Real Empress from a noble family

It was a warm afternoon.

"Where are the seventy percent? I also want to know!" said Qiu Yelan, lying on the soft bed lazily and stroking Whitey's smooth fur. "But I don't think Kang Lizhang would tell Qiu Hongzhi about it. Even if we tortured Qiu Jinzhu's and Qiu Yinzhi's servants and maids, we still couldn't get our stuff back. It's not helpful!"

Kang Lizhang once advised Qiu Hongzhi to cooperate with her to steal Qiu Jinzhu's and her brother's stuff for money. After hearing the news, Qiu Yelan asked Kang Lizhang to sell Old Princess Lian's and Princess Ruan's dowries first — In effect, after Madame Lu died, Kang Lizhang had seen that her mother's and her private money would be dismissed.

Realizing what's going on, she commanded one confidant to hide treasures in the Prince's Mansion overnight.

But later, to gain Qiu Yelans's trust, Kang Lizhang told her everything. As the Prince's Mansion of Xihe was a foe of Qiu Yelan, she was not in a hurry to get back the stuff Kang Lizhang had hidden. She intentionally let Kang Lizhang own them… Anyway, Qiu Yelan was not a mean girl.

"Qiu Mengmin only had three days to get all things done. How could it be possible?" said Chunran with a smile. Mrs. Zhou and Su He were standing around, intending to say something.

Qiu Yelan had finished a pearl. She got a handkerchief and swiped her hand, saying with a doubt, "What's wrong?"

"Princess Yang sold the dowry in the past and gave money to the General." said Mrs. Zhou after asking Su He to go out as a watchdog. "All persons who knew the thing have been dismissed by Princess Yang except me after Lu died. I am not sure if there were some left like Mrs. Guan or Dongyao?" whispered Mrs. Zhou.

"I have heard about it before… but, were there seals or prints on the stuff when they were sold?" asked Qiu Yelan.

"Yes, it did! The stuff your mother asked us to sell was not common things in the market. The buyer did not want to buy the stuff which was the stolen goods because he might be involved in a crime. Needless to say, the buyer was afraid that he paid now and then in a second, he was accused of a crime. For these reasons, the buyers asked us to write a note to prove that it was Princess who wanted to sell voluntarily."

"… So, the stuff my mother sold was her dowry?" said Qiu Yelan, sitting up straight.

"Surely enough." answered Mrs. Zhou. "And your mother told us that the stuff your grandmother left is yours now. Nobody was allowed to sell them."

Qiu Yelan nodded. "So, about my grandma's dowry, Qiu Mengmin had no excuse to use or sell them? Ruan Qingyan has told me that the dowry is worth four hundred thousand."

"Wow, that much?" exclaimed Chunran and Xiaran. They both had seen the world because of Ruan Qingyan. But hearing it was four hundred thousand worth dowries, they were in a shock. After all, when a girl got married, she would become a member of her husband's family. Dowries embodied the affluence of a family.

"Not as many as Princess's!" Mrs. Zhou let slip.

"My mother's dowry is truly more than others. And now the stuff they need to give me back shouldn't be based on the list!" smiled Qiu Yelan coldly. "The annual revenue of the shops and manors are not included in the list. The manors are fertile ones and the shops are in good places. About the Princess's dowry, I am sure they cannot give back ninety percent of it, let alone my mother's. They will be no way to get rid of the crime of embezzling my stuff! If Qiu Mengmin dared not to buy back the stuff based on the market price, my brother wouldn't spare him!"

There were reasons why the dowries of the Princess were plenty: The Prince's Mansion of Xihe was a hereditary family. Despite Old Princess Lian was the Minister's daughter, her family was not wealthy. To avoid his daughter being looked down in her husband's family, the minister tried everything to prepare a great dowry for her daughter's wedding.

So did Princess Ruan. Though Ruan Family had been an official family since three generations ago, it was sure enough that the Ruan Family was not as wealthy as the Prince's Mansion of Xihe, the one helped found the country. Plus, General Ruan had been in various wars for his life, making a lot of money out of the battles. He, of course, would give much to her daughter who would marry a man from a powerful family. After checking the dowry lists left by the Lian and Ruan families, Qiu Yelan realized that the eighty hundred thousand Xiuyan asked once was not a big number. The property left by her mother and grandma must be over one million.

That was to say, excluding those Qiu Yelan did not know, the Prince's Mansion of Xihe must pay one-third of their whole property to her!

Needless to say, Qiu Mengmin and his family members would try everything not to pay.

"Fortunately, Yang Family has a naughty girl who started the fight between the Ding Family and Yang Family… Or, Qiu Mengmin must fetch help from these two families. If so, nobody could imagine what would come about next!" thought Qiu Yelan, secretly being glad she had expected what's coming.

She calmed herself down, "About the stuff my mother sold in the past years, my brother had counted the prices and expenditures of the General's Mansion. I guess the job can be done within two days at most. The money my mother subsidized the General's Mansion is the balance between what the General's Mansion got by selling the dowry and its expenditures!"

"But how about our expenditures in the past years…" asked Mrs. Zhou promptly.

"It's their responsibility to support us. I am sure Qiu Mengmin dare not to tell others that he has withheld our money, making us sell my mother's dowry to buy necessities we need." said Qiu Yelan. "So, we shouldn't admit the notes approved by my mother. Most of them should be planted to Qiu Mengmin because he did not manage his men strictly. He was allowed to have some troublemakers in his house, why can't I have some traitors in my house?"

"If you were right, Qiu Mengmin might accuse your mother of not managing her maids strictly. So, it's not their fault." said Chunran, putting forward a question.

"Who told you the maid who sold the stuff was the one serving for my mother?" said Qiu Yelan. "I could defend myself. I can say that they did all the things. And, my mother had been not in charge of the house since Qiu Mengmin got the title of the Prince. And then some maids secretly sold the dowry. Qiu Mengmin, as the host of the house, will be held accountable!"

"But there were seals on the notes…" reminded Mrs. Zhou discreetly.

"They stole stuff. They also could steal the seal, right?" said Qiu Yelan calmly. "And, the stuff my mother sold were antiques or hairpins. She never thought to sell the shops or manors. I am wondering how Qiu Mengmin will return the shops and manors to us this time!"

"Oh, I see. But… Although I did not hear that your mother would sell shops or manors before, nobody has paid the rent since Qiu Mengmin is in charge of everything." said Mrs. Zhou.

"I did not realize that." said Qiu Yelan with a shock. "Is it possible that after my grandpa was conquered in the war, he sold them and used the money for his promotion?" said Qiu Yelan, thinking for a while. Needless to say, it would take a lot of money. Hundreds of thousand were only a piece of cake for this.

"I don't think so." said Mrs. Zhou, shaking her head. "I remembered, at that time, your grandpa and your father died one after another in a short period. Your grandma and your mother were extremely sad because of their death. They comforted each other with you in her arms. They must have no idea what the General did!"

"Then why nobody came paying for the rent?" asked Qiu Yelan.

"I have asked your mother about this. She told me that she was afraid others might grab the properties, so she sold the shops and manors for cash." said Mrs. Zhou with a low voice. "But the problem is, I have counted the cash. I don't think your mother got all the cash. Or, she would not sell her dowry to support the General's Mansion! So, I've always suspected that those shops and manors have been grabbed by others already."

"But who did this?" asked Chunran.

"Mrs. Li and I did the guess. We thought that Qiu Mengmin might be angry at you because your grandmother deported him. Your mother gave him part of her dowry for your survival." said Mrs. Zhou with a sign, looking at Qiu Yelan.

"I don't think Qiu Mengmin was so stupid to accept my mother's dowry. The dowry is recorded in a list that is kept by my mother's family. Wasn't he afraid that I would debunk his misdeeds when I older enough with my mother if she were alive then."

"At that time, our young master was not adopted yet. If there were no sons in the General's Mansion, I mean, only Princess and you in the family… all the dowry your mother owned would be embezzled by the Prince's Mansion." Only sons or daughters have the right to inherit their mother's dowry in accordance with the rules. If there were no sons or daughters or sons or daughters who died at an early age, the dowry should be returned to the mother's family.

But if there were no sons or daughters in the mother's family, the dowry, in nature, would be given to her husband's family. The best way to avoid it was to adopt one for the family.

So, if the Prince's Mansion of Xihe wanted to grab Princess Ruan's dowry, what they might need to do was to kill Princess Ruan and Qiu Yelan.

Even about the Old Princess Lian's dowry, if they were not informed Qiu Yelan was dead or not and the trouble they had encountered over the past years, they probably would give up Old Princess Lian's dowry. The Prince's Mansion of Xihe would have grabbed both dowries finally.

"So, it's not strange that we could not get the list." said Qiu Yelan, understanding the whole plot. "In effect, the list was not missing at all. It must be Princess Ruan who destroyed it on purpose. The Prince's Mansion of Xihe, of course, would not resign itself to the failure. They would try everything to find out the two lists! They must guess the list is in my hand because my mother has only one daughter, it's me… My mother figured out a way to protect me by taking advantage of their greed."

She thought, "Surely enough, a person's fate is decided when he was born — Or a girl like me, would be dead one hundred times considering the plots I faced and the person protected me. At that time, my mother was poisoned. But now I was twelve years old. It proved that I was a girl protected by God."

"I don't know then." said Mrs. Zhou, interrupting her thought. "Or she gave the money to those who were in trouble because of the General or their family members? But it was impossible, I think. After all, your mother was raised indoor and she did not know those people. Even if she wanted to support the above, she would do it through the General's Mansion. The income sent to the General's Mansion were all handled by me. I am sure no rents included."

Pondering for a while, Qiu Yelan said while she smacked her hand down on to the table, "I couldn't get the answer. I will send a man to ask Ruan An tomorrow."

After lying on the bed, Qiu Yelan heard a rustling sound passing on behind the screen. She said to herself, "Oh, again?"

In a second, in the moonlight, she caught sight of a figure whom she immediately recognized as Jiang Yashuang. He wore a robe, coughing to announce his arrival. She took a deep breath and said, "What do you want this time?"

"I was informed that Ruan Qingyan and Lian Ding went to ask Qiu Mengmin to return the dowry belonging to you?" said Jiang Yashuang, getting to the point directly.

"Yes, you saw them?" said Qiu Yelan, rubbing her forehead. There was a bed-curtain standing between them. "My sister and her husband will be here several days later. I guess Qiu Mengmin will have nothing to defend for themselves." said Qiu Yelan, lazily.

"Those are the things belonging to you. Why should you let Qiu Mengmin return them to you three days later? I will go there with my brother and get things done!" said Jiang Yashuang.

Hearing his words, Qiu Yelan sat up straight immediately, "Do you forgot those rumblings. It was Chunfu Princess who covered it for us?"

"Okay, okay." said Jiang Yashuang in confidence. "Don't forget that the feud between the Yang Family and Ding Family. Now all people are concerned about what's going on over them. Few people would care about what's going on in the Prince's Mansion of Xihe." said he. "Even somebody asks, I could say that you are one of the best friends of my sister, Jiang Qizheng. For this reason, you assigned me to deal with it with my brother."

"My grandma and my mother left me enormous properties!" said Qiu Yelan calmly. "My uncle, you know, he is a Prince. He won't let it go easily."

"He would be a dead man if he weren't willing to!" said Jiang Yashuang dismissively.