Free Web NovelChapter 381: Chapter 150: Sucker
Before the old doctor could finish speaking, a mother and son briskly walked in from outside.
The son reached out with a large hand, intending to snatch the ginseng from the old doctor’s grasp.
"Ah, ginseng! Judging by its age, it’s at least fifty years old. This is good stuff. I’m taking it."
As he spoke, he shot a sidelong glance at Zhao Jing, who was standing nearby. "This thing is precious. It could sell for fifty taels of silver, at least. Can a pauper like you afford it?!"
The man’s mother was a stout old woman who looked to be in her sixties, though her actual age was surely much younger.
In the past, this wealthy madam had always taken excellent care of herself, a middle-aged woman who still possessed a mature charm.
But lately, something must have been troubling her. Her brow was furrowed, her face etched with fatigue, and her once-sharp, shrewd eyes now drooped, giving her an air of profound misery.
Who else could this be but Meng Jintang’s birth mother?
Several years ago, Meng Jintang had fallen in love at first sight with Chen Wanqing, who came to sell incense at the private academy. Under the pretext of buying her wares, he sought her out several times. After making numerous inquiries, he finally learned her name and background. He then rushed to tell his mother, Mrs. Meng, pestering her until she finally agreed to arrange a marriage with this daughter-in-law.
When she went to the Chen family to finalize the betrothal, Mrs. Meng was visibly reluctant. But because of her son’s fervent pleas—and the fact that Chen Wanqing, despite her humble birth, was otherwise barely acceptable—the engagement was settled.
But who could have predicted what would happen next? Captivated by her beauty, her son felt that marrying her merely as a Scholar’s wife would be an injustice to her, so he decided to take that year’s autumn provincial examination. He ended up encountering river pirates and was killed.
Mrs. Meng, who doted on her son and had long harbored a grudge against Chen Wanqing, was not about to let her off easily. She immediately enlisted her clansmen to force the matter, demanding that Chen Wanqing marry into the family and live out her days as a Watchman Gate widow.
But she also anticipated that Xu Suying and Chen Song would never agree. So, she prepared a backup plan: to have Chen Wanqing beaten to death in the ensuing chaos. Once it was a done deal, she would simply offer the Chen family generous compensation, confident they would have no choice but to accept.
In the end, neither of her schemes succeeded, and the two families had a bitter falling out.
Later, Meng Jintang returned, bringing with him an illiterate, plain-looking orphan girl and their son and daughter. Mrs. Meng disliked her two grandchildren, and she certainly despised the orphan girl. So, she hatched a malicious plan.
On the pretext that Meng Jintang had wronged Chen Wanqing—and that Chen Wanqing had effectively remained a "widow" for him, still unmarried to this day—she demanded that Meng Jintang fulfill their families’ original marriage contract and take Chen Wanqing as his wife.
Her brilliant idea was to have Chen Wanqing and the orphan girl destroy each other in a bitter struggle, after which she could finally find a proper wife for her son.
But Meng Jintang was clear-headed and composed, and he adamantly refused to do something so foolish.
The mother and son had a huge argument, and Mrs. Meng made a grand threat: if he didn’t do as she commanded, he wouldn’t see a single coin of the family fortune.
Refusing to be controlled by her, Meng Jintang simply left the family without taking a single thing, returning to Guiyang County with his wife and children.
Mrs. Meng was sick with depression over this, and her rage kept her up at night. To make matters worse, the management of the household had been handed over to her two daughters-in-law. The pair treated her like a fool, constantly deceiving her and scheming behind her back. The fury of it all made her age a decade in just six months; she even sprouted several new white hairs.
Mrs. Meng deeply resented Chen Wanqing, blaming her as the root cause of the rupture in her relationship with her son.
Not running into her was one thing, but now that they had, she was determined to vent some of her vicious anger.
Egged on by his mother and eager to please her, her son had burst into the pharmacy and snatched the ginseng without a second thought.
Of course, Mrs. Meng didn’t recognize Zhao Jing. Even seeing him standing at Chen Wanqing’s side and knowing they must be close, her mind was so clouded with anger that she couldn’t be bothered to consider who he might be.
She simply glared venomously at Chen Wanqing and picked up where her son had left off. "A pauper certainly can’t afford it. But a woman who spends all her time dealing with men can afford anything, as long as she’s willing to sacrifice her dignity."
It was a simple sentence, yet it effortlessly dragged a woman’s dignity and chastity through the mud.
Chen Wanqing’s expression didn’t change. She was long accustomed to Mrs. Meng’s venomous tongue.
Besides, when you’re in business, how can you avoid taking some abuse?
She was used to such things and had long since stopped letting them bother her. She even had the presence of mind to observe Mrs. Meng’s haggard, exhausted state and genuinely wanted to ask, ’How did you come to look so decrepit?’
Chen Wanqing wasn’t bothered and couldn’t be bothered to reply, but Zhao Jing’s expression darkened instantly.
He turned around and said slowly, "Madam, do you hear a dog barking?"
The single sentence was a finishing blow, causing the mother and son’s faces to darken with fury.
There were other people in the pharmacy—patients receiving treatment, their families, a doctor taking a pulse, an apprentice bustling about to fetch herbs. On the surface, everyone pretended to go about their business, but their eyes and ears were beyond their control. They couldn’t help but steal glances at the small group, the air around them thick with tension.
