Following her daughter's advice, Madam Yuan instructed her maid to find Bai Jiye and Chen Xiuer, telling them that Bai Jiye currently had no proper work and could not make a living solely from his ancestral property.
She planned to give Bai Jiye two thousand silver dollars so that he could think carefully about what kind of business to do and then give her a draft of the agreement.
She could then go to the money exchange to withdraw money.
Chen Xiuer returned to her room first and sat on a carved rosewood chair. A maidservant brought her a cup of fragrant tea. She crossed her legs, drank the tea, and hummed a Huangmei opera tune.
A moment later, Bai Jiye stepped under the eaves, took off his leather hat, and the couple looked at each other with joy in their eyes.
Two thousand silver dollars! That's enough to buy three or four large brick and tile houses in Fancheng!
Chen Xiuer put down her teacup, her expression smug: "I told you, she definitely still has money! What kind of person is your uncle? He's someone who fought alongside the warlord! How could he only have a few dozen acres of land and that little bit of money on the books?"
"Two thousand silver dollars!" Chen Xiuer gestured. "She can just pull it out like that; she must have a lot more wrapped around her waist!"
Bai Jiye was excited about the money he had just received, but also furious: "I am the male heir to the family business, and she actually kept so much money without telling me. How dare she!"
Bai Jiye believed that since he had been adopted, everything in the Bai family should belong to him!
Chen Xiuer glanced at him: "It's all because you're impatient. I told you to act it out, but you just didn't want to. You didn't even want to call her 'stepmother' after you just got married. You're probably still upset!"
She raised an eyebrow: "I think it's because she sees her daughter is about to get married and will have to rely on you from now on, so she's showing off some money."
"What money is she showing off? That's my money!" Bai Jiye said angrily, taking a sip of tea.
“That’s true, but she still holds the key. How can we know how much she has if she doesn’t tell us?” Chen Xiuer said.
Bai Jiye, however, looked annoyed: "Jingye has it tough in Xicheng, she's short of money everywhere, yet she dares to play dirty tricks on me?" A ruthless glint flashed in his eyes, "Why don't we just take her—"
Chen Xiuer said, "No way! Didn't we already say that Yan'er's marriage to the Zhong family was arranged a long time ago? If she gets favored after marriage, it will be a great help to our whole family!"
"With her own mother at home, there's no fear that she'll become unruly after marriage."
Chen Xiuer took another sip of tea, not taking Yuan Shi to heart: "She's in our house anyway, she doesn't go out, how much money could she possibly spend?" Chen Xiuer said, "If Yan'er is firmly established as the young mistress of Zhong, then we should take good care of her. If she's really useless, then we absolutely cannot let her stay at home and eat for free."
Chen Xiuer said with a disdainful expression, "Second Aunt is a clay figure. You can just pin a few sins on her and kick this 'Buddha' who needs to be served out."
Bai Jiye shook his head, a glint of shrewdness in his eyes: "Wouldn't it be a waste to raise them for nothing if we drove them away? Call her Second Madam, she's only thirty-two or thirty-three years old, beautiful, and a rich lady. Several men had their eyes on her before, and she refused to remarry. In a few years, when she's too old, she'll only be able to be sold to a ship. But her looks are worth at least eighty silver dollars!"
Chen Xiuer snorted: "If you're talking about who's bad, you're the one who's bad."
"Isn't this also for our family?" Bai Jiye sighed. "Jingye told me that nowadays, girls in Xicheng need to go to school to marry well. The school fees for those two ancestors are enough to make me suffer, not to mention Jingye."
Bai Jiye's two children attended the only Western-style school in the area, and the price was self-evident.
"Isn't it all right now?" Chen Xiuer said, "Knowing she has money, are we afraid we won't be able to get it? With that soft-hearted Second Aunt, we can just scare her a few times later."
The two discussed how to spend the money inside the room, while the maid who had been eavesdropping at the door tiptoed away.
After she told Madam Yuan the news she had heard, Madam Yuan was already in tears.
"Beasts! They're all beasts! How could they face their late husband like that..."
Bai Yan gently patted her back: "Mom, now is not the time to cry. Now that we've seen through their true colors, we need to think about ourselves."
“You are my own mother. If I marry into the Zhong family, they will use you to threaten me. What will I do then? Besides, after hearing those words, would you still dare to stay here?”
Madam Yuan looked at her daughter with teary eyes. After hearing what the maid had said, her legs went weak: "What should we do? Won't we be exposed if we leave?"
Bai Yan didn't expect the Yuan family to do anything; she just needed to be obedient and not hold them back.
"Didn't you say you were going to give them two thousand silver dollars?" Bai Yan's face appeared exceptionally calm in the candlelight. "Things should be done quickly rather than slowly. Tell them first that you will give them the money, but there is a condition. Then, arrange a dinner for them tomorrow night and tell them your condition."
Looking at her daughter's face, Madam Yuan nodded in agreement.
...
The next morning, Bai Yan made an excuse that she had obtained a folk remedy that could remove the marks on her feet as soon as possible, and wanted to go to the pharmacy to get the medicine. She also planned to buy some rouge and face powder.
Her foot is still in the recovery period, but fortunately there is now something similar to a wheelchair.
With the servants in the mansion pushing her along, and with Chen Xiuer and others also hoping that she would please Zhong Yunsheng, no one would stop her from buying these things.
After buying the face powder, Bai Yan directed the servants to push her to the entrance of the pharmacy, gave the prescription to the servants, and told them to go and get the medicine.
He then stopped a woman who had just left the pharmacy to get medicine: "I have three silver dollars here, do you want them?"
The woman initially thought she was a swindler and turned to leave, but Bai Yan simply pulled out three silver dollars.
"Buy me two train tickets to Xicheng. We'll meet here again at five o'clock tomorrow morning. Give me the tickets and I'll give you five silver dollars."
The woman's eyes lit up when she saw the silver dollars. Two train tickets to the west city would only cost one silver dollar at most. Would she get the rest?
"I live right at the west end of the street, everyone here knows me!" The woman, eager to do this, quickly said, "Don't worry, Miss, I won't take your money and run away!"
Bai Yan handed the silver dollar to the woman: "Keep your voice down. I ran away from my arranged marriage. If I'm discovered, you won't get the money."
The woman quickly covered her mouth: "Yes, yes!" She didn't care about running away from the marriage. With money, her little boy's illness could be treated, and they would have rice to cook.
"Go ahead, see you tomorrow."
"Okay, okay!" The woman left quickly.
The servants brought out the medicine packet and quickly pushed Bai Yan back home.
It was winter, so Yuan cooked a big pot of winter melon and pork rib soup. She then had her maid scoop out the soup and distribute it to the servants in the house to warm them up. The Bai family didn't have many servants, so after the big pot was distributed, each person still had a piece of meat, and everyone drank it all up.
As night fell, a feast with fragrant wine and delicious food was prepared, and Bai Jiye and Chen Xiuer took their seats.
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