Chapter 920: The Peasant Girl’s Splendid Manor
Chapter 920: Love and Hatred, Digging the Corner (1)
The first batch of fish weighed over a thousand jin. Mo Yan had used a cart to deliver 150 jin to the shop the previous day for sale. She left 120 jin, while the remaining 30 jin were sent to the shopkeepers of the execution and wood trades. The rest was all delivered to the Zhuangyuan residence and the Liu family.
Mo Yan had set the price of the fish a bit higher, charging five more wen per jin than the market price. The customers who came to buy rice from the Mo family’s rice shop were not short of money, and the shop had a good reputation for never deceiving its customers. Thanks to the recommendations from Li Zhong and others, those who liked fish, or had family members who did, readily paid for it.
As a result, the next day, those who had bought fish the previous day flocked to the shop—not for rice, but for the fish.
Fortunately, Mo Yan had been prepared. She brought over all the remaining 800 jin of fish, and within an hour, they were all sold out.
This batch of fish earned nearly twelve taels of silver, which might seem like a small amount—less than half of what the rice shop earned in a day. However, it was extra wealth, and Mo Yan happily tucked it into her purse.
Later, the fish in the pond were harvested twice more, totaling 1,000 jin. The fish were sold over two days, and they were quickly sold out as well. During this time, the birds that had flown away began returning one by one, bringing back the news Mo Yan had been waiting for.
"Without the Zhao family, Fan Meijiao is nothing," Mo Yan said, suddenly understanding. She then sneered, "Looks like I don’t need to intervene. She’s destined to never turn her life around. Fine, let her and the wife of the Marquis of Yongchang's nephew love and hate each other. That way, I won’t get my hands dirty."
"Yes, yes, that’s best!" Xue Tuanzi nodded in agreement, then sighed in a mock-serious manner, "That wife of the Marquis of Yongchang is no good either. What’s that saying again? Oh, right, ‘evil people have their match.’"
The Marquis of Yongchang’s nephew, known as Master Mu, came from the second-tier Mu family. Although they couldn’t compare to the Cui family, they were more than enough for someone like Fan Meijiao. Originally, a man like him could remarry a woman from a good family, even if he was a widower. However, due to an injury in his youth, Master Mu was unable to engage with women. As he grew older, his temper became increasingly volatile and sinister.
To cover up his condition, the Mu family married him to a woman of no notable background, claiming that she was infertile, and they adopted a boy from a collateral branch of the family to carry on the family line. This woman was timid and weak, and after realizing that her husband couldn’t consummate the marriage and that the in-laws planned to adopt a boy, she silently accepted this cruel reality.
Unfortunately, Master Mu’s temper was volatile and violent, and he frequently beat or verbally abused his wife for the smallest offenses. Seeing that her husband was unreliable, the adopted child became her last hope.
But one day, a cold wind took that hope away. The poor woman couldn’t bear the blow and, in despair, hanged herself. The Mu family claimed it was due to illness.
Master Mu was still young, and failing to remarry would lead to suspicion. In order to avoid his condition being discovered, the Mu family’s choice of a new wife was limited. After much deliberation, they finally settled on Fan Meijiao.
First, Fan Meijiao had no powerful backing, and the Zhao family meant little to the Mu family, so they were not afraid of her causing trouble. Second, they believed that a woman like Fan Meijiao, who was discarded for her moral failings, would be grateful to remarry into a prominent family like the Mu family, and thus, wouldn’t dare speak out.
Unfortunately, the Mu family hadn’t bothered to investigate Fan Meijiao’s character and conduct. If they had, they would have never chosen such a troublesome woman.
Mo Yan was disgusted by the Mu family and that man, Master Mu, who didn’t value women. A woman like Fan Meijiao was a perfect match for such a scoundrel. It saved them from harming other good women.
[End of Chapter]
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