"Elder Mr. Zhou, everyone has a sense of dignity, and if the Zhou family wishes to forsake theirs, well, that’s your business. But go ahead and lose face on your own. The people of Ya Village still care about ours and we have no time to quibble with you!"
"Bah, who are you calling Jin?"
Uncle Jin, seeing Eldest Son Zhou addressing him, spit disdainfully again.
"Who are you to call me so familiarly? Do I know you? I don’t make a habit of befriending beasts. Spare me the disgust."
Eldest Son Zhou’s face turned beet red with anger from Uncle Jin’s scathing words.
Elder Mr. Zhou, furrowing his brows, looked around at all the people in the courtyard. He had thought they had come because of his family, to congratulate their engagement with the Lin Family, but it turned out they hadn’t.
"Lin Laogeng, what is the meaning of this? Did you orchestrate their coming here to curse me?" he asked Lin Laogeng, displeased.
This Lin Laogeng, using the fact that he needed something from him as leverage to disrespect him? He was getting cheekier by the day.
"Isn’t it your family that sought out trouble with my Lin Family first?" Lin Laogeng countered.
"How could I be looking for trouble for your family? Is my Zhou Liang not worthy of your Lin Caisang?" Elder Mr. Zhou asked back with a face dark as iron.
"Previously, it was your Lin Caisang who kept pestering Liang. Everyone knows that. Now... I understand, you’re trying to raise your own value, aren’t you? Lin Laogeng, I must say, with Lin Caisang looking the way she does, she’d be lucky to find any man willing to marry her, and yet you’re still fussing and turning up your nose at offers.
No wonder even Ya Molian was scared away. Lin Laogeng, one should really know their place."
Hearing his words, everyone’s face darkened, and nearby, Lin Caisang’s impression of Elder Mr. Zhou plummeted drastically.
"Elder Mr. Zhou, may I ask, what’s wrong with the way I am? Why can’t I be choosy?" She stepped forward, fixing Elder Mr. Zhou with a steady gaze and asked.
"You? And who might you be?"
Elder Mr. Zhou looked at Lin Caisang and inquired.
He had seen her before but didn’t recognize which family’s daughter she was. He didn’t remember Lin Laogeng having such an outstanding granddaughter, though he did remember Lin Changhong, who was fair with red lips and white teeth, strongly resembling the girl before him.
If he hadn’t already met Lin Changhong just now, he might have thought Lin Laogeng had gone mad and dressed his grandson in women’s clothes.
"You’re Lin Caisang?"
Lin Caisang and Lin Changhong were twins, and the only person who could resemble Lin Changhong so closely was Lin Caisang. He couldn’t think of anyone else.
"Elder Mr. Zhou does have keen eyesight," Lin Caisang said to him with a cold smile.
"I wonder, in the eyes of Elder Mr. Zhou, how did someone like me manage to ’scare away’ my Brother Molian, huh?"
At her words, Elder Mr. Zhou’s face turned dark.
He could never have imagined that Lin Caisang, who used to be so chubby she could be compared to a pig and whom no man would spare a second glance, was now this bright young lady catching even an old man’s eye.
"Elder Mr. Zhou, there’s something you said that I find to be quite true; one should know one’s place. With your Zhou Liang’s character, he should count himself lucky to marry any woman at all. What more do you want?"
Lin Caisang challenged him.
Elder Mr. Zhou opened his mouth but for a moment, he found himself at a loss for words.