Landlord Chen was a middle-aged man in his forties with a thin face and a vertical “川” character wrinkle between his eyebrows. When he saw Fu Wenyu enter, he was both surprised and harbored a faint sense of anticipation, his expression somewhat peculiar.

However, Fu Wenyu had actually come to pick a fight. While waiting for the Chen family servant to serve tea, he got straight to the point: “Landlord Chen, the reason for my visit today is to discuss your son’s marriage.”

Landlord Chen was momentarily stunned, then delighted.

But in the next instant, Fu Wenyu bluntly stated, “My mother had already refused this matter before, but it seems you haven’t given up. So, I had to come and make it clear to you. My sister, Fu Rong, is only ten years old this year, and we have no intention of marrying her off at this time. Therefore, we appreciate your kind intentions, but we must decline.”

Landlord Chen: “…”

He probably hadn’t expected Fu Wenyu’s rejection to be so straightforward and without any beating around the bush. He was momentarily speechless, and the room fell into silence.

After a while, he suddenly spoke up, “Xiao wenyu, why don’t you hear me out on my conditions?”

Without waiting for Fu Wenyu to respond, he continued, “I’ve heard that you take after your father and are a promising scholar. But as we both know, the path of scholarly examinations is not something that can be achieved overnight.”

“For example, your father passed the preliminary examination in his youth, but it wasn’t until this year that he embarked on the journey to take the provincial examination. The hardships involved are not something outsiders can easily understand. However, if our two families were to become related by marriage, I promise you that, in addition to providing your family with a generous betrothal gift, I would also assist you in your scholarly pursuits in the future.”

He paused, then added, “A woman must marry eventually. Although my son has his shortcomings, his heart is as pure as a child’s. If your sister were to marry into our family, my wife and I would treat her as our own daughter, no different from our son!”

Fu Wenyu looked Landlord Chen up and down.

He thought to himself, this man really has thick skin.

Since the other party was so shameless, Fu Wenyu didn’t hold back either. He immediately responded with a smile, “Well, Landlord Chen, let me take a guess. Your idea is probably to marry a virtuous lady for your son and have a grandson. On one hand, this would continue the family line, and on the other hand, after you and your wife pass away, there would be someone to take care of your son.”

“Am I right?”

“But have you ever considered why your son’s heart is ‘as pure as a child’s’?”

Without waiting for the other party to get angry, Fu Wenyu continued, “I’ve heard a theory that if a couple are blood relatives within three generations, then after they marry, they either won’t have children, or they may give birth to deformed or mentally disabled children, with few exceptions. And even if they manage to have healthy descendants at the time, there’s no guarantee for future generations.”

Landlord Chen was stunned, then asked, “Are, are you serious?” He and his wife were indeed childhood sweethearts and cousins, deeply in love.

It seemed his guess was correct.

Fu Wenyu secretly sighed. According to modern medical views, children born with congenital mental disabilities are partly influenced by environmental factors, but the root cause lies in genetic inheritance. And consanguineous marriages exacerbate this factor. In places where consanguineous marriages are common across generations, the descendants are often not intelligent.

So he nodded without hesitation, “If Landlord Chen doesn’t believe me, you can consult a few more doctors.”

“My sister and your son are, of course, not related by blood. In fact, there are no relatives of your family in our Fu village. But have you ever thought about whether your grandchildren might turn out like your son after he marries?”

“What will you do then?”

“When you’re in your fifties, sixties, seventies, or eighties, will you have to find another woman to marry your ‘childlike’ grandson or great-grandson? And then have a great-great-grandson, and so on, until a descendant appears to take care of his equally ‘childlike’ father, grandfather, and great-grandfather?”

Fu Wenyu knew that speaking this way wasn’t very nice, but when dealing with shameless people, one couldn’t use noble and righteous methods. Otherwise, one might be intimidated by their shamelessness.

This…

Son, grandson, great-grandson, great-great-grandson…

Landlord Chen’s face turned pale, and he involuntarily shivered.

At this moment, his gaze towards Fu Wenyu carried a hint of fear. Clearly, although it was just a few words, he was deeply shocked by the ‘future’ Fu Wenyu had described!

No one understood the pain of having a mentally disabled child at home better than he did. Precisely because he was worried about having another unhealthy child, he and his wife decided not to have any more children. Even though his wife urged him to take a concubine to continue the family line, he refused. And to avoid the complicated thoughts of their relatives, they even moved here.

Now, the only hope for the couple was to find someone to take care of their son, so that after they passed away, Jun’er wouldn’t be left alone and vulnerable to bullying.

But if Jun’er’s son was also mentally disabled…

Then what was the point of everything he had done?

…

Seeing that Landlord Chen was sufficiently frightened, Fu Wenyu felt slightly relieved.

Wasn’t the other party trying to marry a smart daughter-in-law, hoping that someone would take care of his son while also wishing for the third generation’s genes to return to normal?

Well, he would tell him, you’re overthinking it!

Of course, frightening him was one thing, but Fu Wenyu also planned to demonstrate his own strength today, lest the other party, after being frightened, become desperate and resort to force if soft methods didn’t work.

So he changed the subject and brought up the Liuzhou Tabloid.

“Landlord Chen, have you been following the recent ‘Liuzhou Tabloid’?”

“That was my idea, and the story ‘The True and False Young Master’ published in it was also written by me. I sold it to the Kaiyuan Bookstore owned by the Tang family. So, I can earn the money needed to support my family and for future scholarly pursuits myself. There’s no need for others to worry.”

“Therefore, please do not bring up the marriage proposal again in the future.”

Fu Wenyu said this last sentence very seriously.

He was prepared to use other means if he couldn’t reach an agreement with Landlord Chen today, such as tarnishing the other party’s reputation in the newspaper or even not building their house and moving away immediately.

Fortunately, Landlord Chen wasn’t stupid, nor was he a heartless person.

After listening to Fu Wenyu’s words, he looked at him with a strange gaze for a while, then smiled bitterly and said, “Forget it. Marriage is about forming a good relationship between two families. Since you are unwilling, I won’t insist.”

“The reason I took a liking to your sister was that you two played with Jun’er when you were young. You were among the few who could get along with him. I felt assured entrusting Jun’er to you.”

With that, he waved his hand, “Please leave. I won’t see you out.”

Not seeing him out was fine.

Fu Wenyu breathed a sigh of relief and then left under the guidance of the Chen family’s steward.

But Landlord Chen said that Chen Jun had played with him when they were young? However, the original host’s memory didn’t include this. Well, it was normal, as he didn’t remember everyday things, but he remembered the Four Books and Five Classics clearly.

As they reached the door, the old steward, who had been hesitating to speak several times along the way, couldn’t help but say, “Mr. Fu, although our young master is different from normal people, he really has no ill intentions. In fact, he’s better than many people.”

Then the old man proceeded to give many examples of how the young master was a good child, such as being kind-hearted and not even willing to step on ants, never scolding or hitting the servants who played with him, and even sharing his food with the village children when the master allowed him to go out to play…

Fu Wenyu listened quietly. Some of these things he had heard of, while others he hadn’t. But regardless, from these accounts, he became even more convinced that the young master was mentally immature, in other words, childlike.

So he sincerely said, “From what you’ve said, your young master is now fourteen years old, but what he enjoys is playing around. It seems what he needs is not a wife, but a playmate.”

Why should a child get married? All he needs is someone to play with.

The Chen family steward was immediately stunned.

Before he could say anything more, Fu Wenyu cupped his hands and said, “Farewell.”

After leaving the Chen family, the more he thought about it, the more he felt that the young master shouldn’t get married.

The reason was simple: a person who always maintains a childlike personality won’t mature even after getting married. And more seriously, wouldn’t the girl who was married into the family come to resent the Chen family? By the time Landlord Chen and his wife grew old, it might be uncertain whether the Chen family would still be surnamed Chen.

But that was no longer his concern.

Since Landlord Chen had agreed not to send anyone to propose marriage again, Fu Wenyu put the Chen family out of his mind and turned his thoughts to how to deal with Aunt Liu from the second branch.

In the matter concerning Fu Rong, Landlord Chen was the main culprit, and his Aunt from the second branch was an accomplice.

The main culprit wasn’t hard to deal with, as the Fu family and the Chen family had no significant relationship. It was expected that Landlord Chen would give up after seeing Fu Wenyu’s resolute attitude and his ability to earn money.

But dealing with the accomplice, the second branch, was more difficult.

In a nutshell, it’s easy to hit a rat, but not so easy to avoid damaging the jade vase.

The rat, of course, refers to the greedy couple from the second branch, while the jade vase refers to Grandfather Fu Dashí, their family, and the two children of the second branch, namely Fu Chunhua and Fu Wenju, the original host’s cousins.

Fu Qingshi and Mrs. Liu had been married for more ten years and had two children, twins named Fu Chunhua and Fu Wenju, who were eleven years old this year.

Their family was a typical case of bad bamboo producing good shoots. The couple loved to take advantage of small benefits and were very concerned about money, to the extent that they would scheme against their own relatives. However, the two children had quite good personalities.

In the original host’s memory, his cousin Chunhua was hardworking and did a lot of the household chores. His cousin Wenju was the original host’s little follower and greatly admired him.

However, Fu Wenju wasn’t at home now, as he had been sent to Mrs. Liu to learn carpentry.

As a writer of melodramatic stories, Fu Wenyu had rich verbal experience in dealing with troublesome relatives. His methods included but were not limited to blocking the door and cursing for a whole day, ruining the other party’s job, calling relatives and friends to come and reason with them, and using leverage to fight leverage. But with the added condition of not damaging the jade vase, there were very few methods that could be used.

It wasn’t until he reached his doorstep that he finally thought of a solution.