Chapter 157
Ye Yunniang thought it was already a blessing that Baise hadn't grabbed a knife to hack at Jiang Mingzhe.
"She wouldn't. I won't let anyone ruin our wedding night," Jiang Mingzhe said solemnly.
Ye Yunniang's face flushed red. "We are talking about serious matters, do not stray so far off topic."
"Our wedding is the most important matter. I have picked a few good dates, do you want to take a look?" Jiang Mingzhe brought out the auspicious dates calculated by a fortune teller.
Ye Yunniang refused to look. "Let's wait until we go back and my mother agrees. We will pick a date then."
If Cai Damei did not agree, Ye Yunniang would not marry Jiang Mingzhe.
"I will definitely get Mother to agree."
"She is my mother, do not just call her that blindly."
"I will have to call her that sooner or later." Jiang Mingzhe had some understanding of Cai Damei and was confident he could persuade her to marry Ye Yunniang to him.
"Master Bao is still waiting for you to call him Dad."
Speaking of Bao Min, Ye Yunniang was speechless.
A grown man, so obsessed with making another man call him Dad.
"What exactly happened between you two?"
Ye Yunniang was curious. She had heard Cai Damei mention it before, but Cai Damei had not given her the specific details.
"When I saved Bao Min for the second time, the two of us made a bet. If I saved him one more time, he would have to call me Dad," Jiang Mingzhe explained.
Ye Yunniang burst into laughter. "So he called you Dad."
"I ended up saving him three more times after that." Jiang Mingzhe smiled as he recalled Bao Min's aggrieved expression at the time.
"No wonder Master Bao is so obsessed. And you really... how could you propose such a condition?"
"I was not the one who brought it up; Bao Min suggested it first himself. Later on, he was also the one who admitted defeat and willingly called me that." Jiang Mingzhe did not mention that he had deliberately provoked Bao Min.
"He is Shushu's father, so you should show him some respect," Ye Yunniang instructed Jiang Mingzhe, deeply afraid that it would put Cai Damei in a difficult position in the future.
"I will," Jiang Mingzhe promised. As for how he would do it, that was a matter for another time.
"There is one more thing. Baise wants to borrow a hundred thousand taels of silver from me." Ye Yunniang brought up the matter of Baise borrowing money.
"I will arrange for someone to talk to her." Jiang Mingzhe agreed; this was no big deal.
Baise was right about one thing: everything he earned belonged to Ye Yunniang.
Ye Yunniang then listed the local specialties she had purchased. "See if there is anything else we need to buy?"
"You even bought some for Old Man Jiang and his wife?" Jiang Mingzhe was surprised, but then felt that given Ye Yunniang's personality, it made sense.
"Pan'er and the others brought people to dig up the old man's third treasure hoard. I was the one who told them the location." Ye Yunniang felt a bit embarrassed that she had not kept the secret.
Thinking about how she was about to marry into the Jiang family and would be seeing the elderly couple every day, Ye Yunniang felt slightly awkward. She figured buying some gifts in advance could serve as a small form of compensation.
"Everything he hid away was hard-earned by me. What is mine is yours, so the treasure is yours." Jiang Mingzhe felt there was absolutely no problem with the old man's treasure going to the children.
That might be true, but Ye Yunniang still felt a bit guilty in her heart.
"Who took them there?"
"They partnered with Master Bao. The three children get twenty-five percent. Master Bao is taking the rest for disaster relief. Master Bao said he would submit a memorial to the imperial court and attribute all the merit to you."
"The proposal to split the shares was Li Ping's idea."
"How did you know?"
"Pan'er has an honest and simple nature; he would not think of such things. An'an despises everything about the Jiang family, so he would not want it. Only Li Ping... in his eyes, anyone other than the family members he acknowledges can be used and calculated against." Jiang Mingzhe had a thorough understanding of the three children's personalities.
"Do not talk about Pingping like that. He just wants us to live a good life." Ye Yunniang was displeased to hear Jiang Mingzhe speak of her son that way, feeling that Li Ping had only wanted the treasure out of consideration for their family.
"Alright, I will not say it." In his heart, Jiang Mingzhe was actually very satisfied with Li Ping; he was truly worthy of being his son.
"Do not worry, I did not mention the treasure in the small courtyard."
"I gave those to you, so they are yours. You can deal with them however you want." Since Jiang Mingzhe had previously said he was giving them to Ye Yunniang, they belonged to her.
"Having too much money is not a good thing." Ye Yunniang thought of the hidden secrets of the Jiang family that Jiang Mingzhe had told her about.
The third-day bathing ceremony for Baise and Tie Yi's baby soon arrived.
After much agonizing thought, Tie Yi finally decided on the child's name: Tie Panmei.
"The name you picked is a bit too..." Ye Yunniang thought for a long moment before coming up with a phrase, "...plain and simple."
"That is exactly what makes it a good name." Baise lay on the bed and reached out to poke the familiar Tie Panmei.
"Are you not afraid the child will blame you when he grows up?"
"He would not dare."
"If I were Panpan and had a name like that, I definitely would not acknowledge you when I grew up." Ye Yunniang took out a pair of tiger-head shoes. "I stayed up all night making these for Panpan."
Baise took them and examined them closely. "Mhm, not bad. Your craftsmanship has not gotten rusty."
Tie Panmei was tickled awake by the little tassels on the tiger-head shoes and reached out to grab them.
Baise placed the shoes by his hand for him to play with.
"You guys are heading back soon."
"Yes, we leave tomorrow." Speaking of leaving, Ye Yunniang was very excited.
"I want to go back too." Baise missed Jiangcheng, and she missed her Baise Embroidery Shop.
Unfortunately, Baise was in her postpartum confinement month.
Even after her confinement ended, the baby would be too young for them to travel back.
"I will go back first and wait for you in Jiangcheng."
Baise took a box from the bedside drawer and handed it to Ye Yunniang, gesturing for her to open it.
Ye Yunniang opened it. Inside were the property deed and land deed for the Baise Embroidery Shop, along with a transfer agreement.
Baise was transferring the embroidery shop to Ye Yunniang, completely free of charge.
"I cannot accept this." Ye Yunniang placed it back into Baise's hands.
"The Baise Embroidery Shop holds the painstaking efforts of the first half of my life. I do not want it to close its doors forever." Baise placed it back into Ye Yunniang's hands.
"I can continue acting as the temporary manager. I will wait for you to come back."
"I have a whole mess of businesses to manage here in Northern Frontier City and the Green Metropolis. How could I possibly have the energy to look after the embroidery shop in Jiangcheng? But I cannot bear to shut it down completely, either. After all, it is something I worked so hard to build. Leaving it in your hands gives me peace of mind."
At this, Ye Yunniang accepted it. "I will take good care of the shop."
"I have one small request."
"Tell me."
"The name of the shop cannot be changed. I want it to be called the Baise Embroidery Shop forever."
"Alright, I promise you," Ye Yunniang agreed.
Coming out of the confinement room, Ye Yunniang did not want to go anywhere crowded, so she went to the Tie family garden to sit for a while.
Taohong walked over, looking as if she had something to say.
"Did you need me for something?" Ye Yunniang gestured for Taohong to sit down and speak.
"I..." Taohong hesitated.
"If you have something to say, just say it."
"You... I... I wanted to say thank you."
"Thank me for what?" Ye Yunniang was puzzled.
"Thank you for saving my life. Thank you for giving me the chance to be with Tie Xiong."
"When we were crawling through the dog hole, I did not know it was you. And everything after that was your own choice." Ye Yunniang felt that everything Taohong had now was earned through her own efforts, so there was no need to thank her.
"No matter what, I still have to thank you." Taohong expressed her gratitude once more, then stood up to leave.
After taking two steps, she came back. "That old woman who sold you to the human traffickers... I have seen her in Jiangcheng."