Chapter 196 - 188: Pawning the Jade
Chapter 196: Chapter 188: Pawning the Jade
Begging? We’d be doing more than that. We’d have to sleep in the fields.
Liu glanced at Old Mrs. Bai and stammered, "But can our family really come up with six taels of silver right now?"
Old Mrs. Bai shot her a glare and snapped, "Do I look like someone who can produce six taels of silver right now?"
’She cursed Lu Changchun countless times in her heart. He had clearly agreed they would only pay him back four taels, but now it had somehow become six. Did he think the Bai Family’s silver just fell from the sky?’
Liu’s eyes instantly reddened. It was bad enough that they were starving every day, but now their house was about to be taken away. ’How are we supposed to live? How could we possibly go on?’
Old Mrs. Bai said hatefully, "It’s all that damned girl’s fault! Why didn’t she just drop dead? Why did she have to survive? Ever since she came back, our Bai Family has suffered one financial disaster after another. It’s all because of her!"
First, it was spending two taels of silver on that bitch Zhao Lan’s injuries. Then, they were forced to write an IOU for six taels of silver. After that, the house was smashed to bits by those ruffians from Baiyang Village, and they even ran afoul of the officials and received a beating. Now, to top it all off, they were about to lose their house. It was all her. It was all because of her.
Liu wept as she cursed, "That damned girl! She’d better pray she never falls into my hands, or I’ll kill her myself!"
’These two women were still blaming everyone but themselves,’ Ms. Zhang thought. ’They never stopped to think that their own actions had brought all this misfortune upon them.’
Ms. Zhang sighed inwardly, feeling utterly helpless. "This isn’t the time for all that," she said. "We need to figure out how to survive this crisis."
Liu wailed, "What way is there? It’s six taels of silver! You could pay for a bride with that much money! Where are we supposed to get that much silver now?"
Ms. Zhang glanced at the old matriarch, a faint, unsmiling smile on her lips. "I heard from Erzhu that you found a piece of jade in the house a while back. Why not pawn it for some silver? You could not only pay back Doctor Lu’s medical fees, but also buy some grain to get us through this. Look at us—this whole family is eating wild greens every day. Our faces are as sallow as the weeds."
Liu’s eyes lit up. She immediately recalled the quality of the Jade Pendant. ’That’s high-grade jade,’ she thought. ’It must be worth a lot of silver!’
Old Mrs. Bai clutched the Jade Pendant hidden under her clothes. ’This Jade Pendant is a real treasure,’ she thought. ’It always feels cool against the skin; it never warms up. It’s definitely a supreme-grade piece of jade. I’ve never seen anything so fine in my entire life! I haven’t even had my fill of wearing it yet. How can I bear to part with it?’
"Absolutely not! It’s mine, it’s mine! No one is taking it from me!" Old Mrs. Bai turned her back, her right hand pressed firmly to her chest.
Ms. Zhang said, "Mother-in-law, when they come to take the house, you can go ahead and wear that jade while you beg for food and sleep in the fields. We’ll see how long you can hold onto it then."
Who knew how many bandits were roaming about? Forget a high-quality Jade Pendant like that one; even a simple copper hairpin would be snatched away.
Seeing Old Mrs. Bai’s expression waver slightly, Ms. Zhang pressed on, "I hear there were major floods down south, and a lot of refugees have made their way to our region. And you know what refugees are like... when they get desperate enough, there’s nothing they won’t do."
Liu chimed in, "Exactly! If we lose our house, we’ll be no different from those refugees. At that point, forget the jade—they might even steal the clothes right off our backs!"
Old Mrs. Bai was old, but she wasn’t a fool. She knew her two daughters-in-law were trying to scare her, but she also knew they weren’t entirely bluffing. If they lost the house, anything could happen.