After the replacement marriage, I was forced to fight at home

"At that time, I had just woken up from Mrs. Hu's doting. There was almost no one around me who was useful and trustworthy except Mother Fan. The old people who served my mother died, left, or were sold. It was so cold in the winter that the water I drank at night was cold. Accidents happened to me frequently. In the summer, I would accidentally fall into the lake several times. In the autumn, when I went horseback riding with them, I was always the one who fell. Whenever something unhappy happened at home, my shadow must be involved. The horse whip in my father's study seemed to be customized for me. As long as I made a mistake in their eyes, Mrs. Hu would hold my father's hand and say, "Prince, Brother Yu is still young. You can't whip him with the whip. It will hurt him."

"Haha, my father, who had been unable to find a suitable tool, seemed to have found his way after being reminded by Mrs. Hu. Moreover, Mrs. Hu was very good at seizing the opportunity. Every time I put on clothes made of expensive materials, my father would beat me so hard that I could no longer wear them. Therefore, no one cared about how I was beaten. Everyone just sighed that the playboy in the palace had worn out the newly cut clothes of the princess again.

"Mother Fan could do nothing. She could only secretly shed tears while applying medicine to me. Later, my sister came back from her hometown, and my life became better, but it was limited. Mrs. Hu turned her attention to my sister again. At that time, Mrs. Hu frequently visited the Yong'an Earl's Mansion under the pretext of arranging a marriage for my sister. It was not until we heard that Mrs. Xu wanted to cancel the engagement that we knew what Mrs. Hu was planning.

"I remember it very clearly. It was New Year's Eve of that year. Mrs. Hu held my sister's hand and said that she would withdraw if she wanted to. A daughter of a prince's mansion still wanted to marry into a baron's mansion. She would definitely find a good marriage for her in the spring. I was very angry at that time, because we had guessed that Mrs. Hu was the one who was making trouble. I picked up the wine glass and threw it at Mrs. Hu. I called her a vixen. She killed my mother and planned my sister's marriage. So, Zhou Zheng and I had our first fight. I broke his forehead with a teapot. If you see him next time, look carefully at the left side of his forehead and you can still see a faint mark.

"Of course, as expected, my father beat me again. I was not able to get out of bed until spring came. Actually, he didn't beat me too hard that time, but we were all wondering why I stayed in bed for so long. When I recovered, strange things happened one after another. Today I had a stomachache, tomorrow I was stung by a bee, the day after tomorrow I was accidentally hit by someone, and so on. There were more and more accidents like this.

"At that time, due to my brother-in-law's insistence, my sister's marriage had already been discussed, but Mrs. Hu fell ill. I remember that it was my third aunt who helped to buy the dowry for my sister."

"Zhou Jun's mother?" Meng Wan asked softly. Hu herself did not arrange a marriage for Zhou Yingrong. She did not use the second aunt who had a living husband and wife and two children, but instead found a widowed third aunt. One could tell what she was thinking with just a little thought.

"Well, Third Aunt is kindhearted. When Mother was still alive, she often came to Qinghe Garden. While helping Sister check the dowry left by Mother, Third Aunt said that it was not a good thing to continue like this. She said that Sister had not yet married, and I had so many accidents. If Sister married, what would happen to me who could not protect me in the first place? At the very least, there should be a few trustworthy people around me.

"Just when my sister and I were getting anxious, Uncle Qi found my brother-in-law. He came back from my grandfather's hometown. After arriving in the capital, he opened a blacksmith shop in the south of the city, and I started going there every day. Hu really became suspicious of Uncle Qi and the blacksmith shop, and even spread the word in front of my father, saying that it was not good for a young man from a noble family to go to the south of the city where ordinary people lived every day and mix with blacksmiths. She asked my father to find a way to close the blacksmith shop and not let others laugh at him.

"My father retorted to her in a rare move, saying that he had investigated everything. Those were servants from my mother's family, and that the iron shop was also the property of the Wang family. Those old servants came to Beijing to do this because they had a hard time in their hometown. It would be a waste to send them back. We must not let the people in Beijing laugh at the Shen County Prince's Mansion for not being able to accommodate the servants from the late Princess' family.

"So, after many investigations and underhanded plots by Mrs. Hu, Uncle Qi and the others stayed. Then, Wu Hen came to me first. At that time, I had already moved to the outer courtyard, and Mrs. Hu's hands could not reach so far, and she had fewer small moves and calculations against me. She could only work hard to discredit my reputation outside. But I no longer cared about these.

"A few years later, it was the second year after my sister got married. I saw the two sisters Yanfu and Xuefu in the iron shop. Uncle Qi meant that it was not enough to have only Mama Fan in the inner courtyard. I had to put two trustworthy ones in the courtyard before I got married. One was to help Mama Fan before I got married, and the other was to help after I got married..." Zhou Yu paused here, bent his right arm and put it under his head, thought for a while and then continued,

"As we get older, Uncle Qi feels that Meng Qi and I are not a good match, but there is no way to change it, and it is impossible to change it. After hearing about Meng Qi's actions in the Huainan Marquis's Mansion, Uncle Qi knows that she is not a person who can stand in the inner house. Just like everyone thought at the beginning, if Meng Qi marries in, it would be good if she is not used by the Hu family to oppose me. It is impossible for her to help me and find a place for me in the back house."

"So, these two people that Uncle Qi found are actually intended to be your concubines?" Meng Wan said, pulling the quilt on her shoulders.

Zhou Yu nodded, "Yes, the two sisters were orphans who were rescued by Uncle Qi. After careful teaching, Uncle Qi was more optimistic about Yan Fu, who was outstanding in terms of appearance, temperament and scheming. But I didn't know Uncle Qi's plan at the time, but Yan Fu should have known it, as she is three years older than me.

"Of course, the sisters did not come directly to Qinghe Garden when they arrived at the palace. In order to avoid suspicion from Mrs. Hu, they were sold by the matchmaker and first did odd jobs in the palace. But Xue Fu arrived at Qinghe Garden first. At that time, Mother Fan did not know about the two of them. To be precise, Mother Fan did not know about Uncle Qi's situation, and she does not know it even now. She only knows that someone is helping me.

"Looking at what Mother Fan has done since we got married, Uncle Qi knew that Mother Fan was not a smart person, so he never let her know of his existence." Zhou Yu smiled self-deprecatingly.

"I'm going to say something you may not like to hear. If it weren't for the fact that Mother Fan was not stupid, how could Mrs. Hu have kept her and kept her by your side for so many years?" Meng Wan said softly.

"That's right. It seems that she is not only unintelligent, but also simple-minded. She is too easy to be taken advantage of."

Meng Wan thought to herself, calling her simple-minded was a compliment to her. She couldn't tell the difference between inside and outside, and she really didn't know good people from bad ones.

"Yanfu is thoughtful, quiet, and down-to-earth. After a long time, she caught the eye of Mrs. Hu and went to Junyueju to work as a third-class maid. Xuefu is a quick-talker, somewhat similar to Caier. At first, she ran errands for the Hui Office. As the number of visits increased, Mother Fan liked her very much and asked her to move to Qinghe Garden. At one point, she even wanted to adopt her as her goddaughter.

"After the sisters established themselves in the palace, my life became much easier, especially since Yanfu was in the Hu family's courtyard and no one knew her identity. She tipped me off many times, allowing me to escape the Hu family's schemes. I won't hide it from you, and I'm not afraid that you will be unhappy. At that time, I was still thinking that if there was someone like Yanfu in the inner house, even if Mengqi was a little naive and couldn't help me with anything, I wouldn't be worried, because at least there would be someone who understood.

"That period can be described as calm and peaceful. I continued to do whatever I wanted outside, Zhou Zheng went to the Imperial College and was very polite. I don't know what Mrs. Hu promised Mrs. Li or threatened her, but Zhou Ming began to take care of the palace's affairs willingly. Yan Fu was also increasingly valued by Mrs. Hu, and had been promoted to the second rank, following directly behind Mother Hong. Everything was moving in a good direction."

Zhou Yu took back his arm from under his head, turned around and looked at Meng Wan, with a look of loneliness, reluctance and resentment.