To divorce his wife, the top scholar preferred being cuckolded to wearing a red hat.

Fu Jingying hadn't forgotten that the jewelry Su Ziyu had casually given him last time was worth more than ten thousand taels of silver.

She's so generous; if she really became her sister-in-law, she'd only be even more lavish.

From now on, she'll follow behind her new sister-in-law and play with those noble ladies every day. Surely, one or two young men from prominent families will take a liking to her.

She remarried to a wealthy young man and became the mistress of the house.

Such days are full of hope.

Unlike before when he followed Su Mingyue, he was extremely stingy with her, only buying jewelry worth a hundred or eighty taels, and rarely buying jewelry worth more than a thousand taels.

"So we have to please her before she comes in, so she doesn't think we're stingy. You sell your jewelry, and I'll take a look at mine. We'll pool our money to decorate the house."

Fu Jingying wasn't sad at all; on the contrary, she thought it was a very feasible idea.

She immediately brought out her jewelry box, intending to sell all the things Su Mingyue had given her. She didn't want to go herself, so she left it to Qian Shi to handle.

In short, she didn't want to see those pieces of jewelry anymore; they were worthless trinkets from a small county town, and just looking at them annoyed her.

Madam Qian left with the box, then took another one from her room and found a pawnshop, asking the shopkeeper to check how much silver her jewelry was worth.

The shopkeeper looked at a few items and said, "These pieces of jewelry are not new, and the workmanship is average. This one is worth at most ten taels of silver a string, and this one is worth at most fifty taels of silver."

When I turned to the last page, I found a pair of green jadeite bracelets.

It was a gift from Su Mingyue to Fu Jingsheng when they first got married. The quality looked good, and in her opinion, it was probably worth a hundred or two hundred taels of silver.

The shopkeeper weighed it in his hand, then examined its quality, seemingly unable to believe his eyes, scrubbing it several times.

"Madam, this bracelet of yours looks quite nice. If you're willing to sell it, I can offer you a thousand taels." The shopkeeper breathed on the bracelet and casually wiped it with a soft cloth.

Upon hearing his words, Madam Fu narrowed her eyes.

"A thousand taels? That's more than that. I bought this bracelet for five thousand taels back then. You're only offering a thousand taels now? That's definitely not acceptable." The old lady knew the bracelet was valuable, but she didn't know its exact value.

The shopkeeper asked for a thousand, and she instinctively tried to bargain.

The shopkeeper chuckled, "Grandma, you haven't been cheated, have you? This bracelet isn't worth five thousand. You bought it for at most two thousand. I'm only offering one thousand now because you've been so sincere today, bringing so much jewelry. If you don't want to sell it, then take it back." The shopkeeper was about to return the bracelet to the old lady.

"Fine, I'll sell it to you if you add a little more." Although the old lady felt a pang of regret, she thought that her new daughter-in-law was about to enter the family. If the old lady knew that she had married a daughter-in-law before and still kept her former daughter-in-law's things, she might make a scene.

Another point is that the Su family is wealthy.

She must have brought a lot of dowry with her when she entered the family.

If you please your new daughter-in-law, it's not impossible that she might be so happy that she'd receive several sets of nice jewelry as a gift.

However, a bracelet worth only two thousand taels is not enough to impress.

After looking at the old lady's trunk, the shopkeeper looked at another trunk.

At the bottom of another box, there was a jade pendant.

The shopkeeper took it out and looked at it, saying that the jade pendant and the pair of bracelets were made from the same material, so the price was the same for recycling them.

"Just tell me the total price. How much silver can you give me in the end for these two boxes of jewelry?" The old lady looked at the two boxes of jewelry, and her heart ached a little.

All these pieces of jewelry were selected one by one beforehand.

The shopkeeper frantically turned the abacus with both hands: "I can give you a total of four thousand eight hundred taels."

The old lady hadn't expected it to be worth so much money. With 4,800 taels in hand, the family could at least make ends meet.

"I'll give you five thousand taels. With so much jewelry, you won't lose out."

"Since you brought so much at once, I'll add two hundred taels. Should I give you cash or a silver note?"

"Give me a thousand taels of silver, and four thousand-tael silver notes."

Soon, the shopkeeper had someone bring it out and personally handed it to the old lady, telling her to keep it safe.

The old lady went to the carpentry shop with five thousand taels of silver in her pocket. She didn't plan to buy the furniture for her house outside; she intended to have the carpenter make it at home.

The furniture you buy outside is so expensive, each piece costs several hundred taels.

If you hire someone to do it yourself, the total cost will only be a few hundred taels. It looks no different from the ones you buy, and it's even more sturdy.

In rural areas, every household hires a carpenter to build things at their home; who would buy a ready-made carpenter? That would be a sign of having money but nowhere to spend it.

If the villagers knew that buying furniture cost several thousand taels of silver, they would laugh their heads off.

She then called a carpenter to accompany her to the Fu residence to see what items needed to be added and what dimensions needed to be made.

As soon as the old lady left, the shopkeeper carried the two boxes of jewelry upstairs. He took out a jade pendant and a bracelet, and played with them in his hands, unable to put them down.

These two items are both excellent; they wouldn't be too expensive, even at a price of ten thousand taels of silver.

The old lady's lack of appreciation for the goods could only be due to one reason: someone gave them to her without telling her their true price.

He played with it for a while, then put it away and locked it.

These two boxes of jewelry have instructions on how to keep them safe and sealed, and not to resell them.

The landlord's people will send someone to pick it up soon.

……

Xingchun looked at the jewelry on the table and couldn't help but sneer: "Miss, now that you're gone, they've all been living the life of pawning. Two boxes of jewelry were only pawned for five thousand taels of silver, which sounds like a lot. But the Fu family will have a happy occasion soon, so this amount of silver probably won't be enough."

For an ordinary family, five thousand taels of silver would be enough to host ten weddings.

But what kind of family is the Su family? If you want to marry their daughter into the family, it's unlikely that you can afford a good wedding with just five thousand taels of silver.

“I’m not even in the Fu family anymore, why should I worry about this? Anyway, we’re out of money. We can pawn the jewelry that our former daughter-in-law gave us, but we definitely can’t pawn the jewelry that our new daughter-in-law will give us when she comes in.” Su Mingyue picked up the pair of bracelets and jade pendant.

These bracelets were specially found by her before the wedding as a gift for Qian Shi and Fu Jingying, and they cost a lot of money.

I never expected them to pawn it so easily.

"That's right. She pawned all these jewels because she wanted to distance herself from you, Miss. Miss, we mustn't let them know that we have money, otherwise, knowing their nature, they'll definitely come after us."

"They'll know when it's time to know." Su Mingyue put the bracelet back in the box. "Take it away and put it away."

……

Fu Jingying returned from outside in high spirits.

Today, she went with Su Ziyu to Wang Shangshu's house to attend the plum blossom appreciation banquet hosted by Miss Wang Shiruo.

Miss Wang Shiruo is skilled in painting, especially her plum blossom paintings, which are unique and have made her quite famous in Beijing.

Although she didn't know anything about painting, quite a few young ladies from prominent families had attended the painting banquet today. It was just a pity that Miss Wang hadn't invited any young gentlemen; only a few young ladies who were her friends had gone.