Slapped in the face, the woman still said loftily, “Behind the vermilion gates, meat and wine go to waste while out on the road lie the bones of the frozen. Qiao Jinniang, how can you treat your relatives like this? You’re get retribution sooner or later!”


  Tong Xuan said in a hurry and anger, “If you want to court death, don’t implicate me!”


  Qiao Jinniang knew Tong Xuan. She was the daughter of Censor Tong, who impeached her two days ago, and the niece of Mrs. Zhou, the Queen’s sister-in-law.

  In the racecourse that day, Tong Xuan also satirized her, but when Myriad Taste opened, she came to attend the opening ceremony and presented gifts.

  Tong Yingying said, “Sister, you’re too timid! She has not entered the East Palace yet, and even if she has, why can’t I scold her for being extravagant and wasteful? The late Imperial Censor Wei once scolded Emperor Taizong’s harem for extravagance, and Emperor Taizong felt extremely ashamed, but what about Qiao Jinniang?

  “After being impeached by my father, she is still shamelessly extravagant, ignores her relatives, and is extremely cold blooded!”


  Qiao Jinniang chuckled. “Did I spend your Tong family’s money? I opened a restaurant by myself and earned money by myself. Why can’t I buy jewelry I like?

  “You keep mentioning frozen bones. Where are they? Miss Tong, if you’re so benevolent, why don’t you take off your clothes for the beggars to wear?

  “You said there are still frozen bones on the roadside in Chang’an. Are you saying that the courtiers are incompetent?

  “I spent the money I earned. Who the heck are you? Oh, sorry, what makes you think you are entitled to preach to me?!”


  Qiao Jinniang hadn’t seen such an unreasonable woman for a long time. If Qiao Ruoshui was just stupid and ignorant, this woman was purely disgusting.

  She took the moral high ground and accused Qiao Jinniang of being extravagant. This was not the first time Qiao Jinniang had seen this kind of woman.

  In Lin’an, she also met some goody two-shoes, who advised her to reconcile with the Qiao clan. After all, she had so much money, so why not give out a little?

  But why would she give her money to those disgusting people?!

  Fulu chuckled, “Qiao Jinniang, this is the first time I heard you scolding someone… Good

  job!”


  Tong Xuan was so frightened that she almost knelt down, but thinking that Qiao Jinniang was not yet the crown princess, she said to Tong Yingying, “Don’t make a scene of yourself.”


  Tong Yingying snorted. “Qiao Jinniang, Qiao Yu has no son, so that restaurant should be given to the Qiao clan. Besides, you are not even Qiao Yu’s daughter!”


  Qiao Jinniang frowned. “But I have a husband who married into my family, so I have the right to inherit the restaurant.”


  Tong Yingying said with a condescending demeanor, “But your so-called husband is His Royal Highness. How could he possibly marry into your family? And how can the imperial grandson be surnamed Qiao?

  “Since the imperial grandson is not surnamed Qiao, you should return Myriad Taste and Tasty Pavilion that you bought with the money you earned from Myriad Taste to the Qiao clan. This has been our tradition since ancient times!”


  Qiao Jinniang was disgusted and said, “Yes, it’s our tradition, but now Qiao Yu is the sworn brother of Duke Anyuan, so he belongs to the Qiao clan from the Southwest, so what does he have to do with the Qiao clan in Lin’an?”


  Tong Yingying said, “That’s what you did after Qiao Yu’s death, and he didn’t know about it. Qiao Jinniang, you don’t put your clan relatives in your eyes at all. You are unkind, unrighteous and unfilial. You make me sick!”


  Fulu was extremely annoyed. “Qiao Jinniang, what should I do? I want to scold her, but I think what she said makes sense.”


  Qiao Jinniang sarcastically said in a soft voice, “When my father was a child, his clansmen bullied him and made him homeless. In the end, he had to sell himself as a slave in Chang’an. After learning his cooking skills, he returned to Lin’an and opened a restaurant. His last words were that the restaurant must not be given to the Qiao clan.

  “If I give the restaurant to those people, I’ll be truly unfilial! Datang governs with filial piety. What’s wrong with me for abiding by filial piety?”


  Tong Yingying said, “No, you are wrong again. As the saying goes, there are three forms of unfilial conduct, of which the worst is to have no descendants. Qiao Yu has no son, so he is not filial to begin with, and refusing to recognize his clansmen is also not filial to his ancestors. Your father is not filial, but you should admonish him to follow filial piety again.

  “Besides, not to mention the clan rules, now you are the daughter of Duke Anyuan. Even if you leave the Duke Mansion with your mother, you are rich now. How can you sit by and watch your clansman struggle in poverty?

  “You should return Myriad Taste and Tasty Pavilion to the Qiao clan!”


  Qiao Jinniang clenched her hands. If this were in Lin’an, she would have already beaten this bit*h. She said coldly, “You’re the one who is wrong. You mentioned the first part ‘there are three forms of unfilial conduct, of which the worst is to have no descendants’, but do you forget the latter part of it ‘But Ancient Emperor Shun married without even telling his family, because his family doesn’t deserve it, so he shouldn’t be considered unfilial no matter if he has descendants or not’?

  “You’re just making a deliberate misinterpretation out of scripture.

  “Miss Tong, you have such a glib tongue, but you don’t even know the most basic meaning of scriptures? How dare you come to preach to me?

  “My father’s clansmen almost forced my father to death, but you want my father to avenge his grievances with virtue and surrender his lifelong hard work to his enemy? You must be kidding!” Tong Yingying said arrogantly, “I only know that you are cold-blooded and disregard kinship, and you are not worthy of being a human being!”


  Qiao Jinniang snorted. “Yes, you are human. No, you should be a living Bodhisattva. Then please, this Bodhisattva, quickly take out all your jewelry and money to help the Qiao family!”


  Tong Yingying said, “Why should I? Those people have nothing to do with me. I only know that you are ruthless and inhuman. Even beasts know how to feed back, and you are even worse than beasts.”


  Everyone in the Jewelry Pavilion fell silent.

  Qiao Jinniang walked up to Tong Yingying and said, “Then what is the imperial grandson I gave birth to? What is Duke Anyuan who gave birth to me?”


  Tong Xuan knelt on the ground with a thud.

  Tong Yingying said to Tong Xuan, “Sister, aren’t you always arrogant at home? Why do you kneel down? She is not the crown princess yet. My father and I will never allow such a person to become the crown princess!”


  Qiao Jinniang said, “Is Censor Tong so powerful as to be able to decide who can be the crown princess?”


  Tong Yingying raised her chin high and said, “Of course, my father is an imperial censor and has the responsibility of supervising the royal family. If you don’t return Myriad Taste and Tasty Pavilion to the Qiao clan, my father will keep impeaching you!”


  Tong Xuan almost cried. She was already frightened because of what she said to Qiao Jinniang in the racecourse, but her father and sister implicated her in this matter again.

  Qiao Jinniang said, “Then tell him to impeach me as he pleases. If I disobey my father’s last words, I’ll be the most unfilial person in the world!”


  Tong Yingying said, “Your father asked you to find a husband to marry into your family and help you give birth to a son in his last words, didn’t he? But if you enter the East Palace, how can you do that? You can’t just turn the properties of the Qiao clan to the Lu family’s, can you?”


  Qiao Jinniang said, “Why can’t I? All this land under heaven belongs to the Emperor, and all the people are the Emperor’s servants! Miss Tong, everything in this world belongs to the Lu family. Do you dare to say Tasty Pavilion and Myriad Taste aren’t the properties of the Lu family?”


  Fulu pointed at Tong Yingying and said, “How dare you, Tong Yingying? Do you want to rebel with the Qiao clan?”