Chapter 224: Dealing with a Series of Disgusting Things (3)

Translator: Iris

Madam Xuan’s scruple was reasonable. Although Minglan didn’t want to be bothered, things still came to her. Lately, Cheng Manor was very busy.

As a matter of fact, in the ancient times, the concubines who were not favored by their husbands didn’t have many chances to meet their men. From the first day Hongxiao and Qiuniang had given their obeisance, Minglan had specified that she had been accustomed to a quiet life because she had used to paid respect to Buddha with Old Madam Sheng. Therefore, every morning Minglan would send Hongxiao and Qiuniang away after she had asked the thing she wanted to ask and said the things she wanted to say. As a result, most of the time Hongxiao and Qiuniang would leave before Gu Tingye arrived at home.

Until now, Gu Tingye still had no intention to sleep with them, and Minglan wouldn’t be so stupid to ask Gu Tingye to do so. The two women couldn’t phone Gu Tingye and say, “Hi, honey, you must be so tired of your wife. Come and have fun with me!”, nor could they wait at Gu Tingye’s workplace and flirt with him while saying enchantingly, “Surprise, sweetheart!”

If Rong was a boy, Qiuniang and Hongxiao could at least meet Gu Tingye on the excuse of letting him teaching Rong to study-- Of course, that plan could only be carried out under the condition that Gu Tingye was well educated.

After a few days, the two women still didn’t get a chance to meet Gu Tingye, and they finally began to get bitter.

Hongxiao, as sensible as she was, knew that Gu Tingye didn’t like her. Therefore, she stayed in her room all the time and tried to let Rong speak more words. However, Qiuniang couldn’t stand this situation anymore. She waited at the crossroad in front of the House of Auspiciousness every day. As a result, she did have encountered Gu Tingye twice. Unlucky for her, the page boys who followed Gu Tingye had no romantic sense at all. Under the gaze of those boys, Qiuniang never had a chance to express her love and affection to Gu Tingye.

After a few times, a lot of people had seen Qiuniang waiting for Gu Tingye like a rock. Then rumors gradually spread in the mansion. The women in the inner yard couldn’t help cursing her ‘a bitch’ and making jokes of her. As for those bachelors in the outer yard, they talked even dirtier, “She must want a man so badly!”

“She’s about to be thirty. Women at that age are very thirsty!”

“If Master still doesn’t come to see her, she has to find other ways to vent her desire.”

Well, the men who didn’t have wives all had rich imaginations.

Not so many people in the outer yard talked like that, so those words only spread to the inner yard a few days after.

After Qiuniang knew about that, she cried sadly and almost committed suicide. Danju came to report Qiuniang’s condition right away. Hearing that, Minglan, flying into a great rage, ordered someone to look into this at once. After she found those guys who had spoken dirty, she punished them fiercely by selling two guys who always violated the rules and fining the others for two months’ salary and beating them with heavy sticks.

Everyone was aware of Minglan’s toughness after witnessed her resolute punishment, then no one dares to gossip about anything.

After Minglan punished those men, she called Qiuniang over for interrogation.

Qiuniang, knowing that she had embarrassed herself, knelt down before Minglan immediately and begged for mercy. Minglan snorted and said, “Master has praised you in front of me so many times. She said that you were kind, reasonable and considerate. It’s only been a few days you came, and look what you have done! Where did you learn that?!”

Qiuniang kept kowtowing with her face covering with tears, “I was only being confused. I haven’t seen Master for so many years, I just missed him so much...”

“I don’t care if you miss him or not.” Minglan interrupted Qiuniang with a serious look and said straightforwardly, “Have you ever thought of this, now Master is in a high position, there are so many people looking forward to his failure. If those rumors were spread out of our mansion, others would laugh at Master for being not able to manage our family! They would say Master could do nothing about his Tong Fang chasing him in his own mansion!” How thirsty was this woman anyway!

Qiuniang got limp on the floor while crying. Minglan then gave a firm order, “Don’t come to give obeisance to me anymore. Xiaotao, give her the ‘The Heart Channel’. Qiuniang, I want you to transcribe this book for a hundred times. Come back when you finish!”

Seeing Qiuniang going back with grievance, Minglan truly felt overly angry. She never had the habits of hiding other’s fault, so she told Gu Tingye the entire thing at that night. While she was telling that, she sighed and said, “I haven’t managed our family well. In Sheng family, no one dares to talk about the things happen in the inner yard with the people in the outer yard! No one dares to gossip about master and madam! Only until today did I understand why my grandma said that Madam Wang was good at managing the Sheng family. Alas... it’s so difficult.”

Minglan had looked down on Wang shi more or less before. Nonetheless, now that Minglan was managing her own family, she finally started to respect Wang shi’s ability.

“It’s not your fault!” Gu Tingye said with a gloomy face, “You have only managed our family for a few days. No matter how capable you are, you are not able to become a master of management overnight! Just punish her severely, put things straight!” He paused and said with a flat tone, “Qiuniang is getting more and more ignorant.”n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Although he sounded calm, Minglan still sensed that he really was angry this time. She walked over and said softly on his shoulder, “It doesn’t matter. Everyone makes mistakes. She already knew she did wrong this time, she won’t do that again.”

Gu Tingye held Minglan in his arms while rubbing her long hair tenderly. After they both fell into silence for a long while, he gave out a light smile and stroked Minglan’s nose, teasing her, “Why did you tell her to transcribe the Buddhist Texts? Why not Women’s Principle?”

Minglan said complacently, “I’ve thought of this before. If anyone asks me the same question as you, I’ll tell them that Qiuniang has been influenced by me and wants to yearn for Buddha. I only asked her to transcribe that book to give her some enlightenment! Then no one would gossip about the affairs in our mansion.”

Gu Tingye was stunned at first, then he laughed loudly which even made his chest tremble. With joyful look in his eyes, he attached his forehead to Minglan’s head and said to her earnestly, “Heart Channel doesn’t have too many words. Why don’t you give her a thick book to transcribe? Fu Qinran has transcribed nearly half set of Tripitakato practice calligraphy. I can borrow that book for you! The whole set!”

Minglan exhaled deeply and said, “Honey, do you know how many words are there in Tripitaka?”

The one who knows nothing fears nothing. Gu Tingye said calmly, “I don’t.” He only knew that this book was awesome.

Minglan was speechless and decided to teach her husband a lesson. She sighed and said, “Let say, if Qiuniang doesn’t stops writing every day and could live to eighty, she could finish this task before the very moment she dies.”