Wangwang left three taels of silver, and Amian found the cook and told him to use all the money to buy ingredients.
“This is my good friend, and besides, we’re getting married. I’m not going to make money off her.” Even after becoming the owner, Ah Mian still occasionally uttered some silly remarks, instructing the cook, “Make sure the food is prepared well.”
The local wedding banquet is a "three soups and four stir-fries" style, with each table serving auspicious dishes such as lotus seed and lily bulb soup and four-happiness meatballs.
The cook rolled up his sleeves and patted his chest confidently: "Don't worry, I'll definitely go to the market and buy the best meat, fish, and vegetables."
With the wedding banquet still some time away, A-Mian tried her best to come up with a way to make the occasion look respectable.
She went to the doorsteps of rural homes and collected many couplets and red paper that were torn by the wind or had missing corners. It cost her less than ten coins, and many people simply gave her the torn red paper.
Back home, Ah Mian recut the larger, more intact pieces of paper into "囍" (double happiness) characters and window decorations; the smaller, torn pieces of red paper were used to wrap a red date and make wedding candy for those who wanted to participate; or a copper coin was wrapped inside, not many, but the person who found the coin was obviously luckier.
Wangwang also needs to figure out how to get the wedding dress and shoes.
Her family paid for her to attend the academy, believing that the tuition was already equivalent to her dowry, and that they certainly couldn't afford to pay any more.
—Just kidding, after all, the eldest sister Wangwang has dowries for her two younger brothers and a dowry for her younger sister. The family doesn't have mountains of gold and silver!
“I have my mother’s wedding dress. I wore that when I got married,” Amian ran around rummaging through her chest and cupboards and brought out the dress. “I don’t know if you’ll mind. Maybe if we alter the size and take it to the fabric shop to get it starched, it will look exactly like new.”
Wangwang, who was embroidering wedding shoes, was overjoyed upon hearing this. "A-Mian, you've been a great help!"
Meng Chijian was chopping wood. He knew that A Mian wasn't very skilled with her hands, but she still tried her best to cut out the character "囍" every night.
He frowned as he listened to the conversation between the two young women.
After Wangwang left, Meng Chijian washed his face and sat opposite A Mian.
"Marriage is a major event. How could Wangwang's husband be so ill-mannered? He only gave a little over three taels of silver. What can that do? Not to mention the betrothal gifts, he didn't even prepare a proper food box. If he knew his wife was in such a predicament, he wouldn't help her and would make you all run around. It's really not fair."
Ah Mian said, "Officer Chen had no choice; he gave all his money to Wangwang..."
"It's one thing to not make money as a constable. In the winter, when farmers are not busy, many families are building houses and can earn money by doing odd jobs." Meng Chijian looked down on Constable Chen, thinking that he did not act like a man or a husband.
How can the bride have to worry about everything during a wedding?
Amian thought to herself, "Not everyone is as concerned as you. You're always so worried about what others are doing." She didn't care much about these tedious rituals. "It's just a formality. They'll be living their lives from now on. As long as they make their lives better and better, that's all that matters."
"How can that be?" Meng Chijian picked up the sleeping little A Yue and earnestly instructed, "It's true that the wedding is for outsiders to see, but it's also a very important thing to put the bride's family at ease."
Little A-Yue was half asleep, tilting her head to look at her father.
Ah Mian ignored him and kept wrapping red dates.
Ten days before the wedding banquet, A-Mian posted red paper outside the shop to inform guests that a wedding banquet would be held there in ten days and that walk-in customers would not be accepted on that day, so they should not make a wasted trip.
Her solution was to ask customers who were free to come and congratulate the newlyweds on that day, and then bring a bowl of soy milk to the tofu shop later, upon presenting the red paper.
Meng Chijian said, "Anyone who didn't know better would think you and Wangwang got married. You probably wouldn't have put in this much effort to marry me."
Xiao Jing rolled her eyes at her brother: "Wangwang is a girl, how could A Mian marry Wangwang?"
"..."
Amian also said, "That's right, that's right."
She wondered if it was possible for women to marry each other. But then she thought it was impossible because there would be nowhere for them to live (both women would be leaving their original homes, without houses or land), and they would not be able to survive.
After letting my mind wander like this for a while, I felt sleepy and went to sleep with little A-Yue in my arms.
Wangwang ultimately didn't get to wear A-Mian's wedding dress.
Constable Chen pawned his sword at the pawnshop and raised two taels of silver. He didn't take odd jobs because whenever he had free time, he tried every means to catch wild geese. He finally managed to shoot down two, which made up for the lack of proper etiquette. He then asked someone to deliver the geese to Wangwang's house.
Wangwang was still puzzled when he talked about it, "That day we were going to catch fish in the river in your village, right? After he found out, he acted strangely."
Fish is a must-have at banquets, carrying rich symbolic meanings such as "abundance year after year" and "fish leaping over the dragon gate".
However, according to the cook, the price of fish in winter is more than double that in summer. Ah Mian said that there is a stream at the foot of the mountain near her home, and the ice on it is very thin. She could try to break the ice, put fish food in a net, and catch some fish herself.
Then keep it in a water tank, and use it at the wedding banquet.
Amian lit a fire and cooked sweet potatoes on the shore. After Wangwang set up the net, he came over to eat the roasted sweet potatoes.
After waiting for a while, two or three big fish were caught in the net. One of them had a bulging belly, which is a good omen of "many children, many blessings"!
Both of them thought it must be great luck, and A-Mian even told Meng Chijian about it with great interest.
"What's so strange?" Amian asked.
“He went to my house to do chores, fetch water, and even fixed my roof... It used to leak all the time. Now my parents really like him. My mother even secretly gave me some dowry money and told us to live well.”
"Could it be that he also has feelings for you?"
“Definitely not,” Wangwang shook his head. “He’s so stubborn, how could he? We’re just living together as a couple. We’ve already agreed that after we get married, I’ll sleep in the bed and he’ll sleep on the floor. But he’s not a bad person, he’s probably just trying to make the act more convincing. Don’t tell anyone else.”
She was just giving a casual suggestion, but she trusted Ah Mian completely. Ah Mian is very tight-lipped, and Meng Chijian still doesn't know that Wangwang's marriage is actually a "fake marriage."
The night before the wedding banquet, A-Mian and her staff decorated the tofu shop nicely, pasting up the paper-cut characters and window decorations, and hanging up the red silk that they had temporarily borrowed from the cloth shop. It immediately looked like a proper wedding.
There were dozens of fish in the tanks in the back kitchen, and all kinds of vegetables that had been purchased were piled up to the brim.
Ah Mian didn't have time to go home, so she slept in the shop that night.
Before drifting off to sleep, A-Mian thought, "Wangwang, the girl who escaped death, I wish you happiness and joy from now on."
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