Chapter 1063 Deceiving Words, No Difference Between You and Me
“Think it over. My Lady has taken a fancy to your shop. It’s a great blessing for you,” Yujie emphasized. Behind Qu Le and Shao Wanru, she turned around after taking a few steps and snorted coldly at Madame Dong, who was full of smiles. Then she cocked her head and added, “If it weren’t for… My Lady wouldn’t be so easy on you.”
After that, she turned and walked away.
Her words sounded vague and imprecise. People on the scene stared at each other aghast, but no one dared to rush out and say something, so they just looked. Madame Dong’s smiling expression turned into a bitter one as she watched Princess Chen go away. Finally, she turned around and walked away with sort of heavy steps.
In the afternoon, shop boys in the Butterfly Clothing Shop were busy.
In a great bustle, they received guests while checking out all the goods in the shop. Some guests were curious to know why they would make an inventory when it was neither the end of the year nor the end of the month. The shop boys said it was the shopkeeper’s idea: she might sell the shop.
Madame Dong had been sitting in the accountant’s office and didn’t come out for once, so no one knew what she was doing inside. However, judging from what had happened, she couldn’t be in a good mood — she might be checking accounts or having a good cry.
Anyway, it must have something to do with Princess Chen. Even those shop boys were discussing it in private.
When Dong Xiuer heard the news, she hurried back to the Butterfly Clothing Shop. The family she married was near the shop. When she arrived, she didn’t ask the shop-boy to lead the way and went straight to knock on the door of the accountant’s office.
Madame Dong opened the door listlessly, appearing a little tired.
“Mother, what happened? What did Princess Chen say?” Dong Xiuer asked anxiously in a fluster. She dreaded Shao Wanru doing something terrible.
She feared Princess Chen, who was a few years younger than her, since three years ago. Therefore, Dong Xiuer never dared to disobey her.
She knew her mother’s Butterfly Clothing Shop belonged to Princess Chen. However, Princess Chen made trouble here at this time. Did she demand an explanation for her conflict with Infanta Yuan’an that day? But why? Wasn’t Princess Chen the owner of Butterfly Clothing Shop? So, why would she stir up trouble in her shop?
Madame Dong let Dong Xiuer come in. After closing the door again, she turned around and sat down behind the desk. Looking at her daughter, Madame Dong heaved a deep sigh. She asked instead of replying, “Xiuer, do you really want me to move to the Wei’s Mansion?”
“Mother, you are the first wife. Why can’t you move to the Wei’s Mansion?” Dong Xiuer asked in confusion. She really couldn’t understand her mother’s attitude toward this matter.
“The first wife? Who will acknowledge my status?” Madame Dong said, a faint sneer of sarcasm crossing the corners of her mouth.
“My father, of course. He said that you were the only woman in his heart. In the old days, he had no choice but to ask you to be his concubine first. When the time was right, he would make you his wife. But why did you leave him?” Dong Xiuer was exasperated with her. Why couldn’t her mother endure a short period of hardship to achieve a much better life?
“So he can only take me in as a concubine?” Madame Dong responded with a sneer.
“He said he wanted to compensate for your losses for so many years, promising to make you his secondary legal wife. He has been thinking of us all these years. Mom, as long as you agree, we can reunite as a family. Father looks pitiful on his own. Besides, he has striven hard for so long just for you and me. If we don’t go back, he will be very sad!”
Dong Xiuer increasingly disapproved of Madame Dong’s thoughts. So many years had passed, and those past events were long gone. Why didn’t her mother let go of the past?
Neither her mother nor her father should be blamed for what happened back then.
“How can Wei Dahai be pitiful?” Madame Dong was so pissed off that her eyes turned red. What did Wei Dahai say to Xiuer that caused the terrible misunderstanding? He was forcing her to agree. If she refused to marry him, even her only daughter wouldn’t understand and forgive her.
“Mom…”
Dong Xiuer went on persuading her, but Madame Dong reached out and stopped her. “Stop that. Listen to your father’s words and see if he deserves your sympathy. He will come soon.”
“Sure. He is very concerned about you,” Dong Xiuer said rightfully.
“He doesn’t care about me but this shop.” Madame Dong unceremoniously blew his cover and said, “If not for this shop, do you think he would bother to look at us? Even if we went begging before his mansion, he would only give us two steamed buns at most!”
Madame Dong had seen through Wei Dahai.
“Mom, how could you say that to disgrace my father?” Dong Xiuer couldn’t hold her tears from falling and kept wiping them with a handkerchief. “Even if you can’t understand him, you shouldn’t have said that. It hadn’t been easy for him to look for us for many years. There are so many people all around the world. How could he find us? Besides, we weren’t in the capital but lived in Jiangzhou.”
Dong Xiuer felt sorry for her father, secretly blaming Madame Dong for not listening to reason.
Suddenly there was a knock on the door, and they immediately stopped talking. Madame Dong reached out and pointed to the wide screen behind the chair, saying, “Go and sit behind the screen. Listen to how your good father deals with me, and think about whether he likes us or the interests behind us.”
Dong Xiuer wiped the corners of her eyes with a handkerchief and walked in unconvinced. Even if she listened in on their conversations, so what? Her father couldn’t think that way, and her mother was wrong about him.
After Dong Xiuer went to the chair behind the screen and sat down, Madame Dong collected himself and went to open the door.
As the door opened, Wei Dahai showed up with a look of deep concern.
During this period, Wei Dahai frequently sent people to deliver things. Occasionally, he would do it personally. All the staff in the shop knew that there must be an unusual relationship between Lord Wei and Madame Dong, so no one stopped him when he went straight to Madame Dong’s door.
“Lady Ming, did anything happen?” Seeing Madame Dong’s sullen face, Wei Dahai immediately asked with concern.
Madame Dong turned around and walked in, ignoring him.
Wei Dahai followed her in and closed the door deliberately.
Madame Dong had sat down behind the desk, on which there were a few account books. Some were open, and some were not. It could be seen that Madame Dong had been busy sorting out the account books.
“What’s wrong? Did Princess Chen make things difficult for you?” Wei Dahai asked solicitously again. He picked up one of the account books, flipping through it. The more he saw, the happier he became. The shop was making a huge profit.
He had been pressed for money at the moment. It would be great to get this amount of money into his pocket.
“I’m going to sell this shop to Princess Chen,” Madame Dong said with a poker face without looking at him.
“Why?” Wei Dahai stopped flipping through the account book and asked in surprise.
“There was a dispute between Infanta Yuan’an and Princess Chen here, and it has been a long time. I thought it was over, but I didn’t expect that Princess Chen wouldn’t let it go. She asked me to make it up for her and pushed me to transfer this shop to her,” Madame Dong lowered her head and said with a depressed look.
She was obviously in a foul mood.
“She has gone too far!” Wei Dahai slammed his hand on the table and roared, “Even if it is Princess Chen, so what? She can’t rob your shop!”
Then he comforted Madame Dong. “Don’t be afraid. I’ll stand up to this matter for you!”
“How? Your opponent will be Princess Chen!” Madame Dong didn’t believe him obviously and did not have a good temper.
Wei Dahai stood up and walked around the room a few times. This matter came as a complete surprise, so he was right out of ideas for the time being. If the buyer were the wife of an ordinary official, it would not be a big deal. But the problem was that this was Princess Chen. It was widely known that Prince Chen was very protective of her. Even Infanta Yuan’an had suffered losses when confronting Princess Chen, not to mention him.
Wei Dahai felt rather regretful that he was not powerful enough.
“After I sort out the account books and check the property, I’ll hand it over to Princess Chen,” Madame Dong said.
“How much will she pay?” Wei Dahai asked subconsciously.
“She will give me 20,000 taels of silver.!” Madame Dong looked listless, her face going down lower and lower.
“What? Only 20,000 taels of silver? This shop’s business is so good, but how could she only offer such a small amount of money? The Prince Chen’s Mansion bullies us too much!” Wei Dahai was furious and upset. In his opinion, Madame Dong’s money was his. At this time, letting Princess Chen get the best of the bargain made him feel as painful as cutting his flesh.
He couldn’t help lamenting this significant loss.
No, he would never let Madame Dong sell this shop at such a low price. Rolling his eyes, he suddenly came up with an idea and sat back in the chair, saying, “Lady Ming, you can tell Princess Chen that this shop isn’t yours but mine. You can transfer the shop to me and be the shopkeeper I hire to run the shop. In this case, Princess Chen can’t do anything about it.”
“Telling her this shop is yours?” Madame Dong frowned and gave Wei Dahai a meaningful look.
However, Wei Dahai mistakenly thought she liked this idea, so he immediately continued to persuade her, “Now you only need to go to the yamen and sign this shop over to me. After you marry into my mansion and become my Madam, I will let someone else run the shop. Isn’t it a brilliant idea?”
The more Wei Dahai talked, the more he thought it was feasible, and his eyes lit up. In this way, it would no longer be proper for Princess Chen to snatch this shop away. After all, robbing it from Wei Dahai was different from taking this shop from an ordinary businesswoman like Madame Dong. No matter how arbitrary Princess Chen was, she couldn’t do such a thing.
As soon as he seized the legal ownership of this shop, Wei Dahai wouldn’t care whether Madame Dong would choose to marry into his mansion or not. Anyway, he only wanted this shop from the start. With this profit-making shop, he could get more money to spend.
As this thought ran through Wei Dahai’s head, his face was full of smiles.
Dong Xiuer, hiding behind the screen, kept nodding as she listened. However, at this moment, she finally sensed something wrong. She was just soft-hearted but not stupid. Her father’s words sounded unreasonable. How could he offer such a piece of unfair advice? It was completely different from those affectionate words he said when he mentioned her mother.
” Could it be that mom was right?” For a moment, her heart ached as though a knife had been plunged into it. She twisted the handkerchief in her hand to stop herself from making any noise.
“I’ll transfer this shop to you as my dowry. When I marry into your mansion, you’ll give the dowry back to me. Shouldn’t our agreement be notarized in the yamen? What if you go back on your word?” Madame Dong said in a deep voice.
“Lady Ming, when you marry me, you’ll be my wife. From then on, you’ll live an extravagant life in my mansion. There’s no need to make it that clear. We’re husband and wife sharing everything, so why must we notarize our arrangement? People will laugh at us. The dowry is and will always be yours. You don’t have to illustrate it officially!
When Xiuer, hiding behind the screen, heard this, her heart started thumping. Her sentimental attachment to her father seemed to have broken completely…
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