<h4>Chapter 79: Seniority, Legitimacy and Kong Rong the Good Boy (1)</h4>


    Trantor: Iris


    Proofread by DragonRider


    After Old Madam left escorted by Taisheng, Minn was still immersed in the sorrow of separation when Rn came to the House of Clear Dusk with a fanfare. In the moment, Minn was lying on the soft bench, looking tired and numb holding a big cushion in her arms. Rn walked over and patted her face, “Hey! Wake up, stop being sad! Alright, you’re the only filial granddaughter and we’re heartless ones!”


    Minn had no strength to argue with her, just answering wearily, “Don’t say that. You’re sad inside, but I’m too na?ve to hold it back and put it all on my face.”


    Rn’s punch was met with a cloud of soft cotton. She had nothing to reply, so she headed right to the point, “Emm, I bet Pin sent a letter again. Tell me what happened to the schr Sun.”


    Minn rolled her eyes to the roof.


    The series of Pin’s letters had two themes, one was ‘the record on the decline of the family of a heartless conscienceless scum’ and the other was ‘the record on the recovery of Sheng Shn, a kind and elegantdy mistreated’. Ever since Minn mentioned these for once, Rn had be a loyal audience of this serial story.


    Speaking of it, on that year after Sun Zhigao gained half of Pin’s dowry with a letter of divorce, he immediately weed the ordingly innocent dancer-prostitute into his family as his legitimate wife while Shn was sent to the vige where Guijie’er (Sheng Yun’s daughter) lived after getting married. It was a ce with abundant natural resources and full of rich yet simple folks. Besides, Guijie’er’s father-inw was the head of the vige, so there were no gossips about Shn there.


    Without Shn’s deterring and the prevention from Shn’s hands, Sun Zhigao started to spend all his day drinking and calling prostitutes, frequently throwing a party at fancy restaurants and inviting a bunch of men with a pose of learning to get drunk and hang out with prostitutes. Really enjoyed his life to extremity! Yet, his behavior was known to the local official who, out of rage, denounced him, during a seminar of local schrs on the theme of local examination, as ‘immoral and unconscientious’ and ‘a scum among schrs’. Sun Zhigao went back with the humiliation and acted worse since then.


    Sun’s mother was easy to coax. Having no idea as to what to do with the great deal of money, she decided to follow others to do investment, for one time into cosmetics shops, for another into grain shops and sometimes even into the dear money industry. Though a wide range of industries were touched upon, the result was all the same, that was losing money. Minn suspected that uncle Sheng Wei must have added fuel to the fire secretly.


    Hence, after the dancer-prostitute gave birth to a boy, Sun family’s situation became much worse than before. Yet, Sun Zhigao was a superficial man who wanted to impress others as rich and ssy. Therefore, in order to continue his extravagant life, he had to sell out much of his family property. Though his mother tried to prevent him, he always refuted her with the remark that once he passed further exams, he would hhh....


    However, his wife apparently turned impatient. One day after Sun and his mother turned back home from a dinner party, they all passed out into dead sleep after taking drunk-cure soups. When they woke up, they found the many belongings and boxes of silver money were all gone, except for a touching long letter left by the rare girl and Madam Sun’s nephew: It said that they two had known each other long ago and the son she gave birth to was also the nephew’s. They had fallen in love with each other long ago. Though the love was deep enough to move everyone, fate didn’t do them a favor to let them have each other. Having suffered for all these days, they finally couldn’t cheat themselves into denying their true emotion and decided to be together. They begged the ‘benevolent and generous’ madam Sun and the ‘noble and great’ Sun Zhigao to understand their rtionship as well as the behavior of taking away all of the property.


    Once the incident was known to the public, Sun and his mother immediately became theughing stock in Youyang. The love birds left in hasty, with no time to sell out the house but was able to sell all thends and other valuable properties. Since then, Sun Zhigao’s life turned miserable at once. No restaurants allowed him to pay on credit any longer, and book and stationery stores came at him one after another to collect debts. Looking at the porridge and pickled vegetables, Sun and his mother began to realize how nice Shn was and tried to reach her in Cangxiang. At first, Sun even intended to put on airs to indicate that his willingness to marry Shn again was degrading for him. To their surprise, by the time they arrived, they found that Shn had not only gotten married but also been pregnant for long.


    Shn’s inws was a big family in the neighboring vige, boasting houses andnds. Her new husband was an honest and friendly guy. This time, Sheng Wei and Li shi carefully examined the character of their son-inw as well as enjoying the respect as parents-inw, happily married their daughter to him.


    Sun and his mother were stunned at Shn’s swelling stomach. Sun said something ugly out of anger, but Shn, no longer the mousy girl she used to be, sneered and gave them a good mocking. Guijie’er was even tougher to point out Sun’s problem— “Maybe it’s you who are interfile. Go to see a doctor and don’t ruin the life of your girl.”


    Sun Zhigao almost died of humiliation when a group of honest and well-built countryside men arrived. They didn’t waste time in speech and went right to the point in beating him up and throwing him out.


    Thetest news was that Shn gave birth to a pair of twins, one daughter and one son while Sun Zhigao, on the other hand, became a regr visitor to pawnshops.


    Rn, having produced a table of melon seeds crust, didn’t have enough of the story and, at the same time, was dissatisfied about Minn’s dull way of telling the story. Minn was also unhappy about that and picked up the ount book that Old Madam gave her to read carefully.


    Question 1: One acre of medium-quality non-irrigatednd was worth about five taels of silver while one acre of irrigatednd doubled that. However, one acre of top-quality irrigatednd could be sold for twenty taels of silver. The question was: If you had one thousand taels, how to use them to achieve best result?


    Answer: It depended on the actual situation and existing policies.


    Question 2: The family had ten household of servants who apanied the bride upon marriage. After three generations, excessive in-house servants were produced who over-evaluated themselves and upied arger proportion of domestic expenditure. How to cut it down?


    Answer: The best solution: family nning and stricter disciplining; medium-good solution: let them leave; thest solution: sold them out.


    Question 3: There was arge poption in the family. The males didn’t have earnings and lived beyond their means. How to deal with that?


    Answer: Separate the smaller ns and let them depend on themselves.


    Question 4: Parents-inw couldn’t think straight, referring side ns and not willing to separate the family. Sisters-inw were greedy and brothers-inw lust for women. The family property was in great deficit. The husband favored concubines to wife while her maternal families didn’t care about her. There was no way out for her.


    Answer: Wait for reincarnation...


    What reflected on ount books was not only financial situation, but alsoplicated interpersonal rtionships which always ended up in a mess. Minn read the book the whole day and felt her head was to explode. A big family was doomed with troubles, each smaller n having its own intention. Therefore, many problems were no way to be solved. What you could do was to wait until there was a younger generation to hand over the hot potato who would then wait for the next generation.


    “Youngdy.” Danju lifted up the curtain and came in, reporting with a smile, “Madam sent maid to tell that we have new spring clothing and essories. You can select some there.”


    Minn got off the bench. While Danju helped her tidy up hair and clothes, she asked, “Is everything good in the courtyard?”


    Danju thought for a while and answered in a low voice, “Of course it’s no better than when Old Madam is around. A few little girls are gossiping.”


    Minn smiled and told her, “You don’t have to scold them specially. Just keep an eye on them.” Danju didn’t understand while Minn just smiled with the corner of her mouth curved, “People in the inner courtyard are good-weather people with whom you can share fortune but not misfortune. Let’s just wait and see.”


    In order to nurse Minn’s body, Old Madam used to be extremely careful in her food. Daily snacks, either cream, crispy, or steamed, kept changing in turn. Night meal, soup of bird’s nest in crystal sugar or red jujube porridge or other best dessert were all served until Minn’s skin turned as fair and smooth as porcin. Even her servants could have a share of the benefit, but now they were provided the same as all other people.


    Danju understood and said seriously, “How nice you treated them ever! If they hated you because of no more getting the benefit, I’d curse them to hell! Mydy, I’ll keep an eye on them.”


    Xiaotao held Minn to Wang shi’s room. Wang shi was lying on the Xiangfei bench and chitchatting with Liu Kun’s wife. In the middle of the room were two square tables putting together. On them ced folded new-colored clothes made of brocade in brilliant new patterns. Mn and Rn were standing by the tables and examining these clothes with eyes. At the sight of Minn, they both gave her a stare.


    Wang shi knew that Minn was always a moment slower in doing everything. It was understandable that she was slower in greeting seniors, but she even cameter for staff distribution. Therefore, for each time she only got what others didn’t want, and also because of this, no one criticized her for beingte. Wang shi put down the teacup, took up a small ck pitch wood case, and let Liu Kun’s wife hand it to them, smiling, “This is thetest sample from the Shop of Crystal Jewels. Your eldest sister had it customized before the Spring Festival. She liked its brilliant color, so she sent it here for you to choose.”


    Liu Kun’s wife opened the case and put it near the brocade on the table. What greeted them was dazzling brilliance from inside the case. Minn took a look at it and found in the case three hairpins. One was love-flower tassel hairpin iid with ze; one was golden dangling hairpin iid with southern pearl and carved with bat pattern; and one was honey-colored crystal hairpin. All of them were in thetest style and shone with crystal brilliance.


    The three Lans then looked at one another before Rn pouted her mouth, “Go ahead, fourth sister. Father says that we should have respect for seniority.”


    Mn smiled lightly, stepped forward to examine the three hairpins carefully, and finally chose the most dazzling golden dangling one. Rn burst intoughter suddenly and turned to Minn, “Sixth younger sister, do you know in the story of Kong Rong the Good Boy, who is the good boy? The younger brother or elder brother?”


    T/N: Kong Rong the Good Boy is rted with a well-known storymonly used to educate children – even in contemporary times – on the values of courtesy and fraternal love, which involves a four-year-old Kong Rong giving up therger pears to his older and younger brothers. This story,monly known as “Kong Rong giving up pears”, is also mentioned in the Three Character ssic, a text used for elementary education since the Song dynasty.