"Hey! Auntie, don't be angry!" Shen Weiwan immediately put on a wronged face, her eyes reddened just right, "I'll eat it, I will definitely eat it! It's just..." She paused deliberately, glancing at the servants around her who pricked up their ears, "Can you tell the kitchen not to leave the rotten rice for three days next time? I'm afraid I'll get a stomachache, and I'll have to trouble you to call a doctor, and it will cost you money..."
These words hit Liu's face like a slap in the face. She had originally withheld food to torture Shen Weiwan, but now that she was being blamed, it made her look stingy, even wanting to save her daughter's life-saving meal. Liu was so angry that she trembled all over. She grabbed the food box and wanted to smash it, but Shen Weiwan took it first.
"Don't be angry, Auntie," Shen Weiwan stepped back with the food box, her skirt sweeping across the brocade on the ground. "I'll take this 'Remembering the Bitterness and Thinking of the Sweetness' meal back and eat it slowly. I'll try to finish every meal and not let you down!"
After saying this, she dragged Chuntao along with her and walked away amidst suppressed laughter. Liu looked at their backs, then at the brocade stained by the rancid water. She was so angry that she grabbed the jade comb on the table and smashed it, but it hit the maid who had just entered, causing her to scream in pain.
Back at Tinglan Courtyard, Chuntao squatted on the ground and pounded her legs, laughing so hard: "Miss! What you just said has made the Second Madam's face turn green! Now the whole house is saying that the Second Madam is so stingy that she even feeds her daughter pig food!"
Chen Weiwan used a silver hairpin to pick at the sour tofu in her bowl, her eyes as cold as ice in December. "Stingy? That's just the beginning." She remembered how Liu used her dowry to buy a house for her concubine in her past life, and used the treasury money from the general's mansion to subsidize her brother's gambling. Her knuckles were white from pinching, "Chun Tao, go call the old housekeeper and tell him I want to check the kitchen's accounts for the past six months."
Chun Tao was stunned: "Check the accounts? Miss, what are you going to do?"
"What for?" Shen Weiwan curled her lips and smiled, picking up a moldy spot on the tip of the hairpin, "Of course, it's to let my aunt's stingy nature show off in front of the old lady."
When the old butler came in on crutches, he saw the rotten rice on the table and his snow-white beard trembled with anger: "Miss, this is..."
"Look, old housekeeper," Chen Weiwan pushed the food box over and tapped the moldy tofu with her silver hairpin, "Auntie was afraid that I would forget my roots, so she specially prepared a 'remembering the bitterness and thinking of the sweetness' meal. You say that I am a legitimate daughter, with a monthly allowance of twenty taels of silver, how can I be worthy of eating such 'delicacies from the mountains and the sea'?"
The old housekeeper looked at the rotten rice in the bowl, then at the cold light that flashed in Shen Weiwan's eyes, and suddenly remembered that the general had held his hand before his death and asked him to protect the legitimate daughter. He sighed and paused his crutch on the blue brick: "This old slave will go check it out."
Half an hour later, the old housekeeper came back with a sullen face and the account book in his hand was wrinkled. "Miss, take a look!"
Shen Weiwan took the account book and saw that it was written in tiny calligraphy: "The monthly food allowance for the legitimate daughter's courtyard is fifty taels." But when she looked at the detailed expenditure, she saw that she had spent three taels on vegetables, two taels on tofu, and a few pieces of bacon were marked as "leftover from last year's stock." In total, the total amount spent on her food was less than five taels per month. The remaining forty-odd taels were all recorded under "Second Madam's Family Subsidy" and "Second Young Lady's Jewelry Purchase."
"As I expected." Chen Weiwan handed the account book to Chuntao, "Go, take this to the old lady and tell her how I thank my aunt for the 'Remembering the Bitterness and Thinking of the Sweetness' meal. By the way, please let the old lady see how the fifty taels of silver grew wings and flew away."
The old housekeeper looked at Shen Weiwan's calm profile and suddenly remembered how she was tricked by Liu into exchanging a gold bracelet for a candy man when she was young. Now she was able to set up a trap without making a sound. It felt like a lifetime ago. This young lady really lived up to the saying "Phoenix Nirvana".
In Songhe Hall, the old lady looked at the account book, trembling with anger, and smashed the teacup to pieces on the spot. When Liu was called in, she saw the numbers in the account book and her face turned as white as paper.
"Second Master's!" The old lady pointed her cane at her nose, her voice trembling. "Where did you spend the fifty taels of silver per month for food in the First Lady's Courtyard?!"
Liu fell to her knees, her jade hairpin falling to the ground. "Mother, I... I want Wanwan to be more frugal. The world is not going well these days, so..."
"Frugal?" The old lady grabbed the account book and threw it in her face. "Fifty taels of silver, and you only spent five! Did you use the rest to fill the bottomless pit of your mother's family?! Your brother lost three hundred taels in the casino yesterday. Did you pay for it?!"
Liu was so frightened that she kowtowed profusely, her hair half untied and her jewelry scattered to the floor. The housekeepers and maids standing nearby saw it all clearly, their eyes filled with contempt. From then on, the reputation of "the second wife of the general's mansion is so stingy that she's even sucking the blood of the legitimate daughter" spread beyond the general's mansion, spreading to the gossip of the ladies and young ladies of every mansion in the capital.
Meanwhile, in Tinglan Courtyard, Shen Weiwan was feasting on a table of steaming takeout delicacies. Chuntao picked up a piece of braised pork, the greasy glisten dangling at the corner of her mouth: "Miss, your trick is too good! Even though you've embarrassed the Second Madam, we can still have sweet and sour spareribs!"
Chen Weiwan bit a chicken leg and said vaguely, "This is just the beginning." She thought of the "surprise" that Chen Ruoruo had prepared for tomorrow's Spring Banquet, and a sneer appeared on the corner of her mouth. "I want to get back what Liu owes me with interest. As for Chen Ruoruo..." She wiped her mouth, a sly look in her eyes, "I've already prepared a return gift for her 'surprise'."
The sun was shining brightly outside the window, and the servants of the general's mansion were still whispering in the corner, laughing uncontrollably at the mention of Liu's stinginess. On Shen Weiwan's revenge chessboard, Liu had been defeated. Next, it was Shen Ruorou's turn. That delicate white lotus was about to be pricked by the wild rose thorns at the Spring Banquet, leaving her crying out for help.
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