Chapter 10 Chapter 10

The birthday celebration was almost over, and Lord Gu returned to his mansion first, while Mrs. Gu, Gu Huaisheng and Gu Huailang stayed at the Jiang family.

She was the youngest in the family and a daughter, so she naturally had a deeper relationship with her mother. She stayed here and talked to her mother for a long time. It was getting late before she noticed the time. But since she had nothing to do, it didn't matter if she stayed. Unexpectedly, Gu Huaisheng also stayed. When she asked him, he just said that it was getting late and it was troublesome to run back and forth, so he stayed with her.

Mrs. Gu didn't think much about it.

It's better for him to stay. He is so promising and it makes the old man feel happy to see him.

Gu Huaisheng stayed in the Jiang family, and many people in the mansion were discussing him.

"I heard that the young marquis is staying at the mansion today?" A maid with a high bun asked someone beside her.

In her hands she was still holding the plates that she had just cleared from the table, and the two of them were heading towards the kitchen.

The other person replied, "It's absolutely true. I heard the young marquis and his wife say it when I was clearing the table just now. I also heard that the housekeeper asked Cuiping and Cuitan to serve in the courtyard where the young marquis is temporarily staying. They are so lucky that they can get close to the young marquis."

When he said this, his tone was filled with envy, as if he wished he were those two maids.

Hearing this, the maid with a high bun on her head replied, "That's really strange. Since the young marquis is here, why doesn't the eldest lady show up?"

"Oh, yes. Come to think of it, I haven't seen her since the afternoon."

Fortunately, the two of them just thought it was strange and didn't take it to heart. They turned around and went about their own business.

As the night deepened, the main hall of Rongde Hall was filled with people from the Jiang family's first and second houses, as well as Mrs. Gu and her entourage. The banquet was over, and the guests left one after another, and the bustling mansion finally returned to silence.

Jiang Nan took the lead and brought a few young people to stay here and say many auspicious words.

After a day of socializing, the old lady looked exhausted, but she still pulled herself together and accepted their congratulations with a smile. She said, "Thank you for your hard work today."

After the banquet, she was tired, and the young people were not happy either. Although the old lady looked cold, she was not unreasonable.

Jiang Nan said hurriedly: "This is what sons should do."

Jiang Cheng echoed, "That's right. In previous years, my mother didn't want to hold a banquet. This year, she finally held one. There's no question of whether it was hard or not."

Madam Jiang didn't continue talking. She smiled and said, "That's all for today. I'm tired. You all should go back and rest."

After that, everyone stood up and was about to leave.

But at this moment, Gu Huailang, who had been silent on the side, suddenly pulled Mrs. Gu's sleeve and asked in a low voice: "Where is my cousin? Why haven't I seen her?"

Normally, if his brother was there, Jiang Jingchun would definitely be there too, but this time, it was rare that he was not there.

The child asked whatever he thought of. Although his voice was not loud, it still reached the ears of Jiang Nan who was standing nearby.

He then noticed that Jiang Jingchun seemed to have not appeared for a long time. Seeing that he looked suspicious, Li spoke first: "Oh, I don't know what this child ate at the banquet, and he has an upset stomach. Hua Yun told me a long time ago. I think he is resting in his room now."

Jiang Nan's expression did not improve after hearing this. On a day like today, she still did not show filial piety to the old lady. Everyone was there, but she was the only one missing.

At this moment, Jiang Jingfang suddenly said, "No, my cousin is not in the room. I went back to her room later today and heard that she had a stomachache, so I thought of going to check on her. But when I entered the room, I only found the maid next to my cousin, but not my cousin."

Jiang Jingfang hadn't seen Jiang Jingchun for a long time, and even the two people she was good friends with disappeared. She immediately guessed that Jiang Jingchun must have sneaked out again. The two of them lived nearby, at the old lady's place. She ran back to take a look, but sure enough, she didn't see anyone.

She seemed to say this casually, but it directly revealed that Jiang Jingchun was not in the room.

She has always been at odds with Jiang Jingchun, so she probably said this on purpose.

Jiang Jingchun is not in the room now? Where did she go?

Jiang Nan guessed that she had probably gone out to play today because there were so many people around. The young lady from the Chen family and the young master from the Song family were here, so she would definitely not be able to stay here peacefully! He thought that she had really learned to behave herself in the past few days by following the old lady, but he didn't expect that she was still that stubborn. If she didn't do something wrong for a few days, she would feel uncomfortable.

Jiang Nan's face turned livid in an instant, and the atmosphere around them froze for a moment, and no one spoke first.

Li glared at Jiang Jingfang, who shrank behind her mother with an innocent look on her face.

Jiang Nan could no longer bear it, and said directly, "This bastard is still unwilling to live in peace at this time. On your 60th birthday, she still insisted on leaving. I will send someone to find her, and this time she must be punished."

Mrs. Li was not happy to hear this and immediately retorted, "If the child wants to play, then let her play. She has been holding it in for so many days, what's wrong with relaxing a little?"

Hearing what Li said, it seemed that she had known about this matter a long time ago. Just now she said that she was not feeling well and was resting in the house, which was obviously a lie.

Jiang Nan's temper wasn't bad, but he had no patience with Jiang Jingchun. He wanted to continue his outburst, but was interrupted by the old lady.

"Well, even if she's not here today, she works harder than anyone else on weekdays. That's enough. It's better than being filial in front of the hall."

After saying this, the old lady stood up and went to the inner room, and the nanny beside her quickly helped her up.

After the old lady left, the atmosphere became strange again. After a moment of silence, Jiang Chengxian took Lin, his concubine, and children and left this place of trouble. Although he was not very smart, he was always able to read people's expressions. He knew that his brother's anger would not subside for a while, so it would be better to leave early to avoid being affected.

The second room's group left from the main hall.

As expected, even though the old lady had just said that, Jiang Nan had no intention of letting this matter slip away. With a cold face, he sent someone out to look for Jiang Jingchun.

After sitting for a while, Mrs. Gu was hesitating whether to leave first. She looked at Gu Huaisheng beside her and saw that he was holding a cup and sipping tea. She considered how to start talking.

But at this moment, there was a noise at the door. Several people looked up and found that the guards who had just gone out had caught Jiang Jingchun coming back from outside.

In addition, Song Xuan'an was also there.

It was a coincidence that Song Xuan'an and Jiang Jingchun sent Chen Muqing home first, and then Song Xuan'an sent Jiang Jingchun back. But when they arrived at the back door of Jiang's house, Jiang Jingchun had only halfway through the dog hole, and when he looked up, he saw a group of guards standing in front of him.

Just like that, in less than a cup of tea, the man was captured.

Song Xuan'an was quite loyal at this time. Knowing that she was caught sneaking out, he didn't want to let her suffer alone and insisted to follow her in.

The main room fell into deathly silence. Jiang Jingchun looked at his father's sullen face and thought to himself that he was doomed.

This is really a disaster.

She had originally intended to return early, after all, the later she returned, the greater the chance of being discovered. But she was a child by nature, and once she had fun, she got too excited. After hanging out in the southern suburbs, she moved to another place, making a lot of noise and forgetting the time. Seeing that it was getting dark, she simply gave up and played while being afraid.

This time, he was really late. Fortunately, he was caught by the guards when he was digging a dog hole.

Song Xuan'an and Jiang Jingchun had been going crazy for almost a day, and they both went through dog holes, and now they looked a bit messy. Especially Jiang Jingchun, there was a dogtail grass stuck on his forehead, which looked extremely sloppy.

But even at this point, Jiang Jingchun didn't know where he got the courage from, he even dared to glance at Huai Sheng.

He sat there and glanced in their direction indifferently, but it was just a casual glance and he quickly looked away, as if he didn't take their affairs to heart.

It’s so late, and he hasn’t returned home yet?

Just this one look made Jiang Nan's anger uncontrollably strong. He shouted, "You idiot, you still have the nerve to look at others!"

Jiang Nan was still cautious about being in the old lady's territory, so he kept his voice down. However, even so, it still looked very intimidating.

Jiang Jingchun was frightened and shuddered, shrinking his head like a quail, and hung his head, not daring to look anymore.

Finally, Jiang Nan was afraid of disturbing the old lady who was resting, so he took Jiang Jingchun to the corridor outside to reprimand her.

Seeing this, Li immediately stood up and wanted to follow him out, but was held down by Jiang Runchu who was sitting next to her. He said, "Mother, she really went too far this time. We can't let her go any longer."

A few years ago, she stayed out all night with men outside her family, and people could think that she was young and ignorant. But now, she is so old and has already known the principle of "men and women should not touch each other", but she still does such a thing?

She keeps saying that she likes Gu Huaisheng, but she plays so closely with the man next to her.

When other people heard this, they didn't know how to describe her as being fickle.

She thought that they were just friends and it was okay for them to play together until late at night. But if other people heard about it, who knows how they would frame her.

After listening to Jiang Runchu's words, Li thought about it and really did not move anymore. However, her eyes kept looking outside, paying attention to their movements.

It was already completely dark, but the festive red lanterns were still hanging under the corridor. The red light made Jiang Nan's face look even more terrifying.

After Jiang Nan took Jiang Jingchun outside, he no longer had any scruples. With a gloomy face, he questioned Jiang Jingchun, "Your grandmother loves and cherishes you, but what about you? Tell me what you were thinking, sneaking out of the house on her birthday? Do you still have any human ethics?"

The girl's eyebrows were drooping, and there was no joy on her face anymore. At this moment, she bit her lips nervously, and blood oozed out of her lips, making them look even redder.

Jiang Nan's words were really harsh...

Human ethics?

He actually said that she was inhuman.

She didn't know why he said such harsh words to her, why he would put them on his own daughter.

But the funny thing is that after hearing this, Jiang Jingchun didn't know how to refute it.

Her eyes were still red from being scolded.

Jiang Nan looked at her like this, then looked at Song Xuan'an in the room, and his arrogance grew even stronger.

But he couldn't vent his anger on the Song family.

Song Xuan'an's grandfather, Song Ge Lao, had been an official in the court for a long time and was favored by the emperor. Moreover, when Jiang Nan was not yet a minister and was admitted to the Imperial Academy as the top scholar, he was promoted by Song Ge Lao. Now, he could not do anything ungrateful.

Even though he knew that Song Xuan'an was also wrong in this matter, as he abducted someone else's daughter and ran around everywhere, he could not scold him like he scolded Jiang Jingchun.

Jiang Nan turned around and said to Jiang Jingchun, "A few years ago, you went out with your friends and didn't come back all night. I thought you were young and your mind was not clear. But now you are sixteen years old and you have reached the age of marriage a few days ago. How can you still do such a thing?! If I don't send someone to look for you, you will never come back again."

Jiang Jingchun had been scolded by her father many times in the past, but perhaps it was because this time she was in front of so many people, or perhaps he scolded her too harshly, her eyelashes could no longer bear the weight of the tears, and the tears still slid out of her eye sockets. She lowered her head, and the cold tears fell on the back of her hand. There were already tear marks on her pale face.

"No...I didn't..."

Li couldn't bear to listen or watch any longer. She walked over to Jiang Nan and said, "Just say a few words. There's no need to scare people. What else do you want to do?!"

Jiang Nan no longer listened to her, "I told you to do this! I must punish her today, otherwise she will never learn her lesson."

As he said this, he asked someone to bring a board.

Seeing this, Song Xuan'an wanted to go out to stop them. He wanted to say that he was the one who coaxed Jiang Jingchun away and it had nothing to do with her.

But as soon as Ke Fang took a step forward, he was stopped by Gu Huai behind him.

"I think it's better for Mr. Song not to go."

Even if Song Xuan'an came to Jiang Nan at this time to speak for Jiang Jingchun and explain for her, what would it do? It would only make Jiang Nan angrier, and it would not do anything.

After hearing what Gu Huaisheng said, Song Xuan'an stopped and turned around to look at him.

Gu Huaisheng was still sitting there, having put down his cup.

He was looking at him too.