Chapter 25: Paying the Price
Han Qiao sat in the courtyard, quietly and calmly giving orders.
"Xiu, go pack up all the things that are in the pot. We'll be taking them with us. Yi, take cousin Dacheng out the back door and look for a carriage. If that carriage driver from last time isn't at home, then look for an ox-cart, donkey-cart or mule-cart. I don't care which. It would be even better if we could have two carts."
"Dayong, Dakui, go and help Xiu. Pack up all the food that you can take with you."
"Mother, what about you?" The children asked in unison.
Han Qiao looked out of the house. "I'll go and confront her."
She wasn't completely helpless.
She wasn't afraid of an old woman like Old Lady Sun.
"Mother, you have to be careful. She might hit you," Sun Ke said softly.
Han Qiao rubbed her head. "Don't worry. Mother won't give her a chance to do anything."
She opened the door resolutely.
Madam Sun pointed at Han Qiao and cursed, "Han, you vicious whore! You are trying deliberately to ruin our family's name."
Han Qiao's eyes instantly filled with anger, "You say I want to harm you? Then let me ask you, why did you send Sun Yiming out of the house, back then? It was precisely because Sun Yiming was a useless good-for-nothing. You passed him over to me and made me slave away for him."
"You never gave me the deed to the house and land even after Sun Yiming and I moved in. You have been planning this entire time to appropriate the land and house. Heavens knows how much money a family would have to spend to raise a child into a scholar. You threw him away just like that. He didn't succeed in the imperial examination. It's one thing not to have any good advice for him, but you kept lending him money–once, twice, three times, without end. More than forty taels of silver. We had nothing to eat for ages, and you all kept lending him money without batting an eye."
"Don't tell me you didn't have any ulterior motives. You tricked him into borrowing money so that you could take the house and land."
"Then there's Jiang the Pimp who visited your grocery store. Why was she at the grocery store?" Han Qiao questioned coldly.
The timidity all over her body evaporated without a trace.
Madam Sun took two steps back. "Well, naturally, she was just there to buy a few things."
"Oh really? Then what did she buy? Who rang her up? Was it you or Yixi? Did she give you copper coins or shards of silver?" Han Qiao kept pounding her with questions.
The people who were watching the show all followed suit.
Madam Sun had no choice but to make up a story. "Yixi rang her up. She paid in copper coins."
"What did she buy?" Han Qiao asked further.
"..."
How could Madam Sun know what she bought?
"You don't know what she bought because you're lying. Jiang the Pimp didn't buy anything at all. You were conspiring with her to sell us to a brothel!"
Han Qiao hit the nail on the head, making Madam Sun's face turn ghastly.
She may have just been suspicious before, but now, Han Qiao had no doubts.
Even if she didn't know what kind of business Jiang the Pimp was involved in, the word "Pimp" said it all: she was buying and selling people.
None of this was good.
"No, no, no, no!" Madam Sun hurriedly wanted to explain.
"Sun Yixi is here, Sun Yixi is here."
"Then ask Sun Yixi what Jiang the Pimp bought at the grocery store? You'd better not say anything," Han Qiao said coldly.
When Sun Yixi was invited over, his face was full of worry.
Seeing that his mother's face was pale and she couldn't even stand properly, his eyes instantly filled with anger. "Sister-in-law, what are you doing?"
"You came at the right time. Jiang the Pimp came to the grocery store yesterday. What did she buy? Did she use silver shards or copper coins? She stayed in the grocery store for so long, so she must have bought a lot of things."
Han Qiao's words were very tactful. She even hinted that Jiang the Pimp had stayed in the grocery store for a long time and bought a lot of things. Naturally, she would use silver shards.
He, too, was at a loss for words.
"Jiang the Pimp bought a lot of things yesterday. She used silver shards."
"..."
"..."
Oh.
In the end, their stories didn't match at all.
In panic, Madam Sun looked over at Sun Yixi.
Sun Yixi also looked at his mother, quite surprised.
Could it be that he had made a mistake in what he said?
"Shopkeeper Sun, that's not what your mother said just now," someone chimed in.
"Yeah, your mother said that she paid in copper coins."
"You said that she gave us silver shards. Which one of you two is lying?"
"Or rather, both of you lied."
In the crowd, it was easy to just sit back and watch the commotion.
Someone actually proposed to invite Jiang the Pimp to testify and see who was lying.
Four men in green protected the young man, dressed in embroidered clothes, in front of them and the little girl beside him. The young man's face was red and his teeth were white. He was fair and his eyes were shining brightly.
The young man said, "May I ask where Jiang the Pimp lives? I will get my attendant to invite her over. Who here can lead the way?"
The young man's voice was crisp and sweet.
It was obviously a lady. She had disguised herself as a man to come out for some fun.
Dressed in brocade robes, everything on her body was expensive and luxurious.
"I can lead the way."
The young man in the brocade robes gestured for a servant to follow. "You must invite that pimp, Jiang, over."
"Yes."
Someone immediately brought a stool for her. She politely thanked them and slowly sat down.
Since there was a follow-up to today's good show, more people didn't want to leave.
It was like watching a play. The more they watched, the more excited they became.
Madam Sun and Sun Yixi couldn't leave even if they wanted to. No one was willing to let them leave.
How could they keep up appearances if they left?
Further, they were quite unlucky since Jiang the Pimp happened to be at home today. When the servant went to invite her over, she didn't want to come at first. She called her thugs over, but the servant moved i on her directly. In just a few moments, he had taken care of the thugs with moves that were ruthless and fierce. That had scared her silly.
She could only follow obediently.
Jiang the Pimp was a vicious person, but she was very clear-headed. She could tell what was going on before she even arrived.
And, she had already thought of a counterattack.
Just as she reached Sun Yiming's house, someone asked her what she had bought at Sun's grocery store yesterday?
"I didn't buy anything. I was going to buy something, but then this Madam Sun pulled me over to ask if there were any rich men around who were looking to buy some young ladies. She said she had some older men, already married, as well as some young, teenage ladies."
"When I heard that this business was profitable, I asked patiently who these people were, but she clenched her teeth and refused to tell me. She only said that she wanted a thousand taels of silver in exchange for four girls!"
"You, you, you…" Madam Sun was so angry that her chest rose and fell violently.
Hatred and anger surged in her heart.
She pointed at Jiang the Pimp and wished that she could tear her apart.
The crowd exploded
Four girls? There just so happened to be four girls in the Han household
No more, no less.
That old lady truly was heartless.
"Mrs. Han, I take it? I... I just wanted to ask you, your mother-in-law treats you so well yet wants to sell you into prostitution. What do you plan to do?"
Han Qiao looked at the beautiful, elegant lady who was dressed like a man.
What should she do?
If she could, she would kill the entire Sun family.
But she couldn't do that.
Such a thing wouldn't be allowed in those days. The public wouldn't allow it, since men were supposed to be superior to women.
"I only have one request at the moment. I beg the Sun family to spare our lives. Let me divorce Sun Yiming, and I will take the three children with me."
"Everyone says that if you can have a step-mother, then you can also have a step-father. They grew in my womb and, after ten months, I gave birth to them. I can't bear to see them being tortured and abused."
"Following me in life may be hard for them, but at least I will raise them well and find them a good family to marry into."
After Han Qiao said that, many people were shaking their heads in agreement.
The woman in embroidered clothes looked at Han Qiao. "What about those people from the Sun family? Don't you want them to pay the price?"
This 𝓬ontent is taken from fre𝒆webnove(l).𝐜𝐨𝗺