Chapter 168: Chapter 70: Fourth Brother, Lend Me 2000

"Serves you right." Mrs. Xie shot him a cold glare, devoid of any sympathy.

"Mom, lend me two thousand," Jie Jingjue said shamelessly.

"No." It wasn’t that Mrs. Xie didn’t have the money; she just wouldn’t lend it. He had to pay his own gambling debts.

Mrs. Xie turned away coldly and walked back into the house.

"Dad." Jie Jingjue then looked to Mr. Xie.

"Hmph!" Mr. Xie snorted coldly, put on his jacket, and went after Mrs. Xie.

Jie Jingjue looked at Jie Jinghun, but before he could even speak, Jie Jinghun mercilessly turned and went back inside.

"Fourth Brother, lend me two thousand." Jie Jingjue’s gaze then fell upon Jie Jingchen, his narrow phoenix eyes full of hope.

Jie Jingchen glanced at him coldly, a teasing glint in his eyes. "I still owe her money."

"You two are husband and wife." Jie Jingjue didn’t believe him. ’Fourth Brother is clearly refusing to lend me the money.’

"Even husband and wife should keep clear accounts." Lending money to Jing Wu was no different than just giving it to him. Jing Wu had borrowed from him plenty of times but had never paid him back once. If Jing Wu had asked him in private, Jie Jingchen might have considered it, but in front of Qin Mei, he absolutely wouldn’t. He still owed her for Jing Qi’s medical fees, and today he’d added another hundred to his debt.

"What do you mean, ’even husband and wife should keep clear accounts’? I’ve only ever heard ’even blood brothers should keep clear accounts’," Jie Jingjue retorted.

"If ’even blood brothers should keep clear accounts,’ then when are you going to pay me back?" Jie Jingchen asked.

Jie Jingjue was speechless.

Qin Mei quietly withdrew her hand. To let it slide would be letting him off far too easily, and Qin Mei was certainly not about to do that. But since he couldn’t produce the money, she fell into thought.

Seeing this, Jie Jingjue thought that if he just pleaded poverty and played the victim, his Fourth Sister-in-law would let it go. ’After all, this is two thousand I won in a bet, not two thousand I’m borrowing from her.’ "Fourth Sister-in-law, I really don’t have any money. How about we..."

"Write an IOU," Qin Mei cut him off. After thinking it over, she realized an IOU was the only option. While not entirely secure, it would at least give her some leverage over him.

The corner of Jie Jingjue’s mouth twitched. "I guess that works."

"Theoretically, I’m reluctant to accept an IOU, but you have no money! And tragically, you can’t borrow any, either. I can’t exactly haul you off to the police station over two thousand yuan, can I!" Qin Mei said, looking helpless.

Jie Jingjue was speechless. He obediently went back inside to get a pen and paper. Qin Mei dictated while he wrote. Finally, he signed it and added his fingerprint. As he watched Qin Mei put the IOU away, Jie Jingjue felt a little dazed. He couldn’t shake the feeling that she was setting a trap for him, but he had no proof.

Qin Mei returned to her room, hugging a pile of money. Jie Jingshan, who was holding a pile of books, had Jie Jingjue walk her back to her room.

In the room, Xu Chunyan was seething, her heart bleeding. "Jing Er, this is infuriating! Two thousand! I can’t take this lying down! Two thousand yuan! It would take me years to save that much! She scammed me out of two thousand and won another two thousand from Jing Wu. That’s four thousand! Not forty, not four hundred, *four thousand*! Jing Er, I can’t swallow this humiliation. I can’t wait anymore. I’m going to teach her a lesson."

"That’s enough. Just lay low for a while," Jie Jingwei said, raising a hand to rub his temples, his head throbbing with pain.

A sinister glint appeared in Xu Chunyan’s eyes. "I can’t lay low. Qin Mei has gone too far. I’m going to completely destroy her reputation."

"Her miscarriage was fake. The goal was to keep your father locked up for a few more days. Dad knows it was a fake miscarriage, too." Jie Jingwei knew exactly what Xu Chunyan was planning, so he decided to lay it all out.

"What did you say?" Xu Chunyan was utterly shocked. She had been planning to make a huge deal out of Qin Mei’s miscarriage, and now he was telling her it was fake. "I don’t believe it."

"Does it matter whether you believe it? As long as Dad believes it, that’s enough." Jie Jingwei leaned against the headboard and closed his eyes to rest.

Xu Chunyan’s hands clenched into tight fists, her eyes cold and menacing. She said viciously, "I don’t care if her miscarriage was real or fake. It has to be real."

"What are you planning to do?" Jie Jingwei opened his eyes and looked at his wife.

The corner of Xu Chunyan’s mouth twisted into a sneer, and a vicious smirk crept into her eyes. "The neighbors all know she had a miscarriage. A month ago, Jing Si was in Shijiu City. So where was Qin Mei? In the old days, a woman who had an affair and got secretly pregnant would be stuffed in a pig cage and drowned in the river."

Jie Jingwei was lost in thought for a long while before looking at Xu Chunyan and saying in a low voice, "Chunyan, you’d better think this through before you act. Either you bide your time and wait, or you make sure it’s a fatal blow."

"Don’t worry. I’m not stupid; I know what I’m doing." Xu Chunyan breathed a sigh of relief. She had thought Jing Er would try to stop her.

"Neither Jing Si nor Qin Mei are people to be trifled with. You’d better think this through very carefully." Jie Jingwei paused, then added, "Your Xu Family’s current situation is the perfect example of that."

At the mention of the Xu Family, Xu Chunyan’s face turned deathly pale, and her eyes filled with overwhelming resentment.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by lotustale.com