Lu Chang shuddered and murmured, "I, I was wrong..."
Mrs. Lu slammed the rice paper onto the desk and said in a sharp voice, "The teacher told me that you haven't been paying attention to your studies recently. I came to see you specially, and I didn't expect that the teacher was right. If you don't study hard, why are you rushing out? Is there anything more important than studying?"
Lu Chang hesitated.
Mrs. Lu slammed the table and shouted angrily: "Speak!"
Lu Chang still hesitated for a long time and couldn't say anything. Madam Lu simply stopped asking him and called the little bookboy who accompanied Lu Chang to study to ask him questions. The little bookboy didn't dare to say anything at first, but Madam Lu looked at him coldly. The little bookboy was suppressed by her momentum and burst into tears: "My husband wants to go to Xuesuyuan to attend the small banquet tonight."
Xuesuyuan?
Mrs. Lu frowned.
Mum explained: "Xuesuyuan is now occupied by Madam Luo."
Mrs. Lu was surprised, and she lowered her lips with a sneer on her face. The mother asked her what the "small banquet" was. Mrs. Lu asked, "How can Silang, a little kid, attend the banquet? Did Mrs. Luo only invite Silang?"
The little servant boy rubbed his eyes and cried, "Everyone is invited. Our Silang also has an invitation. The invitation is in the shape of a leaf, it's so beautifully cut, and it has the fragrance of flowers. Our Silang has never received such a beautiful invitation. It says that Sister Luo is so kind... I heard that everyone is going, and Mrs. Luo's sister is also there, so our Silang wants to go over and play..."
Sister Luo is so nice?
At that moment, the mother asked the servant to lead the way, searched for the invitation, and showed it to Mrs. Lu. The invitation was indeed exquisitely made, all made of paper cut by herself, and ordinary people could not afford it. In this era, paper was still precious. Lu Xiaosilang Lu Chang, a child, could receive such an exquisite invitation. Naturally, he felt that his family was respected unprecedentedly, and naturally he wanted to show his support to the so-called Sister Luo...
Mrs. Lu couldn't suppress her sneer: Luo Lingyu really knows how to win people's hearts.
Mrs. Lu was born into the famous Zhang family in Hanzhong. Her father was a great scholar of the time who specialized in Confucianism. Mrs. Lu had always taught by example that she could not stand women who were frivolous. The new lady Luo Lingyu was beautiful and charming, which Mrs. Lu did not like. In addition, the girl was extremely charming and talented. Mrs. Lu always hated such aristocratic girl.
Mrs. Lu asked Xiao Silang, "Does your sister Luo hold small banquets like this often?"
Lu Chang was so frightened that tears welled up in his eyes: "Yes, yes."
Madam Lu pondered, "No wonder when I asked the teachers from the academy to come for questioning today, they all grunted and said that the grades of the young men in the mansion were not very good. Even Erlang, who was so self-reflective, has recently been relegated to the middle class in his grades." Madam Lu looked at the nanny with a probing look. The nanny immediately went out and asked someone to invite the servants, ink maids and other servants of the young men in the mansion to ask them about their recent academic performance one by one.
Among all the gentlemen, Mrs. Lu only skipped Lu Sanlang and Lu Yun.
That unruly Lu Yun... has always been difficult to control. No matter how much control is given, people will be unhappy with him. So Mrs. Lu simply let him go.
At one point, the dinner time arrived, and Lu Silang was not only unable to leave the house, but was also punished by Mrs. Lu to stand in the corridor. He lowered his head and rubbed his sore eyes, feeling frustrated and uneasy. Seeing the lights on till dawn, the brothers' book boys, servants, and maids were all called by Mrs. Lu to ask about their homework. Mrs. Lu was so strict that she would magnify tenfold the slightest dissatisfaction.
Through a bamboo curtain, Lu Xiaoshiro could already hear Mrs. Lu's rage.
"The daughter of the Luo family has misled the sons of the Lu family! This heart should be punished."
Lu Chang cried and looked sad, wondering what to do...
…
The commotion caused by Lu Xiaosilang was not small, and the servants of the gentlemen in the mansion were all called in for questioning. The second house, "Qingyuan", was the only one in the family, and no one came to question it, which made it stand out from the crowd.
As early as noon, "Qingyuan" received the invitation from "Xuesuyuan". Luo Lingyu knew how to behave, so she had an unpleasant quarrel with Lu Yun. She did not forget Lu Sanlang when she helped Wang Niangzi to organize a small banquet at home. And she was afraid that Lu Sanlang would misunderstand, so when Luo Lingyu and Wang's daughter wrote invitations together in the afternoon, Luo Lingyu deliberately arranged for the invitation sent to Lu Sanlang to be written by Wang's daughter. Wang's daughter was happy to write to her beloved cousin, and did not notice Luo Lingyu's evasive attitude.
It's just a pity that when such a beautiful invitation was sent to "Qingyuan", Lu Yun took a glance at it and threw it away.
Lu Saburo rarely attends small banquets like this at home.
Compared with Luo Lingyu's behavior, Mrs. Lu's omission of Lu Yun during the evening questioning was less pleasant.
In the evening, Lu Yun was lying on the couch reading a book, the light reflected his bright features, the curtains were lifted, the firelight flashed, he narrowed his eyes and saw his personal maid Jin Yue came into the room with a snort. Jin Yue's face was full of "unhappiness", and she also made a lot of noise when she pulled the curtains, affecting Lu Yun's reading.
Jinyue complained to Lu Sanlang, "The eldest lady looks down on us! In the evening, she asked the servants and maids to ask the young masters about their homework, but not you. Why, isn't your last name Lu? Is her second son the only one who is precious in the mansion?"
Lu Sanlang turned a page of the book and said calmly, "Madam is always honest and upright. She is so happy that no one cares about her."
Jin Yue didn't feel happy at all. She stood under the curtain for a while, but couldn't help gossiping with Lu Sanlang: "I heard that it was caused by Madam Luo..."
Lu Yun still lowered his eyebrows, as if he was reading a book seriously. However, Jin Yue, who knew him well, saw that he had not turned the pages for a long time, so she knew that he was listening to what she said. Jin Yue stared at San Lang's face, which still had faint slap marks, and thought that Madam Luo was indeed different from others in San Lang's eyes. Jin Yue immediately told Lu Yun the gossip she had heard, and then she was silent for a while, and said sympathetically: "She is living under someone else's roof, and she has also troubled Madam Lu. I'm afraid Madam Luo's life will not be easy."
"Mrs. Lu is so intolerant of injustice that she will have to go to Xuesuyuan in person to reprimand Mrs. Luo."
Lu Saburo said nonchalantly: "You deserve it."
He paused and said, "I warned her a long time ago, but she didn't listen."
Jinyue disagreed, she still had a good impression of Luo Lingyu. Because, ahem, Luo Lingyu often sent gifts to them, but Sanlang Lu was not clear about the gifts, but Jinyue liked Luo Lingyu's understanding. She argued for Luo Lingyu, "You can't say that. Madam Luo is still young, and she doesn't know Madam Lu. She has just arrived, so she will naturally make some misunderstandings. Didn't Sanlang and I suffer the same hardships when we just returned to Jianye?"