"Mom, I'm not leaving. Please, beg Ninth Master to let me stay." I can get close to Ninth Master here, and if I can marry Mu Jiuchen, Mom and I won't have to be servants anymore.
"Ai! Even if he allowed you to stay, I would still make you leave. You shouldn't have harbored such thoughts. I watched him grow up. Noble young ladies more beautiful and capable than you have all ruined themselves here with Ninth Master."
"The consequence of angering Ninth Master is the same for you as it was for Xiao Yang and the others – going to prison to waste your youth. He might be special to Jiang Nuan, but he won't be special to you, or you wouldn't have come back crying. So, put away your ambitions. The first thing you need to do is wake up and come to your senses."
"Mom, how can you be such a mother?" Li Wan felt her mother's words were utterly baffling.
With their good status and proximity to Ninth Master, her mother should be helping her.
"Mom, if I marry Ninth Master, we'll never have to be servants again. How can you say such things? You should be helping me." Li Wan stubbornly held her ground, her face turning extremely ugly.
"Heh heh..." Steward Li was amused by this.
"Xiao Wan, I'll give you a chance. Strip yourself naked and lie on Ninth Master's bed. Let's see if he'll be moved by you."
"Mom!"
"Shut up!" Steward Li's face darkened as she glared at her daughter, "At my age, I'm still being dismissed. Do you think I feel good about this?"
"A chicken's nest producing a golden phoenix is a pipe dream. You, my dear, should just live your own life and stop dreaming up such fantasies."
"Hmph! I'm not leaving." Li Wan wanted to take a gamble, refusing to believe Mu Jiuchen was so heartless.
Just as she was about to leave, she saw Xiao Fan walking in.
"Steward Li." Xiao Fan glanced at Li Wan. He felt stifled by being summoned specifically for such a matter late at night; he had been extremely tired these past few days.
"Assistant Xiao, is there something you need?" Steward Li asked with a smile.
Seeing Xiao Fan arrive at this hour, she had a bad premonition.
Xiao Fan handed a card to Steward Li and said, "Steward Li, this is Ninth Master's retirement bonus for you. Ninth Master said that since you are getting old, you should return to the town to enjoy your twilight years. The money in this card is equivalent to twenty years of your annual salary paid upfront."
Li Wan's face instantly turned ashen, not expecting him to act so quickly.
Steward Li was stunned upon hearing the twenty years of salary.
"Ai! Assistant Xiao, how can I possibly accept this?" Twenty years later, she would be almost eighty. She was already sixty-three; it was time to retire.
It was just that she had never managed to uncover the truth of the past events, which left her with deep regret.
On the night Miss He died, even she hadn't seen her. Cremation wasn't practiced back then, and coincidentally, the day she returned was the day of Miss's burial.
Ninth Master returned on the same day as her, and neither of them got to see He Junshu for the last time.
Steward Li took the card, knowing Mu Jiuchen wasn't short of money.
In fact, she also wanted to retire. To go back to her hometown, plant some vegetables, raise a couple of pigs and some chickens. Coupled with her savings over the years, she could still live a simple and free life.
It was just that she couldn't rest easy about her daughter. Their hometown had developed quite well in recent years, with convenient transportation and easy access to the city.
If that were the case, she wanted to take her daughter back, find a good family for her to marry into in the town, and live a stable life. It wouldn't be bad either.
Nowadays, nine out of ten people were university graduates; striving in a big city was not easy.
Xiao Fan smiled, "Steward Li, you've worked hard all these years. Ninth Master said that it's not because of Li Wan's matter that you're being dismissed. He just feels that you're getting old and should go home to enjoy your blessings. Ninth Master has also bought you a house in town. Your town has been developing quite well these past two years, hasn't it? You can rent out the house and enjoy your later years in peace."
"Ah, how can this be?" With twenty years of retirement pay, she was already very grateful, and now she was being given a house. This was simply too much.
Assistant Xiao also envied Mu Jiuchen's impressive move. If he could retire with such good benefits, he would hug Ninth Master three times.
"Steward Li, there's no need to be modest. Take this money and go home to enjoy your retirement. After all, you've dedicated yourself to the Mu family these past few years."
"We've known each other for many years. I'll offer you a word of sincere advice: your daughter, she's been spoiled by you."
Li Wan shot Xiao Fan a furious glare. A mere dog, what right did he have to criticize her?
Steward Li knew the root of the problem. "Ai! It's all my fault. The temptations of the big city are too great."
Xiao Fan nodded and asked, "When will you be leaving? I'll arrange for a driver to take you back."
Steward Li pondered for a moment, looking at her daughter for a while, and said, "Xiao Wan, you should go back to your room and rest. We'll leave here tomorrow morning."
Li Wan bit her lip resentfully and walked towards her room.
Steward Li then said, "Assistant Xiao, I might not see Ninth Master tomorrow morning. There's something I'd like you to relay to Ninth Master. I've always found the death of Miss back then very suspicious. I've been searching for evidence all these years, but I have little influence and no power. I haven't found any useful information. Back then, Miss already had someone she cared about. They were quite fond of each other. Suddenly, there was an arranged marriage with the Mu family. Miss almost ran away from the wedding, but for some reason, she didn't escape and married into the family."
"But on the day Miss died, both Ninth Master and I seemed to have been deliberately kept away. The day we returned was the day Miss was buried. Afterwards, I looked for that man, but he was gone a few days after Miss's death."
Xiao Fan listened for a long time and still felt he was in the dark.
"Steward Li, what exactly are you trying to say?" Xiao Fan asked directly.
Steward Li wasn't entirely sure of her own thoughts.
"Assistant Xiao, I just have a feeling that perhaps Miss didn't actually die back then."
Steward Li added, "Perhaps I'm being too suspicious. Everyone saw Miss die, but only Ninth Master and I didn't. Maybe it's because she treated me like family that I can't let it go all these years." Steward Li felt her own thoughts were quite ridiculous.
Xiao Fan frowned slightly. His master's greatest pain was losing his only mother who doted on him on that snowy night.
However, he hadn't heard Ninth Master mention the cause and effect of this incident.
Xiao Fan smiled, "Steward Li, I will relay what you've said to Ninth Master. This is the property deed; please keep it safe and don't let your daughter get her hands on it."
Anyone could see what kind of person Li Wan was at a glance.
Steward Li wasn't angry. Her daughter was just like that; she couldn't help it.
Li Wan, hiding nearby, heard their entire conversation clearly. Hmph! Old woman, to reveal such important news so easily.
How detestable!
Jiang Nuan received news from Nanzhou the next morning.
This was information about the Yang family that he had investigated in Modu.
Just as Jiang Nuan was about to open the file to read it, she received a call from Jiang Xingyu.
"Hello! Brother."
Jiang Xingyu's tone was urgent: "Nuannuan, something bad has happened."