After Gu Tingyu had pa.s.sed away, Madam Shao who suffered mental and physical exhaustion got seriously ill because of all the tiredness and sadness she had endured for so many years. In the meantime, Old Madam Qin also looked overly grieved and groaned on bed the whole time.

Minglan realized that the situation had gone south right away. After she pondered for a long while, she decided secretly that under no circ.u.mstances would she agree to make arrangements for Gu Tingyu"s funeral. It was not only because she was not familiar with the family rules of the Gu family. What was more, on this occasion, people would definitely gossip about her no matter how she arranged the funeral. However, as the new Madam of Marquis Ningyuan"s mansion, it was hard for her to shirk the responsibility. After Minglan ruminated over this for a long while, she went to ask Madam Xuan for help with a serious att.i.tude.

“It"s not that I want to shy away from this work. But I"m still too young and not experienced enough to handle something serious like Eldest Brother"s funeral. If I make a mistake, I don"t know what others would say about me.” Minglan decided to be frank and spoke bluntly, “Sister-in-law, you are the only one in this family that I can trust. If you refuse to help me, I really don"t know another person whom I could turn to.”

Madam Xuan was a warmhearted woman who was always ready to help others. After Minglan expressed how much she relied on Madam Xuan in a sincere tone, the latter felt very pleased and then agreed to help right away. After Madam Xuan went back home, she discussed with her husband about this affair at once.

“Why did you agree with such an important matter so randomly?” Gu Tingbing was about to be exiled to the northwestern area. These days Gu Tingxuan had been busy helping his brother prepare the luggage and other things. After hearing the news, he found his wife"s decision amiss and said anxiously, “We should meddle with the affairs of the First Family less. What if we get ourselves in trouble? Don"t you know that the less trouble the better?”

“You know nothing!” Madam Xuan rolled her eyes to his husband and then approached him to explain, “I have considered this for a long while. Although it is a bit troublesome, it will actually do good to us. First, Second Sister-in-law does have her difficulties. If she arranges the funeral too seriously, Second Brother Ye would be displeased. But if she treats the arrangements randomly, the others would gossip about her. If I help her with this, she"ll surely be grateful to me. Second…”

After she served a cup of warm tea to her husband, she continued in a low voice, “As I see the situation in our family , we"ll leave this mansion sooner or later. By then we can only rely on ourselves. However, these years father has asked Second Brother Ye to do all the businesses. We do not have a lot of connections or money. We can take this chance of arranging for the funeral to a.s.sociate with some important figures.”

Gu Tingxuan didn"t take her words seriously and shook his head, saying, “Didn"t you already know all the relatives and friends of our family?”

“You!” Madam Xuan knocked at her husband"s forehead hard and said, “This time the people who will come to the funeral for Second Brother Ye"s sake are totally different from the people we already know. Those are the people who hold the real power. When they see that Second Sister-in-law is willing to entrust me with such an important matter, they would definitely treat me differently.”

Gu Tingxuan was always afraid of getting into trouble. However, he suddenly thought of his children who were growing older and older as time went by. They would get married, go to school and be a.s.signed to a post in the future. Gu Tingxuan could not ask Gu Tingye to help with those things all the time. So at last, Gu Tingxuan sighed and nodded.

In order to show her sincerity, Minglan went to Madam Shao to take the key of the storeroom and the Dui cards. After Minglan tried hard to explain her difficulties and the necessity to ask help from Madam Xuan, Madam Shao only replied to Minglan in a weak voice, “… Mom is keeping all those things…”

"Why didn"t you tell me about it earlier?!" Minglan thought. Then she rushed to Old Madam Qin"s room right away.

Old Madam Qin, with a cream-colored cotton handkerchief with green threads wrapped around her forehead, was taking medicine on the bed right now, looking quite sickly. After Minglan explained why she had come for the second time with emotion, Old Madam Qin got dazed at first and then stared at Minglan with redness in her eyes for a long while, which gave Minglan gooseb.u.mps all over. Then, Old Madam Qin asked Mama Xiang to bring the things Minglan needed over there.

Minglan let out a sigh of relief secretly. Then she gave the Dui cards and the key to Madam Xuan with satisfaction. After that, Minglan insisted that she was too young to deal with such an important thing alone and believed firmly that Old Madam Qin didn"t dare to let Zhu shi take over the whole thing.

Right now, rumors had it that Old Madam Qin had been a stepmother with an evil intention over the past decades. If Old Madam Qin told Zhu shi to arrange the funeral, she would give people more excuses to accuse her.– “It has been several decades since she started ruling the Gu family on the pretext that Madam Shao had to take care of the sick and weak Gu Tingyu. Now this woman still can not give up controlling the family!” That was what people would say.

Madam Xuan was a resolute woman. Moreover, there was no one holding her back this time, so she did a nice job of arranging the funeral. The whole ceremony was low-key but showed great respect for the dead already. The whole process was not tedious at all with complete etiquette. When it was time to wail, the thunderous wailing of everyone in the mansion could even be heard miles away. When it was time to treat the guests, the servants entered the hall in order.

On the other side, Minglan only needed to bring a half bottle of bay oil with her and cried several times in front of Gu Tingyu"s memorial tablet. In the meantime, she also had the chance to get familiar with the human relations in Marquis Ningyuan"s mansion and take a few glances at the storeroom which she had been curious about for a long time.

Also, Minglan really felt that she had invited the right person, so she would express thanks to Madam Xuan every other day with different complimentary words, which made Madam Xuan get very joyful and even forget that she had only slept four hours a day these days.

During the rest of the time, Minglan mostly stayed in Madam Shao"s room.

According to the words of the imperial physician, Old Madam Qin"s disease was mainly because of her grief, but Madam Shao"s condition was much worse and this woman might be at her last gasp now. Minglan was frightened by the physician"s words. Then she thought that taking care of a living person was better than pretending to be sad at the outside. What was more, it would be easier for her to get along with Madam Shao in the future if she stayed there during this period.

However, Madam Shao only gave Minglan the cold shoulder. No matter what Minglan said or did, Madam Shao only showed a cold look on her face. Minglan was not angry about that and continued to take care of Madam Shao carefully. Every day Minglan would check the prescription and taste the medicine for Madam Shao and told the latter the important matters happening in the mourning hall. Moreover, in order to let Xian, Madam Shao"s daughter, forget about the grief temporarily, Minglan brought Rong here to let her keep Xian company and brought delicious food and toys from the Cheng Manor every day. After she had done that, Xian could at least eat more and sleep better. Madam Shao, having seen Minglan giving extreme care to her and Xian, couldn"t help but get softhearted since she was not a callous woman after all. After she had straightened things out and realized that she couldn"t vent her anger on the woman who had just married into this family because of the past grudges, she gradually treated Minglan more nicely and politely with the look on her face turning more gentle.

Meanwhile, Minglan sensed that Madam Shao, the heartbroken woman, didn"t want to recover at all. The more grieved this woman got, the severe her condition would become. Then Minglan started to talk about what had happened in her childhood from time to time, especially exaggerating the terrified, confused, lonely and all kinds of helpless feelings she had had when Wei shi had just died.

“… Everyone says that a motherless child is like a blade of gla.s.s. That is so right…” Minglan said that with redness in her eyes(Because she had just cried in front of Gu Tingyu"s memorial tablet), and sobbed, “Madam w.a.n.g in my family is a good woman, but she still had to take care of the whole family including my brothers and sisters… If it were not for my grandma who pitied me at that time, I, I really don"t know…” Minglan stopped right there to give Madam Shao plenty of room for imagination.

As expected, Madam Shao shuddered with fear at once after hearing Minglan"s speech. Even if she thought Old Madam Qin was a nice woman, she still couldn"t feel at ease to leave Xian to that woman. Now that Xian had already lost her father, if she lost her mother too, her future life would be so uneasy. Thinking of that, Madam Shao regained strong willpower and almost fully recovered. On the day when Gu Tingyu"s coffin was carried to the funeral rite, she was even able to get off bed to express her thanks to the relatives and friends.

Of course, Minglan also gained a good reputation. When Old Madam Qin praised her with a smile, Minglan uttered modest words while saying inwardly, "I"ll follow your example and learn from you always."