Chen Wanqing calmly countered, "That young master didn’t eat a bite of your food or drink a drop of your water, so how is he any of your business? Mrs. Zhu, if you’re really that jealous of our success, you should put more effort into your own shop. Making snide remarks about my brother and me isn’t going to make your family rich."

"That’s right! You talk too much, Mrs. Zhu. You probably scare all the customers away. That’s why your business is so bad."

Yao’an, ever the precocious child, was surprisingly convincing when he put on a serious face to bluff someone.

And it worked. Mrs. Zhu was taken in, and for a moment, she genuinely wondered if her big mouth was ruining her family’s business.

The three siblings were in the shop for a short while longer when they made a sale.

The product sold was again the Compound Incense Elixir; the customer wanted twenty pills. But Chen Wanqing didn’t have that many on hand. She had only made three in total.

The buyer paid a deposit of five taels of Silver, and they agreed on delivery in five days.

When Chen De’an and Chen Yaoan saw their sister earn more Silver Coin in a few moments than a common family could make in an entire year, they were both dumbfounded.

"Sister, Jing must have done something truly great in a past life to be able to marry you."

"His ancestors must be smiling down on him," Yao’an said. "My sister is beautiful, kind, and capable. Jing is really getting a bargain."

Chen Wanqing was about to tell her brothers to stop shouting when she heard Mrs. Zhu next door kicking up a fuss again.

At first, Chen Wanqing paid it no mind, but then she caught a few words and immediately stood up and headed for the door.

Seeing her reaction, Chen De’an and Chen Yaoan hurried to follow. The three of them stood at the doorway, listening to the commotion next door.

Mrs. Zhu had a standard-issue booming voice; when she had a piece of news, she could bellow it for the entire street to hear.

"What? Are you serious? Mr. Chen, the sesame seed cake seller, is having an affair with that young widow and even bought her a house, but his wife found out? And his wife went to their home and stripped both the widow and her daughter naked!"

When Chen Wanqing heard that, she quickly shooed her two brothers back inside.

’What’s the point of listening to this?’

’It’s just filth.’

Chen De’an rubbed his nose sheepishly and guided Yao’an behind the counter, covering his little brother’s ears.

But the shop wasn’t very large, and the counter certainly wasn’t soundproof. So, whether he was supposed to or not, De’an could still hear everything.

"Really stripped naked? Who saw it? Where did the mother and daughter go? Goodness me, with something this big, how come nobody told me about it before?" 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

"Tell you what?" Xu Su Ying’s voice called out from a short distance away. "You’re always trying to find out about everything; how do you have time to do any work? A person’s energy is finite. If you’re busy with one thing, you can’t be busy with another. It’s no wonder your business is doing so poorly—it’s because you’re always focused on other people’s business..."

"Oh, Miss Xu, you don’t know! Something huge has happened in town. Mr. Chen, from the Chen family that sells sesame seed cakes, was caught red-handed with his mistress by his wife. The wife and the young widow got into a massive fight..."

Chen Wanqing: "..." ’There was something wrong with that sentence, but also nothing wrong with it. But the more I think about it, the more it feels off.’

The moment Xu Su Ying heard it was about Chen Lin, she promptly scolded Mrs. Zhu and shooed her off.

’What rotten luck,’ she thought. ’Thank goodness no one knows Chen Lin is my husband’s third brother. Otherwise, our entire family would be dragged into this and lose face.’

Xu Su Ying called to her daughter and sons, "Let’s go. We’re heading home."

Chen Wanqing closed up shop for the day, brought her brothers outside, and locked the door.

"Where’s Dad?"

"He’s out watching the ox-cart. This alley is too narrow to navigate, so I told your father not to come down here."

"Is the deed transferred?"

"Did we buy the house?"

De’an and Yao’an asked impatiently.

"Of course. Do you think your father and I would have come to find you if we hadn’t finished everything? Don’t worry, the house and land deeds are all taken care of; your father is holding them. The owner was going to move out this afternoon, but I told him that if they set off in the afternoon, they wouldn’t find a place to stay for the night. So I told them to leave tomorrow instead. Coincidentally, tomorrow is Mrs. Wang’s birthday. Your father has work, and you two have your studies. We’ll come into town first thing in the morning, and when we’re done by noon, we can all go and clean the new house."

"Should we go too? Maybe we should just skip it."

"You should take another look. The courtyard is bigger now, and there are more rooms. If you two want to have separate rooms, you can. Each of you can go see what you’ll need for your room, and I’ll make a note of it and get things sorted... But we’re just cleaning for now; we won’t be able to move in right away. After all, someone else lived there. I’ll need to make some repairs and changes, and that will take a while..."

As they spoke, they reached the ox-cart.