The matchmaker rolled her eyes, feigning composure, and said, "This is someone's parents asking me to find a husband for their daughter. They specifically gave me my birth date and time. How am I doing something immoral? In the end, what I'm doing is a great act of good fortune!"
"Oh? Since it was written by their parents, let's go and compare them to see if it was written by the father or the mother?" With that, Su Ruyi grabbed the matchmaker with incredible strength, and the matchmaker struggled a few times but couldn't open her eyes.
The matchmaker got impatient: "What are you doing? What's it to you?"
Qi Yasheng watched for a long time, and seeing that the matchmaker was still not behaving herself, she became extremely angry and slapped her across the face: "The Zhang Ruyi you're trying to sell is my niece!"
The matchmaker, having been slapped, dared not retaliate and looked up at Qi Yasheng.
The man in front of her looked like a refined city dweller, definitely not a peasant from the fields. How could she possibly afford to offend someone like that?
She quickly said, "Young man, you're being too rude! How could I be selling this? I'm doing good deeds, connecting people from afar, which is a great act of virtue."
"Selling people to Inner Mongolia, more than 1,000 miles away! Is this what you call accumulating good karma?" Qi Yasheng retorted mercilessly.
The matchmaker blushed and fell silent.
Su Ruyi said coldly, "I already inquired about it. Aunt Zhang, your home is more than 50 li away from here. You usually match people with people from your village, right? How did you know there was a Zhang Ruyi in Zhangqiao Village? Who told you?"
The matchmaker's face darkened: "I... I overheard some gossip while listening to others, I... I overheard it."
"Who was it that you overheard gossiping about?"
"How...how would I know? I overheard people talking about it when I went to the market!" The matchmaker's voice began to tremble.
Qi Yasheng toyed with the note: "You're not telling the truth, huh? No problem—come with me to the police station. You've committed human trafficking, which is a serious crime."
Before the matchmaker could speak, Su Ruyi continued, "It's possible to stay inside for eight or ten years! Aunt Zhang, how old are you this year? Let me calculate for you whether you'll ever have a chance to get out in this lifetime!"
The matchmaker raised her eyes and stared intently at Su Ruyi: "Young lady, I have no grudge against you."
Su Ruyi said softly, "You're selling my sister."
The matchmaker was devastated. She plopped down on the ground, slapping her thigh: "How could I be selling people? I'm doing a really good thing. This girl's birth date and time, and her home address, were given to me by someone, but they meant well, asking me to find her a good son-in-law! And the bride price isn't low."
"Oh, so what kind of son-in-law are you planning to find for her?" Su Ruyi continued to ask.
"I found her a perfect son-in-law, a relative of my own family. How could I possibly harm her?"
"Is your relative missing an arm or a leg?"
“He has everything, except… he just had a fever when he was a child, and his legs are a little weak, so he can’t do any work… nothing… nothing, nothing to say.”
How old are you?
"Thirty-three, thirty-seven or thirty-eight years old."
"Pah!" Su Ruyi retorted angrily. "For 300 yuan, you're going to sell my sister to a 37 or 38-year-old lame bachelor? How much money would you get in return?"
The matchmaker lowered her head, her eyes darting around.
When the skinny, dark-skinned girl found her, she gave her a total of 400 yuan.
Let her handle this matter well, and there will be 100 more points if she succeeds.
She promised the Zhang family a dowry of 300, and Zhang Ruyi's parents were already overjoyed.
Therefore, she estimated that she could earn at least 200 yuan, and with the money from unloading coal, she could get about 220 yuan—which was much more worthwhile than working in the fields all year round!
Even though this matter didn't work out, she still received ten yuan as a delivery fee.
She had already made up her mind. Once this period of time passed and the girl stopped causing trouble, she would definitely make this marriage happen!
At most, it will only last for a month or two!
But where did these two evil spirits come from?
And judging from what these two people are saying, it seems there's more to this story...
Thinking this, the matchmaker wasn't in a hurry to leave: "Then what do you want to do? I still have a few matchmaking appointments to make today. If you delay my business, I'll lose a hundred or so dollars a day."
When the matchmaker asked for money, Qi Yasheng didn't hesitate and pulled out 20 yuan from her pocket: "Tell me, who told you to sell my niece?"
The matchmaker sighed, "If I really told you, wouldn't I offend people? How could I stay in this whole area?"
Su Ruyi pulled out a handful of ten-yuan notes from her pocket, then snatched the twenty-yuan note from Qi Yasheng's hand and slapped it all into the matchmaker's hand: "Is that enough?"
The matchmaker weighed the heavy stack of ten-yuan notes in her hand, and a smile immediately spread across her face: "More than enough, absolutely enough. But the person who contacted me was a young woman. She promised to give me another 100 yuan if the deal went through. But it didn't work out..."
"What kind of girl is she?" Qi Yasheng frowned, still somewhat unable to believe the truth he was about to hear.
The matchmaker thought for a moment and gestured with her hands: "About this tall! Slim! Dark-skinned! But a pretty girl."
Qi Yasheng and Su Ruyi exchanged a glance—this height and these physical characteristics match Xia Tianxiu perfectly.
Qi Yasheng pointed to his car not far away: "We roughly know who this person is. She's at my house right now! Come with us and see if it's her!"
Upon seeing the sedan chair, the matchmaker was even more certain that these two were people she couldn't afford to offend. At this point, she had no intention of acting as a matchmaker anymore; she just wanted to get rid of the whole thing cleanly!
She got another hundred or so yuan, so why wouldn't she be willing?
They hurriedly led the two of them towards the car.
On this day, Qi Yaqin used every trick in the book to keep Xia Tianxiu at home.
Unfortunately, Xia Tianxiu was unyielding to both soft and hard approaches.
By the afternoon, she even threatened to tear down her room door, put on a handcart, and take Su Yin to find Feng Engui.
Helpless, Qi Yaqin had no choice but to lock Xia Tianxiu in the yard.
He then brought a chair from his neighbor's house and sat at the front door to keep watch.
When Su Ruyi and Qi Yasheng returned with the matchmaker, they saw Qi Yaqin sitting on a stool guarding the door.
She and Xia Tianxiu, who lived in the courtyard, would occasionally exchange a few insults.
Xia Tianxiu said, "It's only because my uncle is away on a business trip that you dare to treat me like this! When my uncle comes back, let's see if he'll stand up for me!"
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