Allure of a Country Maiden
Chapter 340 - 338

Chapter 340: 338

"Mother, Wen’er is a scholar now. Such a small amount of reward silver, once given out, it’s done. Trying to retrieve it will be such a disgrace! Besides, it was father who gave the reward. If you go after it, wouldn’t it make him look like a flip-flopper?"

Mrs. Shen was not concerned about being disgraceful, she only cared about the silver! Seeing that nobody was willing to retrieve it, she wailed directly: "Such a small amount of reward silver? All you do all day is eat and drink, indulge Yourself and yield nothing! You just think about how to suck your parents’ blood all day long! Why don’t I see you giving me any silver? Oh God, I can’t live this life anymore! Giving away five taels of silver as a reward, it’s like eating my flesh ..."

Mrs. Lan blushed with embarrassment. It seemed as though she had been using their silver.

The truth was that they wanted to gain prestige through her son and had given silver for her son’s education so that they could become Lord and Madam of the Shangguan family! Now they were playing the victim, making false accusations that she used their silver!

But when Mrs. Shen had used such reckless and aggressive tactics against the third branch in the past, Mrs. Lan just felt happy at the misfortune of others!

Now the people from the third and fourth branches were gone, the second branch was rarely seen and only the main family was left. They had returned to the village for a few months because of the Imperial Examination and had to bear Mrs. Shen’s motherly love alone. Mrs. Lan found it particularly unbearable!

Mr. Shen was even angrier now. He had just begun to regain his dignity and face in the village when his wife started to disgrace him in front of everyone on this joyful occasion!

Was she trying to alienate his eldest son from him?

The silver was given, so why can’t she let it go! Besides, he gave the silver. As the head of the family, shouldn’t he have the right to give away a little silver!

An incompetent wife and ungrateful son can only be disciplined with a slap on the back!

Thinking of this, Mr. Shen’s temper flared up even more.

Mr. Shen lifted his hand and slapped Mrs. Shen’s face!

"Smack!"

The loud slap stunned everyone.

"Say another word, and you can go back to your Zhuang family! Don’t ruin my Shen family’s offspring!"

Silence! Everyone was silent for a moment!

Mr. Shen had actually slapped Mrs. Shen!

In the past, when Mrs. Shen had been so excessive to Chengyao’s family, Mr. Shen had never really reprimanded Mrs. Shen at all!

Who would have thought that now, over the issue of retrieving a few taels of reward silver, he would slap his wife of several decades.

As expected, Mr. Shen’s favorite was still the main family!

However, Mrs. Shen deserved a slap, some of the elderly thought.

When Mrs. Shen had come to her senses, she wanted to make a scene.

"Get out! Get out! Leave at once!" Mr. Shen yelled, his voice hoarse.

This frightened Mrs. Shen, who immediately closed her mouth. She didn’t say another word but only cried and ran back into the house!

Seeing this, the guests felt awkward and started to make excuses to leave.

Mr. Shen also felt tired at heart!

The main family returned to the east wing.

Mrs. Lan wanted to sweep everything off the table to vent her dissatisfaction.

Shen Chengguang hurriedly tried to stop her.

"Don’t, it would look terrible if someone heard it!"

Mrs. Lan shook off Shen Chengguang’s grasp: "I can’t live this life anymore, I want to go back to the Imperial Capital!"

"My wife, I know you’ve been wronged, but we can’t do that now! Think about it, once Mr. Tan donates an official position to Wen’er, we can go to the post with him. But we can’t do that now! I heard there’s a character audit by officials before donating official positions! What if they say we are unfilial because we are not accompanying the two elders?"

"Father, are you suggesting I have to bring my grandparents with me? I’ll die of embarrassment!" Considering Mrs. Shen’s reckless and aggressive nature, if she were to lose control, it would make her a laughing stock of the whole Government Office.

"That’s not ..." Shen Chengguang couldn’t be sure of this! If his parents insisted on following, he wouldn’t refuse! If only he had thought of sending his parents to live with other branches when they separated the family!

"Father, what if we give the shop in the town to the second branch and ask them to take care of the elders, would they agree?"

"But the shop in the town, we can still collect one and a half taels of rent every month!" Shen Chengguang was not happy to hear this!

His parents were not only his parents, why did he have to carry all the financial burdens alone!

Those brothers of his really weren’t human!

"As long as father and mother don’t follow us to the post, wouldn’t you be short of that one and a half taels of silver? But if mother goes with us..." Mrs. Lan didn’t finish her sentence.

But Shen Chengguang understood that with Mrs. Shen’s money-seeking nature, would he ever have a good life?

With this thought in mind, his heart trembled with fear!

"Well, we’ll see what the second brother thinks in a few days!"

...

That day, Mrs. Shen spoiled Mr. Shen’s mood. It took him several days to calm down. Shen Jingwen had become a scholar, and they hadn’t yet held a banquet to celebrate!

Anyway, several days had passed, so Mr. Shen took out the Tung Shing, picked a lucky day, and decided to hold a banquet for his guests then.

Some days passed, and the day after tomorrow would be the lucky day Mr. Shen had chosen.

In the evening after dinner, it was getting dark, and many villagers went outside to cool off.

Mr. Shen said to Shen Chengguang: "Tomorrow is market day, eldest son, you go to town first and buy some chickens and ducks to bring back. We’ll have to start slaughtering chickens and ducks early the day after tomorrow! As for vegetables and pork, there’s no need to buy them yet, the weather is too hot and they won’t keep, you can take the bullock cart to buy them early the day after tomorrow! Also, buy some rice, flour and cooking oil to bring back!"

Shen Chengguang was unwilling to do these things from the bottom of his heart, but he was the only young and strong male in the family now, and therefore he had to do them whether he liked it or not.

Those second, third and fourth brothers of his were really heartless!

"By the way, after you’ve bought the stuff and come back, you’ll need to borrow some tables, chairs and dishes from the village... also, ask some of the village women to come and help with the work."

When a village household had a banquet, they relied on mutual help from the other village women to do chores like washing vegetables, cooking rice, cooking dishes, etc. Otherwise, the hosting family would be overwhelmed.

Mr. Shen carefully told Shen Chengguang everything he had to do the next day.

Suddenly, there were one after another huge noise from fireworks outside.

"Whose family is celebrating today? Why are there fireworks?"

"It sounds like they’re coming from the head of the village, could it be that the third family has come back?"

Upon hearing this, Mr. Shen paused for a moment, then said, "Let’s go out and see! I haven’t seen fireworks for a long time."

As the two stepped out of the house, they saw many people running towards the head of the village.

At the head of the village, in the open area, Manager Qian was watching the fireworks with Xiao’er’s servants and long-term workers.

Not far away were two baskets of fireworks, and two servants were lighting them.

"Whose family is blessed today, Manager Qian? Why the fireworks?"

Seeing many villagers come over, Manager Qian announced loudly: "Today we received a letter saying that our master and young master have both passed the Scholar Examination. Moreover, the young master is the top performer. It was our young lady who especially instructed us to buy these fireworks, and said we should set them off for the villagers to see in the evening, so that everyone can be happy together!"