Zhou Ruyu stood up. Although she was in an awkward position, she pointed at Shi Juncai and rebuked angrily, “Shi Juncai, you sell your wife to gain interests. When you are in trouble, you put all the blame on me. You are irresponsible and not a man!
“You even dare to covet your elder brother’s title of nobility. Don’t daydream even in the next life!”
“How dare you say that! I…”
Shi Juncai exploded again and suddenly raised his hand. Shi Baoyou trembled but still stood in front of Zhou Ruyu firmly.
Seeing Shi Baoyou, Shi Juncai raised his hand above his head and didn’t continue to beat but just reproached, “Baoyou, step aside. I will teach her a lesson today and tell her who the master of this family is!”
“Come on! You are such a coward. Do you have a face to say that you are the master of the family? What did you do for this family? You can’t even protect your son and daughters. How do you qualify to…”
Shi Baoyou anxiously covered Zhou Ruyu’s mouth and begged her. “Mother, I beg you. Don’t say more, okay?”
Zhou Ruyu and Shi Juncai were ready for a war and could fight again at any time, but as Shi Baoyou shed tears, the father and mother looked embarrassed and ceased fire.
Shi Juncai coughed twice and changed the subject to relieve her. “Baoyou, don’t listen to your mother’s nonsense. I am capable. I am staying at home and have nothing to do now, but soon I will regain my official position…
“No. The fourth prince even promised to promote me. Soon you will be a Rank-4 official’s legitimate daughter, and you will be better in the future. Just let those snobbish people cry who dared to cotton up to Shi Qingxue and look down upon you in the past.”
Although Shi Baoyou didn’t think that a Rank-4 official’s legitimate daughter was different from her, she still cooperated with him and echoed him, which made Shi Juncai burst with joy and laugh loudly.
Seeing Shi Juncai’s complacent face, Zhou Ruyu was angry and then started to say with sarcasm, “Huh, you just depend on your ancestors. Without the support of the Shi family and my family, how would His Highness give such a coward as you a glance?”
She called him “coward” and “loser” all the time, and even Shi Baoyou felt unhappy after hearing that.
Moreover, Shi Juncai was sensitive and would get angry easily. He was anxious and mad, so he raised his hand again.
“You dare to beat me again!” Zhou Ruyu didn’t dodge but swelled out her chest in front of Shi Juncai, sneering. “If you beat me again, don’t blame me after I reveal the dirty things you did.”
Shi Juncai narrowed his eyes in alert and questioned, “What do you want to do?”
Zhou Ruyu showed a confident expression and conveniently tidied up her messy clothes before saying unhurriedly, “If you push me too hard, I will turn your and Mother’s plans into nothingness.
“You would never become Duke Shi, and I will let all people know that your mother…”
“Shut up. Shut up!” Shi Juncai shouted in a rage and tried hard to cover Zhou Ruyu’s mouth.
Zhou Ruyu turned her head and shook off Shi Juncai’s hand. With ferocious eyes, she said, stressing each word, “Just have a try if you don’t believe me!”
Shi Juncai pointed at Zhou Ruyu for quite a while, and he clenched his fists and loosened them several times. In the end, he didn’t dare to beat Zhou Ruyu and just spoke ruthlessly. “You win this time!”
After leaving these words, he waved his sleeves and left Zhou Ruyu’s room, going to his concubine for comfort.
Zhou Ruyu didn’t care since long ago and just ordered Shi Baoyou calmly, “Go out and tell a maid to come in to help me wash up and change my clothes.”
“Yes,” Shi Baoyou responded quickly but remained still.
She looked at Zhou Ruyu with curiosity and then asked hesitantly after a long time, “Mother, what did Grandma do as you mentioned just now?”
Zhou Ruyu could frustrate Shi Juncai at once who was arrogant, and it must be nothing insignificant and related to whether he could inherit Duke Shi’s title of nobility in the future. This…
Curiosity could hardly be concealed in Shi Baoyou’s eyes.
However, Zhou Ruyu just patted the back of Shi Baoyou’s hand and smiled meaningfully. “Buddha says that you can’t say it. Don’t ask. As long as I am alive, I won’t let anything bad happen to you. It doesn’t matter if you know this secret!”
Shi Baoyou pouted with displeasure, but she was her mother’s good daughter, so she didn’t continue to ask but nodded obediently. “I see. I am going to tell a maid to come in for you.”
Zhou Ruyu got changed and cleaned up, but the bruise after she fought against Shi Juncai couldn’t be concealed for now.
Shi Baoyou had to ask Doctor Qin for some good-quality ointment for wounds and put it on Zhou Ruyu’s body.
Fortunately, Zhou Ruyu was grounded these days and didn’t have to go out to see guests. Otherwise, nobody knew what the gossips would be like.
“I am fine. Take it easy.” Zhou Ruyu didn’t care about the wounds on her face.
She grabbed Shi Baoyou’s hand and pulled the girl to sit next to her, asking slowly, “I didn’t ask you. You go out of the mansion frequently these days. What did you do?”
“Ah!” Shi Baoyou’s face blushed immediately.
She lowered her head with shyness and answered obsequiously, “No…nothing.”
Zhou Ruyu didn’t believe her and looked cold, asking, “Tell me frankly. Did you go out to do something dirty? Like your sister…”
At the thought that Shi Baoyou might go out to do something randomly and get pregnant before marriage, like Shi Baojin did, Zhou Ruyu was scared with cold sweat, and her face got pale.
Shi Baoyou hurriedly defended herself. “No, of course no.”
“Tell me now. What did you do after going out?”
Shi Baoyou could do nothing after Zhou Ruyu forced her. She hesitated for quite a while and then answered vaguely, “It’s…the fourth prince wanted to see me.”
“The fourth prince?”
Zhou Ruyu was stunned for a while and obviously didn’t expect that the answer was like this.
Although she had the plan to make Shi Baoyou become the fourth prince’s wife, she knew herself well enough. Mo Junhao was ambitious and might not have an interest in Shi Baoyou because of her identity.
And she couldn’t bear to make Shi Baoyou his concubine, so it delayed.
She heard that Shi Baoyou had connections with Mo Junhao, and it could be imagined how complex her feelings were.
Perhaps because Shi Baoyou told the truth, she didn’t hide anything and continued to confess even before Zhou Ruyu asked. “His Highness has seen me for many times and asked about Qingxue every time. He grew up with her since childhood and they love each other, so he wants to marry her, but he doesn’t know what wrong he has done, which made her angry, and she firmly refuses to marry him regardless of their love. So he wants to know more about Qingxue through me and then win back her heart.”
Shi Baoyou went out to see Mo Junhao almost every day recently, and they talked a lot, but they just talked about Shi Qingxue.
She had heard that the fourth prince Mo Junhao was open-minded and graceful, and he was the top one among all the princes in the aspects of capability and appearance.
Baoyou had doubted that in the past. After seeing Mo Junhao’s bearing and style of speaking these days, she knew that the hearsay was true.
She said with jealousy involuntarily, “Qingxue is so lucky. His Excellency protected her in the past, and now His Highness can’t forget her. This is almost all women’s dream.”
Zhou Ruyu kept her countenance and observed Shi Baoyou’s expression, saying all of a sudden, “You can be like her.”
Shi Baoyou stared at Zhou Ruyu in surprise and then couldn’t help but laugh. “Mother, don’t joke about me. How would I be so capable as Qingxue…” as to make all men love her.
Zhou Ruyu snorted and cursed because Shi Baoyou was too timid. “You are a treasured daughter I have raised with much money, and you are precious, not inferior to Shi Qingxue. What’s more, you have studied the Four Books and the Five Classics, and you are good at playing the zither and the game of Go, drawing and writing. As for your grace of a noble lady, it’s much better than Shi Qingxue’s who always goes to the military camp and isn’t like a girl from a powerful family.
“Why can she win the love of so many noblemen but you can’t? It depends on whether you dare to hope!”
Shi Baoyou was tempted by Zhou Ruyu’s beautiful blueprint, and expectancy was shown on her face with nice makeup.
But in a short while, she lowered her head in frustration and said in depression, “It’s of no use. The fourth prince said that his love for Qingxue can be proved by the heaven and the earth, and the sun and moon. He would never love anybody else.”
“Oh? So you like him?” Zhou Ruyu asked abruptly.
Shi Baoyou’s face blushed in an instant, and she shook her head repeatedly. Then she denied in a hurry, “Of course no.”
Zhou Ruyu smiled and didn’t deny it at once. She just asked, “Why did you think of the fourth prince first after I mention that you can win the love of the noblemen?”
“Because…” Shi Baoyou argued hurriedly, but as soon as she started, she opened her mouth and couldn’t find an excuse after a long time.
Then meeting Zhou Ruyu’s eyes which could see through everything seemingly, she couldn’t tell a lie.
She got stiff for a while and then admitted it honestly in the end, but soon she said in disappointment, “So what even if I love His Highness? He loves Qingxue only from beginning to end. How can I steal him from her?”
“You are stupid. You know well about Shi Qingxue. She is so arrogant that her tail can go to the sky. She refused His Highness in the past, and how would she agree to marry him in the future?” Zhou Ruyu almost rolled her eyes because of her daughter’s purity.
But Shi Baoyou didn’t believe Zhou Ruyu’s words and restrained the blush on her face. Then she defended Mo Junhao seriously. “His Highness is so nice. Even if Qingxue can’t think it through for now and gets mad at him, she will come back to him after she remembers his good points in the future.”
At the moment, Zhou Ruyu didn’t even want to roll her eyes.
Why did she raise such a foolish daughter?
It was not that Mo Junhao couldn’t forget Shi Qingxue, but he just coveted Duke Shi’s family behind her, more exactly, Shi Junhe’s influence.
Zhou Ruyu didn’t make efforts to explain so many things to Shi Baoyou. She reached out her hand and poked the girl’s forehead gently, snorting. “Stupid child. You have also said that His Excellency loves Shi Qingxue, too.
“Do you think that His Excellency would agree if His Highness wants to marry Shi Qingxue?”
This time, nobody could blame Zhou Ruyu as she looked up to somebody else and frustrated herself. It was that Mo Junyang was too horrible in many people’s eyes.
So Mo Junyang was like a monster in her heart. Although Mo Junhao was capable, he couldn’t compare with Mo Junyang.
Moreover, Shi Qingxue loved Mo Junyang apparently.
It was not easy for Mo Junhao to be the third one.
“Really?” Shi Baoyou looked at Zhou Ruyu in doubt. It seemed that she wanted to believe her, but she still hesitated.
Zhou Ruyu couldn’t bear with her daughter’s indecisive and weak character and decided to push her.