Chapter 75: The Story of Plum Blossoms in Mid-October (End)
The fact that the enemy had entered the textile industry was not widely reported, and the brief mention in the newspapers did not disturb the peace of the Yao family courtyard. Yao Xiaoyu did not want her winter to be overshadowed by the fact that she was already two thousand words short of writing when she opened her eyes, so she buried herself in writing while the autumn air was crisp and clear, vowing to finish the story of the plum blossoms before the beginning of winter, and then hibernate!
In mid-October, Yao Xiaoyu, who writes at least three thousand words a day, puts the article to a close, releases her grip on the pen, and lets out a long breath.
The story of Plum Blossom has come to an end.
The Novel Daily only published up to the point where the Mei family was helplessly defeated in their battle with the Du family for the child, and tearfully saw off Mei Hua'er and Du Wushuang. The editorial department only saw that Mei Hua'er realized that the Du family's life could not be improved by brute force alone, and decided to go to school to learn to read and write, and arm herself with knowledge.
While everyone was enthusiastically discussing what would happen next and figuring out what Plum Blossom planned to do, for Yao Xiaoyu, although Plum Blossom's story would continue to unfold in the world of the book, it had already been marked as finished on her manuscript.
The subsequent plot is not complicated. After completing her studies, Mei Hua'er starts her business career, wanting to replace Du Guangcheng as the heir. The two are in a fierce battle, with Mei Hua'er winning more often than losing. However, Du Guangcheng's strength is the anchor. Even though Mei Hua'er can win against Du Guangcheng with less effort, the others are hesitant to hand over the inheritance.
Mei Hua'er was a clear-headed girl. After realizing that the Du family's relatives and friends valued connections more than ability and treated her as a tool to make the Du family prosper, she decided to sever ties with the Du family: what was in her hands was hers, and it was impossible to take it back.
As for the Du family's losses after the division... This world is a dog-eat-dog world. The Du family should be glad that she is related to them by blood. No matter what happens in the future, they will not starve to death. Otherwise, with Du Guangcheng's limited abilities, they would not even know how the family business would be lost in the future. At least the meat is rotting in the pot now.
Besides, she just wants to be the heir of the Du family, not the stars in the sky. And if she can't be the heir, she just wants to keep what she has. What's wrong with letting her have her way?
Mei Hua'er has always been a person who acts on her thoughts in a whirlwind, but even the fastest thing can't outrun God's help. Just as she was pondering how to minimize the loss of what she had, her mother's brother, Uncle Wu, came to visit.
Mei Hua was astonished to discover that Du Guangcheng looked eight parts like Wu's uncle. The phrase "nephew looks like uncle" immediately popped into her mind!
Mei Hua'er immediately had a bold guess, and after she indirectly brought back Du's father's sister, what was originally just a tentative deduction suddenly became 80% credible, causing Mei Hua'er to completely forget about the idea of dividing the Du family.
Why take only 70% when you can inherit the entire family business?
With a little trick, Mei Hua'er brought the Mei and Du families together. With a slight hint, both families were stunned when they looked from Du Xiaogu to Uncle Wu, and then to Du Wushuang and Du Guangcheng. Du Wushuang's eyebrows, eyes and mouth were exactly the same as Du Xiaogu's, and Du Guangcheng's face was a slightly modified version of Uncle Wu's.
Looking at the two people, and then at the face of Meihua'er, a combination of Du's father and mother, everyone had a similar but ominous guess: it's one thing to be switched at birth, but how could they mistake her for someone else?!
Du Wushuang was overjoyed to be back in the arms of her biological parents. Mei Hua'er was also fine; she was still a true daughter of the Du family and qualified to participate in the competition for the family business. Only Du Guangcheng, who had always considered himself the heir, felt like his world had collapsed!
He was able to barely hold off Mei Hua'er, firstly because he was a male member of the Du family, secondly because he was a male member of the Du family, and thirdly because he was a male member of the Du family, but now his greatest source of confidence was gone!
Just as emperors are preferred to be male, but female emperors are better than male emperors, in a family, between an ordinary man and an outstanding woman, people often choose the one with a third leg. But if the man is not from their family, then the choice is predictable.
Mei Hua'er thus became the female head of the Du family. When the second family reunion banquet was held, everyone was at a loss for words. Putting aside the fact that the baby was switched at birth and could still be mistaken for the baby, the fact that there was no mediocre male heir and an outstanding female heir was enough to keep everyone talking for half a year.
However, no matter what they say in private, it doesn't stop them from sending their own good-looking/well-built/uninherited men to Mei Hua'er's side. It doesn't affect the frenzy of bees and butterflies coming and going around Mei Hua'er, nor does it affect Mei Hua'er's ability to start a new branch and build a new ancestral hall in the name of the clan leader when she is being criticized by so-called relatives in the name of gender, and add the names of Du's mother and Du Wushuang to it.
Women are not allowed to enter the Du family's ancestral hall.
I'll build my own new one, and I can enter it however I want.
Compared to Mei Hua'er's exciting story of using her strength to shatter the power struggles within the family, her knowledge to participate in business battles, and her bloodline to become the heir, Du Wushuang's story is much more mundane.
While Mei Hua'er dragged Du Guangcheng into the battle for succession, Du Wushuang, who had received Mei Hua'er's promise not to deliberately make things difficult for her and who looked down on her fiancé, took a romance novel script and, with Mei Hua'er's permission and the dowry prepared by the Du family, married her childhood sweetheart fiancé. The young couple lived a blissful life together.
After Du Wushuang became the biological daughter of the Du family again, she lived a more comfortable life and felt more confident. Mei Hua'er had told her in private that as long as she didn't lose her conscience, she could live her life however she wanted. If her in-laws treated her badly, she didn't need to worry about her reputation and could just get a divorce and go home.
If she doesn't want to get married, the family has plenty of room and bed for her.
If she wanted to remarry, the Du family had no shortage of elaborate weddings, with grooms lining up outside.
This was different from what Du Guangcheng had told her: "He would support her, but she should be respectful and virtuous in her husband's family and always think about her own problems..." But Du Wushuang preferred what her sister said.
Oh, by the way, after Du Guangcheng learned his true identity, he moved out of the Du family home and found a job as a teacher at a middle school. He could no longer live the luxurious life he used to, but his income was not low either.
Mei Hua felt that the school was a good fit for him—Du Guangcheng wasn't a bad person, but his personality wasn't suited to the cutthroat world of business. Living a simple, peaceful life was actually quite nice.
Du Guangcheng originally wanted to bring his biological parents to live with him, but perhaps because they were too far away to get along, he decided to give them only a small amount of money each month as alimony.
Mei's parents returned to the village and continued their lives as usual. However, they no longer worked in the fields or did housework. Mei Hua hired people to do everything from chopping wood and carrying water to cooking and washing clothes. They were only allowed to use the money given to them by Du Guangcheng as pocket money. When the two of them couldn't stay idle, they would water the small vegetable garden in front of the door and chat with their old friends.
When I got really bored, I would go to the city and stay at the Mei family's house for a while, listen to storytelling, drink tea, go to see the local opera with Mei Hua, eat snacks at restaurants, and then go back to show off to my old friends so that they could also broaden their horizons in the Great Wall.
Mei's parents are the kind of "undisapproving parents" that are rare even in modern times. They do whatever Mei Hua arranges, eat whatever she orders, and cooperate with whatever she wants to do. They know their daughter is happy to spend money on them, and even if they feel bad about it, they won't stop being obedient. Their motto is "enjoy the good life," which makes Mei Hua very happy.
She works so hard to earn money so that she and those around her can enjoy a better life.
The people of Meijia Village all fawned over the two of them. Even those who didn't like them wouldn't say anything bad about them. Meihua, remembering her adoptive parents, not only built a tomb for the Mei family and donated a road to the village, but also got the Du family's restaurant to take their vegetables and grains. They were always given a share of any light handicrafts. Some people might not respect their ancestors, but no one would look down on the God of Wealth!
It's about giving each family the opportunity to send one girl to school. If only that opportunity could be given to a boy, but no one dared to say it openly—Meihua is a girl too. What if she got angry and refused to pay for the girls' education?
...
For a while, Yao Xiaoyu really enjoyed reading stories about real and fake heiresses. She started with the stereotypical portrayal of the fake heiresses being bad and the real heiresses being good, then moved on to the subversion of the trope of the fake heiresses being innocent and the real heiresses being unkind, and finally to variations on the real and fake young masters. She read all sorts of stories with various buffs, from dead writers to pseudonymous big shots.
The biggest draw of this type of story is the tragic fate of the other characters. The protagonist, who was wronged, gets everything that belongs to her and lives a happy life loved by everyone. Yao Xiaoyu never realized that something was wrong with it until she discovered that the essence of this struggle was a loss of power.
Whether they are real or fake heiresses, they are excluded from the selection of heirs from the very beginning. They are pets for amusement and props for marriage alliances. Their greatest role is to provide emotional value and to reach cooperation with other companies. So it doesn't matter who stays, because in the end no one will stay - after marriage, the family business will only go to the brothers.
Of course, one must inherit the family business through blood, but since they are all married off, what's the point of caring about whether they are real or fake? The same logic applies to stories about real and fake young masters: the fake young master is often just the one who is favored by the family, not the one who inherits the family business, and when the real young master comes back, he only occupies the position of the woman in the family.
Yao Xiaoyu used to enjoy reading novels about doting families, where the family was full of boys for generations and the only girl was the female lead, where seven brothers treated their only sister like a princess, and where Fu Bao was born and received the love of the whole family... Looking back now, all of that was just a fragile illusion.
What kind of "favorite" is this? If you're so capable, let the female lead get the shares with decision-making power!
What kind of lucky star is this? If he's so capable, why doesn't he let the female lead become the head of the family?
What kind of pampered little princess is she? Let the female lead take on the heavy responsibility and be crowned queen!
When Yao Xiaoyu wrote this article, she hesitated about whether to portray Mei Hua'er as the most common type of true heiress—she suffers a lot and returns home only to find that her family favors the fake heiress. After a series of framing and defenses, she is hurt and heartbroken, and finally returns with the big boss to slap him in the face/after her family finds out that she has really given up, she suddenly gets her brain and regrets and apologizes.
She didn't even need to think about her character – a gambling father, a suffering mother, a younger brother who needed to go to school, and a desperate woman. After being found and taken back, she thought her suffering was over, but little did she know that she had only fallen into a deeper hell.
But in the end, Yao Xiaoyu still wrote this plum blossom with its steely and resilient spirit.
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