After the fourth day of the New Year, Chu Lingxuan stopped being a hands-off boss and started working with Manager Luo and his son to deliver the betrothal gift to Lu Yuan.
On the seventh day, Chen Shi and his family returned to Dingzhou Prefecture.
On the ninth day, Chu Lingxuan returned to the government office to report for duty.
That day, Wu the carpenter also came to Luyuan, they wanted to finish the last bit of work. Chen Afu, Wang and Chen Ming were even busier, while they were busy with the dowry, they also made various preparations for Chen Afu's wedding.
On the 20th, A-Lu and Da-Bao's long vacation ended and they started to study with Mr. Liao again. But today only Da-Bao went to Tangyuan alone, as A-Lu asked for leave for something important.
At the beginning of the Si hour of the day, the main gate of Tangyuan was wide open. Chu Lingxuan, wearing festive clothes, brought the matchmaker to deliver the betrothal gifts to Luyuan. A Lu and Chen Agui, with silly smiles on their faces, stood at the gate of Luyuan to greet them. Chen Ming and Wang sat in the living room, accompanied by Old Lady Chen and Chen Ye, waiting for the prospective son-in-law to come and pay their respects. Hu and Chen Aju also came. They stood in the yard, waiting to see how much betrothal gifts Tangyuan would send.
The first load of betrothal cakes, seafood, three kinds of meat, various gift boxes, sticker boxes, incense, firecrackers, bracelets, gold, etc. all went into Lu Garden, while people carrying the betrothal gifts continued to pour out of Tang Garden.
Many villagers and children came and gathered on both sides of the path to watch the fun.
Chen Ahfu hid in Fuyuan and was too embarrassed to go out. Miss Chu knew that today was the day her father would deliver the betrothal gifts, and she wanted to go out to watch the excitement, but she was so scared by the noise outside that she dared not go out. She just opened the gate of Fuyuan a crack and hid inside to watch.
When she saw Chu Lingxuan passing by Fuyuan, she laughed and turned back to Chen Ahfu in the main room and said loudly, "Aunt, I saw Daddy. Daddy was wearing a red dress and smiling so silly."
This made the little girls giggle, and she quickly added, "Hey, my daddy is quite handsome."
When the noise outside and Luyuan calmed down, Hu reached out to open the gift box and the gift box to see how much silver and gold and silver jewelry there were, but was stopped by Chen Ye. He scolded, "You are so old, why are you rummaging around?"
Mrs. Hu had no choice but to retract her hand.
Chen Ming had already seen the gift list, and the betrothal gift was two thousand taels of silver. He went over and opened a few boxes, and there were so many gold bracelets, gold bracelets, gold ingots, and gold head ornaments that it was dazzling.
Old Mrs. Chen smiled with wrinkles on her face and said, "A-Lu is so lucky that he even has the betrothal gifts to find a wife."
Chen Ming said, "We won't keep any of this betrothal gift. We'll give it all to Ah Fu as a dowry."
Chen Ye was shocked and said, "Are you stupid? Ah Fu's dowry should be prepared by her biological father. Lord Chu gave you the betrothal gifts to show his gratitude to our Chen family for raising Ah Fu. You can prepare a dowry for Ah Fu as a token of your appreciation. The furniture behind the yard and the fine materials you bought for her are worth quite a bit of money. Ah Fu has such a rich biological father, and he couldn't bear to see you live a bad life, so he gave all these things to her as a gift."
Chen Ming shook his head and said, "Afu suffered a lot when she was young, but later her life got better, and she earned her own money. As a father, I feel embarrassed to keep the betrothal gifts from the man's family. I'll give them all to her, and make her dowry look good. Not only will her in-laws look at her with respect, but she will also have no worries about food and clothing for the rest of her life."
Chen Ye said, "I didn't ask you to keep everything. You only left the betrothal money, and gave all the gold ornaments and other things to Ah Fu. Ah Fu is rich and has a rich father, so his future life will not be difficult. On the contrary, although you are better off than me, you are still far behind those big landlords. You have the conditions to be a big landlord, why do you have to give all the money to the richer Chu family and live a tight life yourself?"
Old Lady Chen also said, "My eldest son is right. Ah Fu is rich, and the Chu family is even richer. They won't care about this little money anymore. Old ladies know that money should be spent wisely. You and Ah Lu need this money, so it should be spent on you."
Chen Ming still disagreed and said, "The Chu family didn't need to send us a betrothal gift. They could just give it to Master Chen's family. After all, Ah Fu got married directly from there. But the Chu family still sent us a betrothal gift. They are kind and righteous, and they take me, Chen Ming, seriously, so I should not be greedy."
The old lady was so angry that she cursed, "Why did I raise such a stupid son like you? How can you be greedy? That's what you deserve. You raised Ah Fu."
"Afu was not raised by me, but by Juanniang." Chen Ming said stubbornly.
Chen Ye also got angry and yelled, "Then my Chen family has always protected Ah Fu, right? She was able to be born and grow up safely because she was born in my Chen family and lived as a descendant of my Chen family. Otherwise, she would have died countless times. Also, when she got into trouble several times, it was mother, me, and Ah Gui who came forward to protect her."
Chen Ming said, "Yes, the Chen family protected Ah Fu, but Ah Fu has also repaid our Chen family. We are living such a good life now, all thanks to Ah Fu. I was raised by my elder brother, and I owed him a favor, but Ah Fu has repaid me and you all. In the future, elder brother, please don't always talk about how the Chen family is grateful to Ah Fu, because she has given him everything she had."
This was the first time Chen Ming contradicted Chen Ye. Chen Ye was furious and swung his hand to hit Chen Ming, but stopped in front of Chen Ming. He said angrily, "Mom, we are meddling in other people's business. Let's go." Then he pushed Hu, Chen Aju, Chen Agui and others out.
When Old Lady Chen and Mrs. Wang saw that Chen Ye was about to hit Chen Ming, they screamed in fear. They were relieved when they saw that he didn't slap him.
When Old Lady Chen saw her eldest son's back, she said to Chen Ming, "Don't blame your eldest brother. He is also thinking about you."
He caught up with Chen Ye and advised, "Brothers, you have all grown up. You can't just hit them whenever you want like you did when you were little. Fortunately, you didn't slap me, otherwise, wouldn't the friendship you had for so many years be ruined..."
Seeing that they had all left, Wang hesitated and said, "Ahfu is not short of money, how about leaving all the gift money?"
Chen Ming's face was extremely grim. He said, "No, you have to listen to me. All these betrothal gifts should be given to Ah Fu as a dowry. People's greed is unbridled. I'm afraid that I will get more and more comfortable with it. That would be bad for Ah Fu, you, Lu, and our family."
Ah Lu also said, "I also think we should give it all to my sister."
Chen Afu led Chu Hanyan to Lu Garden and saw a room full of colorful betrothal gifts in the upper hall. However, Chen Ming, Wang Shi and A Lu were not smiling, but had sad faces.
A Lu told Chen A Fu what had happened.
Chen Ahfu said, "I just came here to tell Dad about this..."
Last night, Chu Lingxuan came to Fuyuan to discuss the betrothal gift with Chen Afu, and specifically mentioned that Chen Ming should keep the two thousand taels of silver as betrothal gift, or buy land or a shop...
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