Chapter Thirty-Six: Seeing Treasure Again

  Inside the Rongguo Mansion's study, the atmosphere was gloomy. At this late hour, the red candles on the table flickered restlessly, adding a mysterious hue to the room. On the wall, the shadows of two men were cast.

  Inside the house, there were two men. One was slightly older, with a beard and wearing a long blue robe with a golden belt embroidered with gold toads around his waist, and a jade crown on his head. The other man was slightly younger, wearing a brocade crown, dressed in a dark red outer robe with a subtle floral pattern, and tied with a green silk belt with a jade buckle. This person had a fair face, thick eyebrows, red lips and white teeth, and looked handsome. He resembled the older bearded man around his eyebrows and eyes, but was more elegant than him.

  The older man had a look of annoyance on his face, sitting upright at the desk with his eyebrows furrowed into a "川" shape. The younger man, on the other hand, looked guilty, sitting in a chair to the side.

  On the table, two cups of good tea were placed separately, with excellent golden tips, and the fragrance was overflowing. Unfortunately, they were idle on one side, and no one tasted them. Two people in the house had their own thoughts, but they faced the same difficult problem.

  "If it weren't for this, I wouldn't have come back." The older man seemed to be in a bad mood, and he glared at his younger brother sitting next to him with a look of exasperation: "What's wrong with you? Why did you grab that girl's sleeve?"

  "Big brother, don't be anxious." Jia Huanian's face was full of guilt, but he didn't know where to start. This matter arose because of him, but it wasn't his intention. It was all caused by the aftermath of a hangover. If he hadn't been so drunk, even if he had been ignorant, he would never have done something that would ruin someone's reputation.

  "How can I not be anxious?" Jia Huanxuan rubbed his brow with his hand and said angrily: "Do you know how much impact this will have on your official career? I begged my master for a long time, and also greased many relationships, just to get my master to agree to marry his beloved daughter to you as your wife. Now the wife has not been married yet, but the concubine is going to enter the house. How can I explain this to my master?"

  "Big brother, I... really don't know how to say this." Although the two were biological brothers born of the same mother, Jia Huan still felt embarrassed to speak in front of his elder brother.

  "What's difficult to say?" At this critical juncture, what can't be said?

  "That day, I was having a small gathering with my fellow students, and I did indeed drink too much wine. My head was pounding from the hangover, and all I wanted to do was call for a maid to bring me some tea to sober up. However, I had previously dismissed all the maids in the flower hall, and when I arrived at the study, there wasn't a single person in sight. I took a short nap, but my thirst became unbearable, and after shouting for half a day, no one came to respond. With no other choice, I went to find someone myself, and that's when I saw Miss Fourth of the Qin Manor. At the time, my head was splitting with pain, and I didn't even see clearly who she was; all I thought was that this wasn't a place where just anyone could come, so I asked her to go get some tea for me. Who knew... If there's anyone to blame, it's myself for being greedy with wine, and it has nothing to do with others. That Miss Fourth of the Qin Manor also ended up getting dragged into my mess for no reason."

  It's not necessary for him to say what happened later, Jia Huanxuan also knew that if he hadn't torn the fourth miss's sleeve and ruined the girl's innocence, he wouldn't have been in trouble here either.

  Marrying her as a concubine is a small matter, but hurting Teacher's face is a big deal!

  As the daughter of a cabinet scholar, how proud she is. How can she allow herself to get married before her concubine has already entered the house? Although there are precedents in various mansions that when the position of the legitimate wife is vacant, having one or two concubines or raising one or two aunts is not a big deal, but that's what others say. The teacher knows how his daughter-in-law is, and he absolutely cannot tolerate this matter.

  "Big brother, this is all my fault. I've wronged Miss Qin, a good girl who's already suffered by becoming a concubine. How could I abandon her?!" Jia Huan was a strange person with a split personality, sometimes not caring about public opinion and doing his own thing, while at other times paying close attention to etiquette, making it impossible for others to understand what he was really thinking.

  "What nonsense." Jia Huanxuan rebuked: "Who told you to abandon her? Who told you to be disloyal and unrighteous?"

  "What do you mean?" Jia Heyan asked with a look of grievance.

  "I've always been doing this for your own good, thinking that if the teacher could marry his daughter to you, this transfer would be almost a sure thing. Now that you've done this, what face do I have left to ask the teacher to marry his daughter to you?"

  Jia Huan said, "You didn't even let anyone send a message back, how would you know what arrangements were made? You should know that Mother is very fond of the third young lady of the Qin family and insisted on me marrying her! If it weren't for Madame Qin stopping it, I'm afraid this marriage would have been settled long ago."

  "Is it that the young ladies of the Qin family can't get married? Why did they set their sights on you? And Mother, just because she had a dream, where did this auspicious talk come from?"

  "Ever since Third Miss had that accident, Mother didn't quite believe it either. But it seems that the Fang family still wants to marry Second Miss off to him as a wife, and Mother has shown signs of relenting." He probably had some kind of grudge against this Qin family, otherwise why would all three marriageable misses from their household get entangled with him?

  A good marriage, can't it just be abandoned like this? No way, absolutely cannot because of this, ruin the future of my second brother, and ruin the luck of the Jia family. Jia Huan thought to himself, also don't know if this matter is a plan of the Qin family or that fourth Miss Qin's own trick. He grew up in a high-ranking household from a young age, and the schemes and tactics of women in the inner courtyard he had seen plenty of, not to mention others, just saying his mother's methods of suppressing several concubines were not something ordinary people could compare to, growing up in such an environment naturally made him think more.

  "If it can't be helped, just put it off for now. I'll take care of the matter on my mother's side myself. If someone from the Qin estate comes again, I'll find an excuse to tell them that Fourth Miss is absolutely not allowed in, and even if she were to come in, it would have to wait until after your promotion and our engagement is settled." After all, she was just a merchant's daughter, and being able to become a concubine of the Jia estate was already her good fortune.

  Jia Huanian knew he was in the wrong and didn't dare raise any objections. He replied: "I'll leave it entirely up to you, brother."

  Jia Huanxuan snorted coldly: "Look at the mess you've made, no wonder Father is angry. In your free time, don't go getting mixed up with that riffraff friend of yours."

  Jia Huan said that after all, he is just a young man in his early twenties, born into a prestigious family and achieving success at a young age. The people around him can't help but flatter him from time to time. He is naturally carefree and uninhibited, not bound by trivial matters. In the eyes of someone as rigid as Jia Huanxian, he inevitably appears reckless.

  Jia Huan didn't dare talk back and hastily agreed. For a while, the two brothers each had their own thoughts and temporarily dropped the matter.

  Qin Dai's heart, which couldn't sleep no matter what in the house, didn't know if it was possessed by some kind of magic. She, who had always slept well, couldn't sleep tonight no matter what. She stared with her eyes wide open and recalled everything from her past life to this life. Apart from feeling sentimental, she felt less heartache, and her hatred seemed to have faded away without a trace. It was as if even the appearance of Feng Er was hard to remember. Even the scene where her parents were murdered, which had haunted her for her entire lifetime in her previous life, had become blurry at this moment.

  It's not that she's too deep into the play, but this is actually her life.

  Qin Dai sighed and thought, since there's nothing else to do, might as well count her own family assets again!

  Qin Dai Xin had no concept of money, her previous life was not greedy for money, after coming to ancient times, she was even less interested in those yellow and white things. Usually these things were handed over to Ruyi to manage, including monthly expenses, jewelry and gifts received when visiting various mansions, as well as red envelopes given by the old lady and mistress of the mansion during festivals, all of which were collected by Ruyi and locked in a cabinet.

  Qin Dai Xin didn't pay much attention to the things on the clear accounts, firstly because there weren't many, and secondly because they were all recorded in the files, so there was nothing interesting about them. As long as she moved tonight, it's guaranteed that Ming Yi would discover them tomorrow, that girl valued these things more than her own life.

  Qin Dai's heart wanted to take a look at her own private money.

  Previously, when she robbed Gong Sunjin, she swept away a large package of things. At the time, because of the tight schedule and fear of being discovered, she only randomly picked up some things without even having time to look at them. Afraid of being discovered, she simply stuffed the package into a jar and placed it with the prepared sauce ingredients in an inconspicuous corner, which didn't arouse suspicion. As a result, when she suddenly received the letter to return to Qin Fu later on, those "stolen goods" were also smoothly moved back to Qin Fu. Plus the 5,000 taels of silver tickets that she redeemed with her life later on, she could be considered a wealthy person with some savings.

  As soon as she thought of this, she couldn't stay in bed anymore. She flipped over and got up, and with a wave of her hand, she pulled out the Black Beauty from under the pillow. After fiddling with it for a moment, she wrapped it around her waist, turned on the switch, and waited until the sharp end was embedded in the beam before using this momentum to propel herself onto the beam in one swift motion. This may sound like a long story, but in reality, it only took a few blinks of an eye. Qin Dai's mastery of Black Beauty had already reached the level of a divine painting, her movements smooth and effortless, with a hint of heroic flair.

  Above the beam, in a secret place, a black cloth package was hidden, and it didn't take much thought to know what was inside.

  Qin Dai Xin carefully placed the bundle on the table, slowly opening it to reveal several gold and silver ingots of varying sizes, as well as some jade rings, jade pendants, and pearl necklaces. Qin Dai Xin's gaze skipped over these items and landed on a small box.

  An ordinary black lacquer box, with a delicate peony flower carved on it, red lacquer color, gold lacquer border, quite nice to look at. The box is divided into two layers, upper and lower, with two small copper rings hanging outside. This box was exactly what Qindai Xin had taken from Gongsun Jin, she had never opened it before, so she didn't know what was inside either. Qindai Xin pulled out the drawer on one side, saw a black cloth bag tied up inside. When she opened it, it turned out to be a bag of golden beans! Qindai Xin thought for a moment, then took out the five thousand taels of silver bills from under her pillow and put them in as well. When Qindai Xin opened the box on the left side, she was stunned - what good fortune is this?