bookcurios Chapter 302 The Stubborn Second Sister
Chapter 302 The Stubborn Second Sister
"I truly never imagined that you elders would be so indifferent to the loss of your own nephews and nieces. Haha, if Wan Cheng were to find out from the afterlife that his family was like this, he would surely be utterly disappointed!"
After making such a sarcastic remark, the second sister turned to leave.
When the mistress of the Wan family saw her master being scolded like this by a child, how could she keep her composure?
She said coldly, "Second Miss Si, you have quite the nerve. Anyone who didn't know better would think you were like His Highness Prince Ning, with an imperial token that allowed you to go anywhere without any hindrance."
The second sister turned around and looked at her.
She continued, "Young ladies should not show their faces in public, and I have never heard of anyone rebuking their elders. I had no idea that the Si family was so disciplined. I will definitely go and tell others about it and see which family's daughter is so audacious."
The words that followed were rebuttals born of anger, but the words that followed were blatant threats.
This means that if the second sister refuses to apologize, she will go out and spread rumors that the Si family girls have not learned proper manners and that all the Si family girls will be unable to get married.
Si Xingzhi's heart skipped a beat, but his second sister was too simple-minded to understand such subtleties.
The second sister said bluntly, "I saw that Wan Cheng was so loyal and righteous, and I thought the Wan family was the same. I didn't expect the Wan family to be so unable to distinguish right from wrong. Father, let's go. Let's pretend that we were never here today."
"Humph!"
After leaving Wan's house and getting into the carriage, Si Xingzhi broke out in a cold sweat: "It's all over, Second Sister, today is the end for us."
The second sister asked, puzzled, "Dad, what's wrong? I just looked at you, and you seemed perfectly fine."
“You’re my daughter, of course I have to stand by your side and protect you in that situation. But…”
Si Xingzhi sighed helplessly, his hands clenched into a fist, a far cry from the domineering demeanor he had at the Wan family.
"The Wan family is wealthy and influential, and their reputation is high. If the matriarch of the Wan family were to spread rumors about you, how would you three sisters ever get married?"
"So that's what you're afraid of." The second sister waved her hand dismissively. "It's alright. Eldest sister has no plans to get married. As for me... I've already been married once, and I'm not considering getting married again. As for the youngest sister, she's smart and witty, and she won't be bothered by these rumors."
Thinking of his three daughters' personalities, Si Xingzhi could do nothing but sigh.
But he was also angry, glaring at his daughter and saying, "Am I doing this for you? You all have so many ideas, how can I control you? I'm just worried about Xia'er, she's so young, her own mother is unreliable, and her aunts are unreliable too!"
Mentioning Xiaoxia'er, the second sister finally felt a little guilty, but then she raised her head again: "Eldest sister said that our Xiaoxia'er is the most adorable girl in the world. If in the future someone refuses to marry her because of her birth or the rules, wouldn't that be a blessing?"
"A fortunate event? Fortunate my foot!"
The second sister laughed and said, "Then, Father, think about it. Do you want to restrain Xia'er with rules now for the sake of her future husband?"
Si Xingzhi stared at her without saying a word.
The second sister continued, "I had thought about that before, but then my eldest sister told me that we have Xiaoxia because she is my daughter, and your granddaughter because she is a daughter of the Si family, not someone else's wife, right?"
"Someone else's wife?" Si Xingzhi didn't understand.
The second sister nodded: "Yes, eldest sister said that all the rules and precepts for women are meant to restrain women so that they can better serve men and discipline them."
Si Xingzhi understood these words and nodded slowly.
“As a man, I naturally hope that my wife and daughters-in-law will be disciplined by the men of our family. But as a father, I hope that you will be safe and well, and that even if you marry, you will marry good men.”
After muttering to himself, Si Xingzhi looked at his second sister and said, "However, you are so stubborn, yet you actually listen to your eldest sister?"
The second sister pouted: "Am I that stubborn?"
The second sister is indeed stubborn. Even though she couldn't get through to the head of the Wan family, she refused to give up and planned to start with Wan Cheng's family.
This investigation revealed that Wan Cheng was not only from a collateral branch, but that his grandfather and father were also insignificant illegitimate sons. Although the Wan family was from the capital, their collateral branches lived in an ordinary village on the outskirts of the capital.
The second sister went to the village to find Wan Cheng's parents, only to find that the entire Wan family clan was not as large as she had imagined.
In ordinary families of high-ranking officials, the direct descendants would often help out the collateral branches. The repair of old houses and ancestral halls, the construction of roads and bridges, and the erection of monuments were all basic things.
However, the Wan family's residence was quite old and dilapidated, even worse than the residences of ordinary gentry.
That's quite strange.
The second sister asked around, and when she mentioned the name Wan Cheng, most people's expressions changed drastically. They waved their hands, said they didn't know, and left as if fleeing.
They finally encountered a girl of about ten years old. When she heard that the second sister was looking for Wan Cheng, she asked, "Is this Rong'er's house?"
The second sister wasn't sure, but she nodded nonetheless: "It should be."
The girl said, "Go straight ahead to the end, past this courtyard wall, there's a separate stone house, that's where Rong-jie's house is."
"Thank you." The second sister took a packet of hawthorn candy from her pocket and handed it to her.
The girl took the candy, looked around to make sure no one was nearby, then glanced at her younger sister's pocket and said with a smile, "Thank you, sister. Let me take you there."
The second sister took out a bag of maltose: "Then I'll have to trouble you, little sister."
I asked her on the way, and she turned out that the girl, who was dressed in tattered clothes, was also the daughter of a branch of the Wan family. She was about the same age as Rong'er and they would usually do farm work together.
The second sister paused slightly, then asked, "Are you going to do farm work?"
The girl said, "We just go to check the stakes and pick up rice ears before spring plowing and autumn planting. We do a lot of housework, but not much farm work."
This is a common task for ordinary farming families, but the Wan family is not a farming family. Even the Fang family in the suburbs of Beijing, although not the direct line, is the branch most closely connected to the direct line.
The second sister found it hard to believe. The collateral branches of aristocratic families all had their own tenant farmers, but the Wan family was no different from ordinary farmers. Did they need to do the work themselves?
She turned her head to look at the stone brick houses of each family, only to find that they weren't even red or blue brick houses.
The girl received the candy, but she didn't eat it herself. She carefully ate a small piece, her eyes lit up, and then she put the rest into her bosom.
Seeing her second sister looking at her, she smiled and said, "I have two younger brothers and a younger sister. I'll take this back for them to eat."
She's a sensible person, though.
The girl asked again, "Sister, I recognize this kind of hawthorn candy, but what kind of candy is this one?"
"It's called maltose," the second sister said. "Haven't you ever eaten maltose before?"
The girl shook her head: "This is the first time I've ever eaten candy. I've never eaten hawthorn candy before. I saw Aunt Zhao from the next village make it and sell it in the city. It looks and smells just like this."