Chapter 43 Uninvited Guest: How could she possibly back down?
Cui Hao hesitated for a long time but couldn't come up with an answer. Meng Yu then threw the account book at him and wrote, "If you can't give a reasonable reply to this matter, you might as well quit being the head of the estate."
After glancing at the words on the paper, Cui Hao thought he had misread it. He hurriedly read it carefully again, but the last few words were deeply imprinted in his pupils. His wrinkled face instantly contorted, and he straightened up in disbelief, shouting angrily, "What do you know, you noble lady who never leaves your home? I've been managing those estates for over ten years. I may not have made any great contributions, but I've certainly put in a lot of hard work. You dismiss me with a single word? On what grounds? Every year when it snows heavily in the capital, if we don't buy cotton-padded clothes, are we supposed to freeze to death? Even when Madam Lu was in charge of the accounts, she didn't calculate things this meticulously. Besides, the General didn't even ask a single question about this matter. What gives you the right to make this decision?"
He was tall, with arms thicker than a bowl. Although his face was wrinkled, it couldn't hide his fair complexion. His clothes were spotless, without a single wrinkle or stain, indicating that he ate very well and was definitely not a hard-working person.
Meng Yu stared coldly at him, about to retort with her pen, when Cui Hao suddenly lunged forward, trying to snatch the pen from her hand while cursing, "You're a mute, if you can't speak, then don't put on airs here..."
Before he could even get close, thud!
With a dull thud, the door slammed shut, followed by a loud bang that startled everyone outside.
Lu Xiuyi suddenly appeared from behind the bookshelf and kicked Cui Hao in the chest. Cui Hao was caught off guard and kicked to the door, where he crashed into the door with a loud bang.
“Because she is the wife of the General of Huaihua’s mansion, the only mistress here,” Lu Xiuyi said with a dark face, his whole body seemingly covered in frost, and shouted out, “Guards, drag this insolent and ignorant dog servant out and give him thirty lashes. Also, I don’t want to see him in the capital again.”
Upon hearing the noise, Chu Ze thought there was an assassin and hurriedly led his men from the front yard. When he saw that the person to be punished was Cui Hao, he immediately understood and ordered his men to drag him out for execution.
Cui Hao suddenly rushed up, startling Meng Yu.
Seeing that Lu Xiuyi was in the room, Huaiyin felt relieved and went to eat melon seeds with others. Unexpectedly, there was a commotion here. When she arrived, Cui Hao had already been dragged out. With a worried look on her face, she poured her a cup of tea and gently comforted her.
After drinking tea and calming down for a moment, Meng Yu finally recovered from her shock. She frowned and gestured to Lu Xiuyi: "Why did you deal with him like this? There are still many accounts that haven't been investigated."
Lu Xiuyi sat down beside her unhurriedly and said gently, "Don't worry, I know about the problems you mentioned. He is a member of the Tao family and has been managing those estates in the eastern suburbs for over ten years. Moreover, the five thousand taels were also allocated to the Tao family. Over the past ten years, he has done a lot of things, such as bullying tenants and running rampant in the village. If we deal with him rashly, the Tao family will definitely come knocking on our door."
"If you deal with him now, aren't you afraid the Tao family will come knocking on your door?"
Lu Xiuyi smiled faintly: "I'm not afraid of her making a scene. The reason I didn't deal with Cui Hao before was because they were quite secretive in their actions, and I couldn't find any evidence for the time being."
"So, have you found the evidence now?"
"We found some, but not many, and the evidence wasn't enough to convict him."
Meng Yu: "..."
Seeing his confident demeanor, she assumed he was certain of victory, but now he's telling her that the evidence he found is insufficient to convict this person.
Just then, Chu Ze hurried back and forth with a serious expression: "Young Master, Madam Lu has arrived and specifically requested to see you."
Upon hearing this, Lu Xiuyi tilted his head towards Meng Yu, his eyes showing no sign of panic but rather brimming with amusement. He straightened his face and asked Chu Ze, "Didn't she say she wanted to see me?"
Chu Ze shook his head and said, "She only said that even though the young master is willful and ignorant, the lady is still a new bride and should go to the Marquis's mansion to pay her respects to her and the Marquis this morning. Now that the lady is not going, it is up to her, the mother-in-law, to come and see the new daughter-in-law."
As if he had heard a ridiculous joke, Lu Xiuyi scoffed, "What kind of mother-in-law is she? My stepmother is not easy to deal with. I'll go with you!"
Meng Yu shook her head: "No need. Since she only said she wanted to see me, if you go over there, others will think that my husband and I are ganging up on our stepmother. You wait here, I'll deal with her."
After she made the gesture, Lu Xiuyi froze, staring blankly at her without giving a response for a long time. Meng Yu thought he didn't understand and was about to give Huaiyin a look, asking her to translate the original words to him.
Chu Ze clenched his fist and brought it to his lips, then coughed lightly: "Young Master."
Upon hearing this, Lu Xiuyi quickly pulled himself back to reality. Her calling him "husband and wife" had made him dizzy and disoriented. He was momentarily oblivious to the world around him, and his eyes were filled with nothing but her. Even his agitated heart seemed to be enveloped in honey, with sweet juice overflowing and dispelling all his restlessness.
A flush quickly spread across his ears, and an orange glow spread across his face. He cleared his throat awkwardly, lowered his eyes, and nodded, saying, "If anything happens, just send someone back to inform me, and I'll head over immediately."
Hearing that Tao was coming to cause trouble, Meng Yu was preoccupied with how to deal with her and did not notice anything unusual about Lu Xiuyi. When she saw him reply, she quickly responded and went to the front yard.
Upon arriving at the front courtyard, she saw that Madam Tao was already sitting in the main seat, drinking tea. When she saw her arrive, she merely lifted her eyelids and glanced at her indifferently before making no further move.
Meng Yu stepped inside and sat down in the main seat to Tao's right.
Unexpectedly, Meng Yu sat down so directly, showing her no respect whatsoever. Tao was both surprised and angry. She slammed down her teacup and turned her head to snap, "Is this how your aunt taught you when you were at home?"
Meng Yu smiled coolly and raised her hand: "I don't know what Madam Lu means by this."
Huaiyin translated the words directly from the side.
Tao was so choked by her words that she couldn't utter a single word. Seeing this, Shi Mama, who was next to her, immediately spoke up in a serious tone: "It's one thing for a new bride not to personally go to her mother-in-law's house to serve tea, but now that her mother-in-law has come to her, not only do you not kneel down to serve tea, but you also don't know your place and sit in the same seat as her. Is this the etiquette and respect for your mother-in-law that your aunt taught you?"
Meng Yu laughed again: "Of course I have a mother-in-law, and I should indeed offer her tea after entering the family. However, my mother-in-law is still enshrined before her spirit tablet. Since Madam Lu calls her my mother-in-law, does she perhaps also want to receive a stick of incense from me?"
Heaven knows how much effort Huaiyin put into translating those words to keep from bursting into laughter.
How could she not have known before that her daughter was so eloquent?
“You…” Mrs. Shi was so angry that her face turned pale. Her face, which looked like dried orange peel, was contorted with rage. She glared at Meng Yu, but she was helpless against her.
"I thought you were timid and dull-witted, but I never expected you to be so cunning. You even fooled your stepmother for over a decade," Madam Tao straightened her posture, suppressing her temper and sneering. "As a concubine's daughter, even if you called me 'mother-in-law,' I might not want to accept it. I came here today because I heard that you, a newlywed, are not properly learning etiquette and family rules, but instead secretly carrying out punishments in the manor, and the person punished was none other than the hardworking and meritorious head of the Cui family. If such a disgrace to the Lu family gets out, how will the Marquis maintain his standing in the court?"
Faced with Tao's difficult demands, Meng Yu was not afraid at all, and there was no trace of panic in her expression. Her ten fingers moved nimbly in the air.
Her gestures were so fast that Huaiyin didn't have time to think before hastily translating: "I hope this matter can be spread so that the world can see how the hardworking and meritorious Cui Zhuangtou, as described by Madam Lu, disrespects the mistress of the house, oversteps his bounds, and uses his position to seek personal gain, oppress the tenants, and run rampant in the village?"
Tao raised her eyebrows and sneered: "Yi-ge's daughter-in-law, you need to have evidence for your words and actions. You say that Cui Hao seeks personal gain and oppresses the tenants, where is the evidence? If you have no evidence, it is just slander and defamation. Don't think that just because you are the wife of a general, you can make baseless accusations. Even if Cui Hao is a commoner, if he is taken to court, you will not be able to back down in time."
Mother Shi rolled her eyes at Meng Yu and chimed in, "That's right. If a woman were to be taken to court, wouldn't Yi-ge'er have any shame?"
The maidservant served tea, and Meng Yu leisurely picked up the teacup, gently blew away the tea foam floating on the surface, took a sip, and then put down the teacup. She gestured, "Since Madam Lu says so, I won't stand on ceremony. Guards, take Cui Hao to the yamen and hand over all the accounts of the three estates in the eastern suburbs over the years to the government so that they can investigate whether Cui Hao has sought personal gain."
Upon hearing this, everyone present was taken aback.
Upon hearing this, the maid waiting outside the door quickly replied, "Yes."
"Don't go!" Tao was the first to react, jumping up from her chair and shouting sharply. The maid who was about to go and announce her arrival had only taken two steps when she heard the shout and stopped abruptly. She hurriedly turned back to look at Meng Yu, who only raised her chin, telling her to wait.
"Are you crazy?" Tao's face was contorted with rage, and she could hardly believe it. "In the end, this is all the Lu family's own business. Do you really want to make the account books public?"
Meng Yu smiled slightly: "Isn't this what Madam Lu wanted? I believe I have acted uprightly and honestly, and I'm not afraid of being investigated. Since you say I wronged Cui Hao and that I privately carried out the execution, then let the government decide. I'm not afraid of going to court. After all, I don't have much, except for my reputation. I'm not afraid of losing face a few times. I just wonder what Father-in-law will think if Madam goes to court?"
Tao was already so angry that her face turned pale and then green. When she heard this, she suddenly turned her head and glared at her: "What does this have to do with me? Don't make false accusations."
Meng Yu met her gaze, her expression clear and sharp: "Whether Cui Hao is Madam Lu's man or not, and whether I have made false accusations, why not wait for the authorities to decide?"
"You..." Tao was so angry that her chest tightened. After a moment, she sneered, "I didn't expect that the concubine's daughter of the Meng family would have such abilities. I underestimated you. This matter was originally a family affair of the Huaihua General's Mansion. What does it have to do with me? Mama Shi, let's go and avoid getting involved in this mess. She has no shame and wants to take people to court, but we still have our dignity."
After saying that, she turned and left in a huff.
Meng Yu remained seated in the main seat, watching from afar as Tao was helped away.
Huaiyin's heart, which had been hanging in suspense, finally settled down. Recalling Mengyu's calm and composed demeanor in the face of Tao's aggressive tone, she couldn't help but give her a thumbs up and say with a smile, "Well done, Madam."
Meng Yu smiled and raised her hand: "Don't be too happy yet. I don't think that Tao family is easy to deal with. I guess they have a backup plan."
She has never been a coward. In the past, she had to be inferior to others in the Meng family for various reasons. Now that she is the mistress here, and others are swaggering over her, how can she back down?
“Even if she doesn’t want things to end this way, she can’t save Cui Hao unless she wants to drag herself down with her,” Lu Xiuyi said as he walked in by the candlelight on the eaves. “But my stepmother is an extremely selfish person. How could she possibly ruin her own reputation for a Cui Hao who is not worth dying for? Asking her to take you to court is no different from asking her to die.”
Huaiyin withdrew at the appropriate time.
His last words contained a hint of a smile. Meng Yu raised her hand: "You saw what just happened?"
Lu Xiuyi nodded, his eyes sparkling as if about to overflow: "Hmm, I thought you were going to help, but who knew you would take on the whole burden. Let's go! I'll take you somewhere."
His tone was tender and affectionate, to the point of being undisguised. Meng Yu still felt a little uncomfortable, but didn't know how to say it.
She really didn't want to anger Lu Xiuyi anymore.
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