However, Su Tang did need someone to teach Wu Yong a lesson. After all, she knew she was going to be busy setting up the plots of land and the factories soon, so she didn’t want to deal with whatever trouble he was trying to create for her. With that thought in mind, she finally decided to take out a few silver taels.
As soon as Pockmarked Zhang saw the flash of silver, he reached out greedily to grab for it. But how could Su Tang just let him snatch her money? She pulled her arm back and looked at Pockmarked Zhang severely, “But if I give you the money now, what will I do if you don’t do the job?”
Pockmarked Zhang seemingly didn’t expect Su Tang to ask this question because he paused uncertainly. But he was very thick-skinned, so he quickly recovered and replied: “That… how could something like that happen? Young master, you can go to inquire around and find out what kind of person I, Pockmarked Zhang, am. Once I’ve received the money, I always complete any job well.”
However, even with this reassurance, Pockmarked Zhang saw Su Tang seemed to still be hesitating, as if she couldn’t decide whether to give him the money or not, and he began to feel worried. Finally, Su Tang said, “To give you two taels of silver before you’ve even done anything is really too much. What if you take my money, but then don’t do the job? How about this. I’ll give you a hundred copper coins first, and if you really beat him up and redress my grievances, then I’ll come back tomorrow and give you the rest of the money.”
Pockmarked Zhang had thought that this little boy would be easy to fool, so he started to feel a bit angry when Su Tang didn’t just obediently fork over the money. However, he still tried to curb his ferocious impulse and stepped forward to continue persuading: “If you aren’t willing to pay the money, who will work for you?”
Seeing him step forward, Su Tang seemed to be frightened. She put the money away and stepped back while looking over at him alertly. When Pockmarked Zhang saw the silver disappearing, he couldn’t help himself and wanted to quickly rush forward to snatch it over. But before he could make a move, Su Tang hurriedly shouted, “Don’t come over here. I’ll have my father put you in jail!”
Since Su Tang dared to come looking for this ruffian, of course, she had made some preparations and understood what could be used to scare him. After all, as the saying went, the citizens can’t fight with the officials.
Su Tang had purposefully been acting like a small child all along. And now, when put in a “dangerous situation” she immediately threw out prison as a threat. This way, Pockmarked Zhang would be forced to consider her background and not do anything too rash.
And sure enough, when Pockmarked Zhang heard that this young master saying something about prison, he really stopped. He didn’t know where this young master came from, but if he were really the son of an official, then Pockmarked Zhang knew he couldn’t afford to make a move. Plus, this whole time Su Tang had been acting like a willful and unreasonable child, just like a rich young master who was ignorant of the world who had come out to play, so Pockmarked Zhang was mostly convinced of her identity and didn’t dare to make a move.
But Su Tang was a bit afraid that if she dragged this out too long, Pockmarked Zhang might change his mind, so she quickly took out the hundred copper coins she had prepared and gave them to Pockmarked Zhang. “This is a deposit, okay? Tomorrow, if you’ve done a good job, I will not only give you the rest of the money, but I will also ask my father to reward you.”
Pockmarked Zhang looked at the hundred copper coins and decided it was good enough.
However, as soon as he lowered his head to accept the money, Su Tang quickly dropped it into his hands and then took the opportunity to run away! Only calling back over her shoulder: “See you tomorrow then!”
Then, after leaving the orange cat to watch over Pockmarked Zhang, Su Tang ran for a while and made some twists and turns, ultimately making a wide circle through Qinghe Town to throw off any pursuit.
Once she reached the woods just outside of town, she quickly jumped into her space and changed back to her normal clothes before coming out again. After all this, she was already exhausted and didn’t feel like doing anything more, so she headed straight home.
The next day, she followed her usual daily routine. She made her rounds at the shop in the morning, then went to the Song residence in the afternoon to continue her studies, and finally came home again in the evening. However, even by evening, the orange cat still hadn’t come back. But even though he was very late, Su Tang still wasn’t too worried about him. After all, no one else could even see the orange cat! Obviously, there was no way he could meet any danger.
Around the same time she was coming back from the Song residence, Su Nuo also came back from the academy. As soon as he saw his sister, the little guy happily trotted over to tell her about his first day: “Today was my first day of class. My teacher praised me, and I also met Su Rui again! He’s in Class C.”
It was only his first day of class but his teacher was already praising him, so the little guy felt very happy. In the past, he had only had his sister to compare himself to, and he had never been able to beat her at anything, so he had always felt a little doubtful of his own talent. Thus, after being praised by his teacher, he was very happy and had a renewed sense of confidence.
On top of that, not only had he met a few new friends, he also happened to run into an old acquaintance, Su Rui. Su Rui was Su Yongqiang’s eldest grandson who had been studying at the academy for a year now, and it turned out he was in Class C.
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