Chapter 1433: Chapter 1436: How Do You Know the Pork is Exactly One Pound?
"Didn’t I tell you to learn your letters properly?" Yang Chuxia looked down to see him holding a letter, his brows furrowed into a knot, so she wiped her eyes and took the letter from his hand. "See, your brother can recognize characters and even write letters, and then look at you!"
"Oh, Mother, can we not talk about this, please? Just read brother’s letter. Did he miss me?" The little guy was very excited.
But after Yang Chuxia finished reading the letter, he became sad. "Brother only wrote one sentence for me? That’s too little!" And that one sentence was, "Little brother, don’t cry when Brother is not at home."
Hehe, one sentence is not bad," Yang Chuxia patted his head and carefully put the letter away, then picked up a pen to write a reply to Lele. After finishing, she asked Yangyang, "Do you want to write a letter to your brother too?"
Yangyang’s eyes rolled around before he said, "I’ll only write one sentence too!" Then he took a fresh piece of paper and wrote in large characters, "Lele, you’re so annoying!"
"That’s it?" Yang Chuxia’s mouth twitched, thinking Lele would probably feel very frustrated seeing that.
"Just this!" The little guy was adamant about not changing his mind.
"Well, have it your way then."
After the reply was sent out, the August festival arrived soon enough, and on that day, Ms. Wang and the others celebrated at the Yang Family.
After the August festival, the Yang Family started sending small and grand gifts to the Zhang Family. In the meantime, Yang Chuxia also visited the Zhang Family once. She had a good impression of Miss Zhang and Zhang Family’s lady, but Miss Zhang’s father wasn’t much to speak of, looking to be a very stingy man. His kind of stinginess wasn’t like some who are stingy towards others but generous to themselves; no, he was miserly to the point of being unbearable, whether it was toward himself or others.
He was so miserly that he would eat a couple of bites of spoiled leftovers before throwing them out.
And as for the gifts the Yang Family gave, the return gifts were even more paltry.
Yang Chuxia started to worry then, afraid that Qingrui’s bride’s dowry might be quite meager. She wouldn’t look down on her future sister-in-law, but she feared that if Qingtong’s bride’s dowry was much more in comparison, it wouldn’t look good.
One day, just before the wedding, was the last small gift-giving occasion. Yang Chuxia didn’t go, but in the afternoon, she saw Ms.Wang come over with a dark expression.
"What’s wrong?"
"What’s wrong? I’m fuming!" Ms.Wang sat down in a huff and remained silent for a long while.
"What has happened now? You’re about to gain a daughter-in-law, and soon you’ll be thinking about grandchildren; what could possibly be worth getting angry about?" Yang Chuxia guessed it might be about the return gifts again, since today was a day for giving small gifts, so she offered a word of advice.
"Can you believe these people from the Zhang Family? How can they be so stingy?" As soon as she heard the question, Ms.Wang rattled off, "We sent two pigs, the fruit wine you procured—two cases, twelve jars of Huiquan brewery, rice cake—eighty jin, brown sugar—sixty jin. I won’t even mention the chickens, ducks, and fish. Logically speaking, since we sent so much, they should reciprocate with at least ten jin of rice cake, ten jin of brown sugar, and ten jin of pork, right? That’s the very least."
"But what does the Zhang Family do? They return one jin of each. Oh, no, not even a jin of pork. Our family sent quite a number of people for the gift-giving. By acting this way, where does the Zhang Family leave Qingrui’s face?" Ms.Wang was huffing and puffing, regretting having trusted Qingrui’s decision to agree to this marriage match.
Yang Chuxia responded speechlessly, "Mother, how do you know it’s just one jin of pork? Did you actually weigh it?" If that was the case, nobody could talk about anyone else, Mother’s actions were pretty extraordinary too.
"Do you think I have nothing better to do than to weigh it?" Ms.Wang replied irritably, "It was your fourth aunt who noticed something was amiss with the amount and decided to weigh it."