The middle-aged man gritted his teeth and entered the house without looking back.
Zhang Xiaomei supported her mother, looked at Wang Xu worriedly, and then walked in without saying anything.
"what to do?"
Fahai stood next to Wang Xu and saw something was wrong with the atmosphere.
Wang Xu responded with a bitter smile. When the yellow mud fell into his crotch, it was either shit or feces. He hoped that Zhang Minghuai was a reasonable person, otherwise this matter would be difficult to end.
"Let's go in and take a look."
Wang Xu followed and walked in, wanting to see if they could talk again, to clarify the matter, and the misunderstanding would be gone.
Speaking of which, what happened today was just a misunderstanding, and it was not what everyone thought at all.
After entering the Governor's Water Transport Envoy's Mansion, the servants who followed them out were dismissed by the stewards of the manor. When they arrived at the living room, only Wang Xu, Fahai, the housekeeper, Zhang Xiaomei, her daughter, and Zhang Minghuai, who looked angry, were left.
"father"
Zhang Xiaomei hugged her mother's arm and looked at her father timidly.
Snapped!!
Zhang Minghuai slammed the table and said angrily: "Don't call me dad, I don't have a daughter like you. My Zhang family is passed down by poems and books, and I am an official with nothing to lose. I can't give birth to a daughter who ran away with someone else!"
Hearing this, Zhang Xiaomei's eyes turned red, and she lay in her mother's arms and cried.
After all, the mother loved the child more than the father. She half-hugged Zhang Xiaomei and said to Xini: "Why are you so angry? The child is back."
He was not angry, but when he heard this, Zhang Minghuai became even more furious: "If you hadn't spoiled her, raised her as a boy, and said you had to be independent, would she have been able to run away with someone else? Now, she has actually learned to stay.
I wrote a letter and eloped with a man. Listen to what the outside world has said about us these days. Our upbringing is not strict and our family tradition is not right. How do you want me to see my elders in my hometown again?"
After being scolded all over the face, Mrs. Zhang was speechless.
After taking a few breaths, Zhang Minghuai sat on the chair and said to the housekeeper beside him: "Take the madam and the young lady out. No one is allowed to disturb you without my order."
"Yes, sir."
The housekeeper bowed his head in response and took Zhang Xiaomei and her daughter out. When they reached the door, they took an extra look at Fa Hai.
Fahai knew the elegant meaning after hearing the song. When he saw Zhang Minghuai's behavior, he knew that he had something to talk about. He took the initiative and said, "You guys talk, I'll wait for you outside."
Wang Xu nodded and watched everyone leave.
After everyone left, they were the only two people left in the room, and they said, "Uncle, actually, this matter is different from what you think."
"Why is it different? Could it be that my daughter didn't come to find you?" Zhang Minghuai asked Wang Xu with an angry look on his face.
Wang Xu was at a loss for words. Zhang Xiaomei came to find him, but he did nothing. He quickly explained: "Zhang Xiaomei went to Hangzhou because of my invitation, but I told her at that time that she had to seek permission from her family.
That's right. I didn't expect that she would leave a letter and run away from home, causing such a big fuss."
"That's nice to say. Are you going to sever the relationship?"
Zhang Minghuai was so angry that he smiled instead of angry and whispered gloomily: "Yes, you are the most talented person in Jiangnan, and you have a teacher who has joined the cabinet. Everyone said that you are a great scholar, and it's not like sages can't think about it.
Do you think that with these, you can control my Zhang family and remove yourself with just one word?
Humph, I think you are just dreaming. I am not very talented, but I am not afraid of your teacher.
I want to see if you have bad moral character and who dares to appoint you as a candidate, even if you risk your life and go to the emperor, I will pull you down."
Seeing Zhang Minghuai looking like he was about to eat him, Wang Xu knew that he was not joking and that he was also capable of such a thing.
Although Zhang Minghuai's official position is not high, he is a popular person in the eyes of the emperor, otherwise he would not be able to sit in the position of superintendent of water transportation.
Today, people hate the aristocratic family the most. With such a reason, it is hard to believe that he, a rising star of the Zhu Party, can be suppressed as a scholar with the excuse of lacking moral integrity.
Of course, all this must be based on a premise: he has really harmed other people's girls and has bad moral character.
But he didn't do anything. He didn't have an oath of love with Zhang Xiaomei, nor did he coax her to run away from home. He sent her back from Hangzhou as soon as they met.
What he said now was as if he had betrayed his heart. Was Wang Xu unjust?
"You have nothing to say?" Zhang Minghuai sneered, as if he had mastered the evidence and was a superior judge.
Wang Xu sighed with helplessness on his face. Just as he was about to explain the cause and effect, Mrs. Zhang ran in in a panic.
"Master, it's wrong, it's wrong!"
Mrs. Zhang opened the door and came in. She didn't care about the rules of a wealthy family and whispered in Zhang Minghuai's ear.
Zhang Minghuai's face was full of anger at first, but the more he listened, the more wrong his face became. Later, he heard a voiceless voice: "Is my daughter's chastity still there?"
"Yes," Mrs. Zhang replied honestly.
Zhang Minghuai's face turned pale and he asked again: "She went to Hangzhou on her own and was not bewitched by anyone. She was alone after she went there and was sent back when we met?"
"Yes" Mrs. Zhang nodded again.
Zhang Minghuai's face was livid, and he asked again: "She really didn't spend time with anyone, vowing to each other, and nothing happened?"
"No!"
"Ouch!!"
Hearing this, Zhang Minghuai let out a strange cry and leaned back involuntarily.
Wang Xu was shocked when he saw it, and quickly followed Mrs. Zhang to pat Zhang Minghuai on the back. If Zhang Minghuai died here today, he wouldn't be able to explain it clearly even with eight mouths.
"Auntie, is Uncle Zhang feeling ill?"
Looking at Zhang Minghuai, whose face was ashen and there was a gurgling sound in his throat, and he couldn't speak, Wang Xu prayed that nothing would happen to him.
Mrs. Zhang was also frightened. While rubbing Zhang Minghuai's chest, she said in a tearful voice: "No, it's just that I haven't seen my daughter in the past few days, and I feel a little angry."
Hearing this statement, Wang Xu was relieved, it was just a heart attack.
After taking a deep breath, Zhang Minghuai's expression gradually recovered, and the first words he said after he recovered were: "What a sin!"
Wang Xu didn't know where these words came from, and he didn't dare to answer them rashly. He could only look at Mrs. Zhang.
Mrs. Zhang was surprised and happy when she saw that her husband was okay. She didn't even notice his eyes, and kept saying: "Bless us, bless you, bless you, bless us, if you do something bad, how will we, orphans and widows, live?"
Zhang Minghuai was not ill, he was just so angry that he could not catch his breath.
After resting for a while, his complexion became much better. He looked at Wang Xu with a complicated expression, opened his mouth, and said nothing. He just sighed: "Alas!!"
In fact, after seeing his daughter's letter, although Zhang Minghuai was angry, he was not really that angry.
To have children, isn't it just to look forward to having children? Wang Xu is the first of the four great talents in Jiangnan and is also known as the number one talent. This condition is by no means high for a daughter of the Zhang family, but rather a bit low.
When the two of them thought about it, something must have happened between their daughter and Wang Xu. How could they do that if nothing happened.
As long as he takes the moral high ground and the Wang family is in the wrong, his daughter can marry in glory and turn the elopement into a matchmaker marriage, and this stain will no longer be a stain.
It's good now. There's nothing wrong between the two of them. It's just that our girl has unrequited love. It's been a joke for a long time.
If the news spreads, what reputation does the Zhang family have? After all, it was the eldest son, not the second daughter, who ran away from home. He deceived ordinary people, how can he deceive a wealthy family?
This face was thrown at his grandma's house today, which made Zhang Minghuai so angry that he almost lost his temper.
"My family is unlucky, my family is unlucky!"
Zhang Minghuai was so depressed that he almost wanted to vomit blood.
Wang Xu's initiative and Zhang Xiaomei's initiative are not the same concept. The former can end it, but the latter cannot remedy it.
If everything was Wang Xu's fault, at worst, it would be enough to marry into the Wang family. What can outsiders say about the couple's affairs?
On the contrary, everything is Zhang Xiaomei's fault and the two have no relationship at all. This is the real disaster.
How can a girl get married in the future if she has such a stain?
When others asked about it, they found out that the daughter of the old Zhang family ran away with a wild man when she was fifteen or sixteen years old, but they still didn't want her. How could she marry into a good family?
There's no guarantee that if you can't marry into the Wang family in the future, you'll have to marry a hunchback, a lame, or someone with physical defects.
Otherwise, why would a decent young man from a well-established family marry you, a woman with bad morals? This will all be explained in due course.
"Wow!"
Thinking of this, Zhang Minghuai could no longer hold back and spurted out a mouthful of blood.
At the last moment before he fell into coma, he was still thinking: "This matter can still be rectified."