Chapter 297 Future Stepmother
On the carriage.
Holding the hand warmer, Meng Jinyao looked at the man sitting opposite her and asked, "Husband, I feel that my father was so nice to me today, it was just a case of offering help for no reason. He didn't say anything to you, did he?"
Gu Jingxi smiled and said, "Ayao is truly a prophet."
Upon hearing this, Meng Jinyao sat up straight and asked curiously, "What did he say to you?"
Gu Jingxi didn't hide anything from her and replied truthfully, "He found out that there is a vacancy in the Ministry of Revenue, but there are many people eyeing that vacancy. He can't get in by himself, so he wants me to help him pull some strings."
Upon hearing this, Meng Jinyao revealed a knowing expression. No wonder the luncheon today featured her favorite dishes, and even the desserts were her favorites. They had really gone to great lengths to please her.
Her father was an ordinary man, but he was perceptive in some ways. He knew that her husband liked her, but he didn't dare to flatter him directly. Instead, he used her as a roundabout way to achieve his goal.
Without even asking, she could guess that her husband would never agree to her father's request.
She asked with a smile, "Is he angry again?"
Gu Jingxi replied, "He didn't dare to get angry, but he did subtly ask me what I thought about his desire to remarry."
Upon hearing this, Meng Jinyao was astonished: "Does he really think my opinion is that important? He can just marry his second wife directly, why does he need to care about my opinion?"
Gu Jingxi smiled helplessly: "I think he's probably a little afraid of you."
Upon hearing this, Meng Jinyao's expression became subtle. Her father, who was the undisputed ruler at home, could he possibly be afraid of her? Perhaps he was a little afraid, because she had a reliable husband as her backer, and because of Sun Shi, she had a bit of a trauma regarding her stepmother. He probably feared that she might sabotage his plans behind his back when things were about to succeed.
Meng Jinyao scoffed, "He's really overthinking it. I wouldn't do anything underhanded. Rather than worrying that I'll ruin his plans, he should be more concerned about the two wonderful children he and Sun have."
Gu Jingxi said, "So, I told him that you didn't mind and would even wish him well, and he was relieved to hear that."
Meng Jinyao seemed thoughtful and asked, "Why is he asking this kind of question? Could it be that he has already chosen a second wife?"
Gu Jingxi nodded.
Meng Jinyao was very curious: "Which family's daughter is blind? How could she possibly take a liking to my father?"
Gu Jingxi replied, "It's the youngest daughter of Hanlin Dong. Hanlin Dong is an unlucky old scholar who has spent half his life in the Hanlin Academy without ever getting ahead. My father-in-law said that the Dong family has already agreed to this marriage."
Half a lifetime?
Is he still an old scholar?
Meng Jinyao caught the key word and felt that Dong Hanlin was quite old, much older than her father. Generally, men of this age would not have daughters around the same age as them, unless they were born out of wedlock. So she asked, "How old is Dong Hanlin's youngest daughter?"
Gu Jingxi said, "Second Miss Dong is a legitimate daughter, and she is twenty-five years old."
Upon hearing this, Meng Jinyao's eyes widened in shock, and she exclaimed in disbelief, "A twenty-five-year-old young woman who is still unmarried?"
Aside from nuns, it is extremely rare for a girl to be unmarried at the age of twenty-five. In poorer families, daughters are married off at the age of thirteen or fourteen, while wealthy and powerful families will keep their daughters for a few years until they are sixteen before marrying them off.
If a girl who is twenty-five years old and comes from an official family is unwanted, there must be something wrong with her. Would her face-conscious father be willing to accept her?
Gu Jingxi explained, "It's not that Miss Dong is still unmarried at twenty-five. She has been married before, but she was widowed and had no children. She returned to her parents' home in the capital after three years of mourning, and her family arranged for her to remarry."
Meng Jinyao understood after hearing this and nodded slightly: "So she's a married girl, twenty-five years old. If my father can agree to a marriage she's already had, then Miss Dong must be quite good-looking. However, given the Meng family's reputation and its current decline, they're even worse off than the Meng family. My grandmother's picky eye wouldn't approve of her. A young woman of equal social standing would definitely not want to marry my father, but a married girl would be willing. Besides, Miss Dong comes from a respectable family, so it's more respectable to talk about her."
Gu Jingxi smiled and said, "Ayao is quite calm."
"What else can we do? We can't interfere with our elders' affairs." Meng Jinyao shrugged helplessly, then clicked her tongue twice. "My son wants to get married, and my father wants to get married too. The old and the young are all racking their brains over marriage. In the end, the old man got his wish first."
Hearing this, Gu Jingxi couldn't help but chuckle. After a moment, he analyzed, "The Meng family has been disgraced, but Sun has cleared her father-in-law's name and taken the blame for her mother-in-law's death herself. In the eyes of outsiders, her father-in-law is the victim, and people sympathize with him for losing his wife and son because of Sun. Xiu Ming is different. He ran away from his marriage, has a favorite concubine, and now the concubine is pregnant."
Meng Jinyao nodded slightly: "That's true. My father doesn't seem as absurd as Xiu Ming on the surface. By the way, did my father say when the wedding date is set?"
Gu Jingxi replied, "The wedding date hasn't been set yet, but the engagement is about to be finalized, and we're preparing to find an auspicious day to formally propose."
Meng Jinyao chuckled lightly: "He tells you everything, but hasn't said a word to me. Is he really that afraid I'll do something underhanded? That's why he sounded out you, and only dared to speak after confirming I had no objections. If you call him stupid, he knows to sound out you; if you call him smart, he sounded out you. Isn't he afraid we're in cahoots?"
Gu Jingxi said gently, "No matter what, we now know who he is going to marry. Your younger siblings probably don't know about this yet."
Meng Jinyao disagreed: "I don't think so. My dear sister came to see me today, and she wanted to use me as a tool."
Upon hearing this, Gu Jingxi frowned: "What's going on?"
Meng Jinyao replied, "She wanted to persuade me to put pressure on Father with you to make him give up the idea of getting married. It's clear that she knows Father is about to propose to the Dong family, so she's anxious. But I ignored her. I don't care who Father marries. Now I can protect my second brother too."
After she finished speaking, she seemed to think of something and laughed out loud: "The weddings I've attended are all for my peers or younger relatives. Thinking that I will be going back to my parents' home to attend my father and stepmother's wedding in the near future, I feel a little strange, and it seems a little novel."
Gu Jingxi chuckled helplessly, "There aren't many sons-in-law who can attend their father-in-law's wedding."
“That’s true.” Meng Jinyao nodded, but after a while, she started to worry again. “I know what to give as a wedding gift for my son’s wedding. I just need to give my daughter-in-law a gift when she serves tea the next day. But what kind of wedding gift should I give when I go back to my parents’ home for my father’s wedding?”
This question stumped Gu Jingxi for the time being. There are rules to giving gifts, and he really couldn't think of a congratulatory gift for his father's remarriage.
Before he could answer, Meng Jinyao continued, "Never mind, let's put this aside for now and talk about it later. Husband, since we're out, let's go for a walk before we go back. I haven't been out in a long time."
Gu Jingxi replied with a "okay," then asked with a smile, "Aren't you afraid of the cold anymore?"
Meng Jinyao: "It's sunny today, and it feels pretty good. It's much warmer than yesterday."
We shopped until evening, bought a lot of interesting and fun little trinkets, and had dinner at a restaurant before heading home.
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