In a not-so-large courtyard, Su Zuo frowned as she started plucking feathers from a recently bled chicken.
Without scalding the chicken first, plucking it raw was both laborious and impossible to get clean.
Her body and hair were all covered in dirty chicken feathers, looking utterly filthy.
In her past life, even if she had died young, she would have never done such work.
Acting impulsively, she had stord out in a huff, only to feel a hint of regret at this very mont.
Clearly, Su Zuo held the Duke Mansion responsible for everything.
Just then, a little girl, no older than seven or eight, ca running in, reporting the situation at the entrance of the Duke Mansion to her. Su Zuo promptly dropped the chicken and her face lit up with a triumphant smile.
With her hands clasped and slightly trembling, it was evident how excited she felt.
It was real; she hadn’t expected it to actually be true.
Turns out, her Luck Bag was still waiting for her; the Duke Mansion’s decision to drive them away would undoubtedly be the biggest mistake of their lives.
Su Zuo asked the girl again to make sure, "Are you certain you haven’t seen it wrong?"
The little girl looked gaunt and yellow, her hair like straw, the very image of malnutrition. Yet her sharp eyes sparkled with intelligence.
Otherwise, Su Zuo would not have ignored her own mother’s objections and insisted on buying the girl.
After being humiliatingly kicked out of the Duke Mansion, Ms. Zhang was beyond consoling.
The only male heir, Su You, was at a loss, and neither could shoulder the responsibility, leaving Su Zuo no choice but to step up and suggest they find temporary lodging.
Ms. Zhang disagreed with the idea of leaving; she said, "Don’t let Lord’s appearance as a spoiled rich kid deceive you, his heart is actually much softer than those so-called gentlen."
"As long as we wait here, he will let us return out of pity for us."
"He and the Lady raised us for so many years for nothing more than three extra mouths to feed... It’s nothing much for the Duke Mansion. It is all because you caused trouble that Lord and Madam were angered..."
Ms. Zhang harbored deep resentnt toward Su Zuo and Su You. No matter how pleasant life could be outside, how could it compare to their days in the Duke Mansion?
Ignorant of the fact that her own childhood days had not been as good as those she spent in the Duke Mansion.
Though Ms. Zhang seed weak and silly, she had a knack for cutting to the heart of the matter with astonishing precision.
She couldn’t bring herself to bla her only son, but she didn’t extend the sa courtesy to Su Zuo.
Her face reeked of disdain, and her words were especially hurtful.
Ms. Zhang excelled at wearing people down with veiled censure, as she had with Su Zuo’s predecessor. Now, faced with internal conflict, she turned the sa tactics on her daughter.
Su Zuo found it incredibly hard to bear.
Lady Liu believed they had saved a considerable amount of silver taels, and Su Zuo and Su You, who had been sensible from a young age, weren’t too worried, even though they possessed a re thirty taels of patterned silver from the house.
But when Su Zuo approached Ms. Zhang about the finances, the latter’s evasive answers gave her an unpleasant jolt.
Opening the small box Ms. Zhang used to store silver notes in a hurry, she found it completely empty.
Upon further questioning, she discovered that all the money had been squandered by Ms. Zhang to cover her own family’s debts.
Su Zuo felt like breaking down in frustration.
She wanted to berate her mother, but seeing her in such a panicked state, she couldn’t bear to do so. Instead, she redirected her anger onto the people of the Duke Mansion.
As her mother had said, Lord, out of past affection at least, shouldn’t have pushed them too far.
Yet for the imdiate future, they could only look for a place to settle down first.
It was also a stroke of good luck that no sooner had they left the boundaries of the Duke Mansion than they found a purse in a corner alley.
It was filled to the brim with silver notes, as if God, unable to bear seeing their impoverished state, had specially sent this wealth to them.
With this money, the weight on their minds was lifted considerably.
Although Su Zuo was living a second life, when it ca to real-life experience, she truly had none.
In both her past and present lives, her age and disposition were still that of a young lady in the bloom of youth.
Also, being confined to the small courtyard every day, she never even had a chance to glimpse the outside world.
She had only gambled on this ugly fight out of past-life’s dying monts of resentnt and unwillingness.
Now placed in charge, she was truly panicking.
However, thinking of her weak brother and mother, she bolstered her courage and suggested, "How about we go eat first?"
In the Capital’s marketplace, there were many local rowdies, each one cunning as the next, with their skills in judging people as refined as fine kung fu.
Just as expected, the three of them were noticed early on. After coming out of the restaurant, not only was the newly found purse gone, but even the original thirty silver taels on them had also vanished.
Their bundle had been slashed open with a large hole from behind.
Ms. Zhang cried her heart out again, and Su Zuo was both enraged and terrified.
Fuming to the extre, she too, following her mother, cursed vehently, "May the thieving scoundrel struck by lightning not live another day."
No sooner had her words fallen than there was a thunderous roar, and in broad daylight, a bolt of lightning actually descended from the sky and struck a middle-aged man.
The man looked like an honest and simple farr, soone no one could associate with the shaful thief.
Yet, the lightning not only charred the farr black but also scattered his belongings all over the ground, which clattered as they fell.
Standing not far from the man, Zhang and her party were startled by the sudden occurrence.
But upon closer inspection, they exclaid softly, for the scattered purses on the ground, if not theirs, then whose could they be?
Besides, there were a few small cloth packages that were promptly claid by others as well.
After this incident, still with shaken nerves, they unanimously decided to hasten their search for a broker.
But once they found one, good houses were temporarily unavailable.
Either they had just been taken, sold, or the price wasn’t right.
Su Zuo glanced at the joyous man next to them, who had beaten them by a step in securing a house, and muttered under her breath, "If only he didn’t bring enough money with him."
When it ca ti for that man to pay the deposit, he was embarrassingly short of cash.
This ti, without anyone’s prompting, Zhang hurriedly nudged the man aside, pulled out a hefty sum of money, and bought the house outright.
The small courtyard was nothing spectacular, not even comparing to the servants’ quarters in the Duke Mansion.
But truly, in terms of cost-effectiveness and compared to the other houses they had seen, it was the best and cheapest environnt available.
Even the broker said they had gotten a great deal.
It was at this point that Su Zuo’s eyes widened in disbelief.
When she had cursed the Lady and her elder brother’s father in the Duke Mansion in anger, she hadn’t actually believed it would co true.
Wasn’t there a saying that good people do not live long, but misfortune lasts for a thousand years...
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