The next night, Yifang, who drank a bowl of soothing soup and slept until this time, woke up and heard the first news that her mother's eldest wife was sick.

Her maid Yingchun saw that her girl's face changed when she was anxious, and hurriedly comforted her: "Don't worry, girl, in fact, my wife is not sick, but she was sent to the small Buddha hall behind the ancestral hall of the house to think about it behind closed doors, but she just said so to the outside world." ”

"The small Buddha hall behind the ancestral hall ......" Yifang knows this place, that is the place where the ladies of the house will be sent to the grounded when they do not respect the elders and do not abide by the family rules, if the fault is greater, it will not be sent to the small Buddha hall at home but to the family temple or Zhuangzi outside. Although it is still in the house, the small Buddha hall is extremely simple and hard, because there are few people living on weekdays, and it is behind the ancestral hall, which is gloomy and scary.

"Is Mother doing there? Are Chunmei and Chunlan's sister still with their wives? "If my mother had these two faithful maids by her side, it would have relieved people a little.

Yingchun hesitated for a moment, but still said: "Mrs. is there, three meals a day are naturally not short, because it is a Buddhist hall, naturally you can only use some coarse tea and light rice." The two sisters, Chunmei and Chunlan, heard that they were interrogated by the master all night, and they were each beaten and thrown to Zhuangzi. For the remaining sisters, Mrs. Tai did not allow them to go with his wife, and sent two other mothers-in-law to serve his wife. ”

Yifang was worried when she heard this, and wept and said: "Mother has always been pampered, how can she bear this sin?" I only found out at this time, but what about my brother and sister-in-law, didn't they plead for their mother? ”

The uncle knelt down in front of Mrs. Tai and begged for a quarter of an hour, but Mrs. Tai said that Mrs. had harmed ...... in the past ten years, and the sin was too great to be spared. The uncle went to beg the master again, but the master didn't say anything, but reprimanded the uncle a few words, telling him not to bother Mrs. Tai again. ”

Yifang's nurse led the two little girls to set up the food on the dining table and said, "The girl has slept for a day, let's use some food!" ”

Yifang was worried about her mother, where could she eat, so she asked her nurse to put two vegetarian dishes in the food box and go to the Buddha Hall to see the eldest wife.

Her nurse was motionless, and said lightly: "The girl can't get out, the old man specially called the old slave over and instructed that the girl is not allowed to step out of this yard in these two months, and she can embroider the dowry in the house with peace of mind." ”

She said it lightly, but Yifang could do it. She was already depressed because her family affairs could not fulfill her wishes, and she experienced this accident that made her tremble. She always felt that it was because of herself that her mother was leaked, and she was locked up in a small Buddha hall to repent. Under this guilt, he became ill and was bedridden.

As for the preparation of a dowry for his daughter, because the eldest lady was locked up by Mrs. Tai, he was not at ease to hand over several of his younger siblings to handle it, so he simply handed it over to his daughter-in-law Sun Xiluan. Let her go and ask Mrs. Tai for Yifang's dowry silver.

Although Sun Xiluan is arrogant, she is a young daughter-in-law in the end, where is Mrs. Tai's opponent. Mrs. Tai took her hand and talked to her for an afternoon, and first told her about the rules and regulations for marrying daughters in Uncle Anyuan's mansion: "The marriage of the concubine in our house is usually a dowry of 10,000 taels of silver from the princess, and the concubine is 5,000 taels. For example, when a family like us marries a daughter, in addition to furniture, clothes, fabrics, and jewelry, it is natural to give the girl some land and houses to dowry. ”

"This dowry field is easy to do, there are still a hundred hectares of land in the house, but this house - these years the price of land in Beijing has skyrocketed, and then you have to buy a small mansion in Beijing, not to mention the three-in, even two-in, but also nearly three thousand taels of silver! The silver at the bottom of the box must be prepared for a thousand taels, a total of four thousand taels of silver. In the past, four thousand taels of silver was not much, but now the house is difficult, you are in charge of the account books at home, and you still don't know what the situation is in this house, the harvest in the field is not good, the silver money in the account is less than a year, and the inner bag is exhausted early, if you don't take out your dowry to help with one or two, I'm afraid——"

"Alas, the house really can't come up with this money, if you insist on making it up, I'm afraid you will have to sell the shop and sell the land! It's not good to hear this out, that is, Xianyin eats the grain, and takes the silver used for daily expenses to fill it first, and the deficit pulled down by this has not to be made up. ”

After crying for a while, Mrs. Tai began to give Sun Xiluan an an idea, "Actually, the house that was married out of the marriage is just good-looking on the face, and it is rarely useful, and most of the people who accompany it are idle there." It's better to give Sister Fang more land to offset the share of this house, and you can also collect more income from land rent every year. The meritorious fields given by the court cannot be moved, and the 100 hectares of land handed down by the ancestors are all hundreds of miles away from Beijing, and the nearest piece of land is in the Tongzhou area, with 678 acres of high-grade dry land, which was bought for eight taels of silver per acre, and there are more than 5,000 taels of silver. There are still some furnishings, jewelry, and satin fabrics that have been saved in the treasury of the house, and when you turn around, you can take the key and pick it out, and pick out something that is six thousand taels of silver, so that you can get together a dowry of fifty or sixty lifts. After all, Sister Fang is married to fill the house, and she is not the original wife, or the dowry is slightly worse, so it doesn't matter. ”

Sun Xiluan calculated in his heart, the five thousand plus six thousand, that is 11,000 taels of silver, although there is no cash silver, but the extra 1,000 taels of silver is given at once, it is okay.

"It's just—" Mrs. Tai said these two words again, looked at Sun Xiluan, and stopped talking.

Sun Xiluan was an anxious man, so he shook Mrs. Tai's hand and asked, "It's just what, old lady, hurry up and sue me!" ”

Mrs. Tai sighed again, "I'm just afraid that your father-in-law thinks this dowry is a bit simple!" He felt sorry for his daughter, and hoped that his daughter would marry into Chen Shangshu's house in a beautiful manner, and would rather give his daughter more dowry so that she could take it to someone else's house. If your father-in-law doesn't say anything, then everyone will be happy, if he is not satisfied, I am afraid that I will be more wronged by your generosity, and take out some of your own money and things to make up for your sister-in-law. After persuading her a lot, he directly took out the title deed of Tongzhou and gave it to her, and coaxed her to go to the treasury to pick things for Yifang to dowry.

Seeing that Grandma Jun was finally leaving, Mama Wang hurriedly handed Mrs. Tai a bowl of ginseng tea, "The old lady said these words for a long time, drink tea quickly, moisten your throat, this ginseng tea is cooked for you by Miss Zhou herself!" In addition to ginseng, wheat dong is also added to it, which is the most beneficial for nourishing yin and qi! ”

Mrs. Tai took a few sips and said with a smile: "This tea tastes good, Wei Yatou has a heart." This girl from the Sun family is so young and foolish, if her mother-in-law comes to me to ask for Sister Fang's dowry, it will not be easy to deal with. ”

On the bright side, she seems to have given Yifang more than 600 acres of land and 6,000 taels of things, but in fact, that land has been cultivated for decades, and due to various disasters and famines, it is no longer a good field. In addition, in the past few years, the harvest of the fields has not been good, and the price of the fields has fallen again and again, where can it still be worth eight taels of silver per mu, and at most it is only two taels of silver per mu, and the total is only more than 1,000 taels of silver.

As for the things in the warehouse, Mrs. Tai knew it clearly, when the fourth wife was in charge of the house, she had already been picked up by Aunt Liu and the fourth master took the key from the fourth wife, and secretly moved the good and valuable things in the warehouse to the courtyard of his fourth room, so that Aunt Liu's children could be stored first.

Now Sun Xiluan is going to pick it again, where is there anything good, saying that it is for her to pick up enough things for six thousand taels of silver, but in fact, these old things are really carefully calculated, I am afraid that they are not even worth four thousand taels of silver. Fortunately, the eldest lady is now locked up in the small Buddha hall, otherwise she would have been able to see the difference.

As long as she thought of the eldest lady being imprisoned, the lady felt happy in her heart. Drinking the ginseng tea that Zhou Caiwei made for her herself, thinking of the idea of letting the eldest lady and Aunt Liu's sandpiper fight against each other, Zhou Caiwei first came up with it, and couldn't help but love this granddaughter a little more, feeling that she deserves to be the daughter of the champion, just smart and have ideas.

smiled and said: "I remember that the third day of the next month is Cai Wei's birthday, and this year is her year. This time, her ceremony will be handled for her, and when the time comes, she will invite more ladies and ladies to come and celebrate her birthday lively. ”

"As soon as she finishes this ceremony, I'm afraid that the family that her father set for her should also come to the door to propose!"