By the time they returned to Yangshu Village, it was already evening. Originally, she wanted to come back early in the morning, but Ms. Liu of Wang Family insisted on having them stay at her home to have brunch before allowing them to leave.
After the second day of the new year, those who had gone to visit their parent’s homes had returned, and from the third day on, relatives from other families and some villagers began to visit one another’s homes. Today they would host guests at their house, and tomorrow it would be their turn to attend someone else’s feast; it was pretty much a continuous cycle of eating from one house to another.
The only difference was that some families would offer more numerous and abundant dishes, while others would have more frugal offerings. However, the new year was all about the lively atmosphere, and nobody really cared about the variety of dishes served.
This situation persisted until the eighth day of the lunar year when it gradually subsided.
However, for Yang Chuxia’s family, things did not slow down; instead, they became even busier.
Why, you ask? It turns out that Yang Dachuan and Ms. Wang had discussed and decided to arrange Yang Chuxia and Ye Zi’an’s engagement ahead of time.
Initially, Yang Dachuan planned to wait until spring to demolish and rebuild Ye Zi’an’s house, then choose a matchmaker to accompany Ye Zi’an to formally propose marriage, followed by the engagement ceremony.
However, as Yang Dachuan attended more and more banquets, he began to hear more and more gossip.
It was all about Ye Zi’an and Yang Chuxia, how they had not yet been engaged or married and how the two of them, as a single man and woman, were sticking together all day long with no regard for propriety.
Upon hearing this, Yang Dachuan was quite displeased and discussed the matter with Ms. Wang. After some deliberation, the couple decided to just arrange the engagement early to put an end to the gossip.
So, Yang Dachuan had been busy with these matters these past days.
Since Ye Zi’an was the only child in his family, Yang Dachuan thought he might not understand the process and took it upon himself to handle most of the arrangements.
Some of the steps in the traditional six etiquette rituals, such as the "bringing-betrothal-gifts," "presenting-betrothal-gifts," and "seeking-the-bride," were omitted, and they went straight to the engagement ceremony.
As for the matchmakers, they had long agreed to have Uncle Cai for the groom’s side, and Old Aunt-in-law Gen for the bride’s side.
They set the engagement date for the twelfth day of the first lunar month.
Although Yang Dachuan initially wanted to prepare all the necessary gifts and betrothal presents together, Ye Zi’an insisted on taking care of it himself. He reasoned that although he was young, he was not completely clueless about these things and it would be unseemly for the bride’s side to prepare the betrothal gifts. Besides, he had some savings – not much, but enough to ensure that Xiaxia would not be treated shabbily.
"Brother An, I heard from Uncle Cai that you’re going to town with him tomorrow to buy some things?"
While Ye Zi’an was still at home considering what additional items to purchase, Yang Chuxia approached him.
Uncle Cai had already discussed with him what they needed to prepare, but he still wanted to add a few more items.
Because this engagement had skipped the previous steps of presenting gifts and seeking the bride, he could not leave out the necessary gifts and offerings. As a result, he needed to make sure that the contents of the gift basket were even more bountiful and impressive than usual. Otherwise, the villagers would surely laugh at Xiaxia.
"How did you get here?" Ye Zi’an laughed when he saw herm, "Didn’t Third Uncle say that we should only meet again at our engagement banquet the day after tomorrow?"
"Hey, I don’t care about that." Yang Chuxia waved her hands, then took out a hundred taels of silver bills from her pocket and handed it to Ye Zi’an, "You haven’t ever touched the money I left at your place. I’m afraid you don’t have enough money for the betrothal gifts, so I’m here to give you some. Haha."