Chapter 1158: Fighting Each Other

Lady Gan nodded with satisfaction and warned Chen Cangjin, "Remember, your family came as beggars fleeing famine. Our family has been wealthy in the Prefecture for generations. It would be easy to crush you. Don’t try any tricks on me."

"Yes, yes, I understand. I wouldn’t dare play games with you, madam." Chen Cangjin thought disdainfully, "Wealthy family my foot, just a general store, a house, and a crude maid, not even two maids, yet they dare call themselves a wealthy family? Who are they threatening? Just wait until I bring back Chen Shuihua, our family will have more money than you."

Lady Gan, having heard enough, didn’t say much more, and just ordered the crude maid to follow Chen Cangjin to their dwelling place for a look.

Chen Cangjin laughed as he took the silver and led the way, with the Gan family’s maid following behind. It took them almost an hour to reach the Chen family’s abode.

There was a forest beneath Small Qingyun Temple, and within it a cemetery, but the Chen family didn’t mind. The whole family was living in a hut by the graves.

This hut was built by someone for mourning purposes, and the Chen family, being too lazy to bother building a new shack, moved right in.

The Gan family’s maid, seeing this, was utterly disdainful. This Chen family truly feared nothing and was lazy beyond belief. People like them, she thought, would be incapable of deceiving the lady, so she watched from a distance for a moment. Seeing Chen Cangjin take out the silver and the Chen family scrambling and fighting for it, she sneered and turned to leave.

After she had gone, Chen Cangjin shoved Chen Canggu, who was rushing to grab the silver, out of the way.

With a crash, Chen Canggu was knocked to the ground. Enraged, he got up and kicked Chen Cangjin’s injured leg with its severed tendon, causing Chen Cangjin to fall backward to the ground and cry out in pain, "Old San, you poisonous bastard! Always going for my injured leg! Do you even consider me your elder brother?!"

Chen Canggu chuckled, "You pushed me first, how can you blame me?"

Hearing this, Chen Cangjin’s wife couldn’t stand it and immediately came at Chen Canggu’s wife, Ms. Shan, with their daughter and son, pulling out a handful of Ms. Shan’s hair and leaving scratches on her face.

"Ah, you shrew Mrs. Chi, ganging up on me, I’ll fight you to the death!" Ms. Shan, with her two sons, fought back against Mrs. Chi and her two kids, mercilessly and viciously.

Chen Lao’er’s wife, Ms. Xiao Ruan, stood with her son beside Madam Old Ruan, watching the spectacle without attempting to stop the fight, instead provocatively saying, "Third sister-in-law, you’d better stop fighting. Our elder sister-in-law is our senior; she has every right to discipline us. If you fight back, it’s a great disrespect."

"Ha, Ms. Xiao Ruan, you venomous wretch, you’re hoping for us to be beaten to death, aren’t you? Quit pretending, shut your mouth, or I’ll come for you next," Ms. Shan, already unhappy from being beaten by Mrs. Chi, wished she had extra hands to beat Ms. Xiao Ruan too.

Hearing this, Ms. Xiao Ruan instantly started to cry, sobbing, "Bullying me, you’re all bullying me. I know ever since the second brother died, you’ve all been hoping to sell our family off for money. Now that our aunt protects us and you can’t, you bully us openly and in secret."

The "aunt" Ms. Xiao Ruan referred to is Mrs. Chen’s mother, Madam Old Ruan.

Madam Old Ruan favored her natal family most, so she arranged for Chen Lao’er to marry her niece Ms. Xiao Ruan, and over the years, favored their branch of the family.

After Chen Lao’er was killed for stealing grain during the famine, Madam Old Ruan became even more partial to their branch; any food found had to be given to the second branch first, then herself, and then the other two branches.

Mrs. Chi and Ms. Shan were therefore very dissatisfied with the second branch, and with Ms. Xiao Ruan’s penchant for shedding tears to complain, they’d love nothing more than to chop her up.

Seeing the mayhem, Madam Old Ruan struck Mrs. Chi with a cane, scolding, "Enough, Eldest, Old San, Mrs. Chi, Ms. Shan, have you had enough? Fighting over a piece of silver, is that all you’re capable of?"

She then glared at Chen Cangjin, scolding, "Eldest, do you not see me as your own mother? It’s expected to give the silver to honor your mother first, yet you want to hide it away. Are you trying to bring down the wrath of heavens upon you?"

Chen Cangjin cursed his luck silently, he didn’t want to take out the silver, but since the Gan family’s maid was watching nearby, he dared not keep it hidden.

But once the family saw him take it out, there was no way to save it.

Unwilling to let the whole silver be taken, Chen Cangjin said to Madam Old Ruan, "Mother, this piece of silver is gratitude money from a wealthy lady I saved. I’ll give it to you, but only two and a half taels can be given; the other two and a half taels I need to keep."

"Ha, gratitude money?" Chen Canggu almost burst out laughing, "Eldest brother, your lies are becoming more and more careless. Saved a wealthy lady? You’re that lucky? How come we haven’t saved a wealthy lady ourselves."

They lived under the Small Qingyun Temple, staying by the road to it all day, hoping to save a wealthy lady or young lady there, to get rich from a life-saving debt. But they hadn’t even got close to any wealthy lady, so there was no way the eldest brother had saved one.

Chen Cangjin knew his lies wouldn’t fool this bunch of old foxes in the family, but he didn’t want them to know about Lady Gan; he wanted to deal with her himself and swindle her silver.

So Chen Cangjin immediately said, "Mother, I had a stroke of luck today. Not only did I save a wealthy lady, but I also met Shuihua."

"Shuihua?" Madam Old Ruan stopped, wrinkling her old brow to think, and asked, "Who is that?"

"Oh my, dear mother, it’s your unfilial daughter, Chen Shuihua, who married the second son of the Gu Family Village village chief!" Chen Cangjin was exasperated; how could his mother forget her own daughter’s name.

This was not to blame on Madam Old Ruan. Mrs. Chen and Madam Old Ruan were not close, and Shuihua was a name given when the family scorned her for being a girl, wanting to drown her in a tub, thus naming her after the splash of water.

Such a careless name, made in such a haphazard way, Madam Old Ruan’s old age made it truly hard to remember.

And generally, the name wasn’t used much; the family called Mrs. Chen "money loser" or "shrewish girl."

After hearing this, Madam Old Ruan remembered who Shuihua was, angrily asking, "And what if you saw her? How is this unfilial girl doing now, is she also begging in the city?"

Madam Old Ruan, remembering what Mrs. Chen did after marrying into the village chief’s family, was tempted to strangle this unfilial daughter, dreaming of her daughter’s downfall and begging, to see how she’d mock them then.

Chen Cangjin exclaimed with envy, "Mother, oh, Chen Shuihua is something now. She’s become a wealthy madam and is currently running a tofu workshop selling tofu in the north of the city, quite impressive."

"What, what did you say, elder brother? The well-run tofu workshop in the north is run by Chen Shuihua?" Chen Canggu was dumbfounded, never expecting that the skinny little Chen Shuihua, who had only wild vegetables and some boiled soybeans to eat at home, could become a shopkeeper’s wife.