Madam Gao hurriedly stepped forward with the thick dowry list and opened it in front of the Lady of Yong'an.
Lady Yong'an looked at the densely packed names of items on the list, many of which had already been crossed out.
Her initial intention to feign fainting immediately vanished, replaced by immense heartache.
She pointed tremblingly at the crossed-out items and asked, "These, these are...?"
Madam Gao lowered her head meekly and said, "These were found in the manor's storeroom, and have already been taken away by the officials of the Jingzhao Prefecture."
"What?! They've all been moved away?!" Lady Yong'an felt as if the sky had fallen!
Because she saw that the many items not only came from the public treasury, but also from her private treasury.
Gao said in a low voice, "Only less than half of them were moved away; there are still many that cannot be found."
Lady Yong'an was furious again. "If they can't find it, they can't find it. Are they going to force us to go bankrupt?!"
The Marquis of Yong'an was even more furious. He stepped forward and slapped her across the face. "You worthless thing! These things have already been returned to the treasury of the Jingzhao Prefecture! If you continue to hold them back, that's embezzling treasury funds! Without our daughter-in-law's dowry, how did our Marquis's mansion become bankrupt?! How have you been running the household all these years?"
Lady Yong'an choked on a mouthful of blood, "My lord, you don't know the cost of firewood and rice when you're not in charge of the household..."
Jiang Mingwei shielded her mother, "Father! Let's talk this out! We'll compensate you with money if we lose the items!"
The Marquis of Yong'an sneered, "Fine! Fine, then you can take a good look at how much silver you'll have to pay! This is only half of the dowry list; the other half is still being calculated by the Prefect of the Capital!"
Lady Yong'an could no longer hold on. She leaned on Madam Tian's arm and fell backward, fainting.
Under the strong enforcement of the Jingzhao Prefecture, the Yong'an Marquis's Mansion finally managed to gather all the home decorations and corresponding compensation money three days later.
Lu Ning returned home satisfied with his spoils. He quickly had the items pawned at a pawnshop, and with the compensation from Yong'an Bo Mansion, he received a total of 160,000 taels of silver!
He was deeply moved; the Su family, the richest family in Dingzhou, was indeed extraordinary!
No wonder they were able to buy so much rice and flour at high prices to distribute porridge during this famine year, and the workers on the construction site were treated extremely well.
He happily went to find Huihe Yiren to reinvest in the company.
The Yong'an Marquis's residence, however, was shrouded in gloom and despair.
Although Gao finally obtained the power to manage the household affairs that she had always dreamed of, she could never be happy.
The public accounts were almost empty, so she had to take some of her dowry money from her private treasury every month to supplement the family income, which was very painful for her.
Moreover, the monthly allowances for all servants and masters were halved, as were their daily expenses, making life very difficult.
After seven or eight days of prolonged illness, Lady Yong'an finally recovered somewhat.
Feeling more relaxed that day, she sat up, called her personal maid, and said she wanted to drink ginseng and bird's nest porridge.
The maidservant returned after a long while, carrying a bowl of porridge with obvious difficulty. "Madam, the kitchen said they haven't had any ginseng or bird's nest for a long time, only plain rice porridge... I added some sugar, but the taste..."
Lady Yong'an was furious and slapped the bowl of porridge out of the maid's hand. "Go and fetch Madam Gao!"
When Madam Gao arrived, she immediately launched into a tearful complaint: "Mother, you have no idea! The Prefect of the Capital calculated that the dowry items we owed were worth about 110,000 taels of silver. We pawned everything of value in the house, and my husband even borrowed 20,000 taels of high-interest silver to cover the debt. Now we are truly broke!"
"What?! One hundred and eleven thousand taels?!" Lady Yong'an nearly fainted again upon hearing this. She quickly stretched out her hand, "Give me back the key to my private treasury!"
Lady Gao cooperated by taking out a bunch of keys from her bosom, picking out one of them, and handing it to Lady Yong'an.
Seeing how cheerful she was, Lady Yong'an tentatively asked, "What's in this private treasury?"
"The Lord Earl decided to pawn them all," Madam Gao replied softly. "But Mother, don't worry, they're all readily available! We can redeem them when we have the money!"
Lady Yong'an was furious. She clutched her chest and gasped for breath before saying, "Go and call the second son over!"
She wanted to ask them why they hadn't killed this widow and her child yet.
Jiang Mingyi arrived half an hour later. He had been having a hard time at the princess's residence.
When the Jingzhao Prefecture went to "confiscate" the Yong'an Earl's property, they couldn't find several ornaments, which were identified by the Yong'an Earl's wife as being in the Princess's residence.
The next day, Lu Ning came to the princess's mansion to ask for those items back.
The princess was furious, but she couldn't stop the Jingzhao Prefecture from moving away the property that belonged to them.
In addition to the lists, the Jingzhao Prefecture also had several drawings that vividly depicted objects such as double-sided embroidered glass screens, red coral screens, and ancient zithers with phoenixes crying blood.
A quick glance is all it takes to tell if it's genuine.
Of course, in such a short time, she couldn't create a fake to replace it, so she could only watch helplessly as they took away all the precious ornaments that the Jiang family had used for the betrothal.
Princess Qingping herself felt it was a great disgrace. She never expected that the Yong'an Marquis's mansion would do such a shameless thing as using the ex-wife's dowry to pay the betrothal fee for their new bride.
Furthermore, the gift Lady Yong'an gave her, the daughter-in-law of a county princess, was a box of jewelry, half of which was actually Su's dowry!
She was furious and gave Jiang Mingyi a severe dressing-down, forcing him to sleep in the study and forbidding him from visiting his daughter in the main room.
Jiang Mingyi also felt extremely ashamed, but since his mother was in the wrong, he couldn't refute her.
He knew what his mother was thinking. She had long been determined to get rid of Su and her two children. In his mother's eyes, Su was a dead person. How could she possibly return the dowry to Su?
Upon receiving his mother's summons, he rushed over as if his pants were on fire.
When he entered his mother's room, he was met with another severe scolding: "You spent three thousand taels of silver and couldn't even kill two weak women? What have you done?! Did you actually hire assassins from the Nine Dark Gates?"
Mentioning this matter, Jiang Mingyi was also very upset. "Mother, it really was the Nine Dark Gate assassins. I heard they sent out nine people that day!"
"Nine assassins, and they couldn't even kill a child or a woman?!" Lady Yong'an was filled with suspicion.
Jiang Mingyi said with a wry smile, "I heard that the county princess's mansion is protected by the Xuan Yu Guards of the Xuan Wang Mansion. Their martial arts skills are truly formidable!"
Lady Yong'an said resentfully, "If there are guards in the manor, then find an opportunity to strike on the road! Aren't they always jumping around and wandering around the capital?"
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