Font Size:
Lost in thought, Jiang Qian suddenly noticed her mother and aunt both looking at her. Her face immediately turned red. “We’ll talk about it when I get back from the city tomorrow.”
With that, she turned and went back to her room.
Once inside, Jiang Qian could hear her mother and aunt laughing.
She took out her small pink mirror to have a look. Her face was indeed a little flushed. She muttered to herself, “How embarrassing. Just seeing a handsome guy makes me blush.”
But soon, she composed herself and called her third sister-in-law to head over to the town’s primary school.
Since she was going to the city with Han Shiguo tomorrow, she needed to have her third sister-in-law cover her classes, so she should go and give a quick greeting first.
“If the marriage works out, should we have A Rou take over the teaching job?” As she saw the two women leaving, Jiang Xiaogu suddenly remembered and asked.
“Yes, let A Rou take over.”
Jiang Xiaogu nodded. “I think Jiang Qian is also satisfied with Han Shiguo. By the way, big sister, have you prepared a dowry for her? If they’re a good match, the Han family will probably come soon to propose. Han Shiguo only has ten days off, and we don’t even know when his next break will be. I don’t think they’ll wait until then—he’ll be eager to marry her.”
Zhou Guiyun didn’t want to wait either. Once someone had made up their mind, the marriage should be settled quickly—procrastination often led to delays and uncertainty. Jiang Yue was the perfect example of this.
As for her daughter’s dowry, Zhou Guiyun had already prepared everything well in advance. She brought Jiang Xiaogu into the room to show her.
In her wardrobe, she had carefully stored four brand-new quilts. In addition to the quilts, there was a new kettle, a wash basin, towels, and two sets of new clothes. There were also two pairs of new shoes!
For that time period, this was considered a quite generous dowry!
“Wow, big sister, you’ve got everything ready!” Jiang Xiaogu said, delighted. She had actually intended to remind her big sister to prepare the dowry quickly since there was still a nephew working in the city, and now it seemed they were just in time.
Zhou Guiyun and her sister-in-law had a strong bond, so she didn’t hesitate to tell her everything about Jiang Qian and Wang Hesong. Because of this matter, when the fourth brother, Jiang Shouchuan, came back recently, Zhou Guiyun had asked him to help arrange the dowry for her younger sister.
Jiang Shouchuan naturally cared about his younger sister’s matters and had even used quite a few connections to help.
Otherwise, even though he worked in the city, it would have been impossible to gather these four quilts, new clothes, new shoes, socks, and the wash basin so quickly.
Of course, Zhou Guiyun only mentioned the Wang family in passing. The main point was about Jiang Yue’s actions of stealing someone else’s partner.
Hearing this, Jiang Xiaogu’s face darkened, and she quickly realized what had happened. “I knew it! She’s been waiting for three years, and now that Shiguo is back, she could still break off the engagement over something like this? It turns out she’s gotten involved with someone else. How shameless! She’s even seduced her own cousin’s suitor?!”
Although Jiang Yue kept insisting that she didn’t know anything about it, Zhou Guiyun didn’t believe her. She was certain that Jiang Yue had done it intentionally and had bad intentions.
“I always thought I treated her well. I even helped her with her job, after all. When your second brother and sister-in-law came to us, they didn’t have enough money for anything. To be blunt, your eldest brother and I could have bought it outright, but we chose not to. We wanted to give it to the second branch because they didn’t have much and weren’t very capable. If they had this stable job, life would slowly get better for them, right? I really hoped for their good fortune. I can say this with a clear conscience.”
“Over the years, your eldest brother and I have helped the second branch countless times, but we never asked for any recognition or repayment.”
“In the end, Jiang Yue did something like this, and they didn’t even come forward to explain it immediately! They wanted to hide it!”
“Can something like this be hidden? Do they want us to be embarrassed, do they want Jiang Qian’s reputation to be ruined before they’re satisfied?”
“……”
Zhou Guiyun couldn’t hold back her frustration anymore. Every time she thought about the cold and heartless actions of the second branch, she couldn’t help but feel furious.
In her heart, the second branch was nothing but a bunch of ingrates.
From now on, the second branch could forget about getting any favors from the main branch. As for the money they owed the main branch, Zhou Guiyun would make sure her daughter-in-law collected it every month, every single penny. The sooner it was paid back, the better!
Once it was paid off, everyone could live their own lives and go their separate ways. The road was wide, and each would walk their own path.
She didn’t want to be stabbed in the back like this again!
Jiang Xiaogu could definitely understand her sister-in-law’s anger. Her second brother, second sister-in-law, and even her niece Jiang Yue—what a bunch of heartless people!
But she was also good at comforting others: “As the saying goes, when the bad things leave, the good things will come. That Wang guy was no good, but fate brought Han Shiguo here to be your son-in-law. I’d say that’s a gain!”
Zhou Guiyun had lived most of her life and had a keen eye for people. Today, she had a particularly good impression of Han Shiguo as a potential son-in-law.
She smiled and said, “You’re right. When the bad goes, the good comes. As long as the young ones are happy, your father and I have no objections.”
She briefly mentioned the issues with the second branch to her sister-in-law but didn’t want to dwell on it. After all, they weren’t worth her time!
The events happening in the main branch of the Jiang family were, of course, impossible to keep quiet in the village.
Now that it was the off-season for farming, even old, trivial matters from the previous year could be brought up for gossip, let alone this lively situation.
Sun Shi was too embarrassed to come over and face it, but Jiang Shouliangang’s wife wouldn’t miss such a big spectacle.
When she heard from a neighbor that the Han family had gone to the big uncle’s house for a matchmaking visit, she hurriedly finished hanging up her child’s clothes and rushed over.
Jiang Shouliangang’s wife even made a special trip into the main house, where she saw Han Shiguo’s tall, strong build and his handsome, manly face.
However, no one in the main house paid her much attention; they couldn’t even be bothered to introduce her properly.
Jiang Shouliangang’s wife knew that the main house was upset with the second branch, but she didn’t mind. After taking a look at Han Shiguo, she left the house. However, she was soon stopped by other curious villagers who asked her questions.
They inquired, “Isn’t Han Shiguo your sister-in-law Jiang Yue’s match? Why has he come to the main house to match with Jiang Qian, her cousin?”
Some of the people from Han Family Village, who had married into the area, were already aware that Jiang Yue and Han Shiguo had been engaged.
Now that they saw Han Shiguo enter the Jiang family’s main house, along with Matchmaker Zhang and Jiang Xiaogu, it was obvious to anyone with a little sense that he had come to match with Jiang Qian.
But what everyone was curious about was: why had the person changed?
Arranged marriages were not unusual, but what puzzled them was the switch—why was the match now with Jiang Qian instead of Jiang Yue?
Shouliangang’s wife was eager to share the gossip she knew, but she had been strictly forbidden from speaking out. If the news got out through her, not only would her mother-in-law punish her, but the main house would also make her regret it deeply.
So, though it was tough for her, she could only feign ignorance and suggest, “You should ask my mother-in-law or my aunt instead.”
Thus, those with gossip to share went to ask Sun Shi, Jiang Yue’s mother.