Now that the old man had finally settled the major event in his life, how could Land Officer Yang and his wife not be happy? Even their son, who had been running around outside all year round, had come back.
"Mom, I won’t go over for lunch today," Yang Chuxia told Ms. Wang early in the morning.
Ms. Wang was still supposed to go to Land Officer Yang’s side to help, having been busy there all afternoon yesterday.
"Go ahead, and help your Uncle Dayong welcome your little aunt later. Your great-aunt mentioned it to me last night, and I agreed. All the older girls in our village have already gotten married, and there’s no one to welcome the bride," she said.
This welcoming of the bride wasn’t about the groom going to the bride’s home to bring her back, but rather a local custom. When the bride arrived at her mother-in-law’s house, several unmarried girls would be found to welcome her from afar, and they would stay in the bridal chamber with her in the end.
"Oh, alright," Yang Chuxia thought for a moment and asked, "Mom, did my great-aunt tell you where my little aunt is from?"
A few days ago, Land Officer Yang’s wife suddenly came and said that Yang Dayong was going to get married, but she didn’t go into details. So until now, Chuxia wasn’t very clear about it.
"She did, she said she’s from the Liu Family Village up front," Ms. Wang said secretly. "Apparently, your Uncle Dayong went to the town a few days ago, and that girl from the Liu Family hitched a ride with him. Somehow they ended up liking each other. Your Uncle Dayong even kept it from his family. If it weren’t for your great-aunt going back and mentioning the draft, your Uncle Dayong wouldn’t have said anything."
"As soon as he mentioned it, your great-aunt rushed to propose marriage?" Ms. Wang laughed and continued, "That family, I guess they must have found out about your Uncle Dayong’s family early on. Otherwise, when your great-aunt went to propose marriage without giving any reason, they just asked about the wedding date and agreed. The only downside is that they made your great-aunt convert all the big and small gifts into silver for their family."
"Really?" Hearing this, Yang Chuxia couldn’t help but be somewhat surprised. It seemed that the future little aunt’s family was rather greedy for money.
Although when she and Brother An got engaged, they also saved a lot of steps and supplemented many gifts, they didn’t convert them into silver.
Although the timing was tight, it wasn’t that they couldn’t buy things. It would have been possible to make up all the gifts at once, but converting them all into silver just felt odd.
This thought persisted until she saw her little aunt and finally realized that she wasn’t wrong.
The Liu Family must have been greedy, right? It was said that Chuxia’s great-aunt had given a total of thirty taels of silver in various gifts. What did thirty taels of silver mean? It was enough to build a house and cover a family’s expenses for several years. In the past, how much did one’s family give when they came to propose marriage? Apart from meat and fish, the clothes and fabric, and possibly jewelry, were all meant to be given to the bride to take to her husband’s family.
Even the bride’s family might add more things, only then would it constitute the bride’s dowry. But this little aunt only had two bundles?
She carried one, and the person behind her, who she didn’t know whether she was her sister-in-law or sister, held another bundle.
What’s more, the bundle wrappers weren’t even new. Looking at the bride, she wasn’t wearing a wedding dress, but just an ordinary red floral cotton dress, with a red veil on her head. When Yang Dayong lifted the veil, there was only a red silk flower on her head, not even a silver hairpin.
Yang Chuxia’s eyes flickered as she saw that her little aunt’s eyes were somewhat red-rimmed, probably feeling upset.
When she went to the kitchen to take a look, she found that her great-aunt’s face didn’t look very good.
Yang Chuxia couldn’t help but feel sorry for her Uncle Dayong. Why were all the wives he talked about not very good? This time, not to mention what kind of person she was, just looking at the way her family acted was enough to choke.