It was Mo Shujun’s first time to be interrupted, yet she didn’t get angry. Instead, she just looked at Ouyang Yuxin indifferently. “Madam Dong, what do you want to tell me?”
Ouyang Yuxin showed a cold face and rebuked angrily, “When your son married my daughter, he promised that he would never have a concubine. We didn’t bother about his concubine’s daughter, but you dare to tell him to take another concubine. Do you think that the members of the Dong family can be bullied easily?”
Dong Hui’s mother was quick-tongued and said a lot.
Unexpectedly, Mo Shujun didn’t even want to glance at Ouyang Yuxin, and she responded loftily, “That was in the past, and it’s different now. When Dong got married, she didn’t say that she would make our family have no descendant.”
The biggest impiety was having no descendant.
The descendant was not a child but a boy who could inherit the title of nobility.
Dong Hui didn’t give birth to a son in the past twenty years. If she married into another noble family, she should obediently help her husband take a concubine to have a son or wait for being divorced.
Ouyang Yuxin knew that they were in the wrong, so she was not so aggressive, yet when she glanced at Dong Hui’s slightly prominent belly, she stood with her head high and chest out again, asking, “Who said that Hui can’t give birth to a son? Now isn’t the baby in her womb the future heir of Duke Shi?”
Mo Shujun glanced at Dong Hui’s belly and sneered. “We don’t know whether the fetus is a boy or a girl. Before it is born, nobody knows its gender. What’s more, it’s uncertain if she can give birth to it in the end.”
For the first time, Ouyang Yuxin and Dong Hui heard that a grandmother disliked her daughter-in-law and even evilly cursed her grandson.
It’s so hard to believe that!
Tears fell from Dong Hui’s eyes without a stop again, and Ouyang Yuxin was furious.
She pushed Dong Hui once more and told her to reason with Mo Shujun, but Dong Hui just lowered her head and shed tears. She didn’t know how to fight for her right, which made Ouyang Yuxin angrier.
However, at the moment, Mo Shujun seemed to think that it was not hurtful enough, and she expressed intentionally, “Fine, it’s late now. Hui, hurry to pack up and then go back with me.”
She said that, as if she really came to take Dong Hui back to their mansion.
Leng Yan stood in front of Mo Shujun obediently as a wall flower all the time, and she felt happy while seeing that Mo Shujun irritated Dong Hui so much that she shed tears, yet she didn’t expect that the Princess Royal really invited Dong Hui back to the mansion, so she was restless.
If Dong Hui really went back, wouldn’t Leng Yan be in a lower position in the East House?
Leng Yan hurriedly winked at Mo Shujun, but the latter pretended not to have seen that and just urged Dong Hui to pack up.
It made Leng Yan anxious.
However, obviously, Leng Yan didn’t know about Dong Hui well enough.
Dong Hui was arrogant and stubborn. She came back to her parents’ home because she got mad at Shi Junhe. Now Mo Shujun made her so angry, so how would she go back home with her mother-in-law obediently?
Then she turned around and ignored Mo Shujun, regardless of the basic etiquette.
Mo Shujun didn’t get mad and just sighed, taking it as a pity. “Fine. It appears that you are still angry with Junhe, and even though I came to ask you, you are unwilling to go back.”
Dong Hui still didn’t answer her.
“In this case, I won’t force you.” Of course, Mo Shujun didn’t specially come to ask Dong Hui to go back home, and her daughter-in-law’s reactions satisfied her.
Then she pushed Leng Yan forward and put on airs. “Yan, Hui is unwilling to witness your marriage to Junhe, and it’s that you don’t have the good luck, so I can’t force her.
“But after all, she is the mistress. Even though she is not in the East House, you can’t show disrespect to her. Do you understand?”
Leng Yan certainly knew what Mo Shujun wanted to do. She ignored the other two people’s ghastly pale faces and replied in a clear and loud voice, “Yes, I see.”
“You will be Junhe’s concubine, and Hui is his wife. Do you know what you should do?” Mo Shujun reminded her once more.
Leng Yan immediately picked up the hot tea which had been prepared earlier and walked gracefully to Dong Hui. She seemed not to see Dong Hui’s eyes which would eat her alive and then bowed with a smile. “I hear that when a woman gets married to a man as his concubine, she would serve tea to his wife and greet her. Now you are unwilling to go back to our mansion, and I am afraid that I can’t serve tea to you when I get married, Madam, yet I can’t ignore the rules. Please accept it.”
Afterward, she raised the teacup with both hands and gave it to Dong Hui.
However, it was not a cup of tea but a loud slap in Dong Hui’s face.
Dong Hui couldn’t be impolite to Mo Shujun, but would she let a maid step on her?
She didn’t care if this was Mo Shujun’s personal maid and just waved her hand, wiping the teacup in front of her to the floor.
Bang!
Leng Yan also leaned forward and fell on the floor with a grunt.
“Madam, I know that you don’t like me and think that I snatched His Lordship’s love, yet I can’t control who he wants to marry. No matter how angry you are and how much you don’t want him to have a concubine, you can’t…” Tears fell from Leng Yan’s eyes at once.
She looked pitiful, as if she were bullied by a local tyrant.
Dong Hui was furious, but hearing that Leng Yan satirized her indirectly as she was jealous, she could hardly breathe and passed out.
“Hui!” Ouyang Yuxin turned pale with fear and summoned the maids in a hurry.
“What is going on?”
A deep male voice cut in.
All people in the main hall looked at the voice source, to see that Dong Hui’s father Dong Biren was standing at the door, with Shi Junhe and Shi Qingxue on both sides behind him.
Seeing that her husband came, Ouyang Yuxin seemed to find her backup and cried out at once. She started to complain tearfully that Mo Shujun brought a concubine to provoke them and irritated Dong Hui to fall into a coma.
Dong Biren had no reaction after hearing that, while Shi Junhe strode in and came to Dong Hui, asking with concern anxiously, “Hui, Hui, are you all right?”
Ouyang Yuxin was angry about Mo Shujun’s behavior and therefore hated Shi Junhe. She pushed him away from Dong Hui and reproached in a rage, “Get out! Who allows you to get close to my daughter? Nobody in your mansion is nice. You abandoned my daughter, and even after she came back home, she was humiliated by you!
“It pissed me off! Since you don’t care about my daughter, we don’t like your family! All of you, get out of here!”
After speaking, Ouyang Yuxin didn’t give Shi Junhe a chance to explain and just ordered the servants to carry Dong Hui into the inner room. Meanwhile, she stopped Shi Junhe from following them in.
Shi Junhe wanted to break in, but Dong Biren stated in a deep voice behind him, “Duke Shi, this is not the imperial court or your mansion here. You can’t act willfully.”
Shi Junhe was in awe of his father-in-law and didn’t dare to behave recklessly, so he had to stop in his tracks.
However, it seemed that Mo Shujun couldn’t bear to hear others rebuke her son, and she yelled again, “You talk about your family all the time. It seems that your family is priceless, but in fact, it looks beautiful on the surface while it’s messy inside. Look at the daughter you have brought up. She has a lot of shortcomings and even dares to have an affair in secret. She is…”
“Mother!” Shi Junhe couldn’t stand it anymore and roared in a low voice, interrupting Mo Shujun.
He glared at Mo Shujun almost with his questioning eyes for the first time, hinting, “You promised me not to reveal this matter. Why did you break your word and even come to the Dong family’s mansion to do something like this?”
Mo Shujun shrank back under Shi Junhe’s eyes and suddenly had a bad feeling, thinking that it was terrible this time.
However, she was always arrogant. Even though she thought that she might have gone too far, she wouldn’t lower her head. Contrarily, she held her head high and looked into Shi Junhe’s eyes in silence.
Neither of them spoke a word.
At last, Dong Biren told them to leave.
“You two came from afar and said what you should and shouldn’t say as you wanted. And you have said enough. Please go back home now!” His voice was distant and majestic, above suspicion.
Mo Shujun wanted to retort, but facing this father, she felt guilty, so she ceased fire and went away with Leng Yan.
Shi Junhe still wanted to see Dong Hui, while he was stopped by Dong Biren.
Dong Biren stated, “I don’t care what difficulty you have. What’s done is done, and it has happened, so it’s no need to say anything pointless. Just go back first.”
Shi Junhe could do nothing but leave in frustration.
Dong Biren stood in the main hall for a while and saw Shi Junhe walking out of the mansion’s gate. Then he looked away slowly and his eyes fell on a corner. “Why don’t you go away?”
Of course he asked Shi Qingxue who had sent a message to Shi Junhe and came with him.
Hearing her grandfather Dong Biren order her to leave, the young generation Shi Qingxue was obviously much bolder than Mo Shujun and Shi Junhe. She was thick-skinned and smiled. “I came to play the game of Go with you today, Grandpa. The stones and board haven’t been displayed, but you want to kick me out. Do you hate me, too? Don’t you want to see me?”
Dong Biren could speak bluntly to Shi Junhe, yet he would never get mad at this smart and lovely little granddaughter anyway.
He just showed a cold face and didn’t have time to speak.
However, Shi Qingxue’s eyes were full of tears in an instant, and she started to complain in a sobbing voice, “Purr, I am so sad. I didn’t do anything, but you dislike me. I am so poor. My paternal grandpa left me, and now even my maternal grandpa wants to abandon me…”
Logically, Dong Biren was the kind of person who was impatient to hear others cry, and he thought that this was improper.
However, nobody knew why Dong Biren didn’t get impatient but started to feel sad for her when he looked at his little granddaughter’s tears.
Especially when he heard Shi Qingxue bring up his old friend Shi Lei, he sighed with emotion and thought, “If Shi Lei knows that I made his beloved granddaughter cry, the old guy may fight against me till death.”
“Fine, fine. Stop crying. I don’t dislike you!” Dong Biren never comforted anybody else, so he just softened his tone and said stiffly.
Shi Qingxue stopped at a certain point. She had been shedding tears, but in the blink of an eye, her tears were gone, and her big sparkling and bright eyes were fascinating.
Nobody could find that she had cried.
At the moment, Dong Biren certainly knew that this little girl just purposely pretended to be pitiful and wanted him to feel sorry for her.
What was more annoying, he knew the truth yet didn’t get angry unexpectedly. He just rubbed Shi Qingxue’s nose crossly. “Kid, you learnt from your grandpa who was smart. No wonder he loved you so much.”
Hearing that somebody praised her as she was like Shi Lei, Shi Qingxue had a complacent and confident smile on her face, seeming to say, “Right? He was proud of me.”
Of course, she wouldn’t be so shameless in front of outsiders or speak out what was on her mind. She just blinked and changed the subject. “Grandpa, let’s play Go. I haven’t played with you for a long time and I am out of practice.”
In the beginning, Dong Biren worried that Shi Qingxue would ask for mercy for Shi Junhe, but unexpectedly, when he softened, she was still willing to play Go with him seriously, so he was more satisfied.
He didn’t refuse Shi Qingxue to support his arm, and they went to the study.
On the way, it was a quiet and beautiful environment, and it was matched with Dong Biren, a famous Confucian scholar.
Shi Qingxue hadn’t been to the Dong family’s mansion for a long time, and she felt happy to see the grass and trees which were the same as before. She couldn’t help but stop and watch them carefully.
“When your grandpa came here that year, he also couldn’t walk forward while seeing the grass and flowers. However, I laughed at him as he was a military official but learnt to mingle with men of letters and posed as a lover of culture. Do you know how he replied to me?” Dong Biren suddenly talked about the old stories.
And it was something about Shi Lei that Shi Qingxue most wanted to know.
She looked at Dong Biren with expectancy and asked for an answer, “What did he say?”