Wedding banquets in this era are far inferior to those in the previous life. In the previous life, resources were abundant, and wedding banquets would have at least a dozen or twenty high-end dishes, including Australian lobster, crab, crocodile, and so on.
The wedding banquet here only had eight dishes in total, including a plate of fried peanuts and a plate of pickled radishes... but it was already quite decent.
The people at the table were eating with their mouths full of oil, and every plate was cleaned spotlessly. The two boys at the table, who were probably very hungry, were eating voraciously.
Lu Lin suddenly remembered his childhood in his previous life. His family was poor when he was a child, and he looked forward to visiting relatives the most. If someone invited him to a party, he would go there early. Back then, if there was a plate of rare pistachios on the table, everyone at the table would stare at it.
However, later, as living conditions improved, everyone felt that having meals together in the countryside was a bit of a hassle, and they always had to arrive at the exact time.
With abundant supplies, all kinds of nuts are readily available on Taobao, costing very little money if you want to eat them. However, they don't taste as delicious as before. Lu Lin has been eating well lately, so the food on the table has little appeal to him, and he hasn't touched his chopsticks much.
The others were different. Apart from Lu Lin, most of the people at the table were eating in silence, afraid of being taken advantage of.
After attending the wedding banquet, Lu Lin went to visit Uncle Zhou and brought him some rice.
The old hunter felt a little embarrassed that he was always taking things from Lu Lin and Chen Xiaomi for free, and repeatedly declined. However, Lu Lin insisted, so the old hunter accepted them.
After a trip to the countryside, I picked some vegetables from the village and then returned to the town.
As Lu Lin drove the carriage, he couldn't help but feel a little worried about Chen Xiaomi's recent listless appearance.
As soon as Lu Lin returned to his house in town, Chen Xiaocai came out excitedly and said happily, "Brother Lin, my brother has a baby!"
Lu Lin was surprised when he heard Chen Xiaocai's words.
Lu Lin suddenly realized that Xiaomi seemed to be feeling sleepy more often lately, and her appetite seemed to have increased. He never expected that she was pregnant. Lu Lin was immediately filled with an indescribable excitement, along with a sense of wonder.
Chen Xiaomi lay lazily on the bed, glanced at Lu Lin, and asked, "You're back?"
"Are you alright? What did the doctor say?" Lu Lin asked after calming down.
"The doctor said I'm in good health and should be fine. If I'm in good health, do I need him to say so? Xiao Cai is very nervous and insists that I lie down. That brat is getting more and more outrageous, actually making decisions for me now," Chen Xiaomi said sullenly.
Lu Lin looked at Chen Xiaomi, who was being a little willful, and smiled helplessly. He said, "Xiao Cai was just worried about you. He told me that it's been two months already."
Lu Lin scratched his head, vaguely realizing that he was really confused. Chen Xiaomi had been pregnant for two months, and he hadn't noticed anything amiss.
Chen Xiaomi patted her stomach and said, "I don't feel anything at all."
Lu Lin looked at Chen Xiaomi and said, "It's still best to be careful..."
"How's the food at the Zhang family's?" Chen Xiaomi asked.
Lu Lin nodded and said, "It's alright."
Chen Xiaomi hesitated for a moment and asked, "If you go, will no one say anything about you?" Chen Xiaomi knew that Lu Lin's reputation was better than hers, but because he had married into the family, it wasn't much better.
“Everyone was very polite. I told them that I would earn two taels of silver a month, and they were all very envious,” Lu Lin said.
Chen Xiaomi tilted her head. The foreman who worked in the town usually only earned two taels of silver, while ordinary long-term laborers did not. No wonder the villagers were envious. In fact, Lu Lin was a boss. He earned dozens of taels of silver a month by selling bags. In addition, he sold wine, so he was quite well-off. Two taels of silver was already a very modest statement from Lu Lin.
Chen Xiaomi glanced at Lu Lin and asked, "How much money have you saved up recently?"
"It's almost a hundred taels."
Chen Xiaomi asked in surprise, "Didn't you make a lot of money?"
Lu Lin said helplessly, "The expenses are huge! We have to pay for so many female workers, and we've also received another batch of expensive fabrics..."
Chen Xiaomi looked at Lu Lin for a while and said, "Our family eats too extravagantly." There are several dishes every day. This is too extravagant. Chen Xiaomi never dreamed that life could be like this. There is meat and vegetables every day. If they want to eat some snacks, they can buy them whenever they want.
Lu Lin tilted his head and said, "What fun is there in life if you don't eat delicious food?" One of the biggest advantages of this world is that the food is all-natural, and as long as the cooking method is right, the dishes made are all very delicious.
Chen Xiaomi pouted and said, "You're being picky and making excuses. I want to eat ice cream."
Lu Lin shook his head and said, "You've already eaten one; it's not good to eat more."
Chen Xiaomi glared at Lu Lin, her expression carrying a hint of reproach, as if to say, "You're here again."
Lu Lin smiled and said, "I heard from people at the wedding that Li Fangyue and Lin Xiuer are both pregnant." Some people also said that Chen Xiaomi might not be able to have children, but there's no need to tell Chen Xiaomi about that.
Chen Xiaomi opened her eyes wide, tilted her head, and said, "They all rushed here at the same time!"
The Lu family.
Having someone in the family pregnant is a joyous occasion, but it's not all good news.
Mrs. Tang has been feeling rather down lately. After Lin Xiuer became pregnant, she put aside many things, and Li Fangyue followed suit.
If Tang tried to argue with Lin Xiuer, Lin Xiuer would pretend to be sick, and Tang couldn't do anything about it for a while.
After Lin Xiuer became pregnant, Lu An stopped paying his wages on time, saying he wanted to keep them for unforeseen circumstances.
The old lady showed a strong preference for her youngest son, so she didn't investigate further.
However, with money only going out and not coming in, the family was suddenly facing a financial predicament.
The old lady said with a lot of frustration, "They are all good at eating but not working. Cheng Yu has to pay tuition again. The students in the academy are all sycophantic. If you don't have money, you will be looked down upon. What should we do?"
Writing brushes, ink, paper, and inkstones all cost money, and it's not yet time to harvest the crops from the ground.
The old man looked at the old woman and said, "If all else fails, let's sell another acre of land."
The old lady said reluctantly, "Sell another acre of land?" The Lu family was able to live a prosperous life in the village because they had a lot of land, wasn't it? They had already sold two acres of land for Cheng Yu's wedding. If they sold less and less land, wouldn't they become poorer and poorer?
The old man sighed and said, "With so much land, we can't possibly cultivate it all at home. If we rent it out to others, after paying taxes, there won't be much left."
The old lady sighed. During the spring planting season, everyone in the family was more lazy than the next, so the old lady had to hire people to do the planting. However, during the busy spring season, almost everyone in the household was busy, and manpower was extremely scarce. Normally, you could hire someone for about 20 coins, but during the busy farming season, even 40 or 50 coins wouldn't get anyone willing to do it.
The old lady hadn't worked in the fields much for several years and almost collapsed from exhaustion.
Hiring someone cost a lot, which really broke the old lady's heart.
"I heard that Lu Lin, that brat, found a job in town and earns two taels of silver a month," Wang said somewhat displeased.
Lu Lin attended the Zhang family's wedding, and the two taels of silver he casually made up for the wages spread rapidly throughout the village, naturally reaching the old lady's ears as well.
Wang had always believed that her second son was a simpleton, and that his son, Lu Lin, was unlucky and incompetent. When she heard that Lu Lin had found work in town and was earning two taels of silver a month, the old lady immediately became somewhat displeased.
Wang had always been proud of her fourth son's job, so when she discovered that Lu Lin and Chen Xiaomi had also found jobs with the same pay as Lu An, she immediately felt it was impossible.
The old man sighed, his feelings somewhat complicated.
The ten fingers are of different lengths, and the old man is biased, though not as severely as the old woman. However, he still doesn't care much about the second son's family.
"What are you planning?" the old man asked.
Wang said sullenly, "Chen Xiaomi is such a strange girl. She might not even be able to have children. The money Lu Lin earns will probably all go to Chen Xiaomi's two burdensome younger brothers in the future." If Lu Lin really earns two taels of silver a month, he will have more than twenty taels a year.
Wang suddenly felt that she had made a huge mistake by marrying Lu Lin into Chen Xiaomi's family, since she had only asked Chen Xiaomi for ten taels of silver back then.
The old man was also feeling a bit of heartache. With the second wife's family gone, he started to reminisce about how good they were. Recently, the family had been embroiled in a lot of arguments over things like farming, cooking, washing clothes, chopping firewood, and carrying water.
The old man suddenly realized that when the second wife was alive, there were never so many things to do at home, and there was always someone to do the work in the fields.
"Lu Lin probably can't control a tough guy like Chen Xiaomi. Chen Xiaomi is probably managing all the wages," the old man sighed.
This land needs to be nurtured. When the second son was still alive, he would occasionally go to the riverbank to collect some silt or something to use as fertilizer. After he left, the harvest from this land seems to have declined significantly, and the soil is likely to become increasingly barren.
Madam Wang grumbled, "That brat Lu Lin, he's learned the same ungrateful ways from Chen Xiaomi." The old man was also somewhat surprised by Lu Lin's actions.
In the old man's view, even if Lu Lin married into the family, he would not lose contact with them. However, the reality was that after Lu Lin married into the family, he refused all requests for help from his family.
The old man never imagined that Lu Lin had already changed his soul before he married into the family.
If it were the original owner, a few kind words from the Lu family might actually make her obediently come back to work, and she might even be able to move Chen Xiaomi's things back to the Lu family. After all, although the original owner resented the old man and old woman for their favoritism, she was a person who was blindly filial at heart.
Lu Chengyu sat in the room, reviewing his books, but he couldn't concentrate on a single word.
Zhang Dazhu's family invited Lu Lin to their wedding banquet but not Lu Chengyu, which made Lu Chengyu extremely upset. Hearing that Lu Lin and Chen Xiaomi had both found work in town, Lu Chengyu felt even worse.
In the past, when the villagers talked about Lu Lin, most of them said that Lu Lin was honest but incompetent. Now, when Lu Lin is mentioned, many people have changed their tune, saying that Lu Lin is actually quite good, and he looks quite handsome. It's just that he was exploited badly by the Lu family before, so you can't tell anymore.
Lu Chengyu felt that the villagers' words contained a hint of sympathy for Lu Lin and a hint of accusation that his grandparents were biased, which made him feel quite uncomfortable.
Thinking about how he could rise to prominence in the future, he realized that no matter how successful Lu Lin became, he would only ever be someone else's handyman.
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