Chapter 415: Helping the Poor and the Weak

Dai Qing sat by the river for a while before someone came to her door. It was a woman in her twenties, wearing a half-new floral jacket and straight pants. The tips of her leather shoes were a little peeling. She was holding a cloth bag with a few celery sticks in it.

She was dressed simply, had a sad face and lacked vitality, which was very inconsistent with her age.

"Master, please help me see if I can save my marriage."

Dai Qing looked at her face and found that the children's palace showed that she was pregnant with a daughter. The lines in the wives' palace, also known as the traitor's palace, were messy and had diagonal lines, indicating that the couple was not in harmony and often argued too much. The wealth palace was flat, with a slightly high cheekbone, and her life was relatively hard.

"From your face, you have a daughter, but your relationship with your wife is not harmonious. You probably quarrel frequently, mostly because of the unequal distribution of money."

Listening to Dai Qing's explanation, the elder sister's eyes lit up and she nodded repeatedly.

"I really found the right person today. It's just like what the master said. My child's father and I either don't talk to each other or we argue. There is no hope in life at all."

"He doesn't care about me at all, and doesn't care how difficult it is for me. He just keeps blaming me. I can't live any longer."

As she spoke, the elder sister's eyes turned red. She raised her hand to wipe her eyes and looked at Dai Qing with anticipation in her eyes.

"Master, please give me some advice. How can we solve the problem between us?"

Dai Qing looked at her anxious expression and then carefully examined her face.

"If the conflict is caused by money, all you need to do to resolve it is to keep a clear account. Once you have a clear mind, the conflict will be resolved naturally."

After hearing Dai Qing's suggestion, the elder sister was startled, and then her expression became a little unnatural.

"We are both ordinary employees with fixed salaries. After deducting living expenses, there is not much left... I usually eat frugally and just make ends meet. Life is so tight that I don't even want to buy clothes."

"But the child's father didn't believe it. He always thought that I was using the money to support my parents. In the past few months, he didn't give me his salary. We could hardly make ends meet. My daughter had to pay tuition fees soon. When I mentioned it to him, he told me to find a way myself and save his money first."

Dai Qing felt helpless as she listened to her explanation.

"That's why I asked you to keep the account and let your husband check it when necessary. If he still insists on doing it, it proves that this man is selfish and not worth your careful budgeting for him."

Poor couples have many worries, this is the reality. But life still has to go on, so we can only find a relatively peaceful way.

Unless one of the parties doesn't want to live anymore, that's another matter.

The eldest sister looked at Dai Qing, struggling for a long time before she spoke with a guilty conscience.

"My mother's family was not doing well either. I had a younger brother who was not married yet. My salary was only over 200 yuan, so I gave my mother 50 yuan every month so she could save it to buy something big for my brother's wedding."

Dai Qing: “…”

"I can't help it. Nowadays, when getting married, you have to ask for a washing machine and a refrigerator. My brother and dad's salary is not enough. My mom asked me to give him 50 yuan every month until my brother gets married... If a young man never gets married, the neighbors will laugh at us."

The elder sister said this with a somewhat embarrassed look on her face.

"In the past, I was in charge of the family's finances, and my son's father never asked about it. We could get by even if we lived a tight life. But in the past six months, we've been arguing a lot, and we're heading for divorce."

"Your husband must have known about your support for your parents' family. Otherwise, he wouldn't have bothered with you."

Dai Qing was also helpless about this. Although fifty yuan was not a lot, it was almost one-fifth of a person's salary.

Now in the autumn of 1991, the average wage for an ordinary worker in the capital is only around 250 yuan, while those at a higher level earn a little over 300 yuan.

The combined salary of a couple is less than 500 yuan, and with the expenses of food, oil, salt, water, electricity, children's schooling and the elderly's medical care, most families are not well off.

"Life is not so prosperous nowadays. If we want to reduce conflicts, we still need to trust each other. Once we start to be suspicious of each other, barriers will arise. When they explode, life will be ruined."

"I have no choice. My mother has been begging me. I am the older sister and cannot ignore my younger brother. I am in a difficult situation."

The eldest sister was holding the cloth bag in her hand, and she was almost squeezing it into a dried pickled vegetable.

"In fact, more than 300 yuan a month is enough for our family of three. Giving my mother 50 yuan will not affect our life. The father is just narrow-minded and doesn't want to give it. He said that I am ungrateful and not loyal to him... In fact, for the sake of this family, I have been very frugal and have spent every dollar very carefully, but he doesn't seem to feel sorry for me."

The older sister became more and more excited as she spoke, and resentment gradually grew in her eyes.

"He has known about my family's situation for a long time. When we started dating, he promised that he would lend a hand if we were able to. But now that we are married, he has forgotten everything he said before."

"When we had a fight this morning, he yelled at me, saying that if he had more money than he could spend, he should give some to his mother-in-law every month. Since we're married, we should treat each other equally."

"Isn't he kidding? My parents need money because my brother is getting married, but my mother-in-law doesn't need it. My father is the youngest, and my two older brothers and sister-in-law are already married and have their own families. My mother-in-law and father-in-law have pensions, so they don't need any subsidies from us."

"In a family, the weaker ones should be helped. The father is deliberately making things difficult for me."

Listening to her dissatisfied complaints, Dai Qing looked into her eyes and reminded her softly.

"When a couple lives together, they do need to support each other, but it doesn't mean they just help each other out of poverty. Although you have good reasons and helping your brother is helping your parents, others may not empathize with you and think you are a burden to him."

"After a man and a woman get married, their income is considered joint property. It is reasonable for you to be informed. It is not right or wrong for you to support your parents, but you need to communicate in advance. Being kept in the dark is also a form of deception."

When a couple gets married and starts a family, they have two families to worry about. Once a conflict arises, it is easy for the relationship between the couple to be affected.

As for the issue of helping the poor and the weak, everyone has their own opinions and it is impossible to argue out a reasonable answer.

If the affection between husband and wife is deep, they can turn a blind eye. But if they are narrow-minded, they will just quarrel, and finally break up.

After hearing Dai Qing's words of comfort, the eldest sister was silent for a moment and then shook her head.

"There was no way to communicate about the money given to my parents. I knew from the time we got married that my husband was a little narrow-minded and liked to be serious about some things. That's why I kept it a secret from him."

"Now that he knows, he's been finding ways to make trouble for me every day. He's even taking my salary card. It's clear that he doesn't want me to help my parents."