Chapter Two
In the courtyard, Ji Xingguo turned around and called out, "Meimei, is the tea ready yet?"
Ji Wanmei snapped out of her thoughts, lifted the lid of the teapot, poured the freshly boiled water into the teapot, and then carried the tea tray outside.
Upon seeing Ji Wanmei leave, Yang Zhiping immediately picked up the two boxes of gifts beside him and said to Ji Wanmei, "Wanmei, these are what I brought back from Guangzhou. I heard that this style is popular among girls nowadays. I don't know if you like them."
Ji Wanmei placed the tea tray on the table, glanced at Yang Zhiping slowly, and then said, "Such a flashy color, you didn't choose it yourself, did you?"
Yang Zhiping was taken aback, then laughed: "How would a grown man like me choose these? I asked a classmate to help me choose them."
Ji Wanmei smiled, but her smile concealed a cold indifference: "Then it must be a female classmate. It seems Brother Yang has a good relationship with the female classmates at school."
She knew that the woman Yang Zhiping later found outside was his female classmate from Guangcheng University.
Yang Zhiping never expected Ji Wanmei to react this way.
He quickly looked at Ji Xingguo's reaction and hurriedly tried to cover it up: "My good friend's girlfriend knew that I would be visiting my old family sister when I went home this time, so she asked me to help her choose the girl."
"Oh." Ji Wanmei responded indifferently without saying anything. She glanced down at the clothing logo in the box and said, "These foreign brand dresses aren't cheap. They cost two or three hundred yuan each. You bought two at once, which is my dad's monthly salary. Brother Yang is really rich."
Upon hearing this, both the Yang father and son froze.
Yang Zhiping had originally planned to give Ji Wanmei two presentable gifts on their blind date to make a good impression, but he didn't expect that her words would twist his motives and underlying meaning.
Ji Wanmei seemed to have said it unintentionally. After speaking, she turned to her father and said, "Dad, you two talk. I'm going inside to read."
Seeing his daughter's attitude, Ji Xingguo sensed something was amiss.
The daughter doesn't seem to like Yang Zhiping.
Ji Xingguo picked up the teacup and rubbed it for a while, then looked up and sized up Yang Zhiping. He looked him over from all angles and thought he seemed like a decent young man.
If his daughter doesn't like it, he can't force her to marry him, no matter how much he wants to.
So Ji Xingguo chatted with the Yang family father and son for a while longer, then made an excuse to send them away.
Inside the room, Ji Wanmei sat at the table pretending to read, but in reality, she was paying close attention to what was happening outside. She only breathed a sigh of relief after her father had seen the person off.
Fortunately, her father still cared about her. When he realized that she didn't like Yang Zhiping, he lost his earlier enthusiasm for trying to match them up.
Ji Xingguo walked into the inner room and asked her, "Meimei, what was wrong with you just now? Someone brought you something, and you talked like that. That was very impolite."
Just now, in front of outsiders, Ji Xingguo didn't mention his daughter, but now that it's just the two of them, he's determined to get to the bottom of it.
Ji Wanmei looked up and stated directly, "Dad, I don't like that Yang Zhiping! Please don't try to match us up. I'm only eighteen, and marriage is still a long way off. Besides, my most important task right now is to focus on my university studies. I don't want to think about these things right now."
There were some things Ji Xingguo wouldn't normally say directly to his daughter, but since she had made it clear, he decided to share his plans:
“Dad thinks that Yang Zhiping is quite handsome and talented. He just graduated and came back, which is the right age for marriage. Dad is thinking that our family is a good match for his family and we know each other well. If you like him, we can settle this before you go to university, so that we don’t have to ask for a matchmaker later.”
After a pause, Ji Xingguo said, "He is a few years older than you after all. You go to university for four years, and he waits for you for four years. By then, you will be twenty-two, and he will be twenty-six or twenty-seven. Most men can wait until that age."
Ji Wanmei's father's idea was indeed normal. In the 1980s and 90s, most men and women got married as soon as they reached the legal age. Getting married at 26 or 27 was indeed considered late in that era.
Many couples in the countryside hold a wedding banquet first, and only after the children are born do they go to register their marriage with their babies. This kind of situation is very common.
Ji Wanmei frowned, her delicate eyebrows furrowing: "Dad, you can know a person's face but not their heart. Don't think that just because he wears glasses he's a decent and honest scholar. Look at what he bought today. Who gives a young girl a dress the moment they meet? He's frivolous!"
"Besides, he hasn't even started working yet, where did he get so much money? His dad's monthly salary isn't even as much as yours. We have to tighten our belts for a month just to buy a Great Wall electric fan, but his family spends more than a month's salary in one go. Dad, don't you think there's something wrong with that?"
Yang Changhua is the deputy factory director, in charge of the factory's finances and external sales. Over the years, her father probably still doesn't know how much profit he has embezzled from the factory.
Ji Wanmei felt heartbroken whenever she thought about it.
In her past life, her father worked hard for the factory for half his life, but in the end, he was robbed of his power by the ambitious Yang family father and son, and he himself died of illness.
This time, she was determined to make her father see the true colors of the Yang family father and son, and to make plans in advance before the factory reforms, so as to avoid being put in a passive position again.
Ji Xingguo listened to his daughter's words and seemed to be thinking about it, but he still believed in Lao Yang's character: "Maybe he thought that on an occasion like today, he would buy you a decent gift. Don't overthink it."
But in any case, today's blind date has come to nothing.
Ji Wanmei couldn't concentrate on her studies at this time, especially since she had already studied them in her previous life. In the following ten years, she even enrolled in a fashion design major and later opened a clothing factory.
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