Jiang the eldest lowered his head as if it had nothing to do with him.
But Jiang Qingshan’s eyes went wide, his face full of shock, completely stunned by his mother’s lion-sized mouth.
His annual salary was only five or six hundred thousand, and his mother wanted him to put up two hundred thousand as a gift. She clearly hadn’t considered his family at all.
Fortunately he had always listened to his wife and never revealed his real income, otherwise it wouldn’t be two hundred thousand but a million.
Jiang Qingshan couldn’t work it out. They had all come out of her belly the same, so why could she favor one and slight another to this degree?
Ever since childhood his eldest brother and his younger brother had gotten more care than he had.
When he was little, his grades were top of the class and he never made his parents worry about his studies. He was the only student at the county high school back then to get into Jingshi University, and the school and the teachers were all proud of him.
But his mother had never praised him once.
No matter how bad his eldest brother’s and younger brother’s grades were, no matter how ignorant and unskilled they were, as long as they improved by a point or two over the last time, his mother was never stingy with praise and would beam and reward them with pocket money.
Even in marriage his mother’s favoritism was cold enough to chill his heart.
When his eldest brother and younger brother married and the family had no money, she found every way she could to scrape together a bride price. But when it came to him and Zheng Wan, she was so indifferent she neither asked nor cared and gave not a cent.
Was it just because he was the second son that he deserved to be disregarded and bullied?
Jiang Qingshan clenched his teeth, the muscles in his face twitching slightly. His endurance of the years of unfair treatment and his resentment had reached their limit.
This time he absolutely would not give way and compromise again!
“All right.”
Jiang Zhi’s brow lifted lightly and she laughed briskly. “A gift for a wedding, of course, that’s only proper.”
Jiang Qingshan’s expression changed slightly. He was about to stop his daughter when Zheng Wan quietly pressed him down.
Old Woman Jiang narrowed her eyes suspiciously. Would this girl be this easy to talk to?
“Then how much are Eldest Uncle and Youngest Uncle planning to give as a gift for my wedding? Let me think, Jiang Wenbo is five years older than me and I hear he’s a big boss at a large company, so he must have saved up quite a lot. When I get married next month, a red envelope of five hundred thousand isn’t too much, is it?”
Everyone: “…”
This couldn’t be allowed. Jiang the eldest waved his hands in a panic. “No such thing, no such thing. How is your brother any big boss? He’s just a poor wage earner, he earns less than he spends.”
A gift of five hundred thousand, was she joking? He wasn’t the second son, he wasn’t going to be the sucker.
Old Woman Jiang put her hands on her hips and cursed nastily. “You, a mere little girl, dare to open a lion’s mouth too. Can you be the same as Wenbo? You’re marrying out and he’s marrying in. In the future the child he has will be surnamed Jiang, flesh and bone of our Jiang family, while you’ll be carrying on someone else’s line of incense. And you want five hundred thousand? Dream on!”
After all these years, turned over and over it was still the same feudal talk.
“Who said the child won’t be surnamed Jiang?”
“The child Jiang Zhi and I have will only ever be surnamed Jiang!”
The voice that suddenly shot out startled everyone.
In the chaos just now, nobody had spared any attention for Duan Heyu, and now he instantly became the focus of the whole room.
Duan Heyu: …Uh.
He lowered his head, and Jiang Zhi’s eyes were curved like moons as she smiled at him.
Duan Heyu flushed red at once.
Old Woman Jiang caught up at this point, her gaze contemptuous. “Young man, did you get your parents’ agreement to say a thing like that? Apart from useless men who marry into the wife’s family, no normal family is willing to let a child take the mother’s surname. Don’t talk big.”
In recent years women’s consciousness had gradually awakened, and the heat of gender topics had climbed all the way up singing and never dropped.
Faced with unfair treatment from gender discrimination, many women were no longer weak, no longer yielding and shrinking back. They united, bravely raised their own voices, and worked to change the situation.
So having seen so many women working to fight for their own rights, and then seeing someone like Old Woman Jiang who stubbornly looked down on her own gender, Duan Heyu was greatly puzzled.
The way he looked at her was as if he were watching some rare animal, and he issued a soul-searching question.
“Old lady, you’re a woman too. Why is your malice toward women so great?”
“Wasn’t bearing children hard on you? Didn’t it hurt? You risked your life to give birth and yet you got no right to give your surname. One is one thing, but two, three, and none of them took your surname. Fine, you didn’t fight or grab and even took pride in it, but why do you take it for granted that your granddaughter should walk the same old road as you?”
“You really aren’t the least bit ashamed.”
In the eyes of the older generation, this speech could be called quite explosive.
They had lived most of their lives and had seen plenty of people born with rebel bones in their heads, but they had never seen rebel bones this fresh.
Old Woman Jiang and her son were split open, charred outside and tender inside, stunned for a long while.
Zheng Wan’s gaze shifted slightly as she looked toward her daughter Jiang Zhi, and the small gestures between the young couple fell into her eyes without a thread missed.
Old Woman Jiang’s throat felt blocked. She clearly rejected those words and believed from the bottom of her heart that he was talking nonsense, but beyond the anger and rage there was now also a shame like having been slapped in the face.
She couldn’t figure out where that thread of strange feeling came from, and she didn’t deign to think about it carefully.
“Talking nonsense!”
“I think your whole family has gone mad!”
Fittingly, the wail of a police siren came from far away. Old Woman Jiang looked at the window in a panic. The police had actually really come to arrest them.
Then came the clack of a door opening, which startled her.
But it was Jiang Zhi leaning against the door, coldly holding her phone upright. “I don’t need anyone’s gift for my wedding, and other people’s weddings have nothing to do with our family. We won’t put out a single cent.”
“Everything that just happened has been completely recorded by the surveillance. Two hundred thousand is not a small sum. Under the criminal law of Xia, extorting public or private property in a large amount carries a fixed-term sentence of not less than three years and not more than ten.”
“If you don’t mind going in to pedal a sewing machine at your age, then I don’t mind giving you a hand.”
But how did asking for a bit of gift money escalate to the crime of extortion? This, this, this…
Old Woman Jiang, who had never studied a day in her life and couldn’t recognize a single character, was thoroughly panicked, and hurried to look to her eldest son for help.
Fine, there was no bargain to be had today, but don’t end up in the police station again.
As long as the green hills remain [1]As long as the green hills remain (liu de qingshan zai, 留得青山在) Idiom, survive now and chances will come again jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3234070_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3234070_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });, there’s no fear of running out of firewood.
Jiang the eldest shook his head and sighed to himself, put on a thick face and said a couple of nice words to Jiang Qingshan and Zheng Wan, then went to help his old mother and slink away.
“Eldest brother, from now on Mom is left to you.”
Jiang the eldest’s feet stopped, and as if he sensed something he turned back.
But he saw his always gentle and refined second brother wearing such an indifferent expression, joy and anger hard to tell apart. “I’ll pay her support money on time every month, in an amount enough to guarantee basic living needs. Beyond that, unless it’s necessary, we won’t be in contact anymore. Take care.”
A crack appeared on Jiang the eldest’s simple-looking face.
“Second brother, what do you mean by that?”
He had a very bad feeling. The long-term ATM was about to run off.
“Second son! You… what did you mean just now, you don’t want your old mother anymore?”
Old Woman Jiang came back to herself from her shock, her panic greater than her irritation. His wings really had hardened. She had only asked him for a little money, hadn’t she? And he dared to say something this treasonous!
“You unfilial son, I swallowed bitterness and hardship to raise you, @#¥*&8…”
Jiang Qingshan wasn’t moved in the slightest and cut in flatly, “The police are almost at the door. If you have complaints you can go to the court.”
At the word court, Old Woman Jiang’s heart lurched violently. She stared hard at Jiang Qingshan, a strong unease buried deep in her yellowed, cloudy eyes.
Could the second son have discovered something already?
Impossible! Back then… back then they had done it so secretly, there was no way he could know.
Feeling the old lady in his arms trembling lightly, Jiang the eldest couldn’t help looking down, and found her face frighteningly pale.
Jiang the eldest didn’t think much of it. It was just as well the old lady was frightened, it saved her from saying more stupid things to provoke the second son. So he hurriedly helped her away.
With the two plague gods [2]the two plague gods (wenshen, 瘟神) Metaphor, unwelcome bringers of trouble jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3234070_1_2').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3234070_1_2', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], }); sent off, the atmosphere in the Jiang home finally warmed up again.
Jiang Zhi went to open the windows, disgusted by the stink in the air and insisting on airing the place out.
In the living room, Duan Heyu’s sense of shame arrived late. He stared fixedly at his toes, wishing he could find a crack in the ground to crawl into.
Little did he know he wasn’t the only one who was embarrassed.
Having the family’s ugly business witnessed by their prospective son-in-law, no matter how thick your face, you couldn’t sit still.
Zheng Wan’s heart ached for Jiang Qingshan, and she told him to go back to the room and rest first, while she sat in the living room and apologized sincerely to Duan Heyu.
On the question of the bride price, because she knew the old woman’s greedy nature clearly, she had deliberately instructed her husband not to reveal anything about it.
Who knew the clever move would backfire and cause the Duan family to have dirty water thrown on them for no reason at all.
She really felt bad about it.
Duan Heyu didn’t care at all.
His inner monologue was all: my father-in-law and mother-in-law are the best in the world. Heaven can be wrong and earth can be wrong, but it’s absolutely not my father-in-law and mother-in-law’s fault!
He was very glad he had come back with Jiang Zhi this time. He finally understood why Jiang Zhi had never brought him home and never mentioned her grandfather and grandmother.
A bunch of garbage like that didn’t deserve to appear in her mouth!
On the way back, Duan Heyu had imagined who knew what melodramatic plot in his head, and the way he looked at Jiang Zhi was especially tender as water, wanting to speak and holding back.
Jiang Zhi even hazily saw in it something shaped like… fa, fatherly love?
Her scalp prickling, Jiang Zhi slapped his leg. “Has someone seized your body? Don’t look at me with such a filthy gaze, okay?”
Duan Heyu jumped up from the pain. “What filthy! This young master calls this a deep and affectionate gaze. Deep affection, do you understand?”
“Looks to me like an old sow wearing a bra, one set after another.”
This made Duan Heyu so angry that his little mood came up at once.
“Isn’t it because this young master’s heart ached for the wrongs you suffered around those people when you were little that he thought to treat you better and heal your childhood trauma? And who knew this woman wouldn’t know good from bad! Blame this young master for imagining too much affection then, all right?”
That said, he twisted his head to one side and walked ahead quickly.
Her hand was empty and Jiang Zhi was left behind. His fastball had caught her a bit off guard.
She looked around and rubbed the tip of her nose guiltily. The little thing had quite a temper.
She caught up quickly and reached out for him. “All right, all right, my fault, I didn’t know good from bad.”
It was rare to hear an apology from Jiang Zhi, and Duan Heyu decided to take the chance to get a good grip on her.
He snorted coldly. “You’re not wrong, how could you be wrong? What’s wrong is that this young master shouldn’t have spent two years with you with no name and no status, taking hits without hitting back and curses without cursing back, feeding your appetite until it grew.”
The more he said the less it resembled anything. Jiang Zhi retorted, “Let’s stick to the facts. How do you have no name and no status? Aren’t we about to get the certificate?”
“Yes, we’re about to get the certificate and you still don’t post me in your Moments, and you have the nerve to talk.”
Duan Heyu blinked hard and put on a very wounded expression. “Two years of dating and I’ve never appeared in your Moments.”
Jiang Zhi: “…”
“Don’t give me that.” She spoke with conviction. “I posted a photo of the two of us together in the very first month, and it’s still there.”
Without another word, Jiang Zhi took out her phone and found the Moments post from two years ago to wash away the injustice.
Duan Heyu lowered his head and scanned it slowly, smiling on the skin but not in the flesh.
“You call the back of a head a photo together? Is this young master’s handsome face not fit to be shown?”
The photo was from their first boat trip. The two of them stood on the deck, and behind them was the boundless blue sea where water met sky.
Jiang Zhi had her arm through Duan Heyu’s and leaned against one side, her back to him, and when she lifted the phone and snapped a casual shot she happened to catch the back of his head in it.
And then she posted it in her Moments as the official announcement photo.
At the time she hadn’t thought anything of it, but now that Duan Heyu brought it up so pitifully, it did seem a bit hasty.
Under the stare of those resentful eyes of his, Jiang Zhi silently dug several photos of the two of them out of the wedding photo outtakes.
Caption: About to unlock a new identity in life.
“Satisfied?”
“Barely.”
A minute after the post went up, dense ding-ding-dong notification sounds went off without end.
Shao Xiaojuan: 【…It couldn’t be what I’m thinking, could it?】
Lin Han: 【Good grief, doing big things without a sound. Don’t let it be that in a few months you’re showing off a baby!】
Xu Feifei: 【Ahhh so beautiful I’m dying! The cp I ship went from school uniforms to a wedding dress and reached fulfillment! Groundhog screaming!!!】
Xu Yancan: 【Congratulations.】
Back at the hospital and lying down, Jiang Zhi replied to them one by one, and after a while her roommate Xu Feifei sent a message.
【Eight o’clock tomorrow night, Starlight KTV, let’s go, refusing not allowed!】
【Let me state first, you’re treating. In four years of university you’re the one who missed the most dorm dinners. Come the weekend you’d vanish without a trace to keep your boyfriend company! You woman who values lust over friends, this time we absolutely have to make you bleed a little.】
Even through the network cable, Jiang Zhi could smell Xu Feifei’s faint resentment, and for a moment she felt a bit embarrassed. Her roommates were all very lovely girls who usually took good care of her.
And she really had missed several dorm dinners back then to go on dates with Duan Heyu.
This was a good chance to make it up to them.
Duan Heyu clung to her tightly. Learning she was going to KTV the next night, he wheedled and pestered to go along.
Jiang Zhi frowned, rather unwilling. “It’s a dinner for us girls, what excitement is there for a man like you to join in?”
“I’m not just a man, I’m also your family member. What’s wrong with bringing a family member to a dinner?”
“No.” Jiang Zhi refused. “Give up on that idea.”
Duan Heyu wasn’t resigned. “Why not? There won’t be other men coming, will there?”
“It’s just our dorm dinner. Where would men come from in a girls’ dorm? Don’t be a barber’s pole hot at one end [3]a barber’s pole hot at one end (titou tiaozi yitou re, 剃头挑子一头热) Idiom, only one side is keen jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3234070_1_3').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3234070_1_3', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], }); and add plot.”
Unwilling to admit he was being sensitive and suspicious, Duan Heyu boldly picked up Jiang Zhi’s phone, found the Moments post she had just made, and scrolled down, then stopped.
As if he had discovered an earth-shattering secret, he pointed at the screen. “Why do you still have Xu Yancan’s WeChat? Didn’t I tell you a long time ago to delete him?”
Xu Yancan was a junior in Jiang Zhi’s own major. The two of them had met in a club, and apart from running into each other occasionally at club activities, they basically had no contact.
Someone lying dead in her contact list.
“Don’t go looking for trouble where there is none.” Jiang Zhi snatched the phone back. “He and I have barely spoken a few times.”
Duan Heyu pressed on step by step. “In that case what’s stopping you from deleting him? We’re graduating anyway, there’s no chance of any overlap in the future, and deleting him would even clear up some memory.”
Jiang Zhi was a person with a very strong sense of self.
In other words she had always lived at the center of the world. Her parents and friends doted on her unconditionally, and nobody would order her to do this or that, or demand that she give way for anyone.
She hated other people pointing fingers and drawing hands.
Duan Heyu, needless to say, had been the moon held up by all the stars [4]the moon held up by all the stars (zhong xing peng yue, 众星捧月) Idiom, the adored centre of everyone’s attention jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3234070_1_4').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3234070_1_4', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], }); since birth, getting wind when he wanted wind and rain when he wanted rain.
Both of them had dog tempers.
References[+]