Chapter 238 Determination
238 Determination
In the main room of the Xianglanxie courtyard, the maids were dismissed, and the two Luo sisters sat together crying. Luo Zhaoying sobbed and wiped her sister's tears with a handkerchief. Luo Zhuang stood in front of them, pointing at Luo Xiangying in a rage and scolding in a low voice:
"How many times has your mother told you to watch your steps? Walk with your eyes open, take small steps at a time, you are destined to enjoy life, you are a lady, not a girl who has to work hard and run errands! You are already sixteen years old, but you are still so crazy and laughing. You think this is in Tong County, Jiangning, and you are joking with your senior brother? But you are in the Hou Mansion in the capital, discussing marriage with the Sixth Master, and you ran into the eldest brother-in-law, and let him hold you tightly. It would be terrible if people saw it! So ignorant? It really makes me angry!"
Luo Zhaoying said tearfully: "It's all my fault. I shouldn't have chased and played with my sister, causing her to rush out the door. That's why this happened!"
Mrs. Luo Zhuang looked at her and sighed, "You are a serious person, and you are the least of my worries on weekdays... But you ran into a bad luck today. You were about to go to Jinhua Hall to pay your respects, but the eldest brother-in-law has already returned. Fortunately, he didn't bring anyone with him, otherwise your sister would have jumped into the Yellow River and it would be difficult to wash away the guilt. You should know that the Hou Mansion is very strict with rules. Besides, there are three unmarried girls living here. Outsiders are not allowed to enter the inner courtyard. If they want to enter, they must be accompanied by several people. If the eldest brother-in-law walks alone in the garden like this, if he is seen by the maids patrolling the courtyard, he will be reported and reprimanded!"
"That's none of my business! He didn't follow the rules..."
Luo Xiangying cried, "Doesn't he know how to get out of the way? What's wrong with him making way for someone this big?"
Luo Zhuang was angry and said, "Why do you have to run away? Learn from your sister, who is elegant and never rushes around. This is how a lady should be. No wonder the old lady likes her and decided on her right away... When the old lady found out about the handkerchief you gave to the Sixth Master, she was angry, but she had someone hide it for your sister. She called me and scolded me. I had no choice but to kneel down and beg her for you, saying that you and the Sixth Master can communicate well and have feelings for each other. Only then did the old lady nod and say that she had asked the Sixth Master and she would allow you to be his equal wife, but you had to follow the rules and wait until your sister was married for a full month before she could marry you into the family."
Luo Xiangying stopped crying and looked up at Luo Zhuangshi: "Let me be your co-wife? No!"
"So what are you going to do?"
Luo Zhuang said viciously: "You are not following the rules and are giving things away privately. The Sixth Master is an official appointed by the court and a nobleman. He has learned a lot of rules since he was a child. How could he not understand these? If the Sixth Master likes you, that's fine. But if he abandons you and doesn't follow the female virtues and lacks education, it will be difficult for you to become a concubine! Your sister has finally encountered this good opportunity. I have made up my mind this time. No matter whether you succeed or not, I must ensure that your sister gets married first. If the Sixth Master does not agree to take you, I will let Mrs. Zhou send you back to Luojiazhuang outside the city. When your sister and the Sixth Master become husband and wife, I will find another marriage for you!"
"Mother!" Luo Xiangying was frightened by Luo Zhuang's expression. She grabbed her sleeve and cried, "Mother, you can't do this to me. I really love Sixth Master! My sister loves my senior brother. She doesn't have the same love as me..."
With a loud slap, Luo Zhuang slapped Luo Xiangying on the left cheek: "If you keep talking nonsense, I will sew your mouth shut, or you will ruin your sister's reputation!"
Luo Zhaoying breathed a sigh of relief, tears no longer in her eyes. She looked coldly at her sister who was crying with her hands covering her face for a while, then stood up and walked back to her room, lit the oil lamp on the table, sat down and picked up the needlework on the table, and began to embroider carefully. The cotton cover of the bed embroidered with orchid flowers was finished long ago. The old lady loved it and praised her again and again. She knelt on the mahogany foot pad to massage the old lady's leg bones. Seeing that a thread of the embroidered shoes on the old lady's feet had fallen off, she reached out and gently stroked the shoe surface, looked up and smiled at the old lady and said, "I will embroider two new pairs of shoe uppers for my great-aunt, one pair embroidered with beautiful lotus flowers, and the other pair embroidered with rich peonies!"
The old lady followed her gaze and saw the embroidery thread on her shoes. She nodded and said happily, "What a good child, so careful and filial! Go ahead and embroider. When you have finished embroidering two pairs of shoes, your great aunt will also give you a good gift!"
She knew that the marriage was settled, and the good gift that her great-aunt mentioned should be the thank-you gift she received when serving tea to the elders after the wedding!
She felt a little excited, but she was trying hard to suppress it. She had to do it because every time her good news was publicized, it would be destroyed in a very short time and it would be just a false joy in the end.
This time she will not be disappointed! She must seize the opportunity. After two years of pursuit, her dream finally came true. She can't lose at the last moment!
She was not a vulgar woman who was willing to settle for the status quo since she was a child. She deeply understood the principle that people go up and water flows down. If a woman could not take the imperial examination to become an official, she must become the wife of an official or a wealthy family! In order to climb up the social ladder, she abandoned her childhood sweetheart and her senior brother who was sincere to her, because he was not good enough, his academic qualifications were not good enough, he failed the imperial examination twice, and his family background was just a well-off family with a little land in a small county town. What's the use of painting well? Would she rely on selling paintings to make money to support her wife and children in the future? She did not hesitate to urge Luo Zhuangshi to make up her mind to leave Tong County. The tears of her senior brother could not stop her brisk steps.
At her maternal uncle's house in Jiangning, the Zhou and Li families in Jiangcheng came to discuss marriage. They were all wealthy and powerful families, and when they saw her, they proposed to marry her sincerely. She also felt that such a family background was good enough, but who knew that in the end the Zhou family wanted her to be a concubine, on the grounds that the girl they had originally proposed to marry agreed to marry, and the young master of the Zhou family had a crush on the girl...and the Li family, on the other hand, was ruined by her own sister. She was so angry that she gritted her teeth and persuaded her mother to dig up her father's bones and return to her hometown in the capital. There were so many nobles in the capital, and she didn't believe that with her talent, beauty and character, she couldn't marry into a noble family!
My sister Xiangying's eyes are indeed sharp. She can see that Sixth Master is not her type. But my sister is only half right. She admires Sixth Master. He is a dignified and elegant young man from a noble family. He is knowledgeable and knowledgeable. Even after he has achieved fame, he is still so humble and gentle. He is completely different from those rich and powerful dandies on the street who are dressed in fine clothes and ride horses and look at people with squinting eyes. Such people are truly magnanimous and capable. She seems to have already seen the Sixth Master's brilliant future. With such a noble son-in-law in front of her, she doesn't hurry up to grab him and lets her sister ruin things. She is really a fool!
The erotic scene under the fragrant orchid tree in the academy was still vivid in her mind. Her heart beat faster and her breathing became unstable whenever she thought of it. She was a little worried about the jade ring. Damn it, why did she listen to her senior brother and wear it every day, and it became a habit? Now she could only hope that the jade ring would roll into some dead corner and no one would pick it up. Even if someone did, she wouldn't tell anyone and no one would know it was hers. No one saw her on the wall that day, and the two men didn't notice anything either. Who could have thought that a jade ring would fall from the sky?
The younger sister was moved first, using her sister's painting skills as an excuse to impress the Sixth Master with her chess skills. She watched them talking and laughing, sitting opposite each other and moving the chess pieces, not moving for a long time. The younger sister was bold enough to give the Sixth Master something first. Maybe the Sixth Master also had feelings for her, so what? She was the eldest daughter, and she would marry first. The status had been agreed upon. It was impossible for Xiangying to surpass her, and it was impossible for her to become a co-wife or concubine!
How could she allow her husband to have feelings for another woman? Even if she was her own sister!
Mother was going to accompany the two sisters to Jinhua Hall to pay respects. She was the first to go out. From afar, she saw a man walking down the corridor with his head lowered. He was not a man from the Hou Mansion, but the husband of my cousin from Yuehua Courtyard next door! He was not with my cousin, and he had no maids to accompany him. He dared to come alone!
Her heart was pounding, her mind was spinning rapidly, and she immediately turned around and ran to the yard, reaching out to her sister and poking her armpit. Xiangying jumped up in surprise, then laughed and annoyed and played with her. She deliberately let Xiangying pinch her, then chased Xiangying out of the door, saying, "You naughty girl, wait and see, I'll catch you and beat you up!"
How could Xiangying think of anything else? She was playful and ran out with a giggle. Just as she expected, she met her cousin's husband. Not only that, Xiangying fell into his arms. Her cousin's husband reached out to hug her. The scene of the two hugging was seen by the maids and servants who followed, as well as her mother Luo Zhuangshi!
Things have come to this, if Xiangying can still follow her and marry Sixth Master, then as her elder sister, I have no choice but to accept it!
In Jinhua Hall, the old lady put on a big show in front of Xu Junxuan. Seeing him standing aside with a panic-stricken look on his face, she thought about letting him go for the time being, and then waved her hand, pretending to be sad and unwilling to see him again, and asked him to leave. Lao Liu still hesitated for a while, and finally left reluctantly when he saw that his grandmother ignored him.
Old lady Xu had just taken two sips of tea when Second Madam Bai Jingyu arrived. After bowing and greeting, she winked at Mama Ji. Mama Ji hurriedly asked Ruiyu and several maids to go to the back hall. Bai Jingyu reported everything in detail. The old lady frowned, suspecting that Bai Jingyu couldn't stand the cousins from the Luo family and had been picking on them again and again. She asked Mama Ji to call the maids who followed the two girls to ask them. Xu Xiaomin's mother's words almost made the old lady angry.
"To the old lady, this is true! I didn't know what to do. I was about to report to the eldest lady, but I saw the second lady after walking a few steps... I couldn't avoid him in time. The third and fourth ladies saw him. In broad daylight, the eldest brother-in-law hugged the Xiangying cousin from Xianglan Pavilion like that... The two girls were scared and embarrassed. The fourth girl even cried! If it weren't for the second lady's persuasion, the two girls would still be in trouble. They just thought they saw something they shouldn't have seen. They couldn't get over it, and they were ashamed and depressed. They didn't even have the face to come to Jinhua Hall to accompany the old lady for dinner! We deserved to die, but we didn't expect such a thing to happen. There was no trace of the maids patrolling the garden!"
The old lady pointed at the kneeling maids with shaking hands and said, "We provide you with good food and drink, and give you lots of money every month. We give you the girls, and you treat them like this? You don't send someone to check which way the girls are going, but instead let them walk in front. If there is any evil spirit or ghost, you want them to block it for you? Someone, drag these servants out and beat them to death!"
Several old women were frightened out of their wits, because the old lady usually didn't say harsh words, and once she said something, she would insist on doing it. So they kowtowed repeatedly and begged for mercy by howling like ghosts and wolves.
Bai Jingyu saw that the old lady was trying to make things worse, but she still refused to get to the point and only brought up other things. He couldn't help but feel even more upset: She was protecting the Luo sisters? Why? Because they were Zhuang's granddaughters, then what about the Xu family's children and grandchildren? Weren't they born and raised by the old lady surnamed Zhuang? The girls' reputation was not as good as her determination to control the marriage of the sixth son?
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