Chapter 62 Fifty Thousand Taels

While Lady Chai was losing her mind and driving herself to the brink of madness over her son, Li Mingshan remained rational.

Talk of the Emperor's presence meant nothing. If the Li family held any real weight before the sovereign, he would not still be lingering in obscurity in Yangzhou City to this day. Lady Liang was not merely making empty threats to frighten them. If this were truly blown into a major scandal, even though the Emperor harbored lingering resentment over Liang Ji's military defeat, the backing of two Duke estates plus the Third Prince was insurmountable. The Emperor was not bestowing genuine prestige upon Liang Shanru for her own sake; no one else possessed that kind of leverage, let alone him.

Seeing Lady Liang rise to leave, Li Mingshan hurriedly stood up and made a vague, blocking gesture. "Madam Liang!"

When he spoke, even his voice was urgent. "Since you have come to my home, it is to resolve this privately. My wife has always doted excessively on the Sixth Young Master and lost her sense of proportion. I beg Madam Liang not to hold it against her."

He was the most pragmatic of men, making even Pei Jingxing feel that it was a true pity such a man had married Lady Chai.

Just as Lady Chai prepared to throw another tantrum, Lady Liang impatiently cut her off. "I did not come here to bicker with the two of you. If you are going to keep repeating the same nonsense, you truly need not bother keeping me."

"We will not!" Li Mingshan said decisively. "I have read the depositions and understand the matter. This entire affair is the Sixth Young Master's absurd doing. Madam Liang may state freely how she wishes to resolve it. Whatever we can manage, we will do our utmost to compensate Miss Liang so that she does not suffer a grievance in vain."

This was the proper attitude for conducting business, and the exact demeanor his family ought to assume for their wrongdoing.

Yet Lady Liang's brow remained furrowed.

Without speaking further, she glanced sideways at Pei Yanzhou, signaling him with a look.

Pei Yanzhou had no intention of showing any leniency; besides, Third Aunt had already said that between them, one would play the bad cop and the other the good cop.

He stepped forward a fraction of an inch. "What if I demand Li Ziyang's life?"

Li Mingshan's throat tightened, and he looked helplessly ahead. "Marquis Heir?"

"In your dreams!" Lady Chai had been docile for only a moment, but the word "life" pierced her armor once more. "Even if the Sixth Young Master played the fool, as you said earlier, according to the Great Qi laws, exile to a thousand miles away is the harshest penalty, a crime not warranting death! Yet you repeatedly—"

"I can have him beaten to death right this moment, and what could you possibly do to me?" Pei Yanzhou could not even be bothered to spare her an extra glance, keeping his expressionless gaze fixed solely on Li Mingshan. "Your son committed the deed. Shouldn't your family step up with an attitude and sincerity to make amends by offering apologies and compensation?"

Was this not still just bickering?

Could they honestly expect him to push his own son onto the path of destruction?

Undoubtedly, the Sixth Young Master was a good-for-nothing, but the heart of a parent is universally pitiful. If he truly had the heart of stone, he would have sent Lady Chai packing back to the Commandery Prince's estate with a written notice of divorce long ago, letting her take all the children with her so they wouldn't remain in Yangzhou and eventually ruin the reputation of the Li family crest.

He would rather spend some silver to remarry a woman from an ordinary commoner's family and father a few more children than deal with the likes of them.

In the end, his inability to let go was what brewed today's disaster.

"The Sixth Young Master is indeed a scoundrel, but a parent's heart knows no bounds. Since the Marquis Heir insists that I draft a proposal, I am truly at my wit's end..."

How could he not know these people were putting on a play inside his home? Lady Liang was Liang Shanru's paternal aunt, a much closer relation than Pei Yanzhou, and she would desire the Sixth Young Master's life all the more.

Begging anyone was useless.

Li Mingshan looked somewhat deflated, before hardening his heart and declaring, "According to the Great Qi penal code, the penalty should be a fine of ten thousand coins. My family is willing to compensate Miss Liang with twenty thousand taels of silver, and confine the Sixth Young Master to our estate until he takes a bride, never letting him out again to wreak havoc on other families' daughters."

Lady Chai sat nearby, clearly dissatisfied. He shot her a glare, then asked Pei Yanzhou, "Does the Marquis Heir find this feasible?"

"Thirty thousand taels, and he is sent back to your Li family ancestral home in Xuzhou to reside in the ancestral temple, eating vegetarian food and chanting Buddhist sutras. I will leave men behind to keep watch. When the time comes for him to take a bride, my men will naturally return to Shengjing. You may send someone to fetch him home then, and we will wipe the slate clean without another word."

Pei Yanzhou stood with his hands clasped behind his back, exuding an absolute, non-negotiable attitude. "I advise Master Li not to harbor any crooked thoughts—for instance, the moment we depart Yangzhou City, you hastily finalize a marriage match for Li Ziyang and smoothly welcome him back home. I am not someone easily fooled. He must remain at the Xuzhou ancestral temple for at least half a year before anything else can be discussed."

"Thirty thousand taels? Why don't you just go rob a treasury!" Lady Chai leaped to her feet, stamping in fury. "By law, the fine is merely—"

"By law, Li Ziyang should also be exiled a thousand miles away. Why don't you mention that?" Pei Jingxing listened with a throbbing head.

This family was utterly incapable of distinguishing right from wrong, and Lady Chai was particularly hateful. As a woman who had once been a maiden herself, she should have known best how vital a young girl's purity and reputation were; yet she treated this as a trifle, her heart and mind occupied solely by her scoundrel of a son.

Li Mingshan was no better.

If he truly possessed the backbone to cast aside the vanity of having outsiders look up to him because of the Marquis of Changping's estate, divorced his wife over this incident, and purged Li Ziyang from the Li family genealogy, he would at least deserve to be called a man.

Yet he was incapable of doing any of it.

Chances were, the twenty thousand taels he had just offered would ultimately have to be scraped together by Lady Chai herself.

He couldn't even produce the silver!

To live for the better part of a lifetime and reduce oneself to such a miserable ghost of a man—he might as well be dead.

Contempt filled Pei Jingxing's heart, and even more of it showed on his face.

Lady Chai was choked for a moment, spinning around in panic. "Thirty thousand taels won't do! Our family isn't—"

"If your family won't do, isn't there still the Chai family?" Lady Liang interrupted with a sarcastic chuckle, seizing the moment with impeccable timing. "Why is it that when you were shrieking and boasting about how powerful the Chai family is, now suddenly the Chai family has nothing to do with this? Don't tell me I'm after your family's pitiful scraps of silver. Forget thirty thousand taels; even if it were one hundred thousand, I could produce it right now. This is what your family owes my niece, and this is exactly how it ought to be calculated! Two thousand taels of silver to buy your son out of the suffering of exile—do you truly consider this a bad bargain?"

She arched an eyebrow high. "If you genuinely feel it's a bad bargain, let's handle this strictly by the book. We'll levy whatever fines the law requires and exact whatever exile is due. I'll let you choose."

Choose? What path was left for her to choose?

From the moment they stepped through the door, had they not been met with nothing but an aggressive, cornering onslaught?

Lady Chai calculated secretly. Thirty thousand taels was not impossible to scrape together; she could unlock her dowry chests and pawn a few pieces, or, as a last resort, write a letter to borrow from her eldest brother. She could weather this crisis somehow.

What she could not swallow was the attitude of Lady Liang and the Pei brothers.

And they still insisted on banishing the Sixth Young Master—

"I'll give you fifty thousand taels, and you let the Sixth Young Master stay home," Lady Chai said through gritted teeth. "After all, Liang Shanru didn't actually come to any real harm, and however hateful the Sixth Young Master is, it was only a matter of wicked intent. He is of marriageable age; if we suddenly announce he is being sent back to Xuzhou, outsiders will inevitably gossip and speculate. I know your family is aggrieved, and I am willing to pay extra silver to put this matter to rest. Surely that is acceptable?"

"What kind of ungodly nonsense are you spouting?" Lady Liang slammed her hand onto the table and rose instantly. "My niece returned safely because she was blessed with great fortune and protected by true deities, not because your scoundrel of a son showed mercy! Had her fortune been slightly lesser, she would have perished at your son's hands today, and you still dare utter such words? You are truly a rotten-hearted, filthy scoundrel yourself!"

After turning the matter over in his mind, and before Lady Chai could retort, Li Mingshan hastily pulled her back, lowering his stance to play the humble, accommodating host. "Fifty thousand taels! Fifty thousand taels it is! Since my wife has spoken, we will never take it back. The Sixth Young Master will be confined within the estate, with the Marquis Heir's men stationed here to keep watch, until he is betrothed and takes a bride, at which point he may walk abroad again. We simply will not send him back to the Xuzhou ancestral temple. Do Madam Liang and the Marquis Heir find this acceptable?"