The Forest of Red Mansions

"Thank you, Fourth Master, this time." Lin Jinyao smiled sweetly, and saluted the boy in black.

Yinzhen asked with a faint smile, "Can you relieve your anger?"

Lin Jinyao replied with a smile: "It can be regarded as a little bit of anger."

50 taels of silver, if it was the Xue family in its heyday, it would be nothing even if it hurt a little bit, but now the Xue family has already started to go downhill, and the situation is not as good as before. Now the 50 is almost equivalent to Xue's money. Half of the family property is gone.

Not having so much cash in hand, the mother and daughter of the Xue family had to sell some of their property to get together 50 yuan. Their faces, let alone how ugly they were.

Thinking of this, Lin Jinyao curled the corners of her mouth quite comfortably, and pushed the small box in front of him towards him, "Here is 40 taels, please accept it with a smile, and the other 10 taels will be a thank you gift from Prince Yu."

This time Prince Yu did not intervene in Xue Pan's matter, but he also raised the banner for her, so he should thank her a little bit.

Although she is a little jealous of such a large amount of money, she is not short of money, so she might as well borrow flowers and present Buddha to let the fourth master recite well. Besides, he is basically responsible for this matter from the beginning to the end, so it is appropriate to give him the money.

Unexpectedly, Yinzhen said: "You can keep the money yourself, buy whatever you like, don't give it to me, the second emperor's uncle is not short of money, and it will be a lot of filial piety every three days and two years of life."

With the status of Prince Yu, there are many people rushing to honor him, but money is really nothing to him.

Lin Jinyao thought for a while, and said: "Well, I won't give Prince Yu any more money, and I'll pick some good things from home to thank you tomorrow. Only the money must be accepted by the fourth master, and there will be more money in the future." There are a lot of things that need to bother Fourth Master a lot, if Fourth Master refuses to accept, I will have no face to work on Fourth Master."

I don't know if it's an illusion, but Lin Jinyao always feels that the fourth master is suddenly unhappy.

"Miss Lin, has she forgotten that this is only half of the Xue family's property, and they won't be able to keep the rest of the property for a long time." Yin Zhen lowered his eyes and looked at the teacup in his hand, making it impossible to see Emotions, only a slightly deep voice rang in my ears in a calm and unhurried manner.

"Those properties are nothing more than money. After all, it is inconvenient for Ms. Lin to take over directly, but I am not polite. Therefore, Ms. Lin should keep the 50 taels right now, or buy some fields, villages, and shops. It can't be called all." I took it all by myself." As he said that, Yinzhen raised his head to look at her, showing a teasing smile, "It's better to divide the spoils, it's better to distribute them evenly, so that it's more conducive to maintaining the harmony of our cooperative relationship, Lin Girl, what do you say?"

A picture of a bunch of little dolls sitting in a row and sharing fruits suddenly appeared in her mind, and Lin Jinyao couldn't help laughing out loud when she heard this, she didn't expect this piece of ice dumpling to be humorous, so it wasn't so dull and boring.

In ancient times, there were beauties who "looked back with a smile and were full of beauty, and the six palaces of pink and black were colorless", and now there is Feiyu who "smiles with a smile and is ashamed, and the fourth master of Bingshan becomes an idiot".

The scorching gaze seemed to scorch her whole body, Lin Jinyao looked away uncomfortably and lowered her head slightly, and said, "Since the fourth master said so, then I would rather be respectful than obedient."

"Very good." Yinzhen chuckled, "There is no need for you and me to see each other like this."

Lin Jinyao: "..." Was she being teased?

……

She didn't stay in Prince Yu's mansion for too long, and after talking a few words with Fourth Master and discussing the next things, Lin Jinyao took her leave and left.

The next day Lin Jinyao sent a thank you gift to Prince Yu's mansion.

Not to mention, the Lin family has been a scholarly family for generations, and the family has a huge collection of books, including many precious rare books. On weekdays, the three brothers and sisters of the Lin family love reading very much. When they came to Jia's mansion, the two boxes were full of books. Lin Jinyao After looking through it carefully, I finally picked out a book on the art of war and a book on tactics and gave them to Prince Yu, which was considered his favorite.

In addition, Lin Jinyao specially gave Prince Yu Fujin a box of gemstones of various colors and a glass kang screen, which can be said to be very valuable.

A few days later, news suddenly came from the prison that Xue Pan "died suddenly".

Not long afterward, an ordinary carriage quietly drove to a remote Zhuangzi on the outskirts of Beijing.

Lin Jinyao had told the Xue family mother and daughter beforehand that it was absolutely impossible for Xue Pan to be acquitted when the matter developed to this point. If he wanted him to come out, he could only be a "dead person".

Although Xue's mother and daughter are helpless, they also know that this is the only way to go. The evidence is so strong that it is impossible to overturn the case. It would be nice to save his life.

After receiving Lin Jinyao's warning, fearing that the news would leak out, the mother and daughter of the Xue family dared not even tell Madam Wang the news. Facing everyone's words of "sorry and resignation", the mother and daughter had to pretend to be deeply saddened and ran away." Collect the corpse", and what was even more aggrieved was that they had to hold a funeral for Xue Pan.

The 50 taels of silver made their hearts, liver, spleen, lungs and kidneys colic for a long time, but even putting aside the relationship, Xue Pan is the only support for their mother and daughter, and the pillar of their house. So they gritted their teeth and cut their flesh.

They thought they would be fine as long as they were rescued, but when they were rescued, they realized that things were far from as good as they thought.

Xue Pan's life was saved, but the broken leg could not be healed because of too long delay and missed the best time for treatment.

In addition, Xue Pan came out as a "dead person", that is to say, he will never walk outside in the name of Xue Pan, the patriarch of the Xue family of the imperial merchant, or even appear in front of people easily, at least in the capital city. He and Jinling had no room for him anymore, either he could only hide aggrieved in the dark as a mouse, or he could only leave his hometown incognito.

To add insult to injury, the Xue family's business had already suffered a serious blow when the Dongchuang incident happened. Now that the news of Xue Pan's "sudden death" came out, the insiders of the Xue family's property became even more confused.

The owner is gone, how can this business survive?

The quick-witted person thought about it as early as when Xue Pan was imprisoned. Now that Xue Pan died, he made a quick decision to take the money and ran away. Several properties of the Xue family closed down overnight. Shao also suppressed the list and owed foreign debts, and the debt collectors rushed to Jia's house.

Aunt Xue and Xue Baochai's mother and daughter were caught off guard by this sudden change. Aunt Xue couldn't read a few big characters, let alone do business. Although she is smart, she is just a little girl who knows how much business.

As a last resort, Xue Baochai had to quickly dispose of those short-lived properties and take the money to pay off the debt first. However, this wave of troubles was not over yet, and more serious things came again.

The group of people in the Xue family in Jinling raised an issue, claiming that for the benefit of the entire Xue family, they wanted to re-elect a patriarch to take over the Xue family's business.

"What should we do? These belong to our family, why should those old things take them away? They only bully us orphans, widows and helpless mothers, it's too much bullying!" Aunt Xue was furious, with red eyes yelling, I am even more worried about the future of my house, "If they really take away the business, how can there be room for our house? Besides, the cash in our hands has been given to Prince Yu, and now we can only These industries are left..."

If they can't even keep their business, the three of them, mother and son, will really have nothing!

Xue Baochai was also haggarded by the blows of the past few days, and now even her usual smile was gone, and she was gloomy and didn't know what she was thinking.

"Why don't we find Xue Biao?" Aunt Xue hesitated.

Now Xue Pan is already "dead". Their mother and daughter are both female dependents, so they can't walk around to take care of the business. What's more, the business is even more chaotic and can't be sorted out. It's not good if there is no one capable of handling it. No, and the only thing she can think of right now is Xue Biao from the second room.

But Xue Baochai said: "Nowadays, how many people in the clan are trying to plot against our family, how does Mom know that he won't? Could he really be working for us all his life? But if he puts his mind to it, we... can There's really nothing left."

Aunt Xue's face turned pale, and she didn't dare to mention it any more.

After pondering for a long time, Xue Baochai gritted his teeth and said: "My brother is useless now, and our mother and daughter are unable to take care of this huge family business, and there are people from the clan watching over us. No matter what, the two of you can't keep it, it's better to cut off your tail to survive!"

"How to survive by docking your tail?"

"It's better to dispose of all the property than to be snatched by that screwdriver!" Xue Baochai gritted his teeth angrily, "At least dispose of the property, and we can still live with a large amount of money in our hands. Go, what are we left with?"