Volume 2: Eagle vs. Dragon Chapter 27: Sick Old Man Wu Goes Too Far
This morning tea started happily but ended in embarrassment.
Before the show ended, Cai Qiaozhu suddenly said, "I almost forgot one thing. Lian Qiao."
Lian Qiao took out an envelope.
Cai Qiaozhu handed the envelope to Ma and said, "I was going to come for tea this morning, and mentioned it when I went to pay my respects to my master. My master asked me to pass the letter to Uncle Dalin. Aunt, thank you for your help."
After handing over the letter, he said goodbye.
Ma went home in a daze and ran into Ye Haocai at the door. She looked anxious and had infinite expectations in her eyes. She didn't care that there were other people around. When she saw Ma, she called out, "Mother, what happened? What happened?"
Ye Haocai was the most rude person, but Ma loved her the most and she didn’t know how to talk to her for a moment, so she shouted, “You’re at the gate , how dare you!” Ye Haocai stuck out her tongue and then she held back.
Ma walked into the house, and Ye Haocai followed quickly, whispering in her ear as she walked, "Mother, what happened?"
"Stop making a fuss!" Ma said, "I'll go talk to your father first. Go back to your room! If a girl asks about this, she will be laughed at if someone sees her."
Ye Haocai said "oh" and walked away helplessly. Ma stopped and looked at her back, sighing helplessly. No matter how cruel she was to outsiders, she would eventually feel soft-hearted towards her beloved daughter.
When he went to the study, he saw Ye Dalin sitting on a recliner with his eyes closed, two maids were walking around him with a heater, and Ye Youyu was quietly tidying up the bookshelf. Ye Dalin ignored her - during this period of time, he had become cold towards his daughter again , but since big things were not decided, he was not ready to express his emotions yet.
Ma saw her and was furious. She pointed at the door and said, "Get out!"
Ye Youyu looked at Ma in astonishment. Seeing her chest rising and falling, she didn't know how she had offended her. However, she was unwilling to suffer a loss, so she lowered her head and left.
Ma sent everyone else away and then sat down angrily next to the recliner.
Ye Dalin opened his eyes and asked, "What's wrong?"
Ma said angrily: "This is too much! The Wu family is too much!"
Ye Dalin knew at once that his wife had been upset when she went to have morning tea, but he was not surprised at all, as he had anticipated that the Wu family would have some foreshadowing. After decades of dealing with each other, Wu Guoying understood him, and he also understood Wu Guoying. Moreover, Ye Dalin knew that Wu Guoying understood him, so he knew that the Wu family had suffered a loss last time, and Wu Guoying must find a way to get it back. However, this time, not only did she not put forward any conditions, but she proposed to renegotiate the marriage. There was something strange in this, and there was indeed a foreshadowing.
"Tell me, what conditions did the Wu family put forward?"
Ma said angrily, "So they are going to marry her. It's not good luck!"
"Not lucky?" Ye Dalin asked curiously, "Who is that?"
Ma said angrily, "There is fish!"
Ye Dalin was stunned: "This... this is not possible?"
"What do you mean you can't?" If Ma's anger could become physical, she would have turned the entire study upside down. "That little bitch must have used some tricks to bewitch the third kid from the Wu family! So when she proposed marriage, she specifically said she didn't want Haocai, but wanted that little bitch. This... This is going to make our Haocai a joke in Xiguan! How can Haocai get married in the future?"
Wu Chengjian was originally engaged to Ye Haocai, but when he came to discuss marriage again, he found out that he was going to marry the younger sister instead of the elder sister. This made Ma more upset than if he had just found another girl at random. When this incident came to light, Ye Haocai was bound to be talked about by others, and his future marriage would be greatly hindered.
Ye Dalin was also a little annoyed at first, but his reaction was far less than Ma's - although he favored Ye Haocai more than Ye Youyu, it was just like that, after all, business was the most important to him. So the annoyance just flashed by at this time, and then he calculated and said: "If it's just like this, then it's also a good deal for us."
If Wu Chengjian was just trying to use this to disgust himself, then it would be a great deal for the Ye family. It was just the marriage of two daughters, what was the big deal? Ye Youyu was a concubine's daughter, and Wu Chengjian was willing to marry her off, so he could make money. As for Ye Haocai, if she really could n't could find a son-in-law to come to the door, so what was the big deal?
Ma didn't expect her husband to react like this at first, but they have been married for decades, so she thought of it and couldn't help but said angrily, "It's a good deal! You only know your business! You don't care about your daughter's life or death! Well, you can talk to Haocai about this matter later!"
As he said this, he stood up and left, but suddenly he remembered the letter, so he took it out and threw it into Ye Dalin's chest.
Ye Dalin asked: "What is it?"
Ma said, "Old Wu gave it to you!"
She went back to her room angrily and was sitting there sulking when suddenly there was a thud and Ye Haocai came in crying, shouting, "Mother, mother! That... that can't be true, right? Haoguan wants to marry me, not that stinky fish, right?"
Ma knew that Ye Haocai already knew about it. Come to think of it, when she and Cai Qiaozhu met this time, both sides put on a grand ceremony and each brought a bunch of maids and servants. Discussing marriage over morning tea was not a confidential matter, and they did not avoid others when they spoke, and there were a lot of people listening.
This was explosive news in the Xiguan mansion. How could the maids and servants not gossip when they came back? Ye Haocai was a person who could not hold back his anger. After he returned to his room, he had to send someone to inquire about it. Once he inquired, he would not be able to hide anything.
Although his mother hadn't spoken yet, when Ye Haocai saw the other party like this, he knew it was true.
She cried out, sat on the ground, and kept kicking her legs: "I rule, I rule! Haoguan is mine! I will never give it to that bitch even if I die!"
Ma also said bitterly: "You are throwing a tantrum here now, what's the point! It's you who are the reason. If you hadn't insisted on not letting him go, how could you have brought shame upon yourself now?"
"Mother, why do you say that to me!" Ye Haocai cried, "Even if I can't get married myself, I can't let that stinky fish marry Haoguan!"
Ma thought it made sense and stood up, saying, "Yes, let's go! Let's go see your father. Even if this marriage doesn't work out, we can't let that little bitch get away with it!"
Ye Haocai stopped crying and jumped up, following Ma's hurried way to the study. Before he arrived, he heard several servants and maids trembling with fear outside the door.
Ma stepped forward and asked, "What's wrong?"
The servants and maids didn't dare to say a word. They heard the sound of things being smashed in the study from time to time, and then something flew out - it was a Tang Sancai, which was bought at a high price. Once Wu Chengjian came to see it and said with disdain that it was dug out of a tomb and it would not be unlucky to put it in the study. Ye Dalin didn't care as long as the thing was valuable. Unexpectedly, it was smashed into pieces at this time.
Ma was slightly startled and said to Ye Haocai, "You smashed all these things? Your father must be very angry this time."
Ye Haocai asked, "Dad, are you angry because of me?"
Ma thought that it was probably not the case. Ye Dalin was not so angry just now. Then she heard another object flying out with a whoosh. It broke into seven or eight pieces when it hit the door sill. Ma glanced at it and was shocked. What was broken was a Ru kiln azure tripod plate! It was one of the five famous artifacts in the entire Ye family's collection! With Ye Dalin's temper, he was afraid that his daughter might not be as valuable as this azure tripod plate!
Seeing that even this was smashed, Ma knew that Ye Dalin was no longer simply angry, but must be in a state of mental confusion.
Ye Haocai's face was also pale. Normally, she would be scolded if she even touched the Tianqing three-legged plate, but now it was smashed into pieces.
At this time, the smashing sounds in the study stopped, but Ye Dalin was heard making hoarse sounds in the study, like a wild beast roaring.
Ma hadn't seen her husband like this in the past ten years, and now she didn't even dare to go in. She thought about it and sent someone to call Ye Zhong over.
After a long time, the room was silent and Ma mustered up her courage, opened the curtain and walked in. She saw that the study was in a mess, the bookcases and tables were overturned, the collapsed charcoal stove, messy books and papers, and various antique fragments were piled all over the floor. Ye Dalin's hand was injured, and there was no chair to sit on, so he squatted on the ground and gasped for breath.
Ma stepped forward cautiously and asked, "Master...what happened?"
Ye Dalin gnashed his teeth and uttered , "Sick old man Wu...you are going too far! You are going too far!"
Ma asked, "The Wu family? What happened to them?"
Ye Dalin pointed at the letter on the ground that he had torn into three or four pieces and said, "Look for yourself!"
When Ma was young, she helped Ye Dalin with accounting. Like Ye Dalin, she could not recognize many words, but she memorized everything related to her family's business. When she put the shredded papers together, she recognized most of the words on the list - they were all about her family's business!
"This...what are you going to do?" Ma asked, shaking the pieces of paper.
Ye Dalin gritted his teeth and said, "Sick old man Wu... He said he wanted me to give these things as a dowry!"
Ma shouted, "What! What did you say!"
Ye Dalin shouted, "Didn't you hear clearly? Dowry! He wants me to take these out as a dowry for Youyu!"
Ma's emphasis on family wealth was no less than her husband's! She was like a madman, her fingers stuck into her hair, and her hair was all loose when she pulled it. She yelled, "Is Wu Guoying crazy? Is he crazy? He must be crazy to dare to make such a request!"
When Ye Zhong arrived at the study, what he saw was a pair of crazy in-laws with disheveled hair. If he didn't know them, who would have thought that this couple was the Pixiu couple in the Thirteen Hongs, the top wealthy couple in the world today.
"Master, Madam, what's going on?"
Ye Dalin had vented his anger twice by then, and he was much calmer, but a little exhausted. He pointed at the six or seven crumpled pieces of paper on the ground and said, "Look for yourself!"
Ye Zhong finally flattened the paper fragments and put them together. He looked carefully and was secretly surprised, but he was just an employee after all. He was not like Ye Dalin who regarded the Ye family's assets as his heart and soul, so he was not confused and asked, "Master, is this what Hao Guan meant?"
Ye Dalin immediately remembered that Wu Guoying was considered honest among the Thirteen Banks, so why would he offer such tricky conditions? Although the letter was written, this idea——
"That's right! This must be Wu Chengjian's intention! This little beast! Is he going to tear down our Ye family? He is going to eat me, Ye Dalin, skin and flesh!"
