Hearing that Wu Dalong knew the way to Ni Yang’s house, Wu Erlong was overjoyed. He quickly grabbed Wu Dalong’s hand as if he had grasped the last straw for salvation, "Let’s go, then we must find Sister Yangyang quickly!"
Hand in hand, the brothers ran swiftly towards the Zheng Family’s direction.
The atmosphere in the Wu Family’s courtyard was very oppressive, and ironically, the door was covered with many "happiness" characters.
Wu Jinshu and Yan Erju sat in the living room, wiping away their tears.
They were just simple peasants; faced with this kind of situation, they had no idea what to do.
Grandma Wu came in from outside, "Stop crying. It’s a bad omen to wipe tears on a joyous day. Yanyun isn’t just your daughter; she’s my granddaughter too. Would I, as her grandmother, harm her?"
"Harm her?" Yan Erju said angrily. "Isn’t selling her off to be someone else’s stepmother harming her? Is there any grandmother as cruel as you in the world?"
Wu Jinshu let out a deep sigh.
His mother indeed hadn’t had an easy life. She became a widow at 28, and the year his father died, he was 10, and Wu Jinjin was only 6. During the year of the great famine, he didn’t know how his mother had survived.
By rights, he should have been able to understand his mother, but he just couldn’t.
She was someone who had gone through so many hardships. Now that life had barely become a bit easier, why couldn’t she just live peacefully?
"Mother, do you really have to turn our home upside down and destroy our family before you can be happy?" Wu Jinshu looked at Grandma Wu with eyes filled with disappointment.
"Old mother" was dialect from their hometown, and since coming to Beijing, he seldom referred to Grandma Wu that way.
Grandma Wu gave Wu Jinshu a withering look, "Today is a big happy day for Yanyun. I don’t want to argue with you! And I don’t want to quarrel! Lest we become the laughing stock of others! You may hate me today, but perhaps after moving into the small western-style house tomorrow, you will be grateful to me! Don’t think I don’t know, in fact, you are just putting on an act. Deep down, you’re hoping to marry Yanyun off to Wu Qiang! Who wouldn’t want to live in such a fine house? Don’t pretend to be virtuous after getting the benefits!"
After all, Yanyun wasn’t the biological child of Yan Erju and Wu Jinshu. Grandma Wu didn’t believe they would be so heartbroken over a wild girl whose background was unknown.
In an era where even a full meal was difficult to come by, a girl being able to exchange for so many good things would have many parents eager to send their daughters there without getting the chance!
Hearing this, Yan Erju grabbed a teacup used for drinking water and threw it, "Shut up! Shut up!"
"Crash!" The teacup shattered as it hit the ground.
"You dare to think like that, yet you’re afraid of others saying it?" Grandma Wu said.
"Erju!" Wu Jinshu embraced Yan Erju tightly, "Calm down, let’s think of a solution together! I definitely won’t let Yanyun marry over! Definitely not!"
The couple wept together with their heads in their arms.
Grandma Wu glanced at the couple and then walked towards Yanyun’s room.
Yanyun was really sitting by the bed, crying with her head down. Hearing footsteps, she quickly wiped her tears and looked towards the door.
Grandma Wu hummed in acknowledgment and walked in, expressing her discontent, "You agreed to marry Wu Qiang willingly, and now you’re wiping tears and putting on an act. Who are you performing for? Are you trying to sow discord? Do you want your parents to hate this old woman to death?"
"It’s not! I didn’t!" Yanyun hurriedly explained.
She didn’t blame anyone.
She just wanted to cry, really wanted to cry, and couldn’t hold back her tears at all.
She still had a university dream, after all.
Grandma Wu walked over to Yanyun and handed her two red hair ropes, "When I got married, I didn’t even have red hair ropes. These are specially bought for you by your aunt."
"Thank you, Auntie." Yanyun reached out to take the red hair ropes.
Grandma Wu looked around the room and then asked, "Where are your new clothes?"
"What?" Yanyun was taken aback and didn’t catch on.
"Stop playing dumb," Grandma Wu looked at Yanyun, raising her voice, "The new clothes that rich lady gave you, I heard there were two big bags of them! Didn’t you say you were going to give them to Lianhua?"
It was because Grandma Wu said Yanyun had two big bags of new clothes that Wu Jinjin had been generous for once, bringing two old hair ropes for Yanyun.
Yanyun, where was she in the mood to think about those two bags of new clothes now. Only when Grandma Wu mentioned it did she remember those two bags of clothes.
The clothes in the bags were all given by Ni Cuihua; there were two pieces she had tried on, which looked very pretty. Wearing them, she felt like a city person.