Chapter 285: The Peasant Girl’s Splendid Manor
Chapter 285: Securing the Shop, Trapping the Zhang Family (Part 7)
Xiao Zhu chuckled, "Those several deceived shopkeepers gave them a lot of thanks silver. When I went there, they said it was all thanks to Miss. They couldn't accept that silver and gave me some of it."
Mo Yan was taken aback. She hadn't expected this, but Xiao Zhu had indeed found some good people. There might be places to use them in the future. So she pushed fifty taels of silver over again. "Those thanks silver are rightfully theirs, and I can't ignore my share. If they refuse to accept it, please use this silver to host a banquet, as a token of my gratitude to them. In the future, if they need any help, I can also open my mouth."
With the conversation reaching this point, Xiao Zhu couldn't refuse anymore, but he only accepted thirty taels, refusing to take the remaining twenty taels. Thirty taels of silver could provide quite a lavish feast at Huixian Residence!
Seeing this, Mo Yan took back the twenty taels of silver and let Xiao Zhu have a meal at home before letting him go.
A few days later, two yamen bailiffs were sent by the yamen, saying that Mo Yan was needed to testify in the case of the Zhang family's fraud.
The shop was legally acquired, and Mo Yan knew this was just a formality. After comforting the worried Li Zhong and others, she followed the bailiffs to the yamen.
When Mo Yan arrived, Zhang Fugui, Yao Taohua, and the other two from the Zhang family were already kneeling on the cold ground, with several deceived victims standing by.
The magistrate didn't trouble Mo Yan much, only asking her to recount the process of buying the shop. Mo Yan honestly recounted everything, of course, omitting the transaction with Zhang Fugui.
However, it was unclear whether Zhang Fugui suspected Mo Yan of mischief, causing their attempted escape to be discovered, or if he wanted to drag someone down by revealing the transaction himself, hoping to implicate Mo Yan.
Mo Yan naturally refused to admit it according to his wishes. After all, Zhang Fugui had no real evidence, the testimonies of the other Zhang family members were not credible, and the Zhang family had committed several offenses before. It was quite normal for them to be anxious and try to frame innocent people.
Moreover, Mo Yan had purchased the shop at a normal market price. Without evidence, the magistrate could only assume that the Zhang family was unwilling and randomly implicated others.
Mo Yan returned home safely, but the Zhang family was not so fortunate. In court, Zhang Fugui took all the blame upon himself. In order to lighten his punishment, he returned the total of twenty-four thousand two hundred taels of silver swindled to the deceived victims.
Zhang Fugui was quite capable. In court, he kowtowed to the victims, holding his one-year-old grandson, hoping they would forgive him for his momentary confusion and spare his life.
The victims, seeing his pitiful old age and thinking of their own similarly aged grandchildren, now that the silver had been recovered, decided not to investigate further, considering it an act of accumulating virtue.
In the end, Zhang Fugui was sentenced to thirty strokes but was not banished and was only sentenced to ten years in prison. As for the other members of the Zhang family, because they were aware of the situation but didn't report it, they were beaten a few times and then released.
Mo Yan was quite satisfied with this outcome. Although she looked down on the Zhang family, she didn't harbor deep hatred towards them. Now that they had received the punishment they deserved, they shouldn't come out to harm people again in the future.
...
In order to open the shop as soon as possible, Mo Yan asked Li Zhong to continue overseeing the land-clearing work, while she herself ran back and forth between the shop and home. Besides arranging for the renovation of the shop, she also had to find a suitable warehouse. Otherwise, how would she manage to get all the grain out of the space?
The shop had a relatively large area, with the front hall and the back hall totaling more than eighty square meters. The front hall had been used by the Zhang family to sell grain, while the back hall served as a temporary storage for grain, with a small kitchen for cooking.
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