Chapter 67: Chapter 67 Doctor Xu
Xuexue returned to the Mo family and saw Madam Ruan sneaking out of Chuner’s room.
It had not been easy for Madam Ruan to deceive Madam Xie to leave the room. After searching through Chuner’s room, she had not seen a trace of the Copper Coin. She was very unwilling to give up and left the room with a sneaky look on her face, thinking to herself that she might as well search Xuexue’s room next door while Madam Xie had not yet returned. The package of Copper Coins might be there.
Suddenly, just as she left the room and looked up, she saw Xuexue coming towards her, scaring her immensely. Hastily baring her teeth in a feigned smile, she said, “Ah hehe… Xuexue, you’re so capable; you’ve cleaned up the old residence so quickly.”
“Oh! What kind of wind blew today? It actually brought a noble like auntie to our humble place,” Xuexue said coldly, giving her a sidelong glance.
“You child, what a way to talk. Chuner has been injured. It’s only right for me as her aunt to come and see her,” she replied.
Xuexue scoffed, “That’s a nice thing to say. People who don’t know better might think you really care about family. Last night, when Chuner was hanging by a thread, not a single person from the Mo family was willing to come and check on her.”
With a sideward glance, Xuexue noticed Madam Ruan’s shifty eyes and realized that she harbored ill intentions. She must have learned about the incident with Xiuzhi fighting over the Copper Coin this morning and had taken the opportunity to bully the honest Madam Xie under the guise of checking the situation while she was cleaning the old residence.
Xuexue said indifferently, turned around, and pushed the door open…
Soon, she slammed the door shut behind her with a bang.
Inside the room, apart from Chuner lying on the bed, it was empty. Madam Xie was nowhere to be found, Xuexue was puzzled as Madam Xie wouldn’t leave the room at this time, leaving Chuner alone.
“Chuner, where is mother?”
Xuexue walked over to the bed and asked softly.
“Sister, I don’t know, what’s wrong with mother?” Chuner, sometimes lucid and sometimes drowsy, had no idea where Madam Xie had gone.
“It’s alright, Chuner. You just focus on recovering. Once you’re better, sister will take you to the market to have fun, ha!”
Chuner weakly responded, then closed her eyes again. She was having a hard time sleeping because the most severe wound was on her back; she couldn’t lie down to sleep and had to sleep on her side. Accidentally bumping her back wound caused her so much pain that tears streamed down continuously, breaking Madam Xie’s heart.
Just then, Madam Xie entered carrying a teapot.
“Xuexue, you’re back?”
“Mother, where did you go? You had me worried,” Xuexue said reproachfully.
“Your auntie said she wanted some tea, so I went to the kitchen to get her a pot of hot tea, huh! Xuexue, where’s your auntie?” Madam Xie looked around, and only then did she realize that Madam Ruan was not in the room.
“Mother, don’t be foolish. She wasn’t here for the tea.”
Xuexue knew that Madam Ruan definitely had no good intentions, as expected, and had deliberately lured Madam Xie away to search for the package of Copper Coins in the room. Luckily, she had had the foresight to hide it in advance.
“But she clearly said she wanted tea.”
“She wanted to steal our money.”
“No way, how did she know we had money?” the naive Madam Xie asked, disbelieving.
Xuexue, worried that Madam Xie’s naïveté might make her reveal everything to Madam Ruan, recounted the story of Xiuzhi stealing the Copper Coin that morning and concluded with, “Mother, we’re about to move out of the Mo family, and from now on, we have to rely on ourselves. See how severely Chuner is injured? It will definitely cost a lot of Silver. Whatever you do, don’t tell auntie about the money we made selling river snails.”
“I won’t, I won’t talk,” Madam Xie finally realized and turned to look at Chuner lying lifelessly on the bed.
Indeed, Xuexue knew that they couldn’t hide their money-making with river snails for long, but right now their life was so hard, every moment of secrecy counted. They would deal with future problems later.