Chapter 18: Bones broken but tendons still connected

"Then sister won't be polite. I'll call Xin'er over tomorrow. If it doesn't work, I'll have her live here with you."

"No, she's a young lady, it's better for her to return to your house."

"Pfft, giving you a servant girl for free and you don't even want her."

"Is that something a mother should say?"

"Haha, what's wrong with that? She's your apprentice, what's wrong with using her to serve you? I'm not even heartbroken, yet you're the one feeling sorry for her."

Qiao Mai laughed, "I think you should buy two servant girls to help in the shop, or hire two people. From now on, Ruxin and Ruyi can't do the chores in the shop anymore, it wastes too much time."

Lu Sanniang thought about it and agreed, "Sister, you make sense. I should buy some. Bought ones won't have two hearts."

Qiao Mai glanced at her, smiled, and didn't say anything. Lu Sanniang couldn't stay long, so she left after a while.

Two days later, she really did buy two servant girls, both fifteen or sixteen, the perfect age to be useful.

Neither looked very good, but they looked very clever. Lu Sanniang knew very well what kind of servant girls suited her.

This freed up Ruxin and Ruyi to focus on embroidery. The two came to Qiao Mai's place every day to work with her, and they took the time to clean her house thoroughly and even cooked for her before returning.

It could be said that these two children truly regarded her as their master.

Therefore, she, as their master, wasn't stingy either, teaching them all the embroidery arts she knew.

Little Ling'er in the space was already two months old. Qiao Mai had raised her to be white and chubby. Although she was a premature baby, she looked like a full-term infant.

She grew very fast in these two months, thanks to the good formula milk, which was produced by a world-class manufacturer and was no worse than breast milk.

As the child continued to grow, her eyes also opened.

Qiao Mai would go in every hour to feed her, change her diaper, pick her up to pat her back, and play with her for a while.

After Qiao Shicheng and his wife took the ten taels of silver, they didn't buy grain but went straight home, fearing that others would snatch it from them.

Qiao Jiang and Qiao He, the two brothers, had been waiting at home. They were embarrassed to go along. The family was struggling, but not yet at the point of running out of food.

When they first heard that their sister was being mistreated at her in-laws', neither of the two men thought about having the Tian family support their sister.

It was mainly because they had taken the hundred catties of grain from the Tian family and hadn't even given their sister a dowry, which made it impossible for them to ever stand tall. Furthermore, they didn't really love this sister.

Not long after, news came that their sister was pregnant and had been kicked by her mother-in-law, causing a miscarriage. Their hearts felt terrible.

It wasn't out of guilt toward Qiao Mai, but rather because they were being pointed at behind their backs wherever they went.

Their sister was being bullied, yet the two brothers could stay at home, clearly knowing about it but pretending they didn't. Their faces had been trampled into the dirt.

Later, when they learned that their sister had been saved by the owner of the embroidery workshop, they finally let out a long sigh of relief.

But then they faced another wave of criticism from people in the village, because an outsider could save their sister, while they, as brothers, hadn't even lifted a finger. This plunged them into the gossip of the villagers again.

For the past two days, the brothers' wives had been poking at Qiao Shicheng and his wife, saying that Qiao Mai was doing well now and should help her maiden family.

The two old people were embarrassed to go at first, but they couldn't stand the nagging of their daughters-in-law, so they gritted their teeth and went.

The outcome was something they hadn't expected. They thought they could get some money from their daughter, but who would have thought that not only had she sold herself to the embroidery workshop, but she also owed them twenty taels of silver.

The two were roasted in the ridicule of the common people. Qiao Shicheng felt he couldn't save face, so he said those things, and the result was something he hadn't expected.

However, they were still very happy to get ten taels of silver. A catty of wheat with husks was four wen, so how much could ten taels buy?

With Qiao Mai's appearance and her current status, even if she remarried, it would just be as a fill-in wife, and their Qiao family wouldn't get much out of it, so severing ties was fine.

However, Qiao Shicheng didn't take severing ties seriously. He felt that after a while, when people stopped talking about it, they were still Qiao Mai's parents, and bones are broken but tendons are still connected.

When the time came, he would go find her and say a few soft words, and Qiao Mai might just forgive them.

Once she did well in the embroidery workshop, she could continue to help the family. Anyway, she had sold herself and wouldn't remarry, so her money would all belong to the Qiao family in the future.

After Qiao Shicheng and his wife took the silver home, they locked it up and looked at it several times a day, fearing it would disappear. They had never seen a ten-tael ingot of silver in their lives.

The two daughters-in-law were also incredibly happy, going to their mother-in-law's room every day to coax her.

In the end, the silver wasn't even warm before it was split up. The first branch was given two taels, the second branch was given two taels, and the remaining six taels were used to buy a slab of meat and some grain. Qiao Lvshi wouldn't take out the remaining four taels ever again.

Let's put it this way: the Qiao family used the money from severing ties with their daughter to eat a few good meals, and each of the two sisters-in-law had a silver hairpin stuck in her hair.

They weren't completely shameless yet; they didn't dare let others know they were eating and drinking well, and they didn't dare wear the silver hairpins out, only admiring them at home.

After Old Tian Head and his wife returned home, they were also holding back their anger.

"That bitch, she promised not to tell anyone, and now the whole town knows. It even made the Town Chief have a bad impression of our family."

"Yes, no matter what, we have to vent this anger, otherwise I'll be suffocated to death."

"Rest assured, there's plenty of time, her good days won't last long."

A few days later, Tian Yaozu returned from town. As soon as he got home, he flew into a rage, smashing everything on the desk.

The Tian family stood in the courtyard, looking anxious.

It wasn't that they were afraid of him, but they believed he would have a bright future, which was why they yielded to him.

"Grandfather, Grandmother, didn't you promise to go to town and coax her? Why did you alarm the Town Chief?"

"She hates our family, she opened her mouth and cursed me. At my age, how could I take that? So I started arguing with her."

Tian Li Shi began to spout nonsense, refusing to admit defeat. In fact, it was her own foul mouth that had started the trouble.

"Great, now the teacher has asked me about this, and even my classmates are laughing at me, saying our family is a farming and scholarly family, yet we did something like this."

"Anyway, we said all the nice things we could. If you have the ability, you go talk to her yourself. The rumors in town are all spread by her, it has nothing to do with us."

Tian Yaozu roared in anger: "Enough, enough. I already found out clearly what the situation was back then, you don't need to say anything more. Later I'll go see Third Aunt. Third Uncle is serving in the military, contributing to the imperial court, how can she divorce Third Uncle? She should hurry back and obediently wait for Third Uncle to return."

The wives of the first and second branches of the Tian family hid to one side, whispering to each other.

"Mother is the same, it's just a bite of food, what would it hurt to let her eat some? Third Uncle's wife is so capable, why does she have to look down on her? If it weren't for that kick that chilled Third Uncle's wife's heart, it wouldn't have come to this. Now it's great, all her work is ours to do."

"Isn't that so? These days have exhausted me. If Mother-in-law tries to mistreat us like she mistreated Qiao Shi, I'm taking the kids and going back to my maiden home."

"Me too, let that old thing do all the housework."

The two didn't feel guilty saying this. When bullying Qiao Shi, the two of them hadn't held back their mouths or their hands.

This day, Qiao Mai was drawing a pattern in the courtyard. Ruxin and Ruyi were already able to embroider.

The pattern was only half-drawn when Lu Sanniang arrived.

"Sister, that scholar from the Tian family is here, insisting on seeing you, and calling you Third Aunt every other word. It made it hard for me to drive him away."

Qiao Mai narrowed her eyes. "He really knows how to put on an act. When I was at home, he often watched coldly as that old thing bullied me. I was the one who emptied his chamber pot, and I was the one who fetched his face-washing water. And he has the nerve to call me Third Aunt?"

"He's been standing at the door for a long time. Are you going or not? If not, I'll find a way to send him off."

"I'll go. I want to see how long this young scholar can keep up the act."

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 19 =====