"Yeah, I know. I’ve already talked to the shopkeeper about starting work the day after tomorrow. When I start working, I’ll deposit the money in town." Ye Zi’an thought for a moment and then said, "Xiaxia, you wanted to start a business, right? You must need some capital. Why don’t you use it first?"
"No need, the things I’m doing are small-scale and don’t require much money for now. I’ll come to borrow from you when I need it."
Ms. Wang watched the two children chatting happily, and thought how compatible they looked and couldn’t help but have some thoughts. She decided to talk to her husband about it that night.
"Mom, let’s celebrate tonight by making some delicious food. Later, we can invite Grandpa Hall and the others too. We wanted to treat them in the county town, but things were too expensive there and Grandpa Hall didn’t agree, so we just had a bowl of noodles each before coming back."
Ms. Wang thought for a moment and exchanged glances with Yang Dachuan, then said, "Xiaxia, I think since we want to invite them, why not do it tomorrow? We can invite the few elders as witnesses when we separated the family. We were supposed to treat them to a meal when we separated, but we didn’t have enough money then and never managed to do so."
Yang Chuxia thought about it and agreed, "Alright, I’ll listen to mom. I’ll go to town to buy groceries tomorrow."
Since they decided to invite the guests the next day, Yang Chuxia’s idea to prepare some delicacies for the night fell through. However, she discovered that Brother An’s cooking skills had not deteriorated at all. Besides not having spare ribs soup and such, her mother even specially prepared a bowl of egg custard. Yang Chuxia couldn’t help but wonder who was the biological child and who wasn’t.
Compared to the warmth and liveliness in the third branch of the family, the atmosphere in the Old Yang Family wasn’t so wonderful. Yang Da’an and his wife went straight to their parents’ home with their son and two daughters after returning from the county. Ms. Ye, on the other hand, went back to Yangshu Village with Old Lady Hua, who was crying and wailing.
Knowing that no one would take the blame for the second branch, Yang Xiaochuan and his wife were afraid that Old Lady Hua would vent her anger on them, so they hurried back to their room without eating dinner.
Old Lady Hua was even more furious at the sight of this.
"Enough, what are you crying for? What good will crying do?" Old Lady Hua said impatiently.
It was already annoying enough. They had spent the past few days collecting ten taels of silver, intending to redeem ’Second’ from prison. But now, they had spent the money to compensate others, and the person in question was still in prison. If she had known this would happen, why would she have bothered to collect the silver?
"Mother, what are we going to do now?"
"What can we do? He’s already been convicted, his reputation is gone, and there’s nothing left to do but serve his sentence." Old Lady Hua rolled her eyes and said, "Doesn’t your family have money? Go back to your family and see if you can borrow some, and see what can be done to make those bastards suffer a little in prison. They’ll be back in a year, anyway."
"Mother..." Ms. Ye cried out, "My family does have money, but it belongs to my brother. I already borrowed three taels from them last time. How could I ask to borrow again? Besides, it’s not my parents’ decision."
Seeing her reluctance to borrow money, Old Lady Hua frowned and stared at her, "Then just watch your son and husband suffer in prison. After a year, they will have to come back anyway."
Ms. Ye turned pale and left unwillingly after a while.
Old Lady Hua sat in the room, breathing heavily with a gloomy expression. Her mind was racing, trying to come up with some wicked idea.