Shen Wuqiu had no choice but to resort to her trump card: "Don't you trust my judgment of people at all?"
Zhao Jiujiu snorted, "No matter what, before I approve of this couple, I definitely won't let you have your way with the matter of the children. After all, these children in your belly are my grandchildren."
So, after learning that Gu Junshan and Daiying had no intention of leaving after arriving, Zhao Jiujiu asked Song Jue to go back to the city to move her personal belongings early the next morning.
She would never stand by and watch this woman coax her own grandson away.
As the saying goes, "Isn't it a pleasure to have friends coming from afar?"
Mr. Shen treated the Gu Junshan couple, whose relationship was delicate and awkward, with great hospitality. When his brother-in-law and sister-in-law said they wanted to stay at his house for a few days, he dared not neglect them even more.
Su Yunzhi, whose relationship with Zhao Jiujiu was awkward and delicate, also dared not be negligent. Although she felt that the elder brother and sister-in-law of her husband's ex-wife were shameless, she had to be more enthusiastic towards the former mistress's relatives in order to show her magnanimity as the new mistress.
The Shen family home became unusually lively for a time.
Shen Wuqiu also felt a lot of pressure from the sudden and inexplicable liveliness in her home.
Therefore, after confirming that her aunt didn't plan to leave anytime soon, she decisively grabbed a cat and kissed it, saying, "From now on, you're going to stay with me every step of the way. Whatever I say goes, understand?"
Gu Lingyu was more than happy to accept this, but she had a small worry: "What if Dad asks me about it again?"
“Now that your father and mother are back, I believe it will be easy to turn you into a cat.”
Gu Lingyu pouted, "Sister can do it, why bother parents?"
Speaking of this, she remembered something else, "By the way, sister, do you remember what happened during your afternoon nap yesterday?"
Shen Wuqiu's expression stiffened almost imperceptibly, but she quickly regained her composure. "What happened during yesterday's afternoon nap?"
"It's about you kissing me like a cat again."
Shen Wuqiu clenched her fingers and frowned: "I don't know what you're talking about?"
Gu Lingyu looked at her, puzzled, and asked, "Was Sister also dreaming yesterday?"
"That was probably a dream..."
Gu Lingyu still couldn't understand: "That's impossible, I can't sense my sister's dreams at all..."
Shen Wuqiu interrupted her: "Didn't you say that your spiritual power has been weak lately?"
Gu*TieHanHan*LingYu: "Could it be because of this reason?"
Shen Wuqiu secretly breathed a sigh of relief: "That must be it."
Gu Lingyu was somewhat disappointed: "So, what you said about me being pretty doesn't count?"
Shen Wuqiu glanced at her quickly: "I don't need to say that you're beautiful, everyone can see it."
"But my sister praised me differently..." Gu Lingyu stopped mid-sentence, then seemed to remember something, "So my sister also thinks I'm pretty?"
Shen Wuqiu, chin in hand, said, "I'm not blind."
Although she was quite arrogant, Gu Lingyu thought it was sweet talk, since praising her looks was practically the same as saying "I like you."
Because my mother always said, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
****
With Gu Lingyu acting as a goofy accomplice, Shen Wuqiu found various reasons to avoid directly confronting the three women in his family:
—Aunt, I won't go for a walk with you after dinner. Lingyu has some girlish worries lately and said she wants to talk to me about them.
—Aunt Dai, I let Lingyu drink the fish soup you personally stewed, and her appetite has been a bit strange these past two days.
"Auntie, Lingyu wants to come with us when we go out later."
...
Unlike the city, the countryside doesn't offer a variety of entertainment options. Plus, the recent continuous rainy weather has made it difficult for the whole family to find something to do.
Living under the same roof, the men got along fairly well. Although they didn't talk much, they often sat in a row in the yard, which could kill half a day more than throwing pebbles.
As for the women—as the saying goes, "two tigers cannot share one mountain," but now three tigers have appeared, so you can imagine the undercurrents between them.
Of course, the one who felt the most tormented was Su Yunzhi. On one side was someone she couldn't afford to offend, and on the other side was someone she didn't want to offend. The two of them were like oil and water, and she was caught in the middle, so damn conflicted that she wanted to run away from home.
After two days of open and covert struggles, not only was Su Yunzhi, caught in the middle, exhausted, but Zhao Jiujiu and Daiying also felt somewhat bored.
Especially Zhao Jiujiu, she was never one to stay idle, she spent all her time arguing with people in the house, and at first she was full of fighting spirit.
After two days of arguing, she felt that this kind of life was boring and started thinking about the dam reservoir again.
After breakfast that day, Zhao Jiujiu took the initiative to sit down next to Daiying. "It's pointless for us to go around trying to get attention from Qiuqiu every day. It only annoys her. Why don't we do something more meaningful?"
"Yes, that's exactly what I was thinking. Is there anything you'd like to do?"
After spending two days together, Daiying didn't have the same prejudice against Zhao Jiujiu as Zhao Jiujiu did against her. On the contrary, she admired Zhao Jiujiu's genuine nature. In addition, Zhao Jiujiu's occasional annoying moments were all for Shen Wuqiu's sake, so Daiying couldn't hate her even more.
"You must know something about Qiuqiu's background, right?" Zhao Jiujiu glanced at her. "People like you must have already done a thorough investigation into Qiuqiu."
“We do know some other things about Qiuqiu, but we don’t care about the so-called net worth you mentioned.”
That's the tone of a rich person.
Zhao Jiujiu hated herself for not being rich enough. "Our family isn't the best, but we're better off than most. I'm not trying to impress you by pretending to be rich. Even if Qiuqiu had four more babies, we could raise them without any trouble."
"Of course I believe that."
This nonchalant tone made Zhao Jiujiu a little deflated, so she stopped making a pointless show of defiance and said directly, "Qiuqiu owns a reservoir of 1,500 mu, which was previously managed by her cousin's son. He spent tens or hundreds of thousands of yuan raising fish for two years, but only harvested 2,000 jin."
Daiying really didn't understand these mundane things of the mortal world, so she could only patiently listen to what others had to say. After waiting for a long time without hearing anything further, she couldn't help but ask, "And then?"
"Don't you think there's a big problem with this?"
Daiying observed her expression, and after a couple of seconds, said seriously, "Yes, there is indeed a problem."
The two finally found common ground.
Zhao Jiujiu found her somewhat agreeable. "Qiuqiu's father is a man of great loyalty, and it is precisely because of this loyalty that he sometimes favors his relatives. Even with such a huge loss to the reservoir this time, he didn't pursue the matter much, even though it's none of our business. But now the reservoir is Qiuqiu's property, and I won't just watch her suffer such a loss."
When it comes to protecting Shen Wuqiu, the two are definitely of the same mind. Daiying is very supportive, saying, "We really can't let Qiuqiu be bullied."
"What Qiuqiu? You're calling me that like we're some kind of close niece?"
"..." Daiying didn't argue with her and corrected her, "Well, Wuqiu. So what are you planning to do?"
"I just don't believe that such a large reservoir with tens of thousands of fish could only have two thousand catties of fish. Someone must be up to something."
Daiying understood; that was easy to handle. "Would you like me to help you investigate?"
Zhao Jiujiu looked at her: "How are you going to investigate?"
Everything has a spirit, and the spirit cat clan is connected to all spirits. With her abilities, she can know by simply lighting the water in the reservoir.
However, such words should not be spoken to outsiders.
Seeing that she was not speaking, Zhao Jiujiu thought she was annoyed by the trouble. "Fine, I think I'll try to figure out a solution."
Daiying did not speak.
The very next morning, she said to Zhao Jiujiu, "There have never been so many fish in the reservoir before."
Chapter 46 Silly
Zhao Jiujiu had considered this possibility.
But she had only considered this possibility. Before investigating the matter thoroughly, she didn't dare to say such things openly, since the person in charge was Mr. Shen's nephew.
Secondly, regarding the reservoir issue, she was still unsure where to begin. The night before, she was discussing it with her husband, Song Jue, and the couple planned to use their connections to thoroughly investigate Shen Zhipeng.
As a result, in just one night, they gave her a result with great certainty.
Zhao Jiujiu wasn't disbelieving, but she felt a subtle sense of resentment—I didn't even know where to begin, and you've already given me the results.
Furthermore, "The number of fish raised in the reservoir was reported to Qiuqiu's father beforehand, so Lao Le definitely knew the exact number of fish raised."
“I don’t know how much Wuqiu’s father knows, but at the reservoir, they only released 5,000 fish fry that time.”
"Five thousand? Only five thousand?" Zhao Jiujiu was shocked. Nearly one hundred thousand yuan was spent on fish fry, but only five thousand fish fry were released. Did they buy gold?
"Yes, five thousand."
Zhao Jiujiu looked at her, then thought for a moment, "How do you know so much?"
Daiying yawned: "I asked last night."
"Last night?" Zhao Jiujiu looked at the faint dark circles under her eyes, her feelings were very complicated: "Where did you ask?"
Daiying looked at her and asked in return, "Does Madam Song not believe in my abilities?"
In short, where she asked and who she asked are things she can't tell outsiders. Even if she did, no one would believe that a turtle in a reservoir would tell her so much.
Based on a woman's wonderful intuition, Zhao Jiujiu didn't think her words were unbelievable. She just had mixed feelings—first, she didn't expect this woman to be so capable, and second, she didn't expect this woman to care so much about Qiuqiu's affairs.
After a few seconds of silence, Zhao Jiujiu awkwardly replied, "I didn't expect you to be so efficient."
Daiying raised an eyebrow: "Aunt Wuqiu, are you praising me?"
Zhao Jiujiu hummed in agreement: "I have never underestimated you."
Daiying nodded her chin and smiled at her: "I only just realized that Aunt Wuqiu is quite cute."
Upon hearing this, Zhao Jiujiu immediately got goosebumps. "No, please don't say such mushy things to me."
Daiying burst out laughing at her words.
"……why are you laughing?"
“I laughed… Aunt Wuqiu is so cute.”
"..." Zhao Jiujiu's face turned dark.
Dai Ying stopped adding fuel to the fire and her smile faded. "I'm not joking with you anymore. I need to talk to you about something serious. I'll leave the rest of the reservoir project to you, so I don't steal all the credit. You'd lose face, wouldn't you?"
"...Well, you really know how to be a good person, giving me a result without any evidence, leaving the troublesome stuff to me."
Daiying picked at her nails. "It'll give you something to do, won't it make your days more fulfilling?"
Why don't you find something to do?
Daiying yawned at the opportune moment, "I'm a very lazy person. Look, I need to go back to sleep for a while."
Zhao Jiujiu wanted to retort, but when she saw the faint blue under her eyes, she swallowed her words and said instead, "Eat and sleep, sleep and eat, you're like a pig."