Second Update
Rongguo Mansion, East Wing Courtyard, main hall.
Just as a consensus was reached at the Dali Temple standing committee meeting, a family conference formally began in the reception room of this main hall.
The initiator in attendance: Madam Xing.
The heavyweight guest: Jia She.
And Jia Yingchun, who had been summoned.
Having parted on bad terms with Xing Zhong and his daughter that morning, Madam Xing was naturally in no good mood.
Jia She had just had his left ear bitten off. For the past few days, half his face had been numb with pain, and with white cloth wrapped around him like a mummy, how could he possibly look good?
Faced with parents who looked like a pair of ill-omened ghosts, Jia Yingchun was so frightened that her face had turned pale. Had she not spent the past two years as a mistress in the Sun Mansion, gaining some poise from her station and refinement from her surroundings, she might well have dropped to her knees the instant she entered.
Trembling, she followed Madam Xing's gesture and sat in a chair below. Yet she did not dare sit fully, merely resting half her buttocks on the edge so that the moment Jia She and his wife questioned her, she could rise at once to answer.
Yet what awaited her was a long silence.
Only when Jia Yingchun grew increasingly uneasy, until even her waist had begun to go numb, did Jia She suddenly shoot Madam Xing a sidelong glare and curse, "What are you standing around for? Say what you have to say! What is there to hide in front of your own daughter?!"
Madam Xing had actually been waiting for him to speak all along. Being rebuked for no reason naturally left her deeply aggrieved.
But