Wushuang quickly came to an answer.
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Chapter 134 | Table of Contents
Chapter 134:
The procession of carriages and horses approached at a leisurely pace and stopped in front of Wushuang's carriage.
A servant who was following behind the middle carriage ran forward, lifted the hem of his robe, and knelt down beside the carriage shaft.
Then the carriage curtain was lifted from the inside out, and a middle-aged woman and a young girl stepped onto his back and got off.
The stable manager who had been fawning over Wushuang while preparing the carriage for her suddenly showed a look of surprise upon seeing the newcomers. Fortunately, he quickly regained his composure and whispered a reminder: "Your Highness, this is the former Princess and the First Princess."
Wushuang had already guessed this, but since she had never met the old Princess Consort of Ying, she dared not rush forward to acknowledge her. At this moment, after hearing the reminder from the old servant who had served in the Prince's mansion for many years, she immediately stepped forward and respectfully bowed to her mother-in-law and sister-in-law.
Princess Consort of Ying is not actually old. She married at fifteen and was not yet thirty when her husband passed away. Now she is only in her early forties. It's just that her son inherited the title of prince, so the people below, in order to distinguish between the two generations, insist on calling her old.
She wore a sky-blue, diagonally-fastened jacket paired with a dark green horse-face skirt, both made of solid-colored fabric without any embellishments. Her jet-black hair was styled into a bun, adorned with a plain white jade hairpin, and she wore a pair of white jade bracelets on her wrists. Apart from these, she wore no other ornaments.
Wushuang knew that her mother-in-law was dressed so simply because of her status as a widow, but having grown up in a wealthy family and used to seeing noblewomen in fine clothes and elaborate attire, she couldn't help but feel that the old princess looked particularly aloof and gave off an inexplicable sense of distance.
When the old princess spoke, it indirectly confirmed the feeling of being unparalleled.
She said, "You are Yao'er's princess? I know you are still young, but you are married after all. How can you be so undignified? You walk with a staggering gait. What kind of manners are you? Even the servants who run errands for me are not as unruly as you."
Wushuang vaguely remembered that when she left home in her previous life, the old princess had not yet returned to the Prince of Ying's mansion. Therefore, although she had been married for half a year, she had never worried about how to get along with her mother-in-law.
To her utter surprise, the first thing the old Princess Ying said to her upon their first meeting was indifferent and critical, full of disdain, as if a bucket of cold water had been poured over her head.
Wu Shuang instinctively wanted to argue, but the other party was, after all, an elder and Chu Yao's biological mother. She held back and swallowed the words that were on the tip of her tongue, only saying respectfully, "Mother is right."
However, she still felt somewhat resentful: although the old princess and Consort Jing had different temperaments, one was cold and aloof and the other was gentle and kind, their eyes and eyebrows were very similar, and they were obviously sisters born of the same mother. Why were their ways of treating people so different?
Before Wushuang could finish speaking, and before the old princess could say anything, Chu Pei, dressed in a jade-green silk ruqun, chuckled and said, "When I first heard that my brother was proposing to my sister-in-law, she was just a little child of a few years old. I always thought that my sister-in-law must have extraordinary qualities in appearance, speech, and methods. But seeing her today... she is truly not as good as she sounds."
Chu Pei's voice was clear and pleasant, but the sarcasm in her words was undisguised.
Wushuang was inevitably somewhat embarrassed.
What's going on? We've never met before, and I haven't even had a chance to offend her, so why are both of them making things difficult for her?
Normally, if anyone treated Wushuang like that, she would have already lost her temper.
But the mother-in-law and sister-in-law are people you'll be living under the same roof for years to come, seeing each other all the time. If they clash from the start, wouldn't there be endless trouble later? But if she doesn't fight back, won't people think she's too weak and easily bullied, and then she'll become even more aggressive?
Just as I was hesitating, an old woman stepped down from the carriage behind me. She had a plain face, wore a simple cloth jacket, and had a square face with graying temples.
It was Qiao's mother who had been sold by Chu Yaofa a few months ago.
Wushuang suddenly realized why the old princess disliked her; it must have been Qiao Mama who complained, making the old princess think that she had just entered the house and had already driven away the people around the old princess in a fit of anger.
But she was completely in the wrong and wasn't afraid to confront Qiao's mother.
When you have a clear plan in mind, you can be more composed when dealing with things.
When the old princess asked Wushuang where she was going, she only said that she planned to go out to buy some books, omitting the fact that Yang Tiange had come to the Jun family.
Since we don't yet know what happened, and it's too complicated to explain, we should wait until we clear up the old princess's prejudice against her before bringing her back to her parents' home, and proceed step by step.
Wushuang accompanied the old princess and her daughter all the way to the main courtyard of the palace.
Logically, after the old prince passed away, the old princess should have moved out of the main courtyard, leaving it to Chu Yao and his princess. However, for some unknown reason, she did not move.
Wushuang didn't care. Compared to the orderly main courtyard, she preferred the Yuanxiang Hall, which Chu Yao had specially built for her to live in.
The three sat down in the main hall of the courtyard in order, and the maidservants quickly served tea and snacks.
The old princess calmly sipped her tea for a while, chatted casually with Chu Pei, and finally brought up Qiao's mother: "...Don't think that your sister-in-law is incompetent just because she's young. I don't even know what kind of methods she has, but within a month of joining the sect, she managed to get your brother to sell off the old women who were part of your mother's dowry."
Wushuang had been waiting for her to make her move. Upon hearing this, she boldly tilted her head back and drank the tea in her cup in one gulp, then said, "Mother, there is another reason for this..."
The old princess glanced at her and said, "Did I ask you a question? It's true that you have no manners."
Such a retort would likely have silenced a weaker person, who might have been in the right but dared not say more.
However, Wushuang was not so easily bullied. After seeing Madam Qiao, she had already instructed Chaohua to go back to her room and retrieve the written agreement that Madam Qiao had previously drawn up. Now, she took the opportunity to say, "I have something here that I would like to ask Mother to take a look at."
The old princess glanced at the receipt that Chaohua handed over without changing her expression, and frowned, saying, "I know about this. It's just a few hundred taels of silver, what's the big deal? Everyone says how much His Majesty values the Marquis of Runan. I suppose you've never suffered hardship or poverty since you were a child, so why do you value money so much?"
Chu Pei held the teacup, smiled slightly, and although she didn't say anything, her disdain was obvious.
Wushuang was so angry that she gritted her teeth.
The implication is that she's petty and only cares about money.
Is it wrong to restrict subordinates from misappropriating public funds for their own use?
When the old princess returned to the mansion, Liu'er, having received the news, dug Chu Wan out of her bed, dressed her up nicely, and brought her to the main courtyard.
Before Chu Wan even saw her birth mother's face, she heard her mocking Wu Shuang in the corridor. Chu Wan and Wu Shuang had always been close, so she couldn't bear to see her wronged. As soon as she entered the room, she rushed to defend her: "Brother sold several mothers not just for money. They poisoned Sister Qiqiao's food and medicine, causing her to fall ill for a long time. Moreover, I was injured and hit my head because of it."
As she spoke, she lifted her newly grown bangs and said, "There are still scars here."
The old princess looked over and indeed saw a light pink scar about half a finger long at the junction of Chu Wan's smooth, fair forehead and hairline.
A slight displeasure flashed across her face: "What's going on? You two are so ill-mannered. You came in without even bowing to Mother and Sister, and then you started chattering away with a bunch of nonsense. Who taught you that?"