Chapter 133 Choice
In the study in Lixiang Courtyard, Jia Zheng was completely stunned.
After his father passed away, if there was anyone he was still afraid of, it would be his eldest sister-in-law from the East Mansion.
Especially when he saw two of the sturdy women holding big sticks, he couldn't help but tremble, "Big sister-in-law, you, what nonsense are you talking about? How could I...how could I sell Zhen'er?"
"Haha, did Sister Shen misunderstand something?"
It was the first time that Wang Zisheng saw the Shen family guards in action. In the blink of an eye, eight sturdy women came into the study. The first two were holding big sticks, and the last six were holding feather dusters, as if they were ready to attack them if they disagreed.
He forced a smile and said, "This, this Mr. Lu is not an outsider. He is now my relative and also the father-in-law of my son Ren'er. I also said that when the children get married, I will invite my sister-in-law to come over for a drink."
No wonder his sister gets a headache when she sees Shen.
Damn, who would go to the uncle's house next door and make such a scene? "Yes, yes, I'm Lu Kun, meeting Madam Shen."
Lu Kun was very panicked, but at this moment he could only bite the bullet and said, "I went to your house yesterday to give your wife a gift..."
"Gift?"
Shen Ning looked at her son with confusion.
"no!"
Jia Zhen shook his head, "It's not a gift, it's an apology." He said to Lu Kun sternly, "Master Lu, there are some things you can say, but there are some things... you can't say them carelessly, otherwise I will file a lawsuit and send you to Shuntian Prefecture, which will be bad."
"Ah? Yes, yes, it's an apology, an apology!"
Everyone says that the men in charge of the Ning and Rong mansions are idiots.
Is Jia Zhen a fool? Lu Kun only hated himself for believing the rumors before and even failing to send the gift properly.
What's more, he hated that the man had used the power of Prince Jin to allow the people in the gambling house to ask the Jia family for gambling money at the full moon banquet for someone else's daughter.
During this night, Lu Kun found out a lot more and only then did he know that the Jia family rules forbidding gambling were set by Mrs. Shen in anger that day.
He had... offended this mother and son a long time ago, right? Lu Kun's head was covered with cold sweat, "Please forgive me, Madam Shen. I am willing to..."
"stop!"
Shen Ning sat on the chair that Qingzhu had brought, blocking the door to the study room. "Master Wang Er, are you sure he is your relative?"
"Ah? Yes, yes, yes."
Wang Zisheng laughed and said, "Sister-in-law, please consider the relationship between our two families..."
"... Before you came, did your elder brother Wang Ziteng know about it?"
Shen Ning didn't let him finish, but asked Wang Ziteng instead.
Just as outsiders looked down on Jia She and Jia Zhen, she also looked down on Wang Zisheng.
The only one who can truly make the decision in the Wang family is Wang Ziteng.
"Yes, yes!"
Wang Zisheng gritted his teeth. He hated the fact that outsiders treated him and his elder brother differently. "Sister-in-law knows that Ren'er is the only male in our Wang family. In the future, he will inherit the throne of our third branch."
So his son is very important.
No matter how powerful his eldest brother is, it is useless without a son.
As the saying goes, there are three types of unfilial behavior, and the worst is to have no descendants.
Wang Zisheng straightened his back a little. "Now Lian'er is a doctor in the Armory Department. It won't be long before my elder brother recovers from his injury and returns to the Beijing camp. As for Ren'er's wife, as long as she can give birth to a son or a daughter in my Wang family..."
"This is the Jia family."
Shen Ning interrupted him, "Jia Zheng, are you sure you want your uncle to bring a so-called relative to bully your nephew in the Jia family?"
Jia Zheng: “…”
He looked at this, then looked at that, and stammered, "Sister-in-law, forgive others when you can. Our two families are relatives now."
Jia Zheng didn't think it was a big deal.
Xie Zhenghu is already dead, and the revenge of that day has been avenged.
Lu Kun also suffered an unexpected disaster.
"Even if you don't consider my and Wang's face, you should consider Lian'er and Feng's face."
Anyway, he confiscated the money from the Lu family.
Jia Zheng was confident enough to say, "This relative has a problem, we should help if we can, how can we not..."
"What did he give you?"
Shen Ning's eyes were sharp. "That roll of banknotes?"
Ah? Jia Zheng was stunned. "This, this is not for me. This is Zhen'er's."
"Yes!" Jia Zhen nodded honestly when his mother looked at him, "But my son doesn't plan to keep it."
"Oh~" Shen Ning nodded and looked at the idiot Jia Zheng, "What did he give you?"
“…”
Jia Zheng wanted to straighten his back and say that the other party gave him a bloodstone seal.
He is a man of letters, and something as vulgar as silver is not worthy of him.
But what does the sister-in-law's look of pity, contempt and understanding mean? Jia Zheng was ashamed and angry, "Chicken Blood Stone Seal, if sister-in-law thinks it is inappropriate for me to accept the gift..."
"How come, aren't you relatives?"
Shen Ning smiled, "However, Jia Zheng, do you know that Lu Kun has a nickname, the God of Wealth from the West? As far as I know, he never gives single gifts."
Jia Zheng: “…”
Lu Kun: “…”
Wang Zisheng: “…”
"I don't think Mr. Lu originally wanted to be so rude, did he?"
Shen Ning continued, "But Master Wang Er said that it would be enough to give Jia Zheng a bloodstone seal. Since you wanted something from him, he just gritted his teeth and gave him a bloodstone seal."
Bloodstone seals are indeed rare, but there were two of them on the gift list this person gave to her family.
"Hehe, sister-in-law, what do you mean?"
Wang Zisheng was smiling, but his eyes were full of ruthlessness. "Are you trying to sow discord between our families? My brother-in-law is a scholar, he is very magnanimous and has a high level of integrity. You are a woman who knows nothing, so don't talk nonsense."
Clap~ Clap~~ Shen Ning clapped her hands for him. "Mr. Wang Er is really good at talking. He looks down on others and even says that he is magnanimous and noble." She looked at Jia Zheng, whose beard was shaking. "Second brother Zheng, he also said that I am a woman and don't know anything. Do you think I understand?"
Jia Zheng: “…”
If there is a crack in the ground, he will definitely crawl into it.
If they really want to compete in literary debate..., he might not be able to win the argument with this sister-in-law.
But at this moment, it seemed that neither of them was right for him to agree with.
"Zhen'er, see!" Shen Ning lost her last bit of patience with Jia Zheng who was still slow to speak, "My life, your sister's life, and your life combined are not as important as your second uncle's in-laws."
Jia Zhen: “…”
His eyes quickly turned cold.
"No, no, it's not..."
Lu Kun wanted to explain, but Shen Ning interrupted him coldly, "Is it your turn as an outsider to speak up about our family's affairs?"
"Sister-in-law Shen, it's no fun if you do this." Wang Zisheng was also very angry. He took two steps forward and said, "Ren's husband Lu didn't know anything about my nephew's affairs. He was the housekeeper..."
"Whether it's the butler or the scapegoat, you know it in your heart, and I know it very well."
Shen Ning interrupted coldly and said to Xing'er who was standing aside: "Go, invite Master Wang over. I won't talk to unreasonable and unreasonable people."
"yes!"
Xing'er ran out in a hurry.
"Jia Zheng, you now have two choices. One is to pack up and go to the ancestral hall to think clearly about where you went wrong. The other is to take a knife and cut off your robes, severing all ties with the Ningguo Mansion from now on."
What? Jia Zheng was stunned, "Big, big sister~"
"Uncle Zheng, where are the lives of my family of three?"
Jia Zhen didn't need his mother to tell him. He looked at Jia Zheng and said coldly, "Come here, go and ask the old lady to come, and then go to the Imperial College as fast as you can to ask Master Zhu to come home."
"……yes!"
Another servant stood up. Seeing that he was about to run away, Wang in the inner room finally couldn't sit still anymore. "Wait!" She came out anxiously, "Sister-in-law!"
She wanted to plead, but Shen Ning gave her a cold look and said, "If you think that Jia Zheng and the Ningguo Mansion are not as important as your son's studies, then say it. I'm listening."
Wang: “…”
She didn't dare say it.
But how did things come to this?
It would be enough to just go over and say a few words.
My nephew Wang Ren will be the heir to the throne in the future. Having a wealthy Yue family will be of great benefit to the entire Wang family.
The Wang family and the Jia family are old relatives, shouldn't they hope for each other to get better? Why do they have to turn against each other over such a small matter?
Why did they have to link a Jianghu assassin to Lu's relatives? When they were doing business, didn't they have to be smooth with everyone and not offend anyone?
The Wang family is related to the imperial merchant Xue family, and they know very well that these merchants all believe in making money through harmony.
Sister-in-law is like this...
I don’t want anything good for the Wang family.
But at this time, seeing the looks of Shen and Jia Zhen, Wang really didn't dare to say anything nonsense.
The situation of the second branch of the Jia family has been getting worse and worse.
The old lady will come soon, and her eldest brother will come too.
Wang didn't believe the old lady, but she believed her eldest brother.
"Haha, Sister-in-law Shen is really impressive!"
Wang didn't say anything, but Wang Zisheng couldn't just sit there and watch.
Especially since the other party said he was a bad guy.
He was so angry that he wanted to jump. "I, as your elder brother, am still here, and you don't even allow my sister to talk. I don't know what you are like at ordinary times. Jia Zheng, you are such a coward. You just watch your sister-in-law from the next room bully you in your home, and then bully your wife?"
Jia Zheng: “…”
He is going crazy.
His mind was also working fast.
"Sister-in-law~" he cried sadly, "If it was my eldest brother who was pleading for his uncle's in-laws today, would you still do this?"
"relatives by marriage?"
Shen Ning didn't know whether she should be thankful that this guy had been idle in the Ministry of Industry and hadn't caused any trouble for the family. "Jia Zheng, do you still think you are not wrong? Is it just because we are targeting you?"
"Isn't it?"
Jia Zheng was about to cry.
It's obviously not a big deal, but you have to make a big deal out of it and make things difficult for him.
"It's just a matter of going to Shuntian Prefecture to tell her. How difficult is it? My sister-in-law insisted on forcing me to choose between Zhen'er and my uncle. Isn't this targeting me?"
Jia Zheng was also very angry and resentful. "You keep saying that I don't care about my nephew, but Zhen'er, can't you take a step back for me, your second uncle? You often played with Wang Ren in the past years, can't you think about him a little?"
Why should he always accommodate them?
If he doesn't stand up this time, he will... be like what my second uncle said, helpless and powerless.
Jia Zheng did not want to back down for the sake of his dignity.
"Huh~"
Jia Zhen smiled with an ambiguous tone, "It seems that Second Uncle Zheng still feels wronged?"
When people are extremely speechless, they will really laugh out of anger.
"First of all, Uncle She would never make things difficult for his nephew because of outsiders. When I went to the Chen family to cause trouble, he was afraid that I would suffer, so he immediately brought people to help. When I was assassinated and my mother had a difficult delivery, it was Uncle She who sent a large number of people to chase the murderer outside, and he stayed in Ningguo Mansion himself, waiting for my family to be safe."
He didn't know how Jia Zheng had the nerve to compare himself with Uncle She.
"May I ask Uncle Zheng, what were you doing at that time?"
Jia Zheng: “…”
His face was pale and he was speechless.
He also wanted to speak for the Chen family at that time.
Mr. Chen worked in the same Ministry of Works as him, and the other party had always been polite to him. His eldest brother and Zhen'er were gangsters, and when he heard that the two families were fighting, he preconceived that his own side was in the wrong.
As for Zhen'er's assassination and sister-in-law's childbirth...
"Let's not talk about those things."
In Dream of the Red Chamber, everyone in the Jia family, from the masters to the servants, would take on lawsuits regardless of right or wrong just for a little money.
This is what Shen Ning hated the most. "But Jia Zheng, you keep saying we are relatives and you want us to let the Lu family off for the sake of our relatives. Then let me ask you, do the Wang family and the Lu family have a marriage certificate? You have the ability to make him produce the marriage certificate on the spot. Today, we were wrong, mother and son. But if there is no marriage certificate... then use your stupid head to think about why the Lu family suddenly wants to marry into the Wang family."
"I don't have a marriage certificate, but Brother Lu and I have exchanged tokens."
Wang Zisheng knew that without checking the matter, he said it was a token of trust. "My nephew, you should know that when we men speak, we always keep our word."
Shen said he was a bad guy and didn't want to talk to him. Humph, he even disliked her for being a woman.
"So this token was exchanged yesterday?"
Jia Zhen sneered, "Mother, some people want to pretend to be deaf and dumb, and we can't convince them."
There is one more thing he didn't say.
That's the damn ghost that can't be persuaded with good words.
Now that you have a relationship with the Lu family, you will be targeted by the emperor!
Even if the emperor cannot do anything now, in the future...his descendants and family may not be able to escape disaster.
"The old lady will be here soon."
The weather is getting hotter, and there's no ice basin here, so it would be terrible if he got too hot.
Jia Zhen lowered his head and discussed with his mother: "This place is narrow, mother, let's wait in the flower hall."
If Wang Ziteng can discipline Wang Zisheng, he will remind them of what they should do for the sake of their relationship. Otherwise, they can do whatever they want! Shen Ning nodded and was about to get up when a maid ran in. "Madam, Master, someone is coming from the palace. Grandmother wants you to go back quickly!"
Someone coming from the palace?
Shen Ning and Jia Zhen looked at each other and both understood something.
"Mother, I'll help you get into the sedan chair. There's no rush."
Since 220,000 taels of silver were handed over in one go, it was reasonable for the emperor to give him some reward.
Jia Zhen didn't care about the emperor's reward, he cared about the dignity.
Even when his father was not at home, he still supported the Ningguo Mansion.
"Then let's go, here..., we'll talk later."
The mother and son went back in a hurry, but the masters of each room in Rongguo Mansion sent people to inquire, fearing that there might be bad news.
When they learned that it was the Emperor and the Retired Emperor who gave the reward, everyone in the mansion felt relieved.
Only Rikain was silent.
Everyone has his own concerns, and Lu Kun has the most.
He had a horrible guess.
He quietly made a gesture to his trusted servant behind the doorpost.
The servant saw it and nodded solemnly and left.
Just at this moment, another servant came running in frantically, "Master and Madam, the eldest uncle of the Wang family is here."
Before he finished speaking, Wang Ziteng, who had not asked for anyone to greet him, was carried in by his trusted guards.
“Brother!”
"Brother~"
Jia Zheng, Wang Shi and Wang Zisheng all greeted him.
Wang Ziteng waved his hand and exempted them from the gift, but looked at Lu Kun with cold eyes, "So Master Lu is here too, that's great, no matter what my second brother promised you, it won't count, the affairs of my Wang family are all decided by me, Wang Ziteng."
"Brother~"
Wang Zisheng, who had just run out, was not happy with this. "A gentleman's word is as good as his bond. I have already exchanged tokens with Lu's relative."
"You're confused."
Wang Ziteng scolded his brother, "I've already told you that I'll make the decision on Ren'er's affairs."
The situation in the court was changing rapidly, but his stupid second brother still had his eyes fixed on that little bit of silver.
He ordered his servants forcefully, "Send the guests away!"
Wang Jin hurried forward, "Master Lu, please come in!"
Lu Kun: “…”
He grabbed the roll of banknotes that had not been given away and said to Wang Zisheng, "Second Master, I will always remember your kindness."
After bowing to Wang Zisheng, he strode away.
Now that things can no longer be done, the only thing we can do is to retreat.
The Lu family cannot be wiped out like the Li family in Jiangnan, so they have to protect a few members.
"Hey, Lu's relative..."
"Shut up!"
“Brother!”
Wang Zisheng was really anxious, "What are you going to do?" He asked his son to have a concubine, so why can't he make the decision?
"Brother, what happened?"
Wang couldn't help but tremble with fear when she saw her elder brother's appearance.
"We can't touch the Lu family."
"Is it just because of Jia Zhen?"
Wang Zisheng also wanted to stomp his feet at his brother.
"It has something to do with Jia Zhen, but..."
Wang Ziteng knew his brother's fuss and raised his hands, "It's mainly because of the above reasons now."
He still has some connections in the army.
Otherwise, it's over.
"If you don't want to die, be quiet."
Wang Ziteng ordered his brother, "Whatever the Lu family gave you, return it to me immediately."
Huh? Wang Zisheng was stunned.
His money has already been promised!
"Brother, Master Lu just gave me a piece of chicken blood stone."
Jia Zheng was timid, so he stepped forward and asked Wang Ziteng to make the decision, "Can I send him back right away?"
Wang Ziteng: “…”
A piece of chicken blood stone, what else do you want? Moreover, when Lu Kun made a move, was it a piece of chicken blood stone?
Ask for a ticket
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