Yunchu’s Vengeance - Chapter 191
Chapter 191 - Eight Thousand Exchanged for Eighty Thousand
Xie Shi'an wandered about the streets for an entire day.
He went to teahouses, taverns, real estate agencies, and gambling dens... The moment those people heard his name was Xie Shi'an, they would instantly burst into mockery before driving him out.
One scandal after another had plagued the Xie family, creating such a massive uproar that the majority of the capital was well aware of it.
Finding any sort of livelihood or odd job to sustain himself was simply out of the question.
With great difficulty, he finally found a bookshop that allowed him to write letters for illiterate patrons, paying a mere ten copper coins per letter. Even if he wrote a hundred letters in a single day, it would only amount to a single tael of silver.
A single tael of silver wasn't even enough to buy an inkstone of the quality he used to own.
Such grueling labor couldn't even earn enough to cover daily necessities, so what was the point of enduring it?
Xie Shi'an returned to the Xie residence looking utterly dejected.
Stepping into his courtyard, Sanjiu served him his meal just as before. After filling his stomach, he rose and headed toward the courtyard where Madam Yuan resided.
Just as he reached the doorway, he heard voices spilling out from inside.
"Madam, our days are becoming increasingly difficult..." Tingyu said, wiping her tears with a handkerchief. "Yun'er and Kang'er are at an age where they're growing fast. Yun'er is one thing, but Kang'er is right at the age where he needs milk, yet we can't even afford a wet nurse... Look at how thin Kang'er has grown. If this continues, I'm afraid he won't survive."
Ever since Tao Yiniang had fled, Kang'er had been raised entirely in Madam Yuan's courtyard. Madam Yuan still had a loyal elderly servant attending to her, and having the woman lend a hand with everyday chores made things slightly easier for her; otherwise, she wouldn't even know how to endure such days.
She spoke with a sigh, "There is currently no income coming into the household either. If we spend recklessly and throw money around, sooner or later we'll exhaust our last reserves..."
The men of the house were all dead, and their silver had been completely squandered. It was only after she pawned all the jewelry she had accumulated over the years that she managed to scrape together around a hundred taels of silver.
Remembering back to the past, a single month's expenses for the Xie household used to exceed a thousand taels of silver. Those glorious days were gone, never to return...
Back then, with Yun Chu serving as the matriarch and managing the household, she didn't have to worry about a single thing. Now that the burden of managing the household had fallen upon her own shoulders, she found herself wishing she could split every single copper coin in two just to make it stretch...
"Madam, do you have any idea that the Eldest Young Madam lives in luxury, enjoying sumptuous meals every single day..." Tingyu bit her lower lip. "She chose to stay within the Xie family, yet she doesn't give a single thought to this entire household of people. She clearly has the ability to support Kang'er, clearly has the means to spare everyone from such wretched embarrassment, but instead she chooses..."
Before she could finish her sentence, Xie Shi'an strode in from outside the doorway.
"Is Yiniang here blaming my mother?" he asked in a clear, ringing tone. "Mother married into the Xie family, which makes her a member of the Xie family. It should be my Xie family's duty to provide for her upkeep. Yet instead, Mother has had to rely on relief from the Yun family just to maintain her former standard of living. Could it be that Yiniang actually expects the Yun family to support the entire Xie family as well? On what grounds? On the grounds that you betrayed Mother to crawl into Father's bed, or on the grounds that I am not Mother's biological son? Is that what you base it on?"
His words caused Tingyu's face to flush red and pale by turns.
Never in her wildest dreams had she expected that Xie Shi'an would actually step forward to defend the Eldest Young Madam...
The Eldest Young Madam's lifestyle was completely unchanged from before the Xie family's downfall, whereas Xie Shi'an had been reduced to such a destitute state. How could such a glaring contrast fail to breed even a shred of resentment in Xie Shi'an's heart?
"Shi'an's words are entirely correct," Madam Yuan nodded in agreement. "When a person falls into adversity, the last thing they should ever do is beg others for help; otherwise, they will forever remain lower than others."
Tingyu twisted her fingers together anxiously.
As a former maid, she didn't care about being lower than others; she only wanted to make her current life a little easier to bear.
She argued, "But if we don't seek help, we will remain beneath others forever. Without the Eldest Young Madam stepping forward, our Xie family will be finished for good, and Eldest Young Master, your future will be brought to a permanent halt right here."
Xie Shi'an looked straight at Tingyu. "Yiniang, your desperate eagerness to have Mother step in and bail the Xie family out is purely because Yun'er is saddled with the imperial court's massive debt. How about this: I will take on Yun'er's debt myself."
A look of sheer disbelief exploded across Tingyu's face.
Hanging over Yun'er's head was a crushing astronomical sum of over eighty thousand taels of silver—a debt that had entirely weighed her down and broken her spirit.
She had never imagined that Xie Shi'an would proactively volunteer to shoulder this debt.
Daring not to show too much wild elation, she asked with guarded suspicion, "Is there a condition attached?"
"Yiniang is indeed clever," Xie Shi'an said unhurriedly. "I intend to go into business, and I need capital. If Yiniang provides me with one hundred taels of silver, it will be credited as a deduction of one thousand taels against the debt. In other words, Yiniang only needs to raise just over eight thousand taels of silver for me, and Yun'er will be completely unburdened and free of debt from that day forward."
"E-Eight thousand taels..." Tingyu gave a bitter laugh. "The Eldest Young Master thinks far too highly of me."
Having grown up serving in the Yun household, her monthly stipends combined with the occasional monetary rewards over the years only amounted to less than a thousand taels.
After becoming a concubine of the Xie estate, although she was half a mistress, she had no dowry of her own, and apart from her monthly allowance, she had no other sources of income...
How could she possibly possess the capability to pull out eight thousand taels of silver?
"If Yiniang cannot produce the sum, then I will simply have to find my own way to scrape together the starting capital," Xie Shi'an said, enunciating each word clearly. "I gave Yiniang her chance; when the time comes, Yiniang must not blame me for failing to shoulder my responsibilities as the eldest brother."
With those words, he turned to leave.
Tingyu lunged forward and grabbed hold of his sleeve. "Can I give it to you in installments—some now, and the rest slowly over time?"
With an expression of utmost magnanimity, Xie Shi'an nodded. "Very well. In that case, Yiniang can hand the imperial court's debt acknowledgment over to me. The moment the full eight thousand taels is cleared, I will press my fingerprint onto that debt note."
As night fell, Yun Chu returned home.
Tingfeng recounted every single detail of what had transpired at the Xie residence.
She couldn't help marveling once more that Xie Shi'an truly possessed exceptional talent; even trapped within such a desperate impasse, he was still capable of carving out a path to survival.
Although Tingyu was merely a concubine, she was also a mother. For the sake of Yun'er, she would undoubtedly go to any lengths necessary to scrape together those eight thousand taels of silver.
"Tingfeng is truly a despicable wretch. Where on earth did the Madam ever treat her poorly, yet she still insists on dragging the Old Madam along to plot against the Madam!" Tingfeng said with indignant fury. "She doesn't even bother to use her brain—the Xie family has fallen to this state, shouldn't she be coming to the Madam to beg for repentance and seek a way out?"
"Because she knows the Madam wouldn't bother entertaining her," Tingxue smoothly changed the subject, handing over several blueprints. "These are the prospective locations selected and sent over by Uncle Chen. Please take a look, Madam."
These were sites chosen for the establishment of the shelter, and Yun Chu examined them with utmost seriousness.
Before undertaking this endeavor, she had perused historical records and ancient texts of past dynasties. Ever since the Southern Dynasties, successive ruling authorities had established various forms of shelters, but due to funds being embezzled layer by layer down the administrative chain, severe corruption plagued the system. Very little silver actually reached the intended recipients—the widowers, widows, orphans, and the solitary. Furthermore, the imperial court only ever provided one-time allocations for these relief institutions, making any subsequent requests for court funding virtually impossible...
Wars required massive expenditures, floods and droughts occurred with disheartening regularity requiring funds to resettle displaced refugees, and city walls and official roadways constantly needed repairs—money was needed everywhere... Consequently, the funds required for relief institutions were always pushed to the bottom of the priority list and routinely neglected...
This explained why, despite the existence of government-run shelters, beggars could still be seen crowding the streets everywhere one looked.
She lacked the boundless capacity required to rescue every single homeless soul in existence.
Among the widowers, widows, orphans, and the solitary, she could only choose to focus her efforts on helping the most helpless orphans—children who had lost their parents, or those who had been utterly abandoned.