Chapter 2. Qiu Yuruo rested for a while before finishing the rest...
After resting for a while, Qiu Yuruo finished the remaining half bowl of noodle soup.
After coming out of the main room, Guo went into the small room where Qiu Yuruo lived. Seeing the empty bowl on the table, she said, "I'll go and get you another bowl."
Three days' worth of meals couldn't be made up for in one meal, so Qiu Yuruo simply said, "Wait a while."
Seeing her still weak state, Guo felt sorry for her but still said, "The old man is waiting for you to go to their room."
Qiu Yuruo, however, was no longer as readily available as before, and simply said, "Let's wait until tonight, I can't get up right now."
After receiving a response, Guo did not press her further: "I will serve you another bowl of noodle soup before I make lunch later. Drink several bowls in total, and you should be able to get up in the evening."
Qiu Yuruo hummed in agreement.
These past few days, Qiu Yuruo's resistance to the marriage has made Guo realize that she is not the weak and submissive woman she once thought she was.
Whether it was her previous hunger strike or her recent threat to herself, it all demonstrated that she was both resilient and cunning.
With such a temperament, coupled with a more outstanding appearance than her cousin, Qiu Yuruo's life will definitely not be bad if Su Yunting wakes up in the future.
Since there was a sliver of hope for a turnaround, Guo thought she should try to win her over: "It's not that your aunt is unwilling to cook something nice for you, it's just that you've been hungry for a long time, and nothing is as comforting as noodle soup."
"Once your appetite returns in the next couple of days, I'll cook you some nourishing meals."
The two still had a collaboration. Qiu Yuruo accepted her kindness, smiled at her, and said, "I know that in the whole family, Auntie treats me the best. I was wrong to say those things before. Please don't hold a grudge against me, Auntie."
She didn't say this entirely out of self-interest. Although Guo was a bit cunning, she had never bullied her and was truly the kindest person in the family. So when Qiu Yuruo said these words, she was sincere.
Guo had never bullied Qiu Yuruo, but she had also never done anything good for her. Faced with Qiu Yuruo's sincerity, Guo felt a little guilty.
Looking at her current state, I felt a little sorry for her, but since I pitied Qiu Yuruo, I had to ask my own daughter to take her place. In the end, I only hurriedly left a sentence: "Take a good rest." Then I took the bowl and turned to leave.
Before cooking lunch, Qiu Yuruo drank a bowl of noodle soup twice, brought by her cousin Ersheng from her third aunt's family. He also brought her lunch during the meal.
Now that she had decided to get married, Qiu Yuruo stopped thinking about it and focused on recovering her strength, as she had a tough battle to fight that night.
After lunch, she finally regained some strength. After Ersheng took the dishes away, Qiu Yuruo, despite feeling dizzy, got out of bed and slowly moved around a couple of times...
In the morning, I felt like I couldn't hold on any longer, but after a few bowls of noodle soup and two meals, although I couldn't fully recover, I had the strength to walk normally in the evening.
Guo was urged by her parents-in-law to call Qiu Yuru over. It was something she would have to face sooner or later, so Qiu Yuru didn't refuse and followed her third aunt into the main room.
The head of the Qiu family is Qiu Yuruo's grandfather, Old Man Qiu, whose real name is Qiu Zhaoshan. He is over fifty years old, married to Zhou, and they have three sons and one daughter. His daughter is the eldest and rarely comes back except for holidays after she gets married.
The eldest son, Qiu Qishan, was the most favored by Old Man Qiu, and was sent to a private school to study at a young age. It was because his daughter was engaged to the Su family that Old Man Su was now clinging to him and was thinking of pushing Qiu Yuruo to take the blame.
Qiu Qishan married a woman surnamed Zhang, and they had a daughter and a son. The daughter was one year older than Qiu Yuruo, and the son was half a year younger than Qiu Yuruo.
Qiu Yuruo's father was the second oldest among his brothers, and the third oldest was Qiu Yongqi.
Qiu Yongqi married a woman surnamed Guo, and they had one daughter and two sons. The daughter was one year younger than Qiu Yuruo, the eldest son was ten years old, and the second son was five years old.
When Qiu Yu entered the main room, not only her grandparents, but also her eldest uncle Qiu Qishan, her eldest aunt Zhang, and her third uncle Qiu Qiyong were all there.
Qiu Yu greeted him politely, and Old Man Qiu responded and then asked her to sit down first.
Seeing that she sat down obediently and had no intention of resisting, Old Man Qiu said, "It is already a blessing for you to marry a scholar. Now that you have a family and are an adult, you can't just throw your temper around like that!"
Qiu Yuruo chuckled inwardly. Such great fortune! She's clearly your eldest son's daughter, why don't you let her enjoy this blessing?
Regardless of her inner thoughts, Qiu Yuruo's expression remained unchanged, and she obediently replied, "I understand."
Then she looked up at Old Man Qiu and said, "Grandpa, you said before that when she married the scholar, her family would give her ten taels of silver as a dowry. Now that her family has suffered a disaster, could you increase the dowry a little more?"
Old Qiu said that he would give ten taels of silver as a dowry when he married the scholar, but that was for his eldest granddaughter. When he decided to have Qiu Yuru marry in his place, he had no intention of giving her a dowry.
The old man Su who came to make trouble at home was far inferior to his deceased son. Not only did he come to force a marriage, but he also refused to give a betrothal gift, saying that his deceased son had already brought countless things over, which were more than the betrothal gifts of ordinary families.
Old Man Su came to our house and acted like a rogue, saying that his family only accepts gifts and does not marry off their daughters. He even wanted to receive two betrothal gifts for one daughter. He said that even families selling their granddaughters do not sell them like this!
Old Qiu couldn't argue with him or refuse to back down, so in the end he had no choice but to agree to let him marry off one of his granddaughters.
The Su family didn't give any betrothal gifts, and now Qiu Yuruo is not only asking for a dowry, but also demanding more!
Old Qiu was naturally unwilling and was about to refuse when his wife, Old Lady Zhou, sitting next to him, couldn't hold back any longer. She stood up and pointed at Qiu Yuru's nose, scolding, "Are you still dreaming? How dare you say you'll add more dowry? Don't even mention adding more dowry, you've been eating free food at home all your life, what face do you have to ask your family for a dowry?"
"You should look in the mirror and see what you are, whether you're even worth ten taels of silver, yet you dare to say you'd add more!"
She continued to hurl insults without restraint until they became so offensive that Old Man Qiu finally said, "Alright, that's enough."
When Old Master Qiu spoke, Old Lady Zhou glared at Qiu Yuruo again before sitting down again.
Over the years, whenever Zhou was in a bad mood, Qiu Yuruo would always be used as a punching bag, and she could be scolded for no reason at all.
In her previous life, Qiu Yuruo's parents went out to work, and she lived with her grandparents. Although her grandmother was a little biased towards her second uncle's cousin, her temper was generally good, and she would never scold people for no reason.
When Qiu Yuruo was first reborn into this era, whenever she was scolded by Zhou, she felt that she was on the verge of turning evil and wished she could set fire to the house!
In the end, he abandoned his plan to lock the whole family's bedroom doors from the outside in the middle of the night and set the house on fire so that everyone would be wiped out, because he couldn't bear to risk his own life.
Because it cannot be destroyed, Qiu Yuruo can only endure it when Old Lady Zhou is in a bad mood and scolds people.
After being scolded for several years, she went from gritting her teeth and enduring it to ignoring it and trying to distract herself by thinking about other things.
Therefore, Qiu Yu Ruo completely ignored Old Lady Zhou's outburst, keeping her head down and not looking at her. She neither listened to nor thought about what Old Lady Zhou was saying.
It wasn't until Old Man Qiu stopped her that Qiu Yuruo raised her head again and said weakly to Old Man Qiu, "Grandpa, I never thought about asking for a dowry for my family before. Father passed away, and you white-haired people have already suffered enough to send off your black-haired child. You also had to work hard to raise me. How could I possibly ask for a dowry for my family?"
"But if I marry into the Su family, without some money to rely on, I'll probably starve to death before I even work myself to death."
When Qiu Yu mentioned her deceased father, it awakened the remaining fatherly affection that Qiu Laotou had for his second son. Moreover, the Su family's current situation was even worse than that of an ordinary farming family. Some members of the family were sick, and the children were too young. Apart from eating, no one in the family could do anything.
If Qiu Yuruo really isn't given any dowry, it's hard to say whether she'll starve to death!
Even if Old Man Qiu doesn't value Qiu Yuruo, she is still the only bloodline left by his second son. He has already raised her to adulthood, and he wouldn't want her to die. Besides, her marriage to the Su family has indeed relieved the family of its difficulties.
After considering it for a while, Old Man Qiu said, "Su Yunting has the title of Xiucai (a scholar who passed the imperial examination at the county level). It would indeed be awkward for you to marry into his family with nothing. However, the family can only scrape together ten taels of silver at most. This is the maximum that the family can afford!"
Qiu Yuruo's original goal was also to get those ten taels of silver. She just told him to add a little more because she didn't want him to give her less.
Now that Old Man Qiu has relented, Qiu Yu Ruo said to Old Man Qiu before Old Lady Zhou could speak, "I knew Grandpa cared about Father. I can share Grandpa's burdens for Father, which is also Father fulfilling his filial duty to Grandpa and Grandma."
Qiu Yuruo expressed that she was willing to marry him, and Old Man Qiu finally nodded in satisfaction.
Old Man Qiu has always been concerned about his reputation. If Qiu Yu is willing to marry in his place, it would be much better than being forced into the bridal sedan chair against her will!
Seeing the old man's reaction, Grandma Zhou swallowed back the words she was about to say.
Qiu Yuruo showed weakness to Old Man Qiu, but she lost her previous gentleness towards Old Man Qiu and said seriously, "Uncle, since you want me to marry into the Su family in place of my cousin, when will you give me the dowry you prepared for this marriage?"
Old Qiu naturally didn't want to give it to him, and he looked at his wife.
With a kind smile, her aunt said, "Yu Ruo, the family has already given you a dowry. Let's leave these things we prepared for your sister!"
Qiu Yuruo's face showed no smile: "My parents are both dead. I agreed to marry in their place so that I could fulfill my filial duty to my grandparents on behalf of my parents. My grandfather gave me dowry money because I am his granddaughter and the only bloodline my father left in the world."
What my aunt meant by saying this was that my uncle was making his deceased brother's daughter marry a dying man in place of his own daughter, without giving any compensation, right?
This is quite an overstatement. Uncle Qiu Qishan had been studying since childhood and passed the imperial examination as a teenager. From then on, the whole family believed that he would become an official.
Although he repeatedly failed the provincial examinations to become a scholar, he was determined to protect the reputation of a scholar.
Even though what Qiu Yuru said was exactly what he was thinking, it was wrong to say it out loud!
Qiu Qishan was annoyed that Qiu Yuruo, who had always pretended to be taciturn, was actually so quick-witted.
He quickly retorted, "What are you thinking, child? Your aunt's idea is that the dowry prepared for your sister may not be suitable for you. I'm thinking of preparing some things that you can use!"
Qiu Yuruo didn't listen to what he wanted to prepare for her and said directly, "Uncle is right. The things you prepared for my cousin are all good. The Su family won't need those kinds of things anymore."
"Then let's do as Uncle said. We'll leave the things for my cousin; she can use them when she finds a good family. As for me, we'll do as Aunt said before. My cousin's dowry is worth over twenty taels of silver. I'm an orphan, not as well-off as my cousin, so you only need to give me twenty taels of silver as my dowry."
After Qiu Yuruo finished speaking, she looked at Boss Qiu with a firm gaze.
She doesn't have the ability to take revenge on him yet, but she must get the money she's owed!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
