The neighboring Nanjiaping Village and Shidianzi Village were separated by about seven or eight li of distance.
To the east of Nanjiaping stood a lush, towering mountain called Chaiyuan Ridge.
The Xiao family courtyard sat at the easternmost edge of the village, right at the foot of Chaiyuan Ridge.
Qiao Qingyan clutched the bundle in her hands tightly, her heart pounding. She had been anxious the entire way there.
Shidianzi Village also had a hunter—a crude, ugly man with a broad nose, deep-set eyes, and a face full of menacing flesh. He was absolutely terrifying to look at.
What did Xiao Jinye look like? Was he as ugly as the hunter from her village?
Qiao Qingyan wasn’t a shallow person who judged by appearances alone, but she figured that since they would be living under the same roof from now on, it would be best if he wasn’t too frightening to look at.
When they arrived, Qiao Qingyan spotted the standalone courtyard from a distance.
Standing at the gate was a middle-aged woman, wringing her hands as she anxiously peered in their direction. A few other villagers were also gathered around to watch the commotion.
The bicycle slowed to a stop at the courtyard gate. “We’re here,” the relative said.
Qiao Qingyan got off the bicycle and got a clear look at the woman’s face before her.
She appeared to be in her fifties, with many wrinkles on her face and a few silver strands in her hair. She wore coarse cloth clothing patched with mends, and her expression was kind and gentle.
She must be Xiao Jinye’s mother.
The woman walked forward with a smile, limping slightly, and pulled two packs of cigarettes from her pocket to hand to the man on the bicycle:
“Zhisheng, you’ve worked hard. Take these wedding cigarettes—consider it sharing in our joy.”
“Thank you, Auntie,” the man called Zhisheng said with a cupped-fist salute, smiling. “If Jinye comes back and sees you’ve found him such a fine wife, he’ll be overjoyed.”
Zeng Yumei’s crow’s feet were practically bunching up together. “Come inside and have some tea.”
Zhisheng declined, saying he had other matters to attend to, and rode off on his bicycle.
Qiao Qingyan’s gaze quietly fell on Zeng Yumei’s lame leg. So it was true—Xiao Jinye’s mother really did have a bad leg.
Zeng Yumei also looked at Qiao Qingyan, her eyes scanning her up and down. A subtle light flickered in her gaze, and she revealed an expression of pleasant surprise and satisfaction.
She warmly took her hand. “You must be Qingyan?”
“Mhm.” Qiao Qingyan responded politely.
For a moment, she didn’t know what to call her. Mom?
She couldn’t bring herself to say it, so she finally whispered, “Auntie.”
She glanced around the courtyard from the corner of her eye. The Xiao family’s gate was pasted with large red double-happiness characters cut from red paper. The courtyard was quiet and desolate, with no sign of Xiao Jinye.
This man hadn’t come to pick her up on their wedding day, and now that she’d arrived at his home, only his mother had come to greet her. What was the meaning of this?
As for there being no wedding banquet, Qiao Qingyan could roughly guess why—the Xiao family had paid a considerable bride price, which must have drained their savings, leaving no extra money to host a feast.
Qiao Qingyan didn’t care much about such formalities. This was a substitute marriage anyway, and since she was entering it unwillingly, she didn’t put much stock in those things.
Zeng Yumei let out a cheerful “Aye,” patted her hand, and said happily to the villagers gathered around to watch: “This is my daughter-in-law.”
A few women murmured in low voices:
“This bride—look how fresh and lovely she is.”
“Look at that skin, fair and tender like tofu…”
“And look at that waist, those breasts, that backside—tsk tsk, that Xiao boy is truly lucky…”
Hearing those blunt remarks, Qiao Qingyan’s ears slowly turned red against her will, and she felt a bit embarrassed.
A child recognized Qiao Qingyan and immediately shouted loudly, “Teacher Qiao!”
Qiao Qingyan turned around. It was a student from their school. She curved her lips into a smile at the child.
“Oh, she’s actually a teacher?” someone said in surprise.
“Shunzi, is this a teacher from your school?”
The child jumped down from the pile of bricks. “Yes, she teaches my older brother’s class. She’s a fifth-grade teacher.”
The chatter among everyone grew lively again, all sighing in amazement that Xiao Jinye, an uncultured brute, had actually married such a beautiful young female teacher.
Zeng Yumei naturally heard the neighbors’ discussions and saw the envy in their eyes. The smile on her face had never faded.
She walked over to the middle-aged man driving the donkey cart, pulled out two packs of cigarettes, and handed them to him, saying, “Brother Li, thank you for your trouble.”
Li Dashun waved his hand. “This little favor is nothing.”
“Let me help you carry the things inside.”
Before Zeng Yumei could politely decline, he hoisted the cotton quilt from the donkey cart and headed toward the house.
“Come, Qingyan, come inside, come inside.” Zeng Yumei pulled Qiao Qingyan along into the house.
Zeng Yumei had Qiao Qingyan sit down, took out two coarse porcelain bowls, poured her a bowl of water, and thoughtfully added a spoonful of white sugar.
She stirred it with chopsticks and pushed it in front of Qiao Qingyan. “Drink up, child. It’s hot today. Some sugar water will make you feel better.”
She poured tea for Li Dashun in the other bowl and set it aside to cool.
After pouring the water, she took a bag of fruit candies and sunflower seeds and walked outside the courtyard gate to share them with the villagers who had come to watch the excitement.
“Everyone share in the joy, share in the joy…”
After bustling around for a while, she walked to the table and sat down, explaining to Qiao Qingyan:
“Jinye went up the mountain hunting yesterday. We’re not sure if he’ll make it back today. There’s an ancestor worship festival in the village soon, so he needs to hunt more game to hand over to the team.”
As Zeng Yumei spoke, her eyes were full of joy as she looked at her daughter-in-law.
Beautiful. This girl was truly too beautiful.
That fair face, and those features… she had an air of elegance no matter how you looked at her.
If she gave her a chubby grandson, how precious that would be.
Zeng Yumei felt she had truly found a treasure.
She never in her wildest dreams imagined she could marry a cultured female teacher for her son.
Her son was already so old and still unmarried. Zeng Yumei was nearly worried to death.
At first, quite a few people came to propose matches, but Xiao Jinye rejected them all with various excuses. Later on, matchmakers stopped coming around much.
Zeng Yumei had asked him whether there was someone in his heart, but her son said he wasn’t in a hurry, that he wanted to earn money properly, improve the family’s living conditions, and take good care of her and his younger sister.
How could Zeng Yumei really watch her son stay a bachelor his whole life? So she began searching for a wife for her son.
Originally, she had asked a matchmaker to propose marriage to that girl Chen Xiaomeng.
A few days ago, Chen Xiuying came in person, saying the marriage agreement was void. Zeng Yumei was furious at the time, but then the other party said they would betroth their eldest daughter Qiao Qingyan, who had attended high school, to her family.
Zeng Yumei had wondered at the time—why the sudden switch?
Later, after asking around, she learned the whole story.
On second thought, Qiao Qingyan was far better than Chen Xiaomeng. How could she possibly refuse?
Qiao Qingyan was a teacher at Guangming Elementary School. She was good-looking and educated.
When she had previously taken Duoduo to Shidianzi Village to watch a movie, she had seen Qiao Qingyan once, and at that time she had secretly sighed, thinking how wonderful it would be to have such a daughter-in-law.
Unfortunately, her Jinye didn’t have much education and had dropped out of school early, so she figured the other party probably wouldn’t think much of him.
A girl like that was a snow lotus growing on a snowy mountain—how could an ordinary person pluck her?
Sure enough, she later heard that Qiao Qingyan had gotten engaged to a young man from Shidianzi Village who was equally educated, handsome, and dashing. Zeng Yumei felt a small pang of regret.
After all, educated people matched with educated people, and rough men matched with village girls. Her silly son just didn’t have that kind of good fortune.
But who would have thought, who would have thought… at this moment Qiao Qingyan was sitting right in front of her, truly having become her daughter-in-law.
Zeng Yumei was thrilled, and the more she looked at her daughter-in-law, the more precious she found her.
Qiao Qingyan felt very uncomfortable being stared at by her mother-in-law. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, lowered her head, and gently twisted her fingers.
She quietly observed this unfamiliar environment.
Earthen walls and an earthen house, not much furniture—a wooden table carved with the marks of time, a few old chairs, and a broken cabinet.
They were all old wooden furniture, but there weren’t many miscellaneous items placed around, making it look neat and refreshing.
The floor was swept clean, with no dirt or trash.
In the corner there was even a pot of flowers whose name Qiao Qingyan didn’t know, which unexpectedly made this earthen house seem much more refined.
Clean, tidy, and attentive—this showed that although this family was poor, they were people who knew how to live well, not lazy slobs.
And this mother-in-law, from the first moment they met until now, her warm gaze and gentle words had made Qiao Qingyan’s anxious heart settle quite a bit.
Li Dashun unloaded everything from the donkey cart and carried it all into the house. Zeng Yumei hurriedly handed him tea, thanking him repeatedly.
He held the tea bowl and took several big gulps, then prepared to say goodbye and leave.
Zeng Yumei walked him to the door. Qingyan saw the two of them politely declining back and forth at the doorway a few times, and Zeng Yumei forcefully stuffed cigarettes into the other’s pocket.
Qiao Qingyan was focused on the scene outside and completely failed to notice that a little figure with a tiger-like head had suddenly popped out from under the table.
A white, chubby paw quietly reached toward the bowl of tempting sugar water on the table.