"Dressing nicely and wearing nice accessories is considered ostentatious? What kind of logic is that? If you have confidence, you can always stand tall. You were once the second young lady of Qinglong Village, can't you have some backbone?"
As Mo Lan spoke, she picked up a gold hairpin and inserted it into her hair bun. The small gold beads hung down to her shoulders, swaying gracefully with the slightest movement, instantly making her look much more noble.
"Clothes make the man, and a saddle makes the horse; genuine products are just different." With that, he threw the gilded hairpin he had taken off onto the table with a loud crash; it was clearly hollow.
"Hey, don't throw it, or it'll break."
Xiong Yanyan glanced at him with heartache, only to notice Mo Lan's teasing gaze. Her face immediately flushed red with embarrassment. "You...you're deliberately making fun of me?"
"So what? Even if I bully you, only I can bully you. When we're outside, stand tall and hold your head high. Our Second Miss of Qinglong Village isn't someone anyone can step on."
As Mo Lan spoke, she picked up another bracelet and slipped it onto her wrist, and then attached a jade safety buckle with a knotted heart pattern to her waist.
After all that effort, although she no longer had a head full of jewels, her entire demeanor was instantly transformed.
Mo Lan pulled out a small mirror from somewhere. "See if it looks different?"
When Xiong Yanyan saw her reflection in the small mirror, she was completely stunned. "This..."
Although her mother gave her a lot of dowry, not much of it was usable, especially the jewelry, much of which was old and worn. Her mother said that if she wanted to use it, she could melt it down and make new designs.
As for the dowries from other elders, they were all just for show and had no practical use.
She understood her mother. After returning home, many of her mother's belongings were subsidized by her maternal grandmother, who claimed they were her mother's dowry. She only later learned that her mother's dowry had been lost when the Xiong family suffered their misfortune.
The items were given to her by her maternal grandmother out of her own savings, which is why they were old-fashioned, but they were practical.
Her mother had many social obligations in the Song family, and being short of money was a big taboo and would make her a laughing stock. Therefore, her mother couldn't give her too much. She understood all of this, but understanding was one thing, but without a generous dowry, she would be looked down upon by her husband's family, which was why she lacked confidence.
Although she was also a daughter-in-law of the Yuan family, her sisters-in-law were all more glamorous than her, with better family backgrounds, larger dowries, and the protection of their maternal families. In fact, she was very envious, but she knew that she was not well-off and dared not make any moves.
Looking at the dowry that Hua Molan had prepared for her, she felt nothing but emotion and couldn't find the right words to express it.
The several sets of jewelry were styles she had never seen before, and were rarely even in the Song family.
And the brocades at the bottom of the trunk are all the latest patterns this year: rose red, lotus root pink, light yellow, and light blue, all suitable for her age.
These brocades were already worn by her sisters-in-law, but she wasn't.
"These things are so beautiful, how did you get them?"
"What do you mean? You don't think I stole this, do you?" Mo Lan looked at her, her face darkening.
"I... I didn't mean that, I just think it's too expensive." Touching the bracelet on her wrist, she felt its smoothness and high quality; even if she didn't know much about bracelets, she knew it was valuable.
"Don't act all pitiful. It's not like you don't have connections. We didn't know you were getting married. Consider this a small token of our appreciation as a dowry from your second uncle."
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