Chapter 23

Chapter 23

While Old Madam Gang was still complaining to the neighbors, Jang Un-chu bent down and whispered into her son's ear.

"You took the letters out of Mother's chest and hid them somewhere else? Then where are they?"

Gang Gye answered,

"In my room!"

Jang Un-chu was relieved, but also curious.

"What made you think of taking the letters out and hiding them separately?"

After all, those letters had very little to do with the Gang family.

Jang Un-chu knew how her son had discovered them in the first place.

A few days ago, Gang Gye had gone through the clothing chest because he felt cold at night and wanted to find thicker clothes.

She normally only opened that chest once a year, before winter, when she took the clothes out to wash and prepare them.

So she rarely thought about the letters stored inside.

That was why, when Gang Gye rummaged through the chest, it had never occurred to her that he might find them.

And yet such an unexpected stroke of luck had come from it.

Gang Gye explained,

"I saw those letters before and got curious, so I opened one."

"I couldn't read all the characters, but I could tell they had something to do with Aunt Un-mo."

"And I know Aunt Un-mo is a bad person."

"I thought it would be dangerous to keep something important like that all in one place. What if someone took them?"

"Mother said a few days ago that silver should be hidden in several different places."

"So I thought the letters should be hidden the same way."

Jang Un-chu covered her mouth and nodded.

Her eyes grew hot.

She raised her head and blinked several times, forcing the tears back.

Only then did she look at her son again and praise him.

"Our Little Six did the right thing."

"You really helped Mother a lot this time."

"Mother wants to see those letters."

After the theft that had just happened, she wouldn't be able to relax until she confirmed them with her own eyes.

After Madam Oh mentioned the possibility that silver had been stolen, Old Madam Gang led the onlookers toward the bedroom to inspect the situation.

The moment she saw the state of the room, she became even angrier and began shouting curses.

"What kind of thieves behave this shamelessly?! Look what they've done to someone else's room!"

Zhao Yang and Zhao Shan had been in a hurry.

And after seeing how miserable their mother had looked, they had probably believed she had been wronged and deliberately made a mess out of anger.

That was how the room had ended up looking as if it had been ransacked.

The other women who had come to watch also pointed at the mess and criticized the twins' behavior as disgraceful.

Taking advantage of the commotion, Jang Un-chu followed Gang Gye to the room he shared with Howa.

Gang Gye pretended to retrieve letters from several different hiding places.

In reality, he had only hidden one outside.

The rest were safely stored inside the system.

On the day he first discovered the letters, Gang Gye had originally planned to wait a few days before taking them.

But then he worried something might go wrong.

So he had returned that very day and taken them.

Afterward, he came up with a suitable excuse.

Since he was only a small child, not everything he did needed to make perfect logical sense.

And his mother didn't suspect him at all.

It never crossed Jang Un-chu's mind that her son might know the future.

She simply opened the envelopes and checked the contents.

Once she confirmed that they were indeed the letters she had hidden, emotion surged through her.

Gang Gye said,

"I didn't take one of them."

"I left it in the chest... I think Brother Zhao Yang took that one."

"It's fine. It's completely fine."

Jang Un-chu smiled.

"The three remaining letters are enough."

She carefully put the three letters away.

Then she took her son outside.

Now wasn't the time to hide.

She wanted to see what Jang Un-mo would do next.

Jang Un-chu had grown up with Jang Un-mo since childhood.

She knew her cousin's nature very well.

Now that Jang Un-mo believed she had recovered the love letters, there was no way she would simply let the matter end here.

Most likely, she would put on a shy, innocent face while secretly slandering someone else.

Jang Un-chu intended to enjoy the performance.

The moment she stepped outside, Old Madam Gang shouted from across the courtyard,

"Third Daughter-in-law, take Little Six and come over here."

"Go check your room carefully and see if anything is missing."

"Yes, I'm coming."

Jang Un-chu answered quickly.

With the letters safely on her person, she felt much more secure.

She finally had room to think about other matters.

The moment she entered the bedroom and saw the mess, she instinctively frowned.

Since this involved money, Old Madam Gang left Jang Un-chu alone inside and took the others back outside.

Jang Un-chu checked all the places where she had hidden silver.

They had been concealed deeply enough that the twins hadn't found them.

She also counted the copper coins and broken silver kept in the wardrobe for daily expenses.

Only two copper coins were missing.

If she hadn't regularly counted every last coin, she probably wouldn't even have noticed.

But in this era, who could afford to treat silver lightly?

Counting one's money again and again was completely normal.

Meanwhile, Jang Un-mo and her grandmother had arrived.

Jang Un-mo couldn't have been in a better mood.

Less than the time it took to drink half a cup of tea ago, she had been panicking and trembling with fear, as though a blade might fall on her head at any moment.

Now, however, she could barely suppress a smile.

Thinking about the letter her son had handed her made the corner of her mouth rise.

Honestly, when she sent her son and daughter over, she hadn't truly expected them to steal the letters.

All she had wanted was for the children to stop Jang Un-chu from blurting anything out in front of the villagers.

As long as they could buy enough time for her to bring Grandmother and the rest of the Jang family over, that would have been enough.

Yet unexpectedly, the children had really found a letter!

What incredible luck.

Jang Un-mo stepped into the Gang family's courtyard, smiling as she prepared to greet everyone.

But before she could speak, Old Madam Gang grabbed her arm and dragged her toward the bedroom.

"Come take a look."

"What kind of way are you raising your children?"

"Stealing from someone else's house is bad enough, but they even turned the whole room upside down!"

"Your husband is a scholar, isn't he? Does he know how to read but not how to teach his own children?"

Old Madam Gang had never had a particularly good impression of Jang Un-mo.

She had lived in this village for decades and knew perfectly well what kind of household the Jang family was.

And since her own daughter-in-law, Jang Un-chu, had always been the one losing out, Old Madam Gang naturally sided with her.

Originally, Jang Un-mo had planned to smile and smooth things over.

In her mind, as long as she recovered the letters, none of these small matters mattered.

But when Old Madam Gang began disparaging her husband, she immediately changed her mind.

Her husband was a scholar.

A promising scholar who would eventually become not only a xiucai, but even a juren.

His reputation couldn't be damaged.

Her expression hardened.

"Madam Gang, please don't say things like that so casually."

"Xiaoyang and Xiaoshan are Sister's nephew and niece, aren't they? We're practically one family."

"How can you say something so unpleasant?"

"They're just immature children. Children can be mischievous."

"You could simply lecture them and let the matter end. Why make such a huge issue out of it?"

If one only listened to Jang Un-mo's words, they sounded reasonable enough.

But both women knew perfectly well what kind of relationship Jang Un-chu and Jang Un-mo actually had.

The moment Jang Un-mo finished speaking, Jang Un-chu walked out of the room and said calmly,

"Ten taels of silver are missing."

"What?!"

Jang Un-mo's voice shot up so sharply it nearly cracked.

"That's impossible!"

Her children had said nothing about money.

Although Jang Un-mo often spoke with a layer of pretense, she at least understood basic right and wrong.

She had never taught her children to steal money.

So she didn't believe Jang Un-chu's claim at all.

She looked at her cousin suspiciously.

"Sister, just because we don't get along, you aren't deliberately saying this to frame Xiaoyang and Xiaoshan, are you?"

"Whatever problems exist between us adults should stay between adults."

"There's no need to drag the children into it."

"They haven't done anything wrong."

She frowned slightly, looking displeased.

Her manner made it seem as though Jang Un-chu were deliberately causing trouble and making unreasonable accusations.

Jang Un-chu, however, merely gave a faint, cold smile.

"Un-mo, what are you saying?"

"Xiaoyang and Xiaoshan are my nephew and niece."

"Would I say something like this unless it were serious?"

"Besides, everyone saw them stealing things."

"Otherwise, why would they have run away like that?"

"You should see for yourself what they did to my room."

Jang Un-mo nearly choked.

Something about the way Jang Un-chu was speaking even felt strangely familiar.

She glanced inside the room.

Then she immediately fell silent.

The others began chiming in.

"Un-chu is right. If Un-mo's children weren't stealing, why did they run?"

"Anyone with eyes saw them carrying something away."

"Didn't Un-mo run into the children on her way here just now? Why did she send them home instead of bringing them along?"

"Exactly."

One person after another began speaking.

"If they didn't steal anything, then why send them back home?"

"If children do something like that, shouldn't their mother bring them here personally to apologize?"

"You can't just protect them no matter what."

Children in the village sometimes fought and caused trouble.

When that happened, the usual custom was for the parents to bring the child over and apologize.

They might even bring a small gift.

After a sincere apology, the matter would usually end there.

No one behaved the way Jang Un-mo had.

"Don't tell me you're going to claim you didn't hear all that shouting from the Gang household."

The more everyone talked, the more suspicious Jang Un-mo appeared.

She was left speechless.

What did she know about any silver theft?

Her son had clearly told her he only took a letter.

But she couldn't say that.

So Jang Un-mo looked at Jang Un-chu.

If her cousin clearly explained the truth, the entire misunderstanding would disappear.

Jang Un-mo knew her older cousin well.

Jang Un-chu was upright and principled.

She hated using lies to harm others.

Jang Un-chu met Jang Un-mo's gaze.

And she had absolutely no intention of explaining anything.

She had said ten taels.

But even if she had said one hundred, Jang Un-mo would have deserved to bear it.

She had no intention of overlooking the fact that her son had been shoved to the ground, injured, and threatened.

And besides, Jang Un-chu's own parents had worked hard to earn money and contribute it to the Jang family's common funds.

How much of that money had eventually been spent on Jang Un-mo?

Ten taels was probably only the tip of the iceberg.

If being too honest only resulted in people becoming more and more shameless toward those she loved, toward the people who genuinely cared about her...

Then perhaps there was no need to be quite so honest.

"Altogether, it's a little more than ten taels."

"But I won't bother arguing over the loose copper coins."

"Just return ten taels and we'll call it settled."

Jang Un-mo opened and closed her mouth several times.

She looked as though she had no idea what to say.

Only after a long while did she finally manage,

"I... I don't have that much silver."

"So I'll pay you later."

How much later that "later" would be was impossible to know.

Her husband still needed money for his studies.

So that "later" was probably very, very far in the future.