Yu Wen felt this matter was his fault. Being questioned by his daughter, he couldn’t help feeling somewhat guilty and said in a small voice, “A’Tang, although your mother needs to take medicine now, she doesn’t need to go to the capital anymore. Consider this silver as if I had taken your mother on a trip to the capital. Besides, you’ve also seen with your own eyes how your Uncle Lu has treated our family. How could I only care about my own family’s welfare and disregard his life and death at this time?”

Yu Tang was extremely angry and said, “Is he at a life-and-death juncture right now? Will he not survive without these two hundred taels of silver?”

“It’s about the same!” Yu Wen said. “Your Uncle Lu has offended people from the Pei family and can no longer stay in Lin’an Prefecture. The special imperial examination is coming next year, and if he can’t get good recommendations, it will be very difficult for him to advance in his studies.”

Yu Tang knew about such matters.

Retired officials were usually willing to benefit their region. When local scholars went to the capital for the imperial examinations, they would write name cards to familiar or friendly officials, asking them to help arrange accommodations or even provide academic guidance, hoping to have their names inscribed on the golden list and achieve better results.

She sneered, “If I’m not mistaken, Uncle Lu is still only a xiucai, right? Even if the Pei family wrote him a letter of recommendation, he probably couldn’t use it, could he? Moreover, the Pei family has always liked to help neighbors. What did he do to offend the Pei family? Didn’t Father think carefully about this?”

Yu Wen clearly didn’t want to discuss it further and only said, “He’s decided to reside in the capital. Who knows if he’ll come back in the future? This is the last time I’ll help him, and it’s also my way of repaying him for saving your mother’s life. Just don’t pursue it anymore.”

Things had come to this point—what more could Yu Tang say?

She said resentfully, “Where’s the painting?”

That painting was an antique after all, still worth some silver. In the future, if the family couldn’t produce money for mother’s medicine, they could still pawn that painting.

Yu Wen ingratiatingly handed the scroll to Yu Tang.

As Yu Tang spread the scroll open on the desk, she muttered quietly, “It’s only because you’re easy to talk to. Two hundred taels of silver—if he took it to a pawnshop, at most he could only pawn it for one hundred taels of silver…”

Before she finished speaking, her eyes widened.

This wasn’t the “Fishing in Seclusion on Pine Creek” painting she had frequently taken out to examine and admire in her previous life.

In her previous life, after her parents’ incident, this painting had remained at home, forgotten by everyone. It wasn’t until she was getting married, when eldest uncle considered that the Li family she was marrying into were scholars and wanted to buy some calligraphy and paintings for her dowry to make it more presentable, that this painting was found again. Also, because her parents’ incident was related to this painting, she kept it as a memento, carefully preserving it and taking it out to look at from time to time.

She remembered very clearly that this painting had twenty-three seals. The last two seals were “Chunshui Hall” and “Slender Plum Elder,” with “Chunshui Hall” stamped beside “Slender Plum Elder.” But at this moment, where the “Chunshui Hall” seal should have been, there was instead a seal reading “Plum Grove.”

This painting was fake!

Yu Tang was furious and said, “Father, Lu Xin is a petty man!”

Seeing his daughter repeatedly disparaging his friend, Yu Wen felt somewhat displeased. He walked over and was about to roll up the scroll to store it away while saying, “Child, how can you speak this way? Who in this world doesn’t have faults? Don’t always fixate on your Uncle Lu’s minor wrongs. When judging people, you should look at what’s primary…”

“No!” Yu Tang interrupted her father’s words, preventing him from rolling up the scroll, and pointed to the seal stamped with “Plum Grove,” saying, “Father, look, here should be stamped ‘Chunshui Hall’…”

Yu Wen laughed and said, “I usually tell you to read but you don’t. Now you’re making a fool of yourself! Whose seal ‘Chunshui Hall’ is, I don’t know, but this ‘Plum Grove’ is Grand Secretary Zuo’s personal seal. In the past, I even specifically studied Grand Secretary Zuo’s manuscripts and seals. This painting from your Uncle Lu’s family was given by Grand Secretary Zuo to his late father. It would be strange if it didn’t have this seal! Look, this ‘Slender Plum Elder’ is your Uncle Lu’s father’s courtesy name.”

Yu Tang was completely confused.

Could it be that the famous painting she had frequently held and admired in her previous life was the fake one?

Yu Tang was unwilling to accept this. She asked Yu Wen to find someone to authenticate it.

Yu Wen disagreed, “Your father may not be good at studying, but when it comes to authenticating a few ancient paintings from previous dynasties, I would never be mistaken.”

But the confusion in Yu Tang’s heart grew greater and greater.

In her previous life, after she married into the Li family, the house had been burglarized once. Later, when everyone inventoried the household items, only she had lost two or three gold ornaments. At that time, she had found it strange—the Li family had high walls and a large compound, and if someone went to the Li family to steal, why would they only steal such a small amount?

Could it be that by that time, this painting had already been stolen?

Yu Tang didn’t want to recall her days in the Li family, but she couldn’t deny it was a knot in her heart. Especially her resentment toward the Li family members—just touching on it would make her shake with anger, unable to speak.

No!

She couldn’t just let this matter pass in such confusion as if nothing had happened.

Yu Tang asked Yu Wen for the “Fishing in Seclusion on Pine Creek” painting to view, but privately secretly took the painting to the Pei family’s pawnshop.

The Pei family only had one pawnshop in Lin’an.

At the crossroads in front of Lin’an Prefecture’s dock.

The manager was still that white, chubby Tong Gui.

In her previous life, Yu Tang had pawned quite a bit of her dowry through his hands.

She wrapped her head and dressed up as a country woman, quietly entering the pawnshop.

Manager Tong wasn’t there. Guarding the counter was Manager Tong’s son, Tong Hai.

Like Tong Gui, he was also white and chubby. Now just past his coming-of-age year, he already greeted everyone with a face full of smiles, very approachable.

Yu Tang handed over the painting and said in a low voice, “Live pawn.”

Tong Hai accepted the painting with a smile, casually opening the scroll. But the instant he saw the painting, his expression became stern. Though he immediately replaced it with a smiling face, the shock on his face had already been caught by Yu Tang.

Clearly, Tong Hai had already trained a good eye by this time.

“Young madam, please wait a moment and go to the inner hall for some tea first,” he smiled like a Milefo Buddha. “This antique painting you’re pawning needs to be appraised by our shop’s consultant before we can set a price.”

Why was the Pei family’s pawnshop considered fairly just? Many pawnshops, as soon as they saw you coming to pawn something, would first try to deceive you, asking how much silver you wanted to pawn for. No matter how much silver you asked for, they could depreciate whatever you wanted to pawn as worthless, persuading you to make it a dead pawn.

Yu Tang nodded. Since learning her father had bought this painting again, much of her anxiety had eased somewhat.

Her experiences were so miraculous, everything was changing, but at least this Pei family pawnshop was familiar to her, and the shop’s senior and junior managers were still the same as before.

She followed young Manager Tong toward the inner hall.

A breeze blew past, making the camphor tree in the courtyard rustle, causing several koi fish raised in the pond under the tree to poke their heads out from beneath the water lily leaves.

Yu Tang couldn’t help slowing her steps to look for a moment, but heard from behind the half-closed glazed partition opposite the faint sound of people talking.

She looked in that direction following the sound.

She didn’t see their faces, only saw through the door crack the shadows of two men.

The chubby one was Tong Gui—she recognized him at a glance. The tall one wore a sky-blue plain Hangzhou silk Daoist robe. His posture was upright as he stood with his hands behind his back. Even from afar, through the partition, one could feel that kind of bearing like standing at the edge of an abyss or beside towering mountains.

It must be that the pawnshop had an important customer.

Yu Tang had come here incognito to pawn something and was afraid of being exposed, so she didn’t dare look more. She couldn’t help secretly pondering in her heart.

Such excellent bearing, yet coming to pawn something—who knows which family’s young master this is…

She shook her head, inexplicably feeling somewhat regretful.

After drinking two cups of tea, both senior and junior Manager Tong actually came together.

“Young madam,” Senior Manager Tong held the scroll she had earlier handed to junior Manager Tong, wiping sweat and saying, “This painting of yours is a forgery.”

A fake painting?!

Yu Tang stood up with a start.

She knew it—this Lu Xin was no good!

In her previous life, when her father agreed without refusal to buy his painting, he at least sold her father a real painting. In this life, when her father was unwilling to buy his painting, he simply sold her father a fake painting.

Yu Tang ground her teeth in hatred.

But in her heart, she had to admit that if she hadn’t interfered, such a thing wouldn’t have happened in this life.

Since she had caused this trouble, naturally she should clean up the mess.

If she couldn’t get back the real painting from Lu Xin’s hands, she had to get back the silver from his hands!

Yu Tang snatched the painting from Senior Manager Tong’s hand and said resentfully, “Thank you, Senior Manager Tong. I’ve disturbed you.”

Both senior and junior Manager Tong stared at her blankly, as if frightened.

Yu Tang could only force a smile.

She could resent Lu Xin all she wanted, but she shouldn’t take it out on Manager Tong.

“I’m sorry!” she apologized. “I didn’t expect it to be a fake painting. I’ve wasted your time.”

The cultivation of both senior and junior Manager Tong was truly good. If it were anyone else bringing a fake painting to pawn, they would have long ago been treated as a fraud by the pawnshop staff, thrown out onto the street to be laughed at.

“No!” Junior Manager Tong’s speech even became somewhat stuttered. “Your, your head wrap has fallen off.”

So what if the head wrap fell off?

It took Yu Tang a long while to react.

To come to the pawnshop, she had specifically found one of Shuang Tao’s old garments. Not only that, she had styled her hair like a married woman’s and wore a pink velvet flower. Originally she had also thought about whether to apply some powder to make her complexion look more haggard, but when she found Shuang Tao’s powder, she disliked that the powder Shuang Tao used wasn’t fine enough. Shuang Tao said she would go to “Xie Fuxiang” to buy a new box, but she felt spending two taels of silver for this wasn’t worth it—two taels of silver were enough for her mother’s medicine for half a month.

Yu Tang had thought that in her previous life, she had casually wrapped her head before entering the pawnshop and no one recognized her, so she carelessly wrapped her head the same way as in her previous life. But she forgot that she had only just come of age now, with a face as tender as cherries just hanging on branches in March, still showing youthful innocence and charm. No matter how you looked at her, she looked like a child wearing adult clothes. Even a blind person could see she was in disguise.

Yu Tang’s face flushed bright red. She hastily wrapped her head, grabbed the scroll, and rushed out of the pawnshop.

At noon in midsummer, the sunlight was scorching hot, so bright people couldn’t open their eyes.

There wasn’t a single person at the dock. Under the eaves of the neighboring shop, a shopkeeper lay bare-chested in a rocking chair fanning himself with a palm-leaf fan. The shop-watching dog lay listlessly curled beside the rocking chair. Cicadas called tirelessly, making the quiet afternoon seem even more oppressive.

Yu Tang came back to her senses.

She had only confirmed whether this painting was real or fake, but hadn’t clarified where the painting was fake.

What if that Lu Xin denied it—what should she say?

Yu Tang hesitated for a moment, bit her teeth, and turned back to the pawnshop again.

In the pawnshop, the blue-robed man she had seen earlier had somehow come out and was talking with Senior Manager Tong, “At such a young age already knowing how to deceive people. If you encounter such matters again in the future, you absolutely must not tolerate and nurture treachery!”

Senior Manager Tong stood before that man, nodding and bowing, about to agree when he looked up and saw Yu Tang walking in.

He stammered, his face showing embarrassment.