Chapter 3: Ulterior Motive
Sun Family’s matron exaggeratedly exclaimed, “I’m racking my brain for your benefit, and you accuse me, your wife, of cursing you? My good intentions have truly gone to the dogs!”
“Without selling Xiaomai, how will you pay the Spring Tax!”
With her exaggerated tone, the spit from her words splattered all over Qiao Changshun’s face.
“Based solely on Xiaomai’s looks alone, she could fetch at least twenty taels of silver in the brothel. That’s more than enough to pay your Spring Tax and even re-purchase the land you previously sold for your medical bills!”
“Mother, Xiaomai is your own granddaughter!” Qiao Changshun’s body trembles as if sifting chaff, his normally dark complexion turning red with anger.
“Enough with this talk of selling someone off, let’s sit down and discuss. It hasn’t come to the point of selling a daughter,” Zhu Cuiying interjected as a mediator.
“Besides Xiaomai, the Qiao Family still has valuable things. It’s not like we’re at a dead end. Why must we resort to selling off a daughter? This kind of gossip will just fuel backbiting!” She said, glancing over the three-room tiled house.
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Qiao Xiaomai watched the two women’s charade with cold eyes, a corner of her mouth curling into a smirk. “Grandmother, haven’t you always been claiming to outsiders how much you dote on my father, your son? Now that he’s being pressured into selling his daughter, why won’t you take out some money to help him over this hurdle?”
Pay from her own pocket?
Sun Family’s matron took a pause when she heard this. Snapped a harsh glare at Qiao Xiaomai, she then slapped her thigh and wailed, “Oh heavens, my life is such a misery!”
“Breaking my heart every day for Changshun’s family, and now being accused of neglecting Changshun by a little brat, oh God, open your eyes! Cast down a thunderbolt and strike down those heartless wretches!”
Qiao Xiaomai stood still, watching the Sun Family’s matron’s crying jag with cold eyes and not moving.
Qiao Changshun bowed his head and remained silent.
He’s always been dutiful and honest, but now his wife has run off with another man, and Sun Family’s matron is pushing him to sell his daughter. He no longer had the patience to appease her as he had before.
His family has always been his bottom line. He’s willing to endure hardship, but he would absolutely not sell his daughter.
Zhu Cuiying, seeing this, cast another glance around the bright and spacious tiled house belonging to Qiao Xiaomai. “Changshun,” she began advising, “your mother is only thinking for your good. If you don’t pay the tax, you might have to do hard labor.”
“Look, you don’t have to sell Xiaomai. Doesn’t your family still have this house? It was newly built last winter. If you sell it, you could get at least ten taels of silver.”
“Coincidentally, your nephew is also about to get engaged. We, the Qiao family, have no place to live in the old courtyard, so why don’t you sell this house to me and your brother? Then our parents could also move in.”
“We’re all family, for our parents’ sake, you could ask us for a little less, how about five taels of silver?”
Upon hearing this, Qiao Xiaomai couldn’t help but let out a cold laugh. As expected, the so-called plan to sell her was just a smokescreen. Qiao Changshun wouldn’t do such a thing. Sun Family’s matron’s and Zhu Cuiying’s real goal was her tiled house.
The house, which cost twenty taels to build last winter, they now wanted for just five taels. What calculation!
Tired of arguing with these two shrewish women, she said, “Father, go and invite the village chief over. Let him mediate this dispute. Tell him that just after my mother’s death, my grandmother is already forcing you to sell me off to the brothel, and my aunt is pressuring you to sell our house.”
“Oh my!” Upon hearing this, the Sun Family’s matron let out a sharp shriek and simply plopped down on the ground, wailing, “Oh heavens, I can’t live anymore! My good intentions are being twisted into a plot for property. God, please strike down this disrespectful wretch!”
Distaste etched on her face, Qiao Xiaomai was about to urge Qiao Changsun again when a tall figure appeared at the gate. To her surprise, it was Tong Sanlang, the Village Chief’s son.