Bai Yan stared coldly at Chen Xiuer, as if she were looking at a dead person.
The original owner was a fourteen-year-old girl, and Yuan was a weak and indecisive woman. In Fancheng, an old city that still relied on clan relationships, guarding such a large family fortune was undoubtedly like a child holding a gold brick.
Moreover, in the storyline, this place will soon fall.
For their safety, she had to take Yuan Shi away. As for that heartless couple, they deserved to die.
Chen felt a chill run down her spine at the cold look in the girl's eyes: "Why are you looking at me like that! As if I, as your sister-in-law, want to harm you?"
"Go out and ask around the clan; which wealthy family's daughter doesn't have bound feet?"
Bai Yan lowered her eyes and picked up the newspaper from the bedside table: "If I couldn't bear that suffering, why did I have to endure the pain of foot binding yesterday?"
"Take a look," Bai Yan said. "This is a newspaper from the West City. This morning I overheard passersby talking about the news in the newspaper, and I learned that they are currently carrying out reforms there. Women with bound feet are considered ignorant and backward, and are not liked by their husbands."
Although Chen Xiuer was always out and about, she only ever listened to Huangmei Opera and had never heard of this before.
She glanced at the newspaper. "Don't try to fool me just because I can't read. Why doesn't Fancheng have such a rule?"
Bai Yan said calmly, "Xicheng and Fancheng are different after all. Besides, I'm the one who's going to marry into the Zhong family. Would I lie to you about my future? If I marry into the Zhong family because of my bound feet and they don't like me, what good will that do for me or the Bai family?"
"If you don't believe me, then call Bai Jiye back to read it to you."
Chen Xiuer frowned slightly, somewhat doubtful. "Wait here." She then turned and instructed the maid at the door, "Go and call the master over."
Bai Jiye, who was still playing cards, was called over and impatiently read the contents of the newspaper as Chen Xiuer requested.
Nowadays, newspapers are written in roughly equal parts classical and vernacular Chinese.
Bai Jiye's family was poor. He only read a few books back then because his father's branch of the family hired a tutor for the clan. He couldn't understand classical Chinese, but fortunately, the newspaper was written in vernacular Chinese.
It is a story published by a writer. After discovering that his wife's bound feet had been unwrapped, he found her not only shockingly ugly but also reeking of a foul stench, and he immediately became disgusted with her.
In addition, the area was undergoing a cultural reform, and foot binding was considered synonymous with old-fashioned women, whose thoughts and consciousness were all backward. So he divorced his wife with bound feet and remarried a woman who had attended a modern school and worked at a newspaper.
"My goodness, women in Xicheng can go to school and work at newspapers?" Chen Xiuer had always thought that only outstanding people could work at newspapers, like Bai Jingye, the only one from the Bai family to be admitted to Xicheng United University, who was Bai Jiye's younger brother.
Bai Jiye frowned: "You're making a fuss over nothing. How can Xicheng be the same as here? They even have an airport over there. Have you ever seen an airplane?" He had seen one when he sent his younger brother to university.
"Wouldn't that really force her to bind her feet?" Chen Xiuer was still a little worried: "Just because the people in the newspapers think foot binding is bad doesn't mean our in-laws think it is. Besides, it's been a custom for so many years."
Bai Jiye was a shrewd man. "Jingye told me that everything in Xicheng is being reformed now. The young master of the Zhong family has gone abroad to study, so he must not like the old ways."
He shook his head again: "Binding feet is inappropriate."
Bai Jingye was a capable person, and since he had said so, Chen Xiuer nodded in agreement: "What you said makes sense, makes sense."
She changed her shrewish expression again, and looked at Bai Yan with a smile: "It's all thanks to our clever Yan'er that she heard the passersby talking about this. Otherwise, she would have suffered a lot and even made the young master of the Zhong family unhappy."
He clutched his chest and said, "I meant well, but it's become my fault."
Bai Yan simply pointed to her injured foot and looked at her mother, Yuan Shi, beside her: "Mom, you should still call a doctor for me. It takes a hundred days to recover from a broken bone. Aren't I going to Xicheng at the end of this year?"
“Yes, yes, yes!” Chen Xiuer hurriedly said, “Second Aunt, you are my biological mother, so I’m entrusting the task of taking care of Yan’er to you. You can’t let your feet look like that woman in the newspaper, or the young master of the Zhong family will dislike them.”
Madam Yuan frowned upon hearing this, but she was used to being compliant: "I will take good care of Yan'er."
Chen Xiuer and Bai Jiye exchanged a few words and then left. Madam Yuan instructed her maid to fetch a doctor, while she stayed by her daughter's bedside.
After the clock in the room had completed half a cycle, the doctor arrived, prescribed some medicine for Bai Yan, and instructed her not to put heavy pressure on her feet for at least three months before leaving.
Looking at her daughter's injured feet, Madam Yuan felt extremely distressed. "If only you had heard what that passerby said earlier, you wouldn't have had to suffer like this."
Bai Yan looked up at her and said, "Mom, I want to leave the Bai family. Come with me."
Madam Yuan looked up, startled, and stared at her daughter suspiciously: "What are you talking about? You're getting married at the end of this year. Where are you going with me?"
"If I marry into Xicheng, we'll be separated by vast distances. Will we ever see each other again in this lifetime?" Bai Yan said, "I don't know what you're suffering in Fancheng, and you don't know what I'm like in Xicheng. Rather than being separated by distance, it's better for you to come with me."
Madam Yuan clenched her handkerchief tightly. This was her only daughter, and it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that she was her lifeblood. How could she bear to be separated from her?
Besides, Bai Jiye was already quite old when he was adopted, so there was no way he could be her biological son.
“Then I’ll tell your brother and sister-in-law that I’ll go with you to the West City.” After thinking for a moment, Madam Yuan said, “It wouldn’t be appropriate for me, as your mother-in-law, to move into your husband’s house with you. People might say I’m taking advantage of their kindness. But I have some money on me, enough to buy a small two-courtyard house over there.”
As Yuan spoke, her eyes grew brighter: "That would be fine. We can leave the family business here to them, and I'll go live with you."
Bai Yan sneered, "Mom, you're really stupid. Bai Jiye and his wife are ruthless and have long regarded our family's property as their private property. If you ask to leave, they will definitely think that you are hiding something. Who knows if you will even live to see tomorrow?"
Madam Yuan's heart skipped a beat, then she shook her head: "Although Madam Chen is shrewish, she is not malicious. As for Jiye, I am, after all, his mother in name only."
"His nominal mother?" Bai Yan asked. "Did he ever call you 'Mom' after he was adopted?"
Before being adopted, Bai Jiye was a devoted and filial son. After being adopted, he didn't even call her "Mom." He and Chen Xiuer agreed to call her "Second Mother Yuan" so that she would be different from his biological mother.
It was obvious that they were bullying the Yuan family because they had no one to rely on.
"This is the family business that my father left to my mother and me to make a living. How much did we spend? How much did that family spend?"
"Haven't you figured it out yet after all this time? They're obsessed with money!"
Madam Yuan murmured, "Well... it shouldn't be enough to kill me..."
Bai Yan didn't want to waste time explaining to Yuan Shi: "Fine, if you don't believe me, just try them out. If it's a good thing, great; if it's not, we'll quickly prepare to leave."
She sat up slightly and whispered a few words in Yuan's ear. Yuan nodded and said, "Mom will do as you say."
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