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Su Biluo reflexively pulled back, irritated.
But she had long legs and her back was against the back of the chair so that she lost her balance and she and the chair tipped over and she crashed sprawled out onto the floor.
“Aiyo—” she groaned.
She felt like her spine was broken. She winced, her face compressing into a ball, and her bridal headgear tumbled off her head.
Mo Zichen once again put on his iceberg poker face, though he couldn’t keep the corners of his mouth from rising slightly.
“Su Biluo, do you think it’s that easy to raise 300,000 taels? Rather than try to raise it yourself, why not get your dad, Su Dechang, to do it? Would be much faster. What is a clumsy fool like you gonna do?”
He ridiculed her, but didn’t help her up. He just stood back and watched.
Su Biluo puffed her cheeks out in a pout and got up awkwardly and tidied her dishevelled hair and smoothed down her crimson silk skirt.
“Stoo… pid… idiot!” She side-eyed him.
“You dare curse this grand general?” Mo Zichen reached out with his long arm and hauled her over.
Su Biluo ws like a chicken waiting to be slaughtered, unable to fight back at all.
“Why shouldn’t I?” Her mouth was still unyielding as ever, her eyes full of disdain and stubbornness. “What I said is true. You’re a stupid idiot! All you can think of is marrying a Su girl, but you don’t know what my status is within the Su family, or about the ten trunks of stones that is my dowry, huh?”
“Stones?”
“Yup.” Her lips curled into a faint sneer. “The magnificent, broad-minded grand general takes a wife without investigating her clearly? I, Su Biluo, am the least-liked second daughter, born of a concubine. My dad’s darling is the Su family’s eldest daughter, Su Biyao.”
Su Biluo threw his arm off and stood away from him, casting sidelong glances as she gloated.
“But, how could he give up my big sister and marry her off to a primitive brute, a cold, cruel, violent general like you? Plus, this grand general is very poor, famously poor. Didn’t you use up all your family’s wealth trying to support your army? How can you support a wife?”
Su Biluo’s words cut to the quick and were forceful and direct. Mo Zichen looked at her now with increased respect.
He loped over to the red-lacquered pearwood trunks in the corner of the room and opened one. Sure enough, inside was a pile of heavy stones!
Mo Zichen’s face fell, quickly turning black like the bottom of a cooking pot. No one had ever dared play a trick on him before.
He opened ten more trunks and they were all the same!
“Hmph! Su Dechang! He really has a lot of nerve. He must be tired of living!”
He slammed the trunks shut.
“Calm down, there’s still two trunks.” Su Biluo’s clever eyes sparkled as she repressed a smile, as if she were watching something very funny, but also like she was mocking herself.
“An aloeswood ornamental scepter inlaid with jade, a xiu-jade ornamental scepter, a pair of cowpea-red glazed vases, eighteen sets of gold ingots, and 10,000 taels of silver. He’s really giving me some face.”
She looked around at the furniture in the bridal chamber and pointed it all out with her slender white hand. “Also this rosewood tri-screen divan, a rosewood beauty chaise longue, and a dressing table. Hmph, I’m overwhelmed by the generosity. Seems my stingy dad treats me pretty well, not miserly at all.”
Mo Zichen went over everything and it was just as she said. He sneered. “Su Dechang has enough wealth to rival a nation, yet he gives so little to his daughter when marrying her off. You really are not well-liked. But I never expected he would dare hoodwink this general.”
“Why not?” Su Biluo shook her head and sneered lightly. “You mean to say you would disregard the imperial court, disregard the emperor, and disregard yourself, the grand general, and make a public stink about it and say the dowry he gave was too little? You would admit to all the world that you formed a marriage with the Su family just for this dowry? He’s now your rightful father-in-law, unless you return me.”
Mo Zichen was taken aback. He had nothing to say to that.
“Have to be wily to be a businessman. Su Dechang is way more shameless than you, General.”
Su Biluo smiled faintly and once again handed him the contract. “So, be a good boy and sign the contract. It’s better to rely on yourself than to rely on others! This mistress guarantees to make you much more than 300,000 taels of silver. You didn’t just marry me for my dowry, but to increase your business and profits for the future, right?”
Mo Zichen glared at her, his eyes like raging flames that wanted to burn up Su Biluo’s cold, steadfast arrogance.
Su Biluo felt goosebumps, being glared at like that. She instinctively shrank back.
Mo Zichen shot his hand out and grabbed her delicate, slender wrist.
“W-w-what are you going to do?” Su Biluo’s voice was quavering.
The Courtyard 