Farmer girl swaps husbands: buys a sickly villain and pampers him

Chapter 262 Taking advantage of the situation
Zhou Wangshu dismounted first, then led Su Yaoguang down from the carriage.

The Marquis of Cheng'an and his wife, along with the stewards of the mansion, stood at the entrance.

"Jing'er is back." Marquis Cheng'an greeted him warmly.

“My lord, please call me Wangshu. I’m not used to being called Jing’er. Perhaps it’s because I’ve lost my memory and have no recollection of her,” Zhou Wangshu said.

Marquis Cheng'an nodded: "Alright, Wangshu, let's go in!"

Lady Cheng'an said with a smile, "When I met my daughter-in-law last time, I didn't know she was family. I felt a sense of closeness then, but I didn't realize we had such a connection."

"Madam Hou is so kind, I feel quite close to her. I am new here and there may be many things I am not familiar with. Please don't mind me, Madam Hou."

"We are one family, so we should keep our separate words."

Looking at the femme fatale in front of her, Su Yaoguang couldn't imagine that a rotten heart was hidden beneath her beautiful appearance if Zhou Wangshu hadn't told her about what she had done.

"Madam..." a maidservant ran over and said to Lady Cheng'an, "The young master..."

"The Marquis of Cheng'an's mansion has no heir apparent," the Marquis of Cheng'an said coldly. "The Emperor has already stripped him of his qualification as the heir apparent of the Marquis's mansion."

"My lord, the second young master has gone mad and has killed all the servants in the courtyard."

"You wretched child! What is he doing now?" Upon hearing this, Marquis Cheng'an rushed angrily to the backyard.

Lady Cheng'an nearly fainted, but managed to catch up with her husband by sheer willpower. She was now facing both internal and external troubles: internally, she had to clean up Xia Zhen's mess, and externally, she had to deal with the opponents she was about to face.

"Should we go take a look?" Su Yaoguang asked.

“It’s too bloody, you shouldn’t go, I’m afraid it will scare you,” Zhou Wangshu said. “But as the eldest brother, I have to go and take a look, and maybe add fuel to the fire.”

“If you want to go, I’ll go. What haven’t I seen?” Su Yaoguang pointed to a servant to lead the way to Xia Zhen’s courtyard.

As soon as she reached the courtyard gate, the overwhelming smell of blood almost made Su Yaoguang vomit.

How many people have to be killed?

Su Yaoguang looked up, but before she could see anything, Zhou Wangshu covered her eyes.

"What?" Su Yaoguang grabbed his hand, trying to take it off to look, but Zhou Wangshu stopped her.

"Don't look," Zhou Wangshu said in a heavy tone. "It's truly outrageous."

Su Yaoguang did not persist.

"Let's go." Zhou Wangshu pulled Su Yaoguang away.

Su Yaoguang saw nothing, but she heard angry curses and maniacal laughter coming from inside.

Xia Zhen was originally a ruthless playboy, and now he's even more insane, as if he's been driven to the brink of madness. It's not that the opponent is too powerful, it's that the opponent is an unpredictable madman. Normal people can hardly fathom the thought process of a madman, making it extremely difficult to predict their next move.

"Didn't you say you were going to add fuel to the fire?"

"In this situation, they can burn very well on their own without needing any additional fuel."

Zhou Wangshu's attendant came in and said to Zhou Wangshu, "Master, there is new information."

Su Yaoguang, accompanied by servants she brought from the General's Mansion, moved into the largest courtyard of the Cheng'an Marquis's Mansion—Huiyuan.

She sat there drinking tea, while the servants bustled about inside and out.

An old nanny came over and said to Su Yaoguang, "We checked carefully, and the entire courtyard was decorated with great care. The gauze curtains and various utensils were all soaked in purple orchid grass. Purple orchid grass is colorless and odorless, and not very toxic, but over time, it becomes a slow poison. If a person touches these things frequently, their body will become weaker and weaker, eventually developing symptoms of a chronic and intractable disease."

"That's quite a generous gesture, very thoughtful." Su Yaoguang looked at Zhou Wangshu not far away. "Husband, did you hear that? Your smiling tiger stepmother is very warm to us and thinks highly of us, but she starts using these underhanded tricks on us as soon as she arrives. What kind of big gift do you think we should give her in return?"

"Madam, please don't worry. They will be holding a family reunion banquet for us in three days. There will be other people giving us generous gifts then, and we can return those gifts together."

“We haven’t been in the capital for long. First, I recognized my relatives, and then you recognized yours. However, the concepts behind the two recognitions were different, and the situations we faced were also different.”

"Don't stay at the Marquis of Cheng'an's residence while I'm away; I'm worried about you."

"Don't worry, I'm not that stupid. Besides, she wouldn't dare do anything to me when you're not around, after all, I still have a father who is a general protecting the country."

Having a powerful backer makes all the difference.

Look at her, before she would think of ways to outsmart her when she encountered trouble, but now she just goes for it head-on. Who told her to be confident now and know that this is the simplest and most direct way?

The next day, Su Yaoguang made a special trip back to the General's Mansion to have a meal with Su Rende and his wife. She told them that everything was fine at the Cheng'an Marquis's Mansion, and that she would only report good news and not bad news, so as not to let them know that Zhou Wangshu had returned this time to avenge his family and make them worry about them all day long.

After that, she went to Taoyaofang to manage the business.

"Several maids came to the Cheng'an Marquis's residence today, saying they wanted to buy some things for the Cheng'an Marquis's wife, but they didn't pay. They said we're all family and there's no need to be so formal," Jia Chunni said angrily. "Who's family with them? This is Yaoguang's shop, not the Cheng'an Marquis's residence's shop. Why shouldn't they pay?"

"What's the rush? It's about collecting debts. I'm an expert in this business. I'll get it back with interest," Su Yaoguang said. "If the people from the Cheng'an Marquis's residence buy things again and don't pay, as long as they keep good records, I'll make them pay back."

“Okay.” Zhang Pandi said with a smile, “You don’t know how greedy Chunni is now. She’s heartbroken to see such a large sum of money lost. I told her to wait for Yaoguang to come before we discuss a solution, but she insisted that it was because she was too useless and couldn’t handle those unruly servants that such a thing happened during her tenure.”

"We're backed by a powerful figure now, so most officials just want to befriend us and won't go out of their way to offend us. Only the very top few powerful figures are not to be trifled with, but we can't afford to offend them. My father can, though. We'll just confront them in front of the emperor and see if they have the nerve to do so. So, there's no need to rush."

"Yaoguang, is it really a good idea for you to go back to the Cheng'an Marquis's residence?" Zhang Yingdi asked. "I heard this morning that you just returned to the Cheng'an Marquis's residence yesterday, and that second young master caused trouble, killing several servants and turning the entire Cheng'an Marquis's residence into a river of blood. Everyone is saying that this is a warning to you two. That second young master is used to being barbaric and his methods are always ruthless."

"No matter how much trouble that second young master causes, he's just a paper tiger and can't hurt us. However, such rumors can continue to spread, the wider the better."

The worse the reputation of the Cheng'an Marquis's mansion is, the smoother Zhou Wangshu will be in taking over. Speaking of which, having a pig-like opponent is a rather easy and pleasant thing.