Su Xiaoqi easily convinced Chen Jinniang.
She accepted the bank notes with a clear conscience, considering it the cost of buying a new shop.
Speaking of the new shop, Chen Jinniang's somewhat faded complexion gradually came back to life.
She pulled Su Xiaoqi along and talked excitedly for quite some time.
It wasn't until Shen Yun urged them to leave that she let them go.
Meanwhile, at the county yamen, as Su Xiaoqi had predicted, Huang Lian was furious upon her return.
She casually threw the mooncakes, which had cost a fortune to acquire, aside.
However, the box was exceptionally well-made and remained intact despite the throw.
It rolled a few times on the cobblestone ground and lay there quietly, as if mocking Madam Huang's foolishness.
Amber intended to persuade her, but she knew very well that when her mistress was in a rage, no one's words would be heeded.
She could only lower her head and pretend to be a quail.
After Madam Huang left, Amber dared to cautiously step forward and pick up the mooncake box.
The small box, as large as a woman's two palms, was beautifully decorated with exquisite carvings.
Upon opening it, she found the mooncakes wrapped in oil paper, neatly arranged, showing no sign of damage from the earlier rough handling.
Delighted, she took one out, hid behind a rock garden, and broke off a small piece to taste.
As the lotus seed paste and salted egg yolk mooncake entered her mouth, her eyes lit up.
Sweet but not cloying, soft and delicious.
It was tasty!
She ate one mooncake in no time and cut the other three into small pieces, placing them on a silver tray and taking them to her mistress's room.
The mooncakes were so delicious that she planned to coax her mistress into eating some when she wasn't paying attention, so they could buy more early the next day.
After all, her mistress wouldn't return until after the Mid-Autumn Festival, and they still had plenty of opportunities to eat these mooncakes.
Su Xiaoqi was no longer short of money, having accumulated two thousand taels of silver.
She was not one to hesitate. The next morning, while Shen Yun was out meeting with his classmates to forge connections,
She went to find Zhao Dayou and asked him to act as an intermediary to purchase the manor belonging to the wealthy Mr. He, their neighbor.
Zhao Dayou had initially just made a casual remark, but he hadn't expected his employer to be so decisive, having considered it within days and even secured the funds.
He instructed his shop assistants, Xiao Er and Xiao San Zi, to watch the shop and happily accompanied Su Xiaoqi to Mr. He's residence.
Turning into Sihui Lane, the first house ahead was the He residence.
Su Xiaoqi saw a large crowd gathered at the entrance of the He residence from a distance.
Zhao Dayou glanced over, puzzled, and saw their neighbor, Mr. He, surrounded in the center.
He was confronting a young man dressed in silk robes.
He stepped forward, intending to greet them, but Su Xiaoqi stopped him: "Wait a moment, let's see what's happening."
She overheard the discussion about the price of the manor.
The gist was that Mr. He was asking sixteen hundred taels, while the buyer countered with eight hundred taels and refused to negotiate.
With a difference of half the price, Mr. He was naturally unwilling to sell.
The buyer then lowered his voice and began to utter all sorts of threats and foul language, which were unbearable to hear.
Mr. He was anxious and frightened, tears welling up in his eyes at his old age.
He cried, saying he was genuinely short of funds and it wasn't that he wasn't respecting Mr. Su.
Su Xiaoqi remembered Zhao Dayou mentioning earlier that someone was trying to suppress the price of Mr. He's manor.
She surmised it was this person.
It was quite a coincidence that she knew the person.
He was a servant of the Su family.
He was Su Guanjia's younger son, Su Xiaofu.
His older brother, Su Dafu, had been imprisoned twice for gambling and for colluding with Xiao Liu to defraud her of grain seeds.
The first time he was caught, Su Guanjia bailed him out with money.
But Su Xiaoqi was not to be trifled with.
Using the information she had gathered at Xishan Lake about Zhao Haihua's illicit affair with her stepson Huang Yuanxiang, she had him arrested again.
This time, Su Guanjia had exhausted all means but could not get him out, and he was sentenced to two years in prison.
With Su Dafu's precedent, Su Xiaofu, however, fared differently.
As the younger brother, not only did he show no remorse, but he also took over his brother's mantle, engaging in fraudulent practices and forced sales.
Indeed, birds of a feather flock together.
Mr. He pleaded with such sorrow, his voice trembling, his body swaying, almost about to kneel.
It was enough to make onlookers weep and listeners grieve.
Several times, Zhao Dayou was about to jump out and tell him not to be afraid, and definitely not to sell to that man.
But Su Xiaoqi stopped him each time.
Why rush out when the show wasn't over and the crucial moment hadn't arrived?
Zhao Dayou was anxious, but without his employer's command, he dared not act.
He was so anxious that he paced back and forth.
After watching for a while longer, Mr. He cried even louder, and many of the onlookers couldn't help but start discussing the matter.
They all began to criticize Su Xiaofu.
They said that if he was unwilling to spend money, he shouldn't be buying the manor, wasn't this bullying someone?
Su Xiaofu, accustomed to his arrogance on the streets, glared with his triangular eyes, fiercer than anyone else.
"Damn it, which bastard has something to say? Come out and say it to my face, don't hide in the crowd..."
With Su Xiaofu's outburst, the neighbors who had wanted to speak a word of justice were so frightened that they shrunk back, unable to utter a word.
Su Xiaoqi saw that the time was ripe. She looked around and suddenly spotted a familiar figure.
Her eyes lit up, and a new idea formed in her mind. She quietly instructed Zhao Dayou: "Pretend you don't know me later."
Then, she strode out from the crowd and, with swift movements, approached Su Xiaofu. She delivered a slap to his face.
The pain made him grimace, and his head spun.
It took him a while to realize he had been slapped, and by a woman, no less.
"Damn it, who the hell are you? You dare to hit me, I'll kill you..." Su Xiaofu jumped as high as the slap, raising his hand to Su Xiaoqi.
He intended to regain his status with this slap.
Unexpectedly, the woman in front of him was agile and extremely flexible. He swung three times without hitting her. Instead, she grabbed the vital point of his wrist, and when he struggled, it was as painful as being pricked by needles.
"Ah... Madwoman, crazy woman, who are you?"
Su Xiaoqi, with her other hand, delivered another ruthless slap:
"How dare you! You don't even recognize me, yet you dare to bully the common folk under the name of my Su family."
Su Xiaoqi reprimanded him: "A proper transaction is hand-to-hand, money for goods. Even if it's an exchange of goods for money, what kind of evil are you doing?
Furthermore, even if you want to take advantage of small gains, you drag my Su family down with you. Your intentions are heinous."
Upon hearing this, regardless of whether Su Xiaofu knew Su Xiaoqi's identity, some perceptive onlookers recognized her immediately.
"Isn't this the eldest daughter of the Su family, who married the Prime Minister?"
"That's right, that's right, it's her. I saw her from afar when she returned home."
"So, it wasn't the Shen family handling this matter, it was this wicked servant doing it herself."
"I knew it, the reputation of the Su family head has always been good, how could they do such a thing..."
The onlookers continued to discuss with great gusto.
But the person involved, Su Xiaofu, didn't believe it.
He had been working for the Su family for so many years and had grown up with the second young master.
How could he not recognize his own eldest young lady?
However, he had a general idea of this person's background - she was the imposter his father had found on the street.
She was just a fake, yet she dared to present herself as the eldest young lady and interfere with his affairs.
He was about to curse, but Su Xiaoqi approached him and said softly:
"If you dare to reveal this matter, your father's job in the Su family will be finished. I mean what I say."
"You, what do you mean?" Su Xiaofu was the hot-tempered, impulsive type, the kind who went out without using his brain. Su Xiaoqi's words immediately made his spirit falter.
"I mean nothing special. I'll give you two choices. First, you either leave here immediately and never bother him again.
I can pretend nothing happened.
Second, I will beat you until you leave, and then go back and tell Master Su to send you to accompany your good brother."