An ugly girl starts off, then becomes a beauty

After the fifteenth day, the festive atmosphere gradually faded, and everyone threw themselves into their busy schedules. Nie Ce also began to frequently go to the Central School Office. After Sang Ling dealt with all the big and small matters in the mansion, he stayed for a few days to accompany his daughter and asked a few nurses about the children's daily interesting stories.

Then, before the spring came, he went to Donghou Mansion.

The greeting letter had been delivered two days earlier. At noon on that day, Ban Le took his daughter to wait in front of the mansion gate and personally welcomed Sang Ling into the house.

"When I heard you were coming, I was shocked for a long time, thinking someone had mispronounced her name. Is your daughter okay? I heard Ling Zhen talk about some of your stories, and you are really brave."

The Ban family's daughter had just given birth, and her figure was much thinner than when she was in school. Although it was still obvious that she had dressed up carefully today, a closer look revealed some fine lines at the corners of her eyes, and her face no longer had the fullness that a girl should have. She was only nineteen years old. Sang Ling couldn't help but feel mixed emotions. As she entered the inner room and sat down, he smiled slightly and said, "There is no construction without destruction. This trip has made me see a lot, and I have gained a lot."

"What do you understand?"

"I understand now—" She looked out the window and said softly, "I want to live for myself."

The maid brought the fruit juice up, and Ban Le tried to smile in response, but for some reason, her lips felt as if a thousand pounds were weighing her down, so she lowered her brows and looked at the hem of her skirt, "That's good, it's not easy to understand this principle."

The snow in Beijing had melted during the festival, and only snow remained in places where few people lived. Sang Ling glanced at the inner courtyard of Ban Le's house and saw that there was still snow beside the corridor. She sighed imperceptibly and stared at the people in front of her. "Talking about it on paper is always shallow. You have to practice it yourself to know it. Everyone understands the truth, but the difficulty lies in truly doing it with your body and mind."

The daughter of the Ban family just smiled and said, "Our A Ling is still so brilliant."

She kept her head down, more like she was afraid of meeting Sang Ling's gaze.

"Back then I told you that I wanted to be with—"

"A Ling." Ban Le interrupted her as if he knew what she was going to say. He only glanced at her and then lowered his head again. Sang Ling thought that there was a spy from the Xun family in the room, so she looked around and only saw the maid that Ban Le had kept with him since he was a child.

"I'm not alone now." Ban Le spoke again, "I still have Niuniu, I can't help but think about her, she's still too young, as for the divorce - I can only wait until Niuniu is older, I can only bring it up when she's older. A Ling, it's not like I haven't thought about divorcing him, I'm having a hard time here, I want to go home every day, but my parents won't agree, and Niuniu was just born, she's still too young, if I divorce, she'll have nowhere to stay, and I won't feel comfortable leaving her here for this family to raise her."

"You had your own concerns then, and you have your own concerns now. Who knows if you will have new concerns when the time comes?" Sang Ling closed his eyes and said earnestly, "Originally, I shouldn't interfere too much in other people's affairs. I advised you before, but later I stopped talking about these things because I was afraid that you would have your own considerations, and if I said too much, you would blame me. Now it seems that I, as an outsider, have to say more. If you want to divorce, I will do my best to help you; if you don't want to for the time being, but you have any difficulties, you can send someone to the Marquis' Mansion to find me."

There was a moment of silence after the words fell. Ban Le fiddled with the hem of her skirt unconsciously, again and again, before nodding, "Thank you, let me think about it."

*

In mid-March, as everyone expected, Grandpa Nie moved to the Nie family villa by the Wai Zengtai River. Before leaving, he took Nie Chengyong and two court doctors with him, and most of the servants in the Shifei Hall also left.

Madam Zhaoyu said, "I estimate he won't be back for two months."

When the old man was not at home, the eldest lady was more blatant in throwing the housework to the young lady.

However, there was not much to do after the beginning of spring. Sang Ling only needed to listen to the personnel report at the beginning of the month and the account report at the end of the month. He would occasionally meet two new owners of the manor and a new shop owner. He also had Fang Ma and several old mothers and housekeepers to help him. It was not as busy as when he first took over.

Sometimes when I have free time, I can stay in Wuyuan, either reading a book or drawing some structural diagrams of modern objects, or walking to the backyard to see the recovery of several girls in Zhongcun and chat with them.

After visiting Jiushi with Dai Chengjun last time, the daughter of the Dai family came to the Marquis' Mansion again and said she wanted to take Lianmei, Azhu and Sisi away.

The six little daughters had always been together, so how could they bear to let them go when they heard they were going to be separated?

After learning the identities of Sang Ling and Dai Chengjun, she did not dare to refute them in person, but just wiped away her tears in private.

Dai Chengjun saw this scene and felt bad. She said to Sang Ling, "It's not that I have to come and snatch the person from you, but since we rescued the person together, I can't just leave it all to you. It would make me look heartless."

"That's not what you mean." Sang Ling said to her, "Our two families can both afford to raise a few girls. Why do we have to argue about you and me?"

"I miss them too." Dai Chengjun simply told the truth.

Sang Ling couldn't help laughing, so he pulled her to Wuyuan to sit for a while, and the two of them discussed a solution together.

"You said last time that if all the ladies in Beijing knew about my mascara and eyeliner, they would definitely like them. So I thought, why don't we buy a shop together? We can sell these things. You and I can invest together and bring six girls over. Let them learn how to run the business from a young age. It's like they have something to do, and we can support them together."

"What is a joint venture?" Dai Chengjun blinked his big eyes. Sang Lingxu explained with a smile, "It means we both contribute money."

Money is nothing to a rich girl. Even though she spent a lot when she went south, her family was well-off after all, so she could recover in a month or two. Dai Chengjun clapped his hands immediately, "That's right, I'll pay more. These things were made by you, and I just benefited from it."

"Half and half." Sang Ling declined her proposal. "I'll draw the blueprints, and you have something to do. We need to find suitable craftsmen to build it. We should all participate, and we should bring them along. What do you think?"

"Very good!" The daughter of the Dai family was like a machine that agreed with everyone at this time, "When do we open?"

"Right now." Sang Ling said with a smile.

It just so happened that there were a few vacant mansions under the Marquis of Bian's mansion. Instead of selling them off, they could use them to do business and earn some extra money. In addition, Nie Ce had been away on business for the past few days, so they still had some time to spare for housework. They were free anyway, so they could just do this.