The dishes made with that pickled cabbage were sour, fragrant, and refreshing. Even Xu Di, who was a picky eater, ate quite a lot of it. After the meal, he slumped in his chair, not wanting to move.
Qingmiao and Qingsui cleared the bowls and chopsticks from the table, and Zhang Zhaoci and Xu Di went to the large kang (heated brick bed) in the banquet area to drink tea.
Xu Di said, "I really didn't expect that the pickled cabbage would taste so good."
Zhang Zhaoci said, "It would be great if there was a stew of pork. The pickled cabbage used to stew the pork on the table is so delicious. I only had it once and I can never forget it."
Xu Di said, "I can't forget that there's nowhere to take you to eat right now. It's not easy to travel all over the country like this."
Zhang Zhaoci suddenly asked, "By the way, the two Miss Li went to the greenhouse in the backyard. How did you two have fun?"
Xu Di said, "Hey, they're all girls around ten years old. Where do you think I could play with them? The nanny just took them around the greenhouse, and I picked a tomato for each of them to eat. That's all I know."
Zhang Zhaoci leaned closer to the kang table and whispered, "Xu Di, what do you think of the Li family's little girl?"
Upon hearing this, Xu Di looked at Zhang Zhaoci with some wariness and asked, "What do you want to do?"
Zhang Zhaoci said, "I want that young girl to be my daughter-in-law. If you think so, that's fine too. Otherwise, let's arrange the marriage first."
Upon hearing this, Xu Di looked at his mother in disbelief and said, "My dear mother, what are you doing? If I did something wrong, just tell me and I'll correct it, okay?"
Zhang Zhaoci said, "Oh dear, what are you doing? Let me analyze this for you first. You're fourteen years old now, right? Many boys your age are already engaged. We're not saying that after an engagement, we'll immediately marry her. Li Yuexi is only ten years old this year, four years younger than you. When you're in your twenties, she'll be sixteen or seventeen. That would be the perfect time for you two to get married. Isn't that great?"
Xu Di said, "Mother, what if I find someone I love but don't want to marry her? Or what if I never have any feelings for her and we just live like this? What's the point of that kind of life?"
Zhang Zhaoci said, "Then tell me, what do you want? The reason I'm thinking this way is because I think Li Yuexi is a really good girl. At such a young age, she does things flawlessly. You are the eldest son in our family, and you won't be able to inherit the family business like the children of the heir apparent. The old lady is gone, and your father and the heir apparent share the same father. As long as those two old people are alive, the family can't be divided. Even if your father does a good job as an official, what position will he reach when you're ready to get married? By then, what good girls will be waiting for you to choose from?"
Xu Di listened to his mother speak with his lips pursed.
Zhang Zhaoci sighed and said, "These are very real issues facing our family. Your position in the Marquis's mansion determines that you need to find a girl with strong mental resilience, good judgment, and the ability to easily handle various problems as your wife. I think Li Yuexi is a good candidate because I believe this young girl has this potential. She is a very calm person, and such a person can handle any problem very clearly."
Xu Di said, "Mother, I know you mean well, but would you really want that young girl to be your daughter-in-law? Would her parents really want their daughter to jump into that fire pit?"
Zhang Zhaoci frowned at Xu Di's sarcastic tone and said, "Can't we just talk about whether she's willing or not? With me here, what kind of grievances could that young girl suffer after marrying into our family?"
Xu Di frowned and said, "What you're saying is contradictory. I really don't know what you're thinking."
Zhang Zhaoci sighed and said, "What I'm thinking is that you'll have a good life in the future. We don't even know who our enemies in the Marquis's mansion are yet. It's only because we're hiding far away here that they haven't had a chance to make a move. If they really wanted to settle scores with us, I don't know if our family of a few could escape. Your father comes from a Marquis's mansion, and he's still in good health. He should be able to live another thirty or twenty years without any problem. Besides, your father passed the imperial examinations on his own merit, so the Marquis's mansion will never let us go. I'm just afraid that if I don't arrange a marriage for you now, the mansion will use your marriage as a pretext in the future. If that happens, we'll just have to watch helplessly as they dig a pit for us."
Xu Di thought for a moment and said, "Mother, why don't you ask Madam Li to bring her daughter over again, so I can take a good look at her? Also, I'm not in a hurry to get married. As a man, if I marry a wife who doesn't listen to me, I can just leave her in the manor. Nobody can say anything. At most, they'll just say I'm unreliable. But Xiao Jiu won't do that. If the manor really interferes with her marriage and finds her an unreliable husband, it will ruin Xiao Jiu's life."
Zhang Zhaoci said with great distress, "Your father and I have been worried about this for more than just a day or two. But we are far away in the border region, and even if we wanted to find a suitable family, we couldn't find one. They say that high-class families marry off their daughters, while low-class families take in wives. As long as we like the girl's character, we can marry her into the family. If she does something wrong, we can teach her slowly. But it's not an easy thing for a girl to find a husband. I'm hoping that your father can rise higher and higher in his official position so that we can go to other places and I can have more choices."
Xu Di said, "That's right. It would be best for Xiao Jiu to find a husband in the capital. We definitely need to go back to the capital in the future. I can't bear to see Xiao Jiu marry far away."
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