Lively

He asked Fang Zeng, “Uncle, will you not want me after you have a fulang?”

Fang Zeng’s eyes sank, and he said loudly, “Of course not.”

Fang Zhiyuan asked again, “If fulang uncle dislikes me, will I dislike him too?”

Fang Zeng was furious, “He dares. If he dislikes you, I don’t want such a ger. Don’t let a heartless ger make you suffer.”

Fang Zhiyuan smiled and said to Fang Zeng, “Uncle, you see, even if you marry in the future, you will protect me. So what are you worried about? Uncle is the head of the family, so he naturally has to manage the money in the family. It’s not right for me to take this money, and it will make me uncomfortable. If uncle really wants to give me money, it means he doesn’t treat me as a family member.”

Fang Zeng couldn’t argue with Fang Zhiyuan, and the money stayed in his hands in the end. But Fang Zeng still decided secretly to save the money for Fang Zhiyuan alone and give it to him when Fang Zhiyuan is older.

 The two did not talk about the management of money, but talked about Fang Zhiyuan’s tenth birthday. Country people don’t have many birthday celebrations. Only young people and the elderly over fifty pay attention to birthdays. But Fang Zhiyuan is a little different. He is just ten years old this year. There is no filial piety, so it should be possible to just ignore this matter.

Fang Zeng was a little uncomfortable with the rumors in the past few days, and thought about taking advantage of his nephew’s tenth birthday to get rid of the bad luck. This is Fang Zhiyuan’s first year in the Fang family, so it is naturally of great significance. In particular, holding a birthday for Fang Zhiyuan is also a good opportunity to announce to the villagers that Fang Zhiyuan will be a formal Lin Villager in the future. It can also suppress those who have ulterior motives, so as to avoid embarrassing the whole village.

If it were before, Fang Zeng would still have a hard time holding a birthday. But the family first sold the kimchi recipe and spicy cabbage, and earned a lot of income. With the money from the dried persimmons, it was easy to hold a birthday now.

The Fang family didn’t have many relatives, so Fang Zeng planned to get things done before the New Year. The main thing was to exchange some glutinous rice to make glutinous rice cakes and send them to every household in the village. This alone would cost a ton of money, so holding a birthday was a money-burning activity.

Fang Zeng was determined to let everyone see that he was thriving after taking his nephew back. To prevent those who wanted to laugh at him from seeing it, he also showed his cards and told the people in the village that even if the Fang family was a single household, it was not something that others could talk about casually.

Fang Zhiyuan also understood his uncle’s thoughts and didn’t say anything. Money is earned to be spent. If he spent some money, he would be happy to make others dare not look down on them in the future. The Fang family didn’t have many relatives. With Lin Xin’s family and some of Fang Zeng’s friends, they could only open three tables together, which didn’t cost much money.

 Fang Zhiyuan was born before the New Year, and his birthday was still more than half a month away. Fang Zeng planned to invite people on his birthday. He had been holding his breath since Fang Zhiyuan was rejected by Zhao’s private school, and he must make sure that his nephew’s life was no worse than others. If others looked down on him, he would do his best to make his nephew look good and make his nephew stand up straight.

Fang Zeng thought that he needed meat, and it was the New Year, so he planned to buy a pig directly. He would eat some at home, and send some to Shopkeeper Chen and Third Chen as New Year gifts. Lin Xin’s family also helped him a lot and sent some meat to honor his uncle.

Buying a pig was much more cost-effective than buying meat at a butcher shop. A black pig weighing two or three hundred kilograms cost almost one tael of money. If he only bought meat, even the pork belly would only cost about one hundred kilograms, not counting the stuff in the pig’s stomach. In the past, the Fang family had Aunt Lin, and they would raise two or three black pigs every year. They would sell them during the Spring Festival and earn two or three strings of silver, which was enough to help the family with expenses.

But Fang Zeng was the only man at home, so he could not even see chickens or ducks, let alone large livestock like pigs. It was only after Fang Zhiyuan came that Fang Zeng traded game for four old hens and a big rooster to lay eggs for Fang Zhiyuan. The old hens at home were also brooding, and chicks were about to be born.

Fang Zhiyuan had nothing to do at home, so he asked his uncle to bring back twenty ducklings and twenty geese to raise. This year, his family spent more than one string of silver just on buying pigs and pork, which made him feel a little distressed. He made up his mind to start raising pigs next year to make up for the money he spent on pork.

It was still half a month before Fang Zhiyuan’s birthday, and Fang Zeng was not idle either. The kimchi at home had been sold, so Fang Zeng planned to make some more before the Spring Festival. The Fang family had run out of cabbage, so Fang Zeng thought about buying some from a familiar family. A few thousand would be enough.

He thought of Lin Zheng first. After all, he grew up with Lin Zheng and he had a better relationship with Lin Xin. After he separated from the family, although his life was OK, he was not very rich. Lin Zheng had an elder brother, a ger, who married in Zhao Village. His brother was called Lin Shuang. He was not a bad person, but he liked to use his mother’s family’s things to subsidize his own family. The old couple Lin Cheng felt that their ger married into a poor family, so they naturally gave him more subsidies, and sometimes even asked his sons to subsidize him.

So, when Fang Zeng thought of using cabbage, he thought of Lin Zheng. Lin Zheng’s family was a capable ger, and they planted a lot of cabbage and radish in the field. He might not have so many as a thousand, but a few hundred would be fine. Besides, there was Lin Xin’s family, and the two families could make up for it.

Fang Zeng went to Lin Zheng’s house and told him about it. Lin Zheng naturally felt good about it, and Lin Zheng’s family kept saying good things about Fang Zeng. The next day, they washed and sent over 500 cabbages. Fang Zhiyuan was envious of their quick movements.

Fang Zeng’s price was two cabbages for one big coin, which was half a favor and half the price. One big coin was usually able to buy a basket of cabbages. Fang Zeng gave this price because he wanted to take care of his brother, and Lin Zheng also appreciated it. He worked with his fulang for a day, and sent over clean cabbages the next day, all washed. He thought that the Fang family would not be able to handle so many cabbages without his brother.

Fang Zeng looked at them without saying much, gave them 250 big coins, and packed 20 dried persimmons for them to take back. Lin Zheng’s family felt a little embarrassed when they saw the things, and Lin Zheng refused for a long time but failed to refuse. Thinking about his three-year-old boy, he finally accepted it.

Fang Zeng and Fang Zhiyuan spent a day cooking the spicy cabbage. That night, Lin Zheng brought his boy and Da Zhuang to visit Fang’s house. Lin Zheng’s boy is three years old this year. His name is Xiao Zhuang to echo Da Zhuang, but he has grown up to be fair and clean, and looks like a lovable fat baby.

Da Zhuang is like a big brother, and it is very convenient for him to take care of Xiao Zhuang. Lin Zheng is in a very good mood today. He looked at the boys playing in the room and smiled. In a voice that Fang Zhiyuan could still hear clearly, Fang Zeng said, “Brother Fang, isn’t my fulang from Shen Village? His mother passed by the market yesterday and stayed at my house for a night. My family heard a piece of news from his mother.”

Looking at Lin Zheng who was keeping him on suspense, Fang Zeng did not satisfy him. He slapped him on the back of his head and scolded him with a smile, “You kid, you are still keeping your brother Fang in suspense. It seems that your brother Fang didn’t give you a weapon, but you dare to act pretentiously in front of your brother Fang. You rascal, say what you want to say, and fart quickly. Don’t hesitate like a ger.”

Lin Zheng was slapped and became honest. He no longer dared to keep people in suspense. He told everything he knew.

It turned out that Li Village lost some people because of the news of Fang Sheng. The most important thing is that those gers from other villages are unwilling to marry into Li Village and are being tortured. And because of Feng Mei, an unmarried pregnant ger in Li Village, the reputation of unmarried gers in Li Village has been damaged.

There are many unmarried men and gers in Li Village. Except for those who have been arranged at the beginning, the others who are being discussed are all despised. Either the betrothal gifts are raised, or they are directly rejected. Few can be said to be successful. Those families who have twists and turns in their marriages are very dissatisfied with Li Fu’s family. They think that Li Fu’s family affairs have innocently implicated their family.

Therefore, even if Li Fu has an uncle who is the head of the village, there are still many complaints in the village. Some fierce ones directly sit at the door of Li Fu’s yard and scold them, asking them to get out of Li Village and not to implicate their reputation. People are like this, they don’t care about things that don’t concern them, and even step on them from time to time. But once it comes to their own interests, their attitudes change immediately, and they wish that someone like Bao Qingtian would immediately seek justice for them.

Li Fu was patient at first, but seeing Feng Mei getting weaker and weaker from being quarreled, he took a shovel and went out. He threatened that if anyone dared to come to his door, he would not be polite. The tyrants were afraid of those who didn’t care about their lives, and those shrewd guys were silent.

That’s how it was. They were holding their breath in their hearts, and they didn’t dare to find Li Fu, so they spread bad rumors about Fang Zhiyuan to vent their anger. They didn’t expect that rumors were either black or white. They made Fang Zhiyuan look bad, and it was even harder for their own gers and men to get married.

Among them, the most affected was Feng Mei’s family. Feng Mei’s eldest brother’s ger had originally been engaged to a family in Shen Village, but because of the scandal caused by Feng Mei, the aunt, the family in Shen Village didn’t like the ger from the Feng family. It was just a child marriage, so they couldn’t break off the marriage without any reason.

Taking advantage of the uproar between Feng Mei and Li Fu, his family took the opportunity to break off the marriage on the grounds that the Feng family had a bad family tradition. Feng Mei’s eldest brother’s fulang cried and cried at home, saying that Feng Mei had harmed their family. His family was greedy for money, so there was no need to use such a ready-made reason. They directly called their nephews and nieces and went to Li Fu’s house to ask for compensation.

That was Feng Mei’s maternal family, and Li Fu couldn’t take it lightly or seriously. In the end, he had no choice but to agree to compensate the Feng family with the mule in his family as a dowry for Feng’s eldest brother’s ger. After the Feng family got the things, they stopped and left with their people. Feng Mei was left angry and had a miscarriage. The doctor said that he could only stay in bed and couldn’t stand the anger anymore.

Fang Zeng didn’t show any expression on his face, but he sneered in his heart. Li Fu always felt that the Fang family was inferior to the Li family because they had no land, and he never looked down on the Fang family as a marriage partner. But no matter how poor the Fang family was, they would send New Year gifts to his brother every year, not to mention the wild game and meat vegetables he sent every month. These may seem insignificant, but they are a considerable amount of money accumulated over time, especially when his brother made tofu, and every time he sent it to the town, Shopkeeper Chen would accept it under his name. Otherwise, how could Li Fu afford to buy a mule and turn over a house.

But every time he went, Li Fu was cold and didn’t even look at him. He always thought that the Fang family was poor, and he criticized his brother for this, as if he suffered a lot. What about now? What kind of family is the Feng family? Even if they have some family property, they are the kind of people who only take in and don’t give out. Now, Li Fu has got what he wanted and has “rich” in-laws, but he doesn’t know if he can hold on to their behavior.

 Fang Zhiyuan felt relieved after hearing this. Evildoers will be punished by evildoers. In Fang Zhiyuan’s opinion, Li Fu was treated too well by Fang Sheng. He was so proud of himself that he felt that he was extraordinary. He felt that Fang Sheng was not worthy of him. But in fact, except for his appearance that did not meet the aesthetic standards here, his mother Fang Sheng was ten times better than Li Fu in terms of ability and character. It was Li Fu who was not worthy of him.

Fang Zhiyuan knew that this was just the beginning. The longer the time went by, the more miserable Li Fu would be. In-laws who only knew how to calculate him, a husband who could not carry anything, and two children who needed to eat. With only a few acres of land and no subsidy from making tofu, life would only get poorer and poorer. It is easy to go from frugality to luxury, but it is difficult to go from luxury to frugality. Li Fu will slowly taste the gap in life.