Wu Qianjing saw that everyone’s expressions had darkened. He murmured quietly: “Since this matter involves Xiao-Ruo’s betrothal gifts, then wouldn’t it be more appropriate to leave sandi, sidi, wudi and Head Steward Hei to resolve the matter privately? It’s not proper for erdi1二弟 (er di) is Second/2nd Younger Brother, refers to Wu Qianli. 三弟 (san di) is Third/3rd Younger Brother, refers to Wu Qianqing. 四弟 (si di) is Fourth/4th Younger Brother, refers to Wu Qianbin. 五弟 is Fifth/5th Younger Brother, refers to Wu Qiantong. or I to interfere, so it’ll still be better if we leave first.”
He knew that it was impossible to hide the matter about the betrothal gifts anymore, and everything had happened too suddenly. He needed to leave as quickly as possible, and find a scapegoat.
Hei Xin spoke up to stop him: “First Master, it won’t be too late to leave after this old one has finished explaining everything.”
Wu Ruo laughed coldly in his heart. Wu Qianjing really thought that other people were idiots; he thought that other people wouldn’t know what he was so eager to leave for.
Wu Qianjing’s heart skipped a beat, he feigned calmness and asked: “Is there something else that Head Steward Hei still wants to say?”
“Naturally, I will start to talk about my reason for looking for Clan Leader Wu, as well as my reason for calling all of you to Bojin Garden.” Hei Xin looked at him, using the tone of one recalling his memories to say: “I remember when we came to Gaoling City with Clan Leader Wu, we brought no less than 30 cars of betrothal gifts. Clan Leader Wu and Guoshi Wu both knew of this.
“On the day that we sent the betrothal gifts, the citizens of Gaoling City also witnessed with their own eyes that we had sent the 30 cars of betrothal gifts into the Wu estate. Southern main estate’s First Master and Second Master personally received them. It was only because First Master and Second Master said that Qinjia Master and Madam had gone out of the manor, that’s why the arrangement was changed that both of you would represent them to receive the betrothal gifts.
“However, just now when this old one found out that Qinjia Master didn’t recognize the Dragon Bone Nail and Imprisoned Ghost Flute, I proceeded to ask Qinjia Master for a copy of the betrothal gift list. Yet, I discovered that a large portion of the betrothal gifts had gone missing.”
He narrowed his eyes coldly and sternly, glaring at Wu Qianjing and Wu Qianli: “First Master, Second Master, can the two of you explain how this happened?”
Wu Qianjing and Wu Qianli both avoided his gaze. They were so afraid of being found out that they didn’t dare to look Hei Xin in the eye. As they were looking for excuses to explain the situation, they heard Wu Qianqing saying frostily: “On the day we received the betrothal gifts, the people in charge of sending the betrothal gifts over were dage, erge and their stewards. It was them who told me that the people of the Hei family were unwilling to send the betrothal gifts into our estate2The original word here is 院 (yuan) which means has a variety of translations, but I’ve mostly translated it as ‘garden’. Wu Qianqing is specifically referring to Shuqing Garden as “our estate”..”
At the time, they still thought that the people of the Hei family disdained their son, and felt especially angry in their hearts. Actually, everything was because their own relatives were messing around with them.
Wu Qianjing and Wu Qianli were immediately so ashamed that they couldn’t face Wu Qianqing. Their wives also lowered their heads, embarrassed to look at others.
A rare surge of anger appeared on Guan Tong’s gentle countenance: “Head Steward Hei says they sent 30 cars of betrothal gifts, but at the time, we only received 12 cars of gifts sent by the stewards.”
What was laughable was that Wu Qianjing’s steward even explained to them that 12 cars of betrothal gifts was seen as auspicious.
Wu Ruo pretended that he was shocked, that he completely had no idea: “How— how could this be? Then— then where have the 18 other cars of betrothal gifts all gone?”
The main hall sunk into a brief silence.
“This is a great slander to us. At the time, we requested to deliver to Shuqing Garden but were repeatedly stopped by First Master and Second Master. It wasn’t appropriate for us to force our way in, otherwise, it would cause both parties to be unhappy. It also wasn’t appropriate for us to bring the betrothal gifts back where we came from, so we handed the betrothal gifts over to First Master and Second Master.”
At this, Hei Xin was truly angry: “And as well, I didn’t only find out that the betrothal gifts sent to Qinjia Master had been reduced. I also discovered that the gifts on Qinjia Master’s betrothal gift list had been swapped out.”
He took out the gift list that he had brought along from his sleeve and handed it to Wu Qianqing to take a look: “Qinjia Master, these are the actual betrothal gifts that our master had given you. And the list that you previously asked the steward to hand to me to take a look at isn’t even written by this old one.”
Wu Qianqing received it from him. Looking at the gift list that was almost 1 zhang long, he was so infuriated that both his hands started shaking: “This pushes one too far, this truly pushes one too far3In case this was a little confusing, the original Chinese idiom is 欺人太甚 (qi ren tai shen) which means to “push someone too much/far” or “to bully someone very badly”. Wu Qianqing is saying that they (his brothers) have bullied him (Wu Qianqing, and by extension his family) too much..”
Notes: Yay! We’ve finally hit what I consider our first major landmark, 50 chapters! We’re halfway there to 100 chapters. We have 9 chapters left till we hit the VIP/paid chapters, which are much longer than the free-to-read chapters. Every paid chapter is at least 3000 Chinese characters long, so I’ll switch over to twice a week or weekly updates then.
If anyone would like to support the author, it is also possible to tip them on every chapter. It’s a complicated process, but I can either tip them for you or make a tutorial so you can create your own account on the website to tip them/pay for the story. Please leave a comment if this is something you are interested in!
Thank you to everyone who is following this story so far, I appreciate all the comments, likes, and follows that I receive very much. I hope everyone enjoys Loser Wife as much as I do.
