Upon hearing what Xiao Youran said, Zhou, who had just followed in, immediately sat down next to her, put her arm around her daughter's shoulder, and laughed, "If our Xiao Youran speaks, it must be true."

Yun Manyan cried, "Mother! How could my marriage be arranged so hastily?"

Zhou sighed, "Let's arrange the marriage first. You saw what Aunt Hua was like. If it weren't for Zhao Huai, would you really want to marry her stupid son? Not only is he stupid, but you'd also have a mother-in-law like that. You'd have a hard time!"

Yun Manyan cried, unsure how to answer. She didn't want to marry a fool, but that didn't mean she was willing to marry an ordinary peasant from Sanyang Village.

Back in the capital, she had exchanged betrothal gifts with the heir of the Duke's mansion.

In just a few months, she went from being the future wife of the Duke's heir to a peasant woman in the countryside. How could she be willing to accept that?

Knowing what she was thinking, Madam Zhou comforted her, "Don't think about the prosperity of the capital anymore. Our Yun family has suffered such a great calamity, and it is already a blessing that we have survived. All that glory and wealth is fleeting. What is important is to live well in the present."

Yun Manyan sobbed and couldn't speak.

Madam Su also advised, "The current difficulties are only temporary. Once your aunt calms down, the Su family will help you as much as we can. Besides, after you get married, perhaps your aunt will no longer stop the Su family from lending a helping hand to you two. Financial matters are minor; what's important is good character, which will ensure a lifetime of peace of mind."

She has been holding onto those two thousand taels of gold notes, but she just can't seem to spend them, which is really worrying!

Yun Manyan stopped crying as expected.

Xiaoyouran: Hehe.

Money really is the trump card.

After thinking for a moment, she softly and sweetly advised, "Brother Zhao Huai is very handsome. He and my cousin are a perfect match."

Zhou also said, "I think Zhao Huai is indeed a handsome young man, and if he were to tidy himself up, he could be a good match for you. Besides, he doesn't have a mother-in-law, only a sister-in-law. And he has promised to live with us after the wedding. With us right under our noses, I doubt he would dare to treat you badly. We are all village women now, and all we can plan for is our future. We can only feel at ease if you are doing well, right? Moreover, marrying into the village means we can see any news or events happening around us, which is much better than marrying someone else and not knowing whether they are living a good or bad life, right? These past few days, those families who rushed out to marry off their daughters, you have no idea what kind of lives they are living!"

After much persuasion, Zhou finally convinced her daughter.

When the other members of the family heard about this, they all felt a sense of shared vulnerability.

They realized with profound clarity that the once lofty and prestigious Yunhou Mansion was gone, and all its members had truly become ordinary people.

...

Zhou said that building a house is not as easy as it seems.

This large family relied on the game they hunted in the mountains for food and drink, and as the weather grew colder, they still had no idea what to do with their winter clothes.

The Su family, mother and her two children, along with three servants, had brought a full set of bedding and winter clothes. The younger children had already secretly put on modified clothes made from the old clothes of the Jiang siblings. However, remembering what Old Madam Yun had said about not accepting a single needle or thread from the Su family, Zhou Shi did not dare to speak to the Su family.

After Yun Manwan's upcoming engagement, Madam Su realized that solving the Yun family's problems was no longer just about finding food. During lunch, she talked to her brother and sister about the restaurants in the capital, "I wonder how the Shen brothers are managing their restaurants?"

Xiao Youran said with a grin, "My brother has been communicating with Octopus Bro, and the restaurant has started to turn a profit in the last two months!"

Jiang Youchen nodded. This was something his sister and he had been working on since they left Beijing. He adapted very well to his role as his sister's "repeater." He could not only repeat his sister's words in appropriate situations, but also write them down on letter paper and send them to Shen Zhangyu without missing a single word.

The letter I recently received from Shen Zhangyu contained some very good news.

The restaurant has seen an increase in customers and revenue, and it has already started to make a profit this month.

"Your great-aunt's family is only managing to feed themselves; that's not a long-term solution. Do you have any ideas on how to help them earn money? The restaurants in the capital are starting to make a profit, or perhaps we could open one in the county town?"

Xiao Youran's eyes lit up; this was the start of her career!

She had actually thought about it for a long time.

But she was still young and didn't feel comfortable bringing it up herself.

Jiang Youchen looked at Madam Su, then at her younger sister, “Mother, our great-aunt is unwilling to accept our money, so we can’t do this business ourselves. We have to ask our eldest cousin’s wife and cousin Tiankuang.”

Little Youran was very excited. "Mom, let's go to the county town tomorrow! Let's go with Fourth Aunt and the others. Maybe we'll find out what kind of business we can do!"

Madam Su nodded, "If there's a business they can run, we'll provide the capital, they'll provide the labor, and they'll split the profits in half. Aunt shouldn't have any objections, right?"

Xiao Youran pondered for a moment and said, "We should go and take a look first, right? Tomorrow we'll go to town under the pretext of buying winter clothes and quilts."

Secretly, she opened her pink notebook and made a wish: that her great-aunt would make a fortune.

I haven't looked at the notebook in a long time, but when I took a closer look today, I was shocked.

She discovered that the luck value above had dropped below 10 again, becoming 9.

She pondered deeply. Could it be that... these days she has been going up the mountain to hunt, and the kitten was able to scare the prey out of the house? And all her efforts to promote Zhao Huai and persuade her older sister were just wasting her luck points?

She knew it! How could that kitten be so magical? Just wandering around and it could scare its prey out and make it run straight into Ms. Yu's arms?

Why……

Time to start accumulating luck points again.

Feeling quite melancholy, she went with Su to find Zhou, intending to tell her about their trip to town the next day.

Zhou was not in the room. She was leading her three sisters-in-law, Hongyu, and Granny Li in tidying up the row of small woodsheds that had collapsed earlier. Normally, in the capital, they would never have touched such rough work, but the poverty they had endured for the past three or four months had forced them to be down-to-earth and do everything themselves.

Especially Guo Shi; the scandal she caused when she left the capital has always been a thorn in the side between her, her mother-in-law, and her daughter. But what can she do now? At least she has to stay alive first.

Furthermore, just yesterday, in the blink of an eye, my eldest niece, my sister-in-law's biological daughter, and the eldest daughter of the once-proud and precious Yun family of the Pingyuan Marquis's Mansion, was married off.

She married an ordinary peasant?