Chapter 13 This stuff is in a gray area, guaranteed to make money.
Upon hearing this, Zhao Ping'an persisted, saying, "Then from now on you can only love my mother! You're not allowed to love anyone else! Not even Jiang Wanqiu!"
A child's possessiveness can be unreasonable, yet it carries a heartbreaking stubbornness.
Zhao Wenchang was completely stumped by his questions.
It's the middle of the night, and the temperature in the mountains is so low it could freeze your ears off. If we keep wasting time with this kid, we'll both end up getting seriously injured from the cold.
Zhao Wenchang rubbed his throbbing forehead: "Okay, okay, Dad promises you, I promise you everything... Dad only loves your mother, alright? Come home with Dad, your grandpa and grandma must be worried sick."
Jiang Wanqiu couldn't describe the feeling in her heart; it was both sour and astringent, like swallowing an unripe green apricot.
The budding warmth and excitement for this man that had just begun to ignite in her heart was extinguished completely.
He turned around, looked up, and inadvertently caught sight of a slender figure in the shadows not far away, and his heart sank.
When did she arrive? How much did she listen to?
Jiang Wanqiu tugged at the corners of her mouth, trying to smile, but found that the muscles in her face were too stiff to obey her commands.
Seeing that the man had also noticed her, Jiang Wanqiu pretended to be nonchalant and went to greet him: "It's good that you found him. Hurry up and go back. The whole village has come out to look for him. Don't let everyone worry anymore."
Zhao Ping'an seemed to have received a satisfactory answer, or perhaps he was tired of crying, and finally moved his feet.
He gripped Zhao Wenchang's clothes tightly with one hand and held his father's arm with the other, stumbling along as they walked down the mountain. When he passed Jiang Wanqiu, he gave her a wary and defiant glare.
Lying on the kang (heated brick bed) that night, neither of them could fall asleep for a while, but neither of them spoke.
After an unknown amount of time, Jiang Wanqiu turned over, facing the wall, and finally couldn't help but ask softly, "Can you... tell me what kind of person Ping An's mother was?"
In the darkness, Zhao Wenchang paused for a moment.
He didn't expect her to ask that question so suddenly.
To be honest, he really didn't know Ping An's biological mother at all, the woman he had only heard about countless times from his comrades!
We've only met two or three times, and we haven't even exchanged more than a few words.
What could he say?
Zhao Wenchang racked his brains for a long time before finally squeezing out a few words through gritted teeth: "She's...a very gentle woman."
gentle.
"Oh, really?"
She stopped speaking and just stared at the mottled earthen wall in front of her.
She kept thinking to herself, what's the point of being jealous of a woman who's already dead?
That makes sense, but I just can't suppress the sour feeling in my heart.
It turns out that a woman had long, truly, and enduringly resided in this man's heart. That place was never empty.
Just as she was feeling agitated, a mechanical voice suddenly rang in her mind:
[Ding! Side quest "Harmonious Marriage" has been completed. The harmony level of the target characters, Li Xiujuan and Zhao Fu, has increased. Reward: System space expanded to 20 cubic meters, recipe 'Sexy Jade S' unlocked.]
Jiang Wanqiu's heart skipped a beat, realizing that the "medicated wine" she had given to Li Xiujuan had worked.
She closed her eyes and immersed her consciousness into the system space.
Sure enough, the small space, which was originally only ten cubic meters and filled to the brim with family property, making it seem somewhat cramped, was now suddenly open and spacious, doubling in size.
On the shelf against the wall, there were several new finished potions, and in a nearby compartment, there were several objects of various shapes, made of fine mutton fat jade.
Looking at those things, Jiang Wanqiu's cheeks flushed slightly, but a bold idea popped into her head uncontrollably.
In this day and age, this kind of thing is an absolute gray area, a taboo that people can't even mention.
But precisely because of this, it represents absolute exorbitant profits.
A man's dignity is sometimes more important than money or even his life!
She vividly remembered that in her previous life, back in the 1980s and 90s, a bottle of counterfeit aphrodisiac liquor with unknown ingredients was worth thousands of yuan. And that was thousands of yuan in the 1980s and 90s!
Moreover, all the things she has are genuine and useful.
If she could sell these things...
The next morning, Zhao's parents-in-law called Jiang Wanqiu and Zhao Wenchang to the main room.
The two men, beaming with joy, discussed, "Wenchang, Wanqiu, your wedding is a big deal, we can't just rush it. Wanqiu is a city girl, we can't let her suffer. We should inform the bride's relatives so that her family can come and celebrate."
Yesterday, when they saw this woman also going out to look for Ping An, they knew that this woman's love for her child was definitely not just lip service.
Ma Jinhua nodded in agreement: "That makes sense. Wanqiu, who else is in your family? Don't you have a younger sister? What's her name again?"
"Jiang Wanxia," Jiang Wanqiu said softly.
“Yes, yes, Jiang Wanxia! Let’s give her a call and invite her to your wedding. Let her see that the Zhao family hasn’t treated you badly.” That’s how Zhao Wenchang’s father decided.
The elderly couple were honest people. They went to great lengths, asking around and asking around, before finally getting the phone number of Jiang Wanxia's in-laws from Jiang's parents.
Zhao Xiaohua took the slip of paper with the number written on it, volunteered to take on the task, and ran excitedly towards the commune.
The commune's telephone was a hand-cranked type. Zhao Xiaohua cranked it for a long time before finally getting through to a long-distance call.
"Hello? I'm looking for Jiang Wanxia," Zhao Xiaohua said politely into the microphone.
There was a two-second silence on the other end of the phone, followed by a burst of noise, like an argument. Then, an extremely agitated woman's voice roared like thunder:
"What are you looking for! It's bad luck! There's no such person in our family, he died a long time ago!"
After saying that, the phone was abruptly hung up with a "snap".
"Beep—beep—beep—"
Zhao Xiaohua stood there, stunned, holding the microphone that was emitting a busy tone, her mind buzzing.
Dead...dead?
So suddenly?
On the other end of the phone, Jiang Wanxia's face flushed with anger. Pointing her finger at the woman who answered the phone, she yelled, "You damned old hag! Who are you calling dead?!"
The other person put their hands on their hips and retorted without any politeness: "I said you're dead! If it weren't for the fact that we Wang family pity your Zhao family, you would have been dead in the Great Northern Wilderness by now! Don't you dare make those stupid demands in front of our family. Let me tell you, you don't deserve them!"
"Why don't you deserve it!" Jiang Wanxia retorted without flinching. "Is it so hard for you to hold a wedding?!"
Upon hearing this, Qian Xiaoxia glared with her triangular eyes: "You eat and drink our food now. Without the Wang family, you wouldn't even have the right to make a request!"
Jiang Wanxia was furious.
Images from my past life flashed uncontrollably through my mind.
How did Zhao Wenchang's parents treat him, that penniless Zhao family, that good-for-nothing? They treated him like royalty!
She said she wanted to have a decent wedding, and without hesitation, they scraped together several thousand yuan to give her as a bride price.
Although the wedding was shabby and the guests were all unsophisticated country relatives, she didn't care about them at all. She took the money and went to the city that very night to eat at a restaurant, bought new clothes, and left Zhao Wenchang alone in the new house. They didn't dare to utter a sound!
But what about now?
The Wang family is quite influential in this part of Shanghai. They live in a two-story house and have meat at every meal, yet they don't even plan to hold a wedding for her! They haven't even mentioned the bride price!
"How can your Wang family be so shameless!" Jiang Wanxia pointed at her mother-in-law's nose and cursed, "Don't you know how much money my parents gave you to thank you? I brought a lot of dowry with me, didn't I? You didn't give a single penny of betrothal money, and now you don't even want to hold a banquet? Is there anyone in the world who takes advantage of others like this!"
Wang Fang, the eldest sister-in-law standing to the side, spat out the sunflower seed shells in her mouth and sneered, "Oh, so you're starting to settle accounts now? Our Wang family got you into the city and gave you a city residency permit, that's saving your life! Isn't it only right to give you a little something as a thank you fee? Your dowry isn't even enough to cover the money our family spent on you! You didn't know how to serve your husband or your in-laws as soon as you entered the family, all you do is daydream, asking to book a hotel for the wedding and daring to ask us for a dowry of 10,000 yuan! Why don't you just rob us?"
"Your dowry money was already used by your man to build the country!" Qian Xiaoxia spat as she spoke. "You, a person with problematic class background who was sent down to the countryside, still want a golden nest? Dream on!"
Jiang Wanxia completely exploded, her bad temper, spoiled by the Zhao family elders in her previous life, instantly igniting. She grabbed the purple clay teacup on the table and smashed it hard on the ground!
"Bang—crash!"
The teacup shattered with a crisp sound.
In her previous life, whenever she broke something, the two old men from the Zhao family would come over like grandchildren to coax her, giving her whatever she wanted.
She thought it would be the same this time.
But she was wrong.
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