Chapter 210: Chapter Two-Hundred and Ten: Jade Pendant
Translator: Dragon Boat Translation Editor: Dragon Boat Translation
Zhang Xian was stunned. “That’s really bold of my great-aunt, daring to kidnap a child from such a family!”
Zhang Tao rolled her eyes at him again. “You don’t understand; the wealthier the family, the more complicated it is. Think about it; if no one helped her, how could your great-aunt manage to steal away with the child?”
“Ah?” Zhang Xian responded, clearly unable to wrap his head around what Zhang Tao was saying.
Zhang Tao brought the topic back to the jade pendant and told him, “That jade pendant the child wore was from her mother’s dowry. It was blessed by an eminent monk. That aside, the pendant is priceless just by the quality of the jade itself! I heard it’s worth enough to buy the entire White City!”
Zhang Xian’s jaw dropped in shock, but his lips soon curled in disbelief, and he said, “Yeah, right. My great-aunt wouldn’t have left the pendant with you if that was the case. She would have taken it long ago if it truly was that valuable. She had already left you the child. Why would she give you the treasure as well?”
Zhang Tao smiled proudly. “Of course, she wouldn’t have left me the pendant. I got it with my own skills!”
Zhang Xian was surprised and hurriedly urged Zhang Tao to explain. Zhang Tao recounted, “Your great-aunt was in a terrible state when she brought that child here. She said she’d been on the run and hadn’t slept for three days. She fell asleep almost immediately after she arrived at our house. Since she’d fallen asleep, I had to take care of the child. I didn’t know how much the jade pendant was worth, but I decided to put it away first when I saw it. That little girl was a wild child and even bit me when I took it off her.”
She stretched out her hand to show Zhang Xian the long-gone teeth marks on her twig-like hand. “I was afraid she would cry and also afraid she would tell your great-aunt, so I told her that if the baddie who captured her woke up and saw the pendant_ she would definitely ghatch it away I told her T would keen it
safe for her for now, and if the baddie asks about it, just say that she’d lost it somewhere.”
Zhang Tao proudly told her grandson how she tricked his great-aunt and the little girl back then. “To make her feel at ease, we hid the pendant together, and I let her know its hiding spot. Only then did she feel at ease.”
Zhang Xian gave her a thumbs up, and Zhang Tao was even more proud of herself. “Then, did my great-aunt look for it after she woke up?” Zhang Xian asked, curious because he remembered the old lady was even tougher than his grandmother.
“Of course she did. She stripped the child naked but couldn’t find it. I only discovered the jade pendant was priceless because she kept muttering about it! She hit the child when she couldn’t find it, and the child said she’d dropped it on the road and that her parents would find her through the jade pendant. Your great-aunt was so scared she didn’t dare to look for it anymore and left the child at our house like she was a hot potato.”
Only then did Zhang Xian believe there was indeed a treasure, and a small flame of hope ignited in his heart. However, Zhang Tao was still reminiscing and continued, “Despite her young age, that child was cunning. She even told me that if I could send her back, she would certainly ask her father to give me a large sum of money—more money than I could ever spend.”
Zhang Xian’s eyes lit up. “Then why didn’t you send her back?” That would have been a great opportunity to get rich overnight and change the fate of their family for the better!
Zhang Tao glared at him. “That’s stupid! Send her back?! What should I say if they ask how the girl ended up with me? Should I rat out your great-aunt? She’s your grandfather’s biological sister; she’s our blood relative. That means we’ll be implicated as well. If they sentenced her to a beheading, then, at the very least, we’d go to jail. Could you imagine the shame that would bring? Our relatives would never allow us to be buried in the ancestral graves after we die because of it.”
Zhang Xian was at a loss for words. ‘And she calls me stupid! Who’s the stupid one here?As expected, Granny lost out on such a great opportunity due to being uncultured.’
Zhang Tao was smug about her quick thinking back then. “I had the priceless treasure andthe girl. I thought if I raised her myself, I would have one more worker at home, and when she grew up, your father wouldn’t have to worry about getting a wife. I’d only have to feed her for a few more years. And besides, she’ll be working for me during those years anyway. No matter how you look at it, it was a profitable plan!”
“I didn’t expect the little brat to be so ungrateful and hard to tame. Even though she was only a kid, she was always trying to escape. She never learned her lesson even when she was caught and violently beaten. I thought by locking her up and not letting her go out, she would naturally forget her original family after a few years.”
“She also seemed very obedient as she grew up. She withstood our beatings and scoldings and became more and more efficient at her work. She was a much better worker than your mother. I thought we’d finally tamed her.”
“*Sigh* I have no one else but myself to blame. They say, ‘Don’tjudge a book by its cover,’ but I got tricked by her innocent act and relaxed my guard. That wretched girl escaped in the end because I wasn’t careful enough. Hmph! The nerve! It pisses me off whenever I think about it!” Zhang Tao ranted furiously. That was the biggest setback in her life.
Zhang Tao cursed, “That wretched girl! She probably never even made it out of the forest and got torn apart by the black bears living there! That’s what she gets for running away! Hmph! Even if she did manage to leave the forest alive, she would’ve starved to death out there.. She could’ve had a good life with us, but no! She had to escape! Hmph! Serves her right!”
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