The meeting went very smoothly, and the food at Tian Shun Zhai was also very good. Li Mai had a great appetite and ate quite a lot.
When they had almost finished eating, Xu Chong brought up Zhou Lin, saying that he had delivered furniture to their family and that his parents had taken a liking to it. He wanted to ask if Zhou Lin was engaged.
He said he has a younger sister who is seventeen years old this year, and he wondered if the two families could arrange for the two of them to meet.
Xu Chong's main point was that his parents had taken a liking to Zhou Lin's upright character and wanted to arrange a marriage between them.
He was quite cautious in his words, very protective of his sister. At least in this era, the idea that a woman privately contacted a man and took a liking to him, and wanted to propose marriage, would not have a good impact on her reputation. Therefore, Xu Chong, as the elder brother, never mentioned that his sister had taken a liking to Zhou Lin first in order to protect his sister.
Li Mai and Zhou Quan understood what he meant. Protecting one's family is everyone's nature. After Xu Chong finished speaking, Zhou Quan shook his head and casually said, "My younger brother hasn't been engaged yet. Last time I went back, my mother told me that several aunties from the village wanted to introduce him to potential partners, but unfortunately he's been busy lately and hasn't been able to go back. He was planning to go back for the Mid-Autumn Festival this year!"
Upon hearing Zhou Quan's words, Xu Sheng subconsciously glanced at his elder brother, feeling a little anxious. What did Zhou Quan mean by saying that? His elder brother had already said that their parents had taken a liking to Zhou Lin.
Xu Chong gave his younger brother a reassuring look, smiled, and said to Zhou Quan, "Why don't you two go to my house this afternoon to meet my parents? Perhaps we are the ones who are truly destined to be together?"
Xu Chong made up his mind. Forget about going back to the Mid-Autumn Festival for blind dates; he would settle things with his sister today.
After listening, Zhou Quan glanced at him without saying anything, then looked at Li Mai. He had made the first move, and now it was his wife's turn.
Li Mai received a look from her husband, raised an eyebrow, smiled, and looked at Xu Chong, "Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Xu, for your kindness to my second brother. However, you may not know our family situation. We are not long-time residents of the town, but from Zhoujia Village. We only started setting up a business in the town this year."
“Madam Zhou, please don’t belittle yourself. Our Xu family is not a noble family either. We are just a merchant family, and we are all the same. In our family, we have never regarded family background as a threshold for marriage. My wife and my sister-in-law also come from humble families, but that does not prevent them from being young mistresses in the mansion.”
"Moreover, although you have only just established yourselves in town, we have heard about your business acumen. Young Master Zhou is also a skilled craftsman, and with the support of the Xu family in the future, we are not worried that my sister will not have a good life with him."
"In the end, when my parents were looking for a husband for my sister, they mainly looked at his character, not his social status. It just so happened that Young Master Zhou caught their eye the day he entered the manor, which is why my brother and I have taken the liberty of inviting him here today."
Xu Chong, as expected of someone who helps his father manage the business, is quite eloquent.
After listening, Li Mai smiled and said, "What Young Master Xu said has really appealed to us, as his elder brother and sister-in-law. It's rare to find a family that doesn't care about social status or our poverty. However, my second brother is all grown up now, and this is ultimately his marriage. We can't just make the decision for him. How about we go back and ask him this afternoon? If he's also interested, we can ask a matchmaker to formally propose marriage in the next few days?"
Upon hearing this, Xu Chong realized that it meant agreement, and he breathed a sigh of relief. It was all settled!
But on his face, he still wore a polite smile, nodded, and showed a hint of joy, "That's very good, then we'll wait for good news at the manor."
Li Mai and Zhou Quan nodded.
Not long after Li Mai and Zhou Quan returned to the shop, a carriage arrived at the shop door, bringing five pots of purple lilies.
The flowers were delivered by Xu Sheng, the second young master of the Xu family. After delivering the flowers, he also told Li Mai that she could transplant them into a larger flowerpot when she got back.
When Li Mai saw that so much had been sent to her, she thanked the sender and said that when she was less busy in a few days, she would invite the women of the Xu family to have tea together.
Xu Sheng thanked Li Mai on behalf of the women and then left in a carriage.
At this point, both families were overjoyed, and the marriage was practically a done deal. Both families were now at ease and began preparing for the next step: to formally propose marriage.
In the afternoon, Li Mai and Zhou Quan also went to Zhou Lin's place to tell him about the matter. Zhou Lin thanked his elder brother and sister-in-law again.
The next day was August 13th. Zhou Quan took Lu Qian and two carts of white rice back to the village and gave a bag of rice to the family that worked for them.
The villagers never expected that Zhou Quan's family would give them gifts on the Mid-Autumn Festival before they even started working. They were all very happy, as the gifts included two bushels of white rice, which would last them for a while.
The key point is that they usually only eat white rice on important occasions, so it is considered a precious thing to them.
Old Master Zhou and Madam Zhao welcomed Lu Qian's visit. At first, they didn't understand why he had sent them such a generous gift. When they learned that he had taken a liking to their daughter, Xiao Tao, and wanted their approval first before arranging the marriage after Xiao Tao came of age, the two elders were somewhat bewildered.
The Lu and Xu families in this town are all vying to become in-laws with us.
However, the two elders knew what to do. They quietly asked Zhou Quan if they would handle the matter. Zhou Quan said to let nature take its course. Lu Qian was not a bad guy. Apart from being several years older than Xiao Tao and having a wealthy family, he was otherwise a worthy person for Xiao Tao to entrust her life to.
The Zhou family elders thought about it and agreed, so they happily accepted the holiday gifts from Lu Qian. In the afternoon, when Lu Qian and Zhou Quan returned to town, they prepared return gifts for the Lu family.
Although the gifts weren't as valuable as those brought by the Lu family, they were still a token of their appreciation. They made their own mooncakes and combined them with some fruit from the villagers to make two wooden fruit boxes.
The return gift meant that the Zhou family had accepted him, and Lu Qian was overjoyed. He happily took the gift home with him after returning to town.
Neither Li Mai nor Zhou Quan told Zhou Tao the truth about this matter. She was very familiar with Lu Qian, and they both hoped that Zhou Tao could truly feel Lu Qian's kindness to her. After all, her sister was still some time away from coming of age, and they were not in a hurry to reveal the truth. It should be Lu Qian who was in a hurry.
On the morning of August 14th, Zhou Quan, along with Zhou Lin and Mr. Wang, the town's matchmaker they had hired, went to the Xu family to formally propose marriage to Zhou Lin.
Zhou Quan and his family had never dealt with Mr. Wang before, but Lu Qian was a good friend of his son. So when Lu Qian brought Zhou Quan to the meeting, he agreed to help the Zhou family propose marriage. After all, both families were interested, and he was just acting as a middleman, happily receiving a matchmaker's gift in the end. It was an easy job, and Mr. Wang was more than happy to do it.
Mr. Wang never expected that the Xu and Lu families could be so harmonious one day. Everyone in town knew about the discord between the Lu and Xu families in the past.
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