Chapter 6 — The Husband and Little Uncle Fake the Disaster, My Sister and I Clean Up the Marquis' Palace

I closed the notebook, raised my head, and looked at him calmly.

“My lord, do you need me to read all of these accounts one by one?”

He said nothing. His lips were trembling, his eyes were fixed on the notebook in my hand, as if he wanted to burn the notebook together with me into ashes. After a long time, he opened his mouth, his voice so hoarse that it didn't sound like himself.

“What do you want?”

This sentence again. The father and son looked back and forth and could only ask this one question. I put the notebook in my sleeve, folding it along with the other contract.

"Tomorrow, I will leave the city. Tieu Ngoc Xu will go with me. The Duke ordered someone to open the palace door, prepare a carriage, do not follow, do not stop."

Gong Gong's throat moved a little.

“Just these things?”

“Just these things.”

He was silent for a moment, then slowly nodded. Tieu Thua Duc was impatient: “Father!” Cong Cong raised his hand, not letting him continue speaking. His eyes moved from my face to Tieu Ngoc Xu's face, then back to my face, finally stopping on the bulging sleeve because of that notebook.

“Early tomorrow morning, the palace doors will open wide.” He said, “You guys go.”

I nodded, turned around and walked back. Tieu Ngoc Xu followed, walked a few steps, and suddenly spoke in a low voice.

"The notebook in your hand, if it's real, is enough to make him lose his head."

I said nothing.

“Are you going to keep thinking like that?”

I stopped walking and turned my head to look at the shadow of the peacock still standing in the same place.

“Who said I intended to be like that?”

That night, I didn't sleep. Not out of fear. It's because it's too quiet. The entire Marquis Palace was so quiet that it was like a coffin. The maid and woman walked on tiptoe, and even the lanterns in the hallway were half lit. Everyone knew something happened, but no one dared to ask what exactly happened. Tieu Ngoc Xu pushed open the door to my room, carrying two jars of wine in his hands.

"In that old lady's room, she can't drink tonight, I'll drink it for her."

She put the jar of wine on the table, sat down, and poured two glasses. I do not refuse. The two of us drank three cups face to face, no one said anything. At the fourth cup, Tieu Ngoc Xu suddenly opened his mouth.

“When I was twelve years old, my father told me for the first time that he wanted to marry me.”

She stared at the wine in the cup, her voice very calm.

"The other person is a man over forty years old, has three dead wives, no one in the capital dares to marry his daughter. Father said, his family has a good family background, deep roots, marrying him is the main wife, it is my blessing."

"I said I wouldn't marry. Father slapped me hard, saying he wasn't negotiating with me."

She laughed, tilted her head back and drank all the wine.

"Later, that marriage failed, not because father's conscience found out, but because that man criticized my eight characters as not being good. After father returned, he didn't talk to me for three months, as if I had ruined his bright future."

She poured another cup.

"Since that incident, I've known that in his eyes, I'm not a girl. I'm an object. When I can exchange money, I exchange it. When I can't exchange it, I put it in the house to collect dust."

I looked at her and filled her cup with wine.

"What about sister? Does she know?"

"Know. She knew from beginning to end."

Tieu Ngoc Xu raised the cup and shook it under the candlelight.

"She told me that a woman is her fate, just endure it for a while and it'll be over. I said I don't want to endure it. She said I have to endure it even if I don't endure it, because leaving the Marquis Palace, I'm nothing."

She drank all the wine and put the cup down.

“So today, I am especially happy.”

“What's so funny?”

“Glad that I finally let her see, leaving the Marquis Palace, what I really am.”

The candlelight jumped once. Tieu Ngoc Xu's face in the light and darkness briefly became clear and blurred, then she laughed, laughing so much that her eyes curled up.

“Tham Tri Vi, tell me, did the two of us owe the Tieu family in our previous lives?”

“No debt.”

I also laugh.

"It's the Tieu family that owes us. In this life, they have to pay."

Early the next morning, the palace door was indeed wide open. The carriage was ready and stopped in front of the Marquis Palace's door. The driver was the person Tieu Ngoc Xu was looking for, his mouth was closed, he had given enough money, he didn't ask anything that shouldn't be asked. We move the last few trunks to the car.