Zuo Yanzhi left in a huff. Miss Jun, who was one step ahead of her, was calmly sitting in the carriage as if nothing had happened.
Fang Yuxiu deliberated for a moment.
"Miss Zuo seems to have gotten what she wanted," she said with a smile. "Or should we say that this is crushing your foot while trying to move a rock to drop on your enemy?"
She said this with intimacy, like she was a conspirator, not a bystander.
Miss Jun smiled.
"It wasn't that Miss Zuo was overreaching. Actually, I was bullying her," she said.
What did she mean by this?
Zuo Yanzhi was obviously bullying her, although in the end, it was Jun Zhenzhen who bullied her.
Fang Yuxiu looked at her in confusion.
The reason why Zuo Yanzhi had played such a lowdown trick on Jun Zhenzhen was because of her understanding of the original Jun Zhenzhen. But what she didn't know was that the present Jun Zhenzhen was not the Jun Zhenzhen she knew.
Right now, Jun Zhenzhen could not be taken by such a clumsy trick. She instead dug a pit for Zuo Yanzhi.
Obviously, this was what she meant by bullying her. If Miss Zuo knew that Jun Zhenzhen was a different person, she probably wouldn't have looked for trouble so rudely earlier.
Of course, Miss Jun couldn't say this to Fang Yuxiu, so she just smiled.
"She didn't know that I really do not have any longing for Tenth Noble Son Ning," she said. "So anything she did naturally could not provoke me. For something I don't even care about, how could I be fooled?"
Don't care about?
Fang Yuxiu looked at her.
"You are talking about Tenth Noble Son Ning or your face?" she asked.
"Elder Cousin, how could it be my face? If I bought that thing, I would really lose face!" said Miss Jun with a laugh. "As for Tenth Noble Son Ning…"
She looked at Fang Yuxiu, her lips curled into a smile.
"Who is he?" she said.
Fang Yuxiu also grinned.
"That is right," she said with acclamation. Whether it was real or fake didn't matter to Miss Jun.
"Let's go to another jewelry store to look," said Fang Yuxiu.
Miss Jun looked out of the carriage and spotted a pharmacy on the road.
"Let's go see if the drugstore sells herbs from the mountain first," she said.
Miss Jun would do as she wanted. Fang Yuxiu did not have any complaints. With a smile, she told the coachman to stop the carriage.
In a courtyard in Yangcheng.
Although it was winter, in a pavilion at the center of rippling blue lake, there stood several girls wearing beautiful clothing. They surrounded a girl who was fishing.
The sobs of a girl came from a distance, breaking the serene scene.
"Seventeenth Miss, Seventeenth Miss," sobbed Zuo Yanzhi as she ran up there.
The girls all turned to look. Ning Yunyan did not move at all with the appellation, but seriously watched the lake.
"Zuo Yanzhi, what did you do?"
"Where did you go? Why so late?"
The other girls pounced on her with their queries.
"Don't speak of it. I received some information and came here quickly. I also wanted to get Seveteenth Sister a gift, but as a result..." said Zuo Yanzhi, grimacing. "As a result I met Jun Zhenzhen."
Jun Zhenzhen?
The girls were somewhat surprised. Ning Yunyan also moved slightly.
"Jun Zhenzhen. She dared go out at this time?" asked someone.
"What, dared to go out? She..." When Zuo Yanzhi said this, another round of tears made its way down her face. "Seventeenth Sister, she bullied me."
The girls were even more surprised.
"She dared to bully you."
"Didn't she want to make friends with you the most?"
Ning Yunyan threw her fishing rod into the lake.
"So what you're saying is that it's because of our family that you were bullied," she said.
"It's because of the no marriage contract that Jun Zhenzhen is taking her anger out on you?" asked a girl.
When Zuo Yanzhi thought of what had just happened, she couldn't stop herself from crying.
"I was bullied terribly," she sobbed.
These were true tears, not ones to gain sympathy.
Zuo Yanzhi was an arrogant person. With her background, she had always gone around Yangcheng bullying people. The times other people had bullied her could be counted on one hand. Even if people did find her unsightly, they had to consider the Zuo and Ning Families. They would not dare to truly mistreat her.
From the way she looked now, she must have really been bullied seriously.
The crowd rushed to ask what was going on.
Zuo Yanzhi seethed with resentment and related the event to the others. When the girls heard what had happened, they were dumbfounded.
Ning Yunyan spat.
"You still have the face to cry! To be bullied by an idiot like Jun Zhenzhen, you are worse than an idiot," she said. "You then came here to cry, did you hit your head when you ran into her?"
She dropped this scathing reply and made a shooing motion.
Zuo Yanzhi didn't make anymore demands. Ashamed and angry, she stood there awkwardly.
The other girls held back their laughs.
"Yanzhi, did you really spend 150 taels to buy a hairpin?" asked the girl.
When she asked this, the other girls couldn't help but laugh loudly.
Zuo Yanzhi felt even more humiliated and angry. She stamped her foot and spun away.
But even though Ning Yunyan insulted her, she quickly made her servant girl give Zuo Yanzhi 200 taels and take the hairpin.
"You care about her?" inquired a girl of Ning Yunyan.
"It's not that. She is related to our Ning Family and was bullied by Jun Zhenzhen," said Ning Yunyan, fiddling with the hairpin.
Related? Zuo Yanzhi tried to gain favor with Ning Yunyan by bullying Jun Zhenzhen.
However, that was a small issue. The real problem lay with Jun Zhenzhen who had actually dared to fight back and even trapped Zuo Yanzhi. This was really unlike her.
"This Jun Zhenzhen has less and less face everyday." The girls' faces were filled with scornful anger.
"What face. She would even marry a dead merchant man," scorned Ning Yunyan. "This is her tearing into our Ning Family. It has just started."
She violently stabbed the hairpin into the table.
"150 taels," she snarled. "Jun Zhenzhen, you aren't afraid of getting punctured."
At the present, Miss Jun had already returned back home.
She only went to the drugstore and found the medicine she needed. As expected, it was called a different name and was in limited stock. After confirming this, she did not go anywhere else, but rather put out a weakly appearance.
Fang Yuxiu believed it was because of her conflict with Zuo Yanzhi. She didn't think it would be strange to considerately suggest going home.
Miss Jun did not refuse.
"We can go out again on some other day. Today was tiring," she said.
Fang Yuxiu was all smiles as she ordered the coachman to turn the cart around.
The word of the conflict between Miss Jun and Zuo Yanzhi had already spread. When they returned, Old Lady Fang came looking.
"Why did you provoke Miss Zuo?" She frowned as she pelted her with the question. She didn't even ask about buying the medicine.
The one who had harmed Chengyu could not be found. They didn't know how many enemies were lurking around, watching their prey, and then she went and provoked the Ning Family.
She had thought that this child had grown up, but in the end, she had become rude by being provoked by someone else.
"You complained that we did not support you because we didn't make a fuss with the Ning Family. That is because the Ning Family aren't the type of people you can blackmail and cause trouble for. Do you believe it that they can make you disappear? Moreover, our Fang Family could do nothing about it," scolded Old Lady Fang. "Why did you provoke them this time?"
Miss Jun smiled and set down her tea.
"Grandmother, I said before that I would not go and provoke the Ning Family. But the Ning Family provoked me. I couldn't show weakness," she replied. "There are some people you can show weakness to, for example, the one who secretly killed grandfather, uncle, and soon Little Cousin. Showing weakness can paralyze the opponent. But there are some people that you do not need to show weakness to, like the Ning Family."
"So you couldn't swallow your words?" asked Old Lady Fang indifferently.
"It wasn't that I couldn't swallow my words. Rather, it was that it was pointless to show weakness," said Miss Jun gently. "What's the point of doing things that are useless? I am busy, I don't have the luxury to deal with a nobody."