"No, Yaozu, we can't let this go. Grandma will stand up for you this time," said Madam Xu indignantly.
"If you don't give up your spots, then you'll have to pay us back."
Jiang Hua gave a disdainful sneer: "So, after all this time, you've come here to extort money."
“If our Ayi has bullied your Yaozu at the academy, then go to the academy now and find the headmaster to resolve the issue.”
“If what you’re saying is true, then my Yi will leave the academy voluntarily. But if it’s false, then Xu Yaozu will have to leave the academy instead,” Jiang Xingzhou suddenly said.
"No, I'm not going." Xu Yaozu resisted. "Grandma, forget it, I'm a little tired today, I want to go back and rest."
As soon as he finished speaking, Xu Yaozu turned around and ran over quickly, afraid that if he was a step too slow, he would be dragged to the academy to confront the dean.
Seeing Xu Yaozu flee in disarray, what else could the villagers not understand?
It's clear that Xu Yaozu smeared Jiang Jingyi in order to secure a spot as a closed-door disciple.
However, Madam Xu thought differently: "Oh dear, my poor Yaozu."
"Jiang Hua, you ungrateful wretch! How can you treat your brother like this!"
Madam Xu plopped down on the ground and threw a tantrum. So what if she moved away from Xu Family Village? She wanted everyone to know that Jiang Hua was an ingrate.
"You all probably don't know why Jiang Hua moved to your village."
As soon as Madam Xu said this, the villagers who were watching immediately fell silent.
"She dug up ginseng in Black Wind Mountain and sold it for money, but she didn't share any of the money with everyone. Come and see, everyone! She'd rather use the money to build such a big house than use it to help her family."
...
"Why should Miss Jiang share the money with everyone when she dug up the ginseng herself?" a villager asked, puzzled.
"Why should we divide the money? Didn't we dig this ourselves? How can Xu Family Village still have such unreasonable rules? No wonder Miss Jiang wanted to move to our Shili Village." Village Chief Lu said thoughtfully.
"Don't listen to her nonsense, everyone. Miss Jiang isn't like that at all!" Honghua stepped forward and said loudly.
"They sold Miss Jiang for 50 taels of silver."
Does Xujia Village still have cases of daughters being sold?
The villagers of Shili Village were in an uproar, and for a moment, they started talking about Xujia Village.
"What did we do wrong? Every family is like this, otherwise what's the point of keeping a money-losing child!"
Seeing that no one was on her side, Madam Xu stopped sitting on the ground and stood up, cursing at them.
“Our village would never do such a despicable thing!” one villager retorted.
"Grandma, let's go back first," Lin Shuyan said, forcing herself to step forward and persuade her.
Madam Xu could only spit out a mouthful of spittle and leave with Lin Shuyan, cursing under her breath.
"It's alright, everyone can go now," Jiang Hua said to everyone. "Thank you all for speaking up for me today."
"It's alright, Miss Jiang, we're just following the right path, not our own," said Village Chief Lu.
In the study, Jiang Hua sat on the soft couch, leisurely sipping tea, occasionally glancing at Jiang Jingyi, who stood before her as if he had done something wrong.
“Stepmother, I did not bully my classmates at the academy,” Jiang Jingyi suddenly said.
"You didn't bully them, so what about them?" Jiang Hua put down her cup and asked slowly.
When Jiang Xingzhou picked up Jiang Jingyi from the academy, he noticed something was off about Jiang Jingyi's face and was waiting for him to bring it up.
“Ah Yi, stepmothers don’t like children who lie.”
Seeing that Jiang Jingyi was still hesitant to speak, Jiang Hua spoke again.
"Stepmother, I'll tell you," Jiang Jingyi said quickly upon hearing Jiang Hua say she didn't like him anymore.
"It was Xu Yaozu who, relying on his status as a student, let other students bully me. I didn't say anything because I didn't want to cause you any trouble."
"With Father gone, you're managing the shop all by yourself. It must be exhausting. Besides, I only interact with the teachers when they're teaching; otherwise, I'm always in the Dean's courtyard."
"That's an adult's business. In the future, you should speak up if anything happens, and learn to stand up for yourself, instead of just enduring being bullied." Jiang Hua frowned. Had she put too much pressure on this boy?
“Stepmother, I understand,” Jiang Jingyi nodded in response.
Just then, there was a knock on the door.
"Miss, many carriages have arrived. They say they're bringing you something," Wenqing said, knocking on the door.
"The cacti you asked Shen Qingchuan to find in the border desert should have been delivered today," Jiang Xingzhou explained.
"Then I'll go take a look." Jiang Hua gave Jiang Xingzhou a look, signaling him to have a good talk with Jiang Jingyi.
The father and son hadn't seen each other for a while, so she decided not to be a third wheel.
Jiang Hua arrived at the door and counted them carefully. There were a total of twenty carriages, loaded with cacti, still covered in soil, the kind that had been uprooted.
"Miss, is this edible? Why did you buy so many?" Fangru looked at the cacti on the carriage with some surprise. She had never seen such rare "saplings" before, and they were covered with thorns.
"Miss Jiang, where should we unload these?" the leader of this delivery team asked as he stepped forward.
"Fangru, lead them to the second courtyard first," Jiang Hua instructed.
After all the cacti were moved, Jiang Hua roughly counted them. There were fifty cacti that had grown into old saplings, and the remaining one hundred were small, only about 1.2 meters tall.
"Miss Jiang, isn't the yard already full of flowers and plants? Are you going to plant them here too?" Wenya asked curiously.
"no."
Last time I bought five acres of fertile land. Since the land hadn't been cultivated yet, I decided to use it to grow cacti. I had planned to do that before.
However, she's not good at planting, so she'll have to ask Aunt Liu for help.
"Whoever does it, does it," Jiang Hua told Fang Ru and then went out.
After Aunt Liu explained her purpose, she readily agreed. Since she was about to move away, she hadn't been able to work in the fields for a long time and felt very uncomfortable.
As she spoke, Aunt Liu picked up her hoe and followed Uncle Liu toward Shili Village with Jiang Hua.
"Huahua, I thought you were going to plant vegetables. What kind of fruit tree is this?" Aunt Liu exclaimed in amazement as she looked at the cacti filling the yard.
"This is called a cactus," Jiang Hua explained.
Seeing that Jiang Hua didn't say much, Aunt Liu and Uncle Liu didn't ask any more questions either, and took their hoes to clear the weeds in the field.
"By the way, Huahua, are you in a hurry? If you are, you'll need to ask a few more people for help," Aunt Liu stopped and asked.
"It's urgent, Auntie, just call someone to help. It'll be ten coins a day." Jiang Hua said, glancing at the cacti filling the yard.
Jiang Hua thought to herself, "I need to buy a few more acres of land and build a factory."
"What, Miss Jiang, you want to buy land too?" Village Chief Lu stood up excitedly from his stool.
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