hall!"
Old Madam Jiang was so powerful that no one in the mansion dared to disobey her.
The housekeeper took the key tremblingly and opened the dusty door of the ancestral hall.
Supported by Jiang Ruyi and Jiang Baizhou, Old Lady Jiang, leaning on a cane, walked step by step to the incense table where a thick family tree was placed, her eyes fixed on the list that symbolized the family bloodline.
"Bring me the cinnabar pen!"
Old Mrs. Jiang's sharp voice echoed in the empty ancestral hall, carrying an unquestionable command.
The butler handed over the brush dipped in cinnabar with trembling hands.
Old Mrs. Jiang held the pen in her skinny hand, her eyes quickly searching the family tree, finally stopping at the page of the eldest house.
"Jiang Baichuan, Xiao Shi, Jiang Qinghuai, Jiang Qingning, Jiang Qingxi..."
The hatred in Old Lady Jiang's eyes deepened, and she gripped the cinnabar pen in her hand and drew down without mercy.
The scarlet cinnabar instantly covered the ink-written names.
"And this... the little bitch Jiang Yuerou who ran off with that merchant girl from the Shang family!"
"Mother!"
Jiang Songyan felt heartbroken as he watched his daughter's name being crossed out. He wailed again, but was held tightly by Jiang Baizhou.
"From today on."
Old Mrs. Jiang threw her pen to the ground, making a crisp sound.
She looked around at the terrified people in the ancestral hall. "Jiang Baichuan's lineage and Jiang Yuerou are no longer connected to the Jiang family. Their life and death, honor and disgrace, wealth and poverty, have nothing to do with the Jiang family. Our ancestors have witnessed this, and heaven and earth are witnesses to it!"
In this suffocating silence, a burst of hurried and chaotic footsteps suddenly came from outside the ancestral hall, accompanied by several old but anxious shouts:
"Stop it! Jiang Lu! Stop it now! You can't do that!"
"Stupid! Stupid! How could you do such a foolish thing as to sever your family ties and end your entire family line?"
Several old men with white hair and beards, dressed in dark satin robes, rushed into the ancestral hall, panting and stumbling, supported by servants.
The leader was none other than the Jiang family's sixth uncle, who was over eighty years old and had the highest seniority in the family, as well as several elders who were quite prestigious in the clan.
The sixth uncle immediately saw the family tree spread out on the incense table, which was stained with glaring scarlet cinnabar.
His eyes suddenly widened, his whole body trembling, he pointed at Old Lady Jiang and angrily scolded her:
"Jiang Lu! Are you crazy? Baichuan is your biological eldest son, Qinghuai is the next head of our Jiang family, Qingning and Qingxi are your granddaughters, and Yuerou is the bloodline of the third branch of the Jiang family..."
"You...how could you...how could you remove them without permission? You are destroying the Jiang family's foundation. Ancestors, ancestors, you are being extremely unfilial!"
Another elder also beat his chest and stamped his feet: "How foolish! Even if Baichuan has a lot of faults, he is still a general guarding the border for the country in Lingnan. Even if Qingning is divorced, she is still a daughter of our Jiang family who was married off with honors!"
"If you do this, where will the Jiang family's reputation be? Where will we old guys be?
How will outsiders view our Jiang family? You are cutting off your own arm, and your loved ones will be sad and your enemies will be happy! "
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