Chapter 1865: The News Brought Back by Xia Yan (Patreon)

Chapter 1865: The News Brought Back by Xia Yan

Xia Yan brought back news about the Chen family.

Currently, the entire Chen family was living at the father-in-law's house, who had the surname Pan.

Shu Yu had heard a bit about it from Grandma Guan. It was said that the Pan family wasn't well-off initially; they had a small shop, but many children. That's why Chen Bing, a second-time groom, became the son-in-law of the Pan family.

However, in the second year after Chen Bing married into the Pan family, things began to change. The Pan family started improving gradually, mainly due to the advantage of having so many children. Pan's elder sister married a wealthy merchant from out of town and became his concubine, which resulted in her receiving a lot of favor. When the merchant's wife passed away, she was elevated to the position of his primary wife.

With a wealthy son-in-law, the Pan family seized the opportunity to expand their business, and over the years, they went from having just one shop to eventually owning three.

Not only did the Pan family have three shops, but they also moved to a larger courtyard with more servants.

The Pan family had undergone significant changes. However, as the son-in-law of the Pan family, Chen Bing had been operating a struggling grocery store for the past thirty years. Despite his efforts, he would occasionally lose money, and he had to come to his in-laws' house to beg for financial assistance. This made the in-laws hold him in extremely low regard, and to the point that they almost refused to let him in.

At first, Chen Bing had wanted to venture into other industries with his in-laws' support, but he found that he was losing money in every venture. He was even berated by his father-in-law and couldn't manage to extract any money from him. After a few unsuccessful attempts, he gave up and began to resent his in-laws. He rarely came to the capital city to avoid being scolded.

This time, he came because the Pan family's elderly father had fallen ill.

With the success of the Pan family's business, how could Chen Bing not be envious? This was his last opportunity to secure a share of the family's wealth.

If Pan's patriarch passed away and the family was taken over by Pan's eldest son, he wouldn't get a penny of benefits.

So, under the pretext of his wife and children being concerned about the patriarch's health, the entire Chen family came together.

According to the neighbors of the Pan family, they were indeed taking great care of Pan's father, and after some time, the whole family appeared worn out from their efforts.

The neighbors were unfamiliar with the Chen family, who rarely visited the area, but based on their current behavior, the Chen family had indeed built up a good reputation.

However, Chen Bing believed that due to his age and the illness of Pan's father, the latter wouldn't survive much longer. However, after a month, Pan's father began to recover slowly.

Chen Bing's plans to secure his share of the inheritance were foiled. Logically speaking, now that Pan's father had recovered and the family's shop required attention, the Chen family should have returned home. Unfortunately, Chen Bing was unwilling to give up. Around that time, bandits had attacked Chenggu County, leading to the closure of the city gates, and outsiders couldn't enter at will. The Chen family couldn't leave, so they naturally stayed on.

Who could have anticipated that before long, the city would also fall into chaos?

Thankfully, the city had made preparations in advance, and while things were chaotic for a while, the common people didn't suffer as severely as those in Chenggu County. Ultimately, the city returned to normal after the tumult.

Once both the county and the city were safe again, Chen Bing had no excuses to stay.

Especially with the New Year approaching, they should have returned home to celebrate.

But Chen Bing didn't. He continued to stay, this time using the excuse of finding a husband for his daughter in the city.

Originally, another reason Chen Bing had come to the city was to find a husband for his daughter, Chen Qiu.

However, since Pan's father fell ill initially, he couldn't reveal this reason.