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Chapter 9: Unhappiness and Relatives

Was it sorrow from the hopeless state of the marriage?

But when the Madam and Master passed, the young miss did not wear such an expression.

In a blink, Miss Jun’s sad expression had disappeared, and she once again became calm.

“Enough now, do not speak nonsense,” she said, her voice warm. “I said that it had ended. The Ning Family does not want the marriage, and neither do I. Now that I have the money, it is all in the past. They do not owe us anything, and we are not lacking either.”

The little maidservant trembled with fear. She carefully looked at Miss Jun’s expression and convinced herself that she was just seeing things. Miss Jun must definitely be sad without the marriage. As a good maid, she should not complain and throw salt onto the young miss’ wounds. So, she nodded her head and didn’t speak of anything related to the marriage again.

“Let’s go,” said Miss Jun to her with a smile, turning to leave.

The little servant girl hurried to catch up. She had only walked a few steps before she could not help but open her mouth again.

“Young Miss, are we going to the capital now, or are we going to visit the Fang Family first?” she asked carefully.

Miss Jun stopped moving.

“The Fang Family.” She repeated those words, like she was recalling something that was familiar.

“I thought before that we could quickly marry out of the house and never have anything to do with them for the rest of our lives. So, we never cared about whether they liked us or not,” said the little girl cautiously and with a face full of anxiousness. “Right now, if they knew that you didn’t have a marriage with the Ning Family anymore, I don’t know how they will treat Young Miss.”

“We will know soon,” said Miss Jun.

Soon? The young girl was stunned. When she saw where Miss Jun’s line of sight was directed, she could not help but look too. She saw two carriages escorting multiple people speeding along. The carriage curtains were opened, and an old lady was looking at them.

“Old Lady!” the little servant girl blurted out.

The carriage stopped in front of them. The old lady did not wait for the maidservants to help her out and descended from the carriage herself. She walked straight up to Miss Jun.

Miss Jun sized her up.

This old lady was around sixty years old. She had a square face and was wearing a gold embroidered beizi [1] with a horse-face skirt [2]. Her grey streaked hair was adorned with a golden chrysanthemum hairpin. It was inlaid with green jade that looked like it was twinkling. The woman exuded an aura of lavishness.

This was Old Lady Fang, Miss Jun’s maternal grandmother.

Old Lady Fang had had two children, son and a daughter, but both of them had died. Right now, her facial expression was solemn and her gaze sharp, with an incomparably intimidating aura. She did not have the sadness of someone who’s seen two children die. And neither did she have the sympathy or affection of someone looking at her dead daughter’s orphan.

“I heard you hanged yourself?” asked the old lady slowly, as she looked at her.

Beiliu Town was about half a day from Yangcheng by carriage. When Miss Jun had come up with a plan to hang herself and then be saved, the young servant girl had immediately asked for a message to be sent to Yangcheng. However, she had never thought that the hanging would be so lifelike and would scare her so much that she forgot about all the messengers. And after, upon waking up, Miss Jun had said she would resolve the problem by herself, so the young servant girl hadn’t notified the Fang family.

The hanging took place yesterday night, and now, at almost noon, the Fang Family had rushed here after receiving the news. It seemed that they did care about what Miss Jun did, unlike what was said previously.

Miss Jun prepared to pay her respects.

“How come you didn’t die?” asked Old Lady Fang right away, not covering the ridicule in her voice.

Miss Jun sighed, and straightened up.

The little serving stared, indignant.

“Old Lady, our Young Miss truly did almost die; it was hard for me to save her,” she said vehemently.

Old Lady Fang snorted and sneered.

“Didn’t you want to die? How come someone saved your life?” she asked. “I only heard that you no longer wanted to live. I didn’t hear that you wanted to die but didn’t do it.”

For these kind of words, something that not even the loathful Ning Family had said, to come from the young miss’ only blood relative she could rely on... It really made people terribly disappointed.

However, the little servant girl, whose eyes had turned red with tears because of the disdainful gazes of the Ning Family, was not fearful in the least now. She only stared with her hands on her hips, aggression.

“If my family’s Young Miss had died, it would have been because of your Fang Family forcing her to do it.” She snorted. “Merchants only value money and lack any feelings or sense of justice. Our Young Miss was humiliated by your lowly family.”

Young Miss Jun sighed internally. It was obvious that everyone had two sides. This little servant girl was not weak and timid. Seeing her aggressive and fierce appearance and hearing her say the words ‘humiliated’, passersby could not help but turn to look, as well as the person she was insulting.

However, Old Lady Fang was not angry at the young servant girl’s ruthlessness, and neither were the servants with her. All of them wore an expression like this was a common occurrence.

Miss Jun pondered over this, then remembered that the young servant girl’s attitude was always like that to the people of the Fang Family because she wanted to support her Young Miss.

Although, they had come to seek shelter after losing both parents, this master and servant pair did not have the fearful subservience of someone coming to live under another person’s charity. They were high and mighty, because the young miss’ mother had almost completely broken off the ties with her parents from the beginning of her marriage. Besides sending gifts at Chinese New Year\'s and other festivals, they did not meet at all.

Except for this maternal grandmother, Miss Jun was almost a stranger to the rest of the Fang Family. Actually, when you think about it, their relationship was slightly worse than that of strangers. The reason for it being, the important one, was that in the Great Zhou Dynasty merchants occupied a very low position.

Even if her grandmother’s family had a mountain of money, in the poor and destitute Miss Jun’s eyes, they were still an uncouth and lowly merchant family. What’s more, Miss Jun also had a prestigious engagement.

So, since coming to her maternal grandmother’s family, Miss Jun had felt that she was mixing with a lowly merchant family. Her disdain and arrogance, of course, provoked the dislike of people from the Fang Family. This resulted in the two parties looking at each other with disgust, their words unkind.

Miss Jun was really a child that gave people a headache. No matter what was said, the Fang Family were her blood relatives. How could she be closer to the Ning Family than to the Fang Family?

The Ning Family looked very nice, but they had almost claimed Miss Jun’s life. The Fang Family seemed emotionless, but they had rushed here in a moment. This girl had mistook her relatives for foes and foes for relatives.

As the thought flitted through her mind, Miss Jun felt like her heart had been pricked with a knife, and an expression of pain twisted on her face.

The one who mistook foes for relatives was not just this Miss Jun. Did she not too? So, what qualifications did she have to mock others?

Miss Jun’s face twisted; it was full of bitterness, resentment, and hatred. Old Lady Fang was very familiar with such an expression; she did not have a response. The maidservants all retreated backwards a step, unable to hide their disgust.

The young servant girl naturally saw this, and was even more outraged on behalf of Young Miss, but Old Lady Fang interrupted her.

“Zhenzhen, I know very well that your personality is very lofty. But for the Ning Family to do this, to you it is something that is really hard to bear… Come,” she said indifferently.

When she heard the words ‘lofty temperament’, Miss Jun clearly saw the faces of the servants behind Old Lady Fang twist into a sneer.

Two maidservants stepped forward.

Old Lady Fang looked at Miss Jun.

“Bring out the rope. Wait upon Young Miss at the Ning Family’s doorstep so she can demonstrate her sincerity by dying,” she said slowly. “Tell the Ning Family that in life Jun Zhenzhen was their person, and in death she will be their ghost. Whether they burn or bury her is their prerogative; our Fang Family will not get involved.”

The little servant girl stomped her foot.

For Old Lady Fang to say this kind of thing to Young Miss... Is this something a grandmother would say?

“Don’t think that I don’t see what you’re trying to do! In order to avoid others hating you or destroying your business, you want to humiliate my Young Miss into death! All because you know that she has no one to rely on! ” The young servant girl took a step forward to shout loudly at Old Lady Fang. “You lowly…”

This was the main road, and, although, Beiliu Town was not busier than Yangcheng, it was noon now, and quite a bit of people were walking past. When the carriage had stopped on the road, it had already garnered many glances At the moment, with the voices quickly escalating in pitch, the group attracted the attention of not just a few people from around them.

It was really quite shameful. The maidservants behind Old Lady Fang rushed forward. This little servant girl had always been insolent with her words, but, now, she actually dared to point at Old Lady Fang’s face and insult her. Not waiting for her servants to take action, Old Lady Fang, who had previously never paid any attention to the master and servant pair, raised her hand first.

“You troublemaker!” she said, preparing to slap the young servant girl’s face.

The little servant girl had never thought that Old Lady Fang, who had always ignored her in the past, would suddenly try to slap her.

Old Lady Fang was old, but she was still very robust. The little servant girl had seen her practicing punching a wooden stake early in the morning in the back courtyard. The servant girl had hurried to go look and seen that the wooden stake, which had been punched so often, was smooth and slippery. She then had ran back to mock it with Young Miss.

Her face, however, could not be compared with a wooden stake. This slap could definitely bring a person down and, perhaps, even knock out a few teeth.

However, the young servant girl had no chance of dodging. She just stood there, watching the hand growing bigger in front of her.

A hand shot out and grabbed Old Lady Fang’s wrist.

Old Lady Fang’s hand stopped right next to the little servant girl’s face.

The young serving girl let go of her breath, then turned to look at Young Miss standing next to her.

“Young Miss,” she shouted out with grief.

Miss Jun did not look at her, but instead watched Old Lady Fang.

Old Lady Fang was also looking back at her, a cold smile on her face.

“What is it? I, a person from a lowly family, am not allowed to hit your servant?” she asked.

Miss Jun smiled.

“Grandmother, it isn\'t that you can’t hit her, but that there’s no point in doing it,” she said. She slowly tugged Old Lady Fang’s hand down. “Everything has been resolved. I have settled things with the Ning Family, so Grandmother, you do not need to put on a show for them to see to protect me.”

Old Lady Fang looked at her, stiffening.

[1] Large, loose coat

[2] A multi-paneled, pleated skirt