After Minglan heard that story, she only chuckled and never mentioned about this again.—Her rivals truly wanted to make things difficult for her. It’s a stab in the back. If she hadn’t punished Matron Mo fiercely this time, her words would never be convincing to other servants. If the punishment was too severe, for example, beating, cursing, punishing Matron Mo to kneel all day or kicking anyone of the Mo family out, someone would definitely defend Matron Mo indignantly given this woman’s seniority.

They would say, ‘even Grand Old Madam Gu’s cat and dog should be more respected than normal people’, or ‘She hasn’t handled the family matters for long and already showed disrespect to the old servants of the ancestor of the Gu family, or ‘The Mos are always loyal and assiduous, how can she hurt the feelings of the devoted servants.’ Those speeches would be endless. Even if it couldn’t hurt Minglan a lot, it would still annoy her for a long while. Also, it there were some rumors getting out, her life would be harder. This was the first time she felt how difficult a life Gu Tingye had used to lead. These kinds of tricks were so hard to avoid.

Perhaps it was because Minglan’s words ‘I think the old servants would be a good choice’ had worked too well. The rest of the days, the investigation job went quite well. The old servants who had served the Gu family for generations also followed Minglan’s orders obediently, because they were afraid that their new Madam would find anyone of them suitable for guarding the altar lamp in the temple. The Gu’s family had continued for several generations and the descendants of the old servants had also worked in this family. Also, some of the servants’ families had bounded by marriage, which made the relations between them rather complicated, not to mention some of them had married to the outsiders. The workload for Minglan was too heavy. After around half a month, she finally finished most of the inquiry.

Anyway, she was not in a rush of doing that and still went for a stroll leisurely every day. If the weather was good, she would walk on the corridor. If the weather wasn’t good, she would walk a few laps in the few rooms of the main house. She didn’t rack up the past, nor did she make any changes in the personnel arrangement. As time went by, the servants who used to work in Marquis Ningyuan’s mansion didn’t meet the strict measures which they had expected their new madam would take. Also, they found Minglan a very kind person. She was only very cautious in checking the new accounts, but the rest of time she stayed quite tolerant. Since then, the servants gradually calmed down. Also, as for Minglan’s control over these servants, before Tingcan got married, Old Madam Qin would never allow anyone in this family to drink or gamble in the mid of the night. With Old Madam Qin deterring the servants, Minglan was happy to loaf on the job.

“Madam, the accounts…” Danju bit her tongue as saying that, not knowing if she should say that, “Are you really going to let it go?” After a few days’ work, Danju knew that something was wrong with those accounts. If this happened in the Sheng family, even Wang shi would peel those moths off the skin, not to mention Mama fang who had all sorts of means to deal with them and Old Madam Sheng who couldn’t tolerate any plotting!

“How’s that possible?” Minglan rolled her eyes to Danju. It could be certain that the Gu’s people had corrupted, but the amount of the money they had collected remained different. However… that was not the problem. “Let me think about it. We should either do nothing or make a thorough plan before we deal with this. The best is to give them a critical strike and let them stay well-behaved for the rest of their lives. Otherwise…. Alas, we live in the same house after all, it’ll look ugly if we fight with each other so often.”

“Then why did you take over those affairs so early? You should rest for a bit longer?” Danju said depressed.

“If anything happens when I cannot move, that’ll be a huge problem.” Minglan sighed, “It’s better that I can do something when I could still work. Master is having a hard time lately. I can’t bring more troubles to him…” With her acknowledgement of the Gu’s family getting deeper, she was clearer of the former situation of this family and already had a vague plan in her mind. She had already asked Gu Tingye to find her a few servants who could investigate and run errands at the outside, in order to handle the affairs neatly.

The Tu Brothers were really good at investigating given their experiences of travelling around the country. With their help, Minglan got twice the result with half the effort. Then she couldn’t help sighing that being guards truly had wasted the Tu brothers’ talents. After one month, almost all the information she needed had been collected and Minglan’s belly was already bulged like the round dustpan. In order to do the brain and body exercises at the same time, she would walk in the room with her hand on her belly. When she figured out something, she would write down the summary of her plan which others found more like scrawly handwriting—

“There are on hundred and thirty-six servants in Marquis Ningyuan’s mansion who have indentures. Seventy-eight servants among them, male and female, were born in this family. There are five families having served the Gu family for three or more generations. The rest families have also worked here for one or two generations. Twelve of the servants who were bought from the outside have completely lost touch with their families. Also…”

“The ones who have bought properties at the outside are… The ones who have properties under their relatives’ names are… The farmlands are situated in… these places. As for the stores… there they are. Also, some of them might have bought these properties for their masters or madams…”

“Their relations, it’s… these people are officials of low rank, these… they are merchants. Also… their relatives are servants in other families.” After she wrote these for a while, she buried into thought while biting the brush holder. Always do things with a specific target. She asked herself what result she wanted to get. Did she want to kick out all the servants who had stolen money from their madams, or simply warm them in order to give them some deterrent? Or maybe she should do a purge in the family and replace all these servants with her own people? What if this was a trap? What if she would be set up?

Minglan pulled her hair, feeling a great headache. She was never a talent in handling the family feud. In her previous life, her biggest career planning was becoming a commanding judge one day instead of racking her brain to fight corruption in the family. If she was capable of this, she would have entered into the Anti-Corruption Bureau or the DA’s office.

Danju said in a low voice beside her, “Madam, you should rest for a while. Don’t get too tired.”

Minglan burst into laughter, “I am not that fragile.”

Until now, Minglan was in a great condition. Besides the occasional cramps on the calf, she didn’t have any pregnancy reaction. In Gu Tingye’s personal view, this was because their child was filial and tame. According to the elders in the family, when Bai shi had been pregnant with Gu Tingye, the monster, she had also been in a great condition. Unfortunately, the boy she had given birth to had enraged his father every now and then. After Gu Tingye learned that story, he pondered for a long while and suddenly asked, “If our children don’t listen to you in the future, will you…” “Beat them, of course.” Minglan answered that without thinking. The little monsters would only learn to behave after they were beaten. Yao Yiyi and her brother had grown up with that principle. All these spats on her hands and bottom hadn’t given her any bad influence after all. Also, she had studied well and got a job successfully. As long as the beating wasn’t too violent, that could be considered as an effective way to teach her children. The most important thing was judging the scale. She then added, “As the sayings goes, spare the rod and spoil the child.”

The man disagreed angrily at once, “You can’t beat them! When you are a child, you were also very naughty! You caught fish in the rivers and climbed the trees to catch birds. Has Old Madam Sheng ever beaten you once?! If our children don’t listen to you, just teach them slowly. How can you beat them! Do you think parenting is an easy job?”

After saying that, he went off in a huff and didn’t even drink tea after the meal. Minglan was still holding the cup in her hand, feeling utterly surprised.

Zhu shi’s belly grew larger and larger. The first day in March, she went into labor and gave birth to a girl in the next day. Old Madam Qin was a bit disappointed about that. However, the servants in the room kept congratulating her and said that having a boy and a girl in the family was the best thing. Hearing that, Old Madam Qin then took over her granddaughter and teased the little baby happily. The child called Jing. For some reason, the little girl didn’t look very healthy. She was little and weak and her limbs were so fleshless as if they were made of papers. Seeing that, Minglan got so frightened and didn’t even dare to touch the baby. After she gave some auspicious words, she sent lots of nutrition food to Zhu shi, and the latter was quite grateful about that.

Perhaps these were the days for giving birth to girls. A few days later, someone from the Sheng family came to send the message. Rulan had also given birth to a girl. Minglan gave a start at first and then said with a smile, “How’s Fifth Sister doing now?”

The person who came to deliver the message was Liu Kun’s wife. After she gave obeisance to Minglan, she said, “Sixth Lady, Fifth Lady and her daughter are both in great condition.” Liu Kun’s wife seemed to have gained a lot of weight comparing to the time when Minglan had left the Sheng family. She chuckled and told Minglan how chubby Rulan’s daughter was and how loud the baby’s crying sound was. “I’m so glad to hear that the baby is strong. I have prepared some gold and silver toys and some pieces of soft satin. Please help me give these to Fifth sister. However… did Fifth sister cry?” Minglan pointed to the stool beside her and asked Liu Kun’s wife to sit. Xiaotao served the tea and put a blanket which had been warmed on the stove on the knees of Liu Kun’s wife.