"Mother, Mother, what brings you here today?"

Li Jin quickly went to stop his mother, mainly because he was afraid that her spittle would spray into the pot.

"What, Little Six, do you think I'm not allowed to come to your house?"

Li Wanshi glanced at her son with her phoenix eyes, her gaze still sharp despite her age.

Despite being only a little over 1.5 meters tall and slender, Li Wanshi possessed an imposing presence that made her seem 3.8 meters tall, instantly outshining Li Jin and Zhao Sufang.

"What are you saying? You can't even get a proper invitation. What delicious food did my dad make for you at noon?"

Li Jin quickly helped Li Wanshi into the house, and gave Zhao Sufang a wink.

Yes, that's right. In the fifty years of marriage between Li Wanshi and Li Jin's father, she never cooked a single meal.

"Mom, please don't call me Little Six all the time. I'm the team leader now, and it would be bad if others heard me." Li Jin helped his mother sit down.

"Little Liu, Little Liu!"

The two-year-old daughter on the kang (a heated brick bed) clapped her soft, white hands and babbled.

Li Wanshi ignored Li Jin's complaints, "Little Six, even if you're a hundred years old and become a county magistrate, mayor, or provincial governor, you'll still be your mother's Little Six."

Li Jin dared not offer any more criticism to his mother, so he shut up and remained silent.

He knew why his mother had come, but he really didn't want to talk about it. However, he didn't dare to directly confront his mother, so he could only bury his head in the sand like an ostrich and hide for as long as possible.

really.

"Have you thought about what I told you last time? They're urging us again from Wulipu."

“Mother, Li Song is twenty-eight this year, and I know you are anxious about his marriage. But Zhenzhen is only seventeen, and I don’t want her to get married so early.”

Li Wanshi raised her eyebrows.

"You know your little brother is twenty-eight! You don't want your daughter to get married early? And you, as the eldest brother, are saying that! What's wrong with the brother and sister in Wulipu? The girl is only twenty, skillful, can embroider, and manages everything at home and in the fields. Once this opportunity is gone, it'll be gone forever, eldest brother!"

“Mother, the girl from Wulipu is nice, but her brother is thirty-three this year! He's sixteen years older than Zhenzhen! Don't try to fool me by saying how good he is, I secretly went to see him, and he's a cripple!”

Li Jin looked into his mother's eyes and said, word by word.

There's something else I didn't dare say, afraid of embarrassing his mother.

He inquired around and found out that the guy was the kind of person who would never leave the table once he started playing cards, and who would never come out of a widow's bed. He was a gambler, womanizer, and smoker who did nothing but eat, drink, gamble, and smoke.

Hearing her eldest son say this, Li Wan felt a little guilty, but when she thought of her youngest son, who used to act coquettishly and insist on marrying no one but a girl from Wulipu, her heart hardened again.

Her granddaughter is good, but in her heart, she can't compare to her son even a fraction of his love!

"Little Six! Eldest brother! Do you really want your mother to kneel down and beg you? Your parents are old, and if your younger brother doesn't rely on you, who else can he rely on? How have I taught you since you were little? The eldest brother is like a father. You are his own older brother, and that's your own younger brother!"

Li Wanshi's expression showed disappointment in her son and a sense of determination, but not a trace of guilt towards her granddaughter.

"That's my own daughter too!" Li Jin growled in anguish.

Li Wanshi stared intently at Li Jin, deciding not to discuss anything further with her eldest son.

With our parents still alive, it's not the eldest son's place to run the household!

Even if the household she's supposed to run is her eldest son's!

Sons and grandsons are the true roots of the family, so what about granddaughters? What about one's own daughter?

Their parents raised them, never letting them go hungry or cold, and certainly never drowning them in chamber pots or leaving them to starve in wasteland. That's how they did right by them!

Now that she's grown up and can be of use to the family, let alone marrying a man with hands and feet, even if she were to marry a rooster and become a widow, she should happily listen to the adults' arrangements!

Li Wanshi got up and left. When she reached the door of the inner room, she turned back to Li Jin, whose face was ashen, and said, "Eldest son, you need to know which is more important! On the eighth day of next month, Wulipu will come to pick up Zhenzhen for her wedding."

Zhao Sufang, who had been eavesdropping on the two's conversation, was pale, her legs were weak, her hands were trembling, and it seemed as if all her strength had been drained from her body. The gourd-shaped water ladle she was holding fell to the ground with a "plop," spilling water all over the ground.

Li Wanshi glanced at Zhao Sufang and snorted heavily, "She really has no talent. As expected, a sparrow can't give birth to a phoenix. You, as her mother, should plan ahead for what your daughter needs for her wedding!"

From beginning to end, Li Wanshi never thought much of her eldest daughter-in-law. Her family had no one to teach her anything, and she was both timid and stupid, like a gourd with its mouth sawed off, unable to utter a coherent sentence in front of her.

The eldest daughter-in-law's mother was also unchaste. She couldn't stand it for more than two years after the men in her family died, and ran away to marry a man from the mountains of western Sichuan. She was really spineless!

Pooh!

It makes me sick just thinking about it!

Filled with disgust for her eldest daughter-in-law and former mother-in-law, Li Wanshi left Li Jin's three mud-brick houses without looking back.

"His father! His father! We can't agree to this!"

Zhao Sufang rushed into the house and shouted at her husband, who looked like a wooden or clay sculpture.

Li Jin remained silent.

Zhao Sufang understood her husband, and she grew increasingly frightened, her hands trembling with fear.

She knew that the less her husband said, the more likely he was to have made up his mind.

"No! No way! Zhenzhen is such a good girl, I can't let her marry a lazy, crippled man in his thirties!"

Zhao Sufang roared out, her voice like a cuckoo weeping blood.

Li Yan, the youngest daughter who had never seen her mother like this before, was so frightened that she burst into tears.

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