"Sister, is this Sister Shulan's boyfriend?" Chu Xiang asked in a low voice.
Chu Chu also hooked her arm around Chu Yu's and eavesdropped. Chu Yu nodded and smiled, "This is my first time meeting him too. I heard his name is Zhao..."
"Zhao Gan!" Xiao Jiang glared at the room, annoyed, and scoffed, "He looks so effeminate, like Er Yatou. Have you ever seen a man wear cologne? He not only wears cologne, but he also grooms his eyebrows. Ugh..."
Chu Yu felt like laughing for some reason. Zhao Gan's sexual orientation should be fine, but he had applied hair wax and shaped his eyebrows, giving him an inappropriate kind of refinement.
"Exactly! He's much worse looking than Brother Dai! Brother Dai is so well-off, yet he's so polite to everyone. But he doesn't even want to step into his uncle's house. What kind of taste does Sister Shulan have, to fall for a man like that?" Chu Xiang complained.
“My mom said my sister has been cursed by him,” Yunyun laughed.
While the Shu family was furiously criticizing Zhao Gan, Guan Huichun was also complaining to her relatives about Shulan.
"Bringing a man home on New Year's Eve is a clear sign that they don't respect our family. I don't know what kind of spell they cast on Zhao Gan to coax him back. Zhao Gan even told me that the Shu family is coming to visit us on the fourth day of the New Year. This family is shameless. They not only stole away the son I raised with so much effort, but they also want to rush us to get married. Is Shu Lan so desperate that she can't find a man other than Zhao Gan? Is that it?"
The younger sister, Guan Huixian, nodded vigorously. "Country girls are the most cunning. They all know to get pregnant before marriage to tie a man down. Our Zhao Gan is so naive; he's been completely fooled by this brat. You'd better keep an eye on Zhao Gan, otherwise this country girl will definitely take advantage of you after she enters the family."
Guan Huixian's words were like a needle pricking Guan Huichun's heart.
City people tend to be more meticulous in raising their sons than people in the countryside. Zhao Gan was the apple of the Zhao family's eye, and Guan Huichun doted on him like the plague. Before he was six years old, Zhao Gan had hardly ever walked on the ground; he was always carried or held by his family.
She was afraid her son would fall or get hurt.
She even let Zhao Gan breastfeed until he was almost seven years old. Breast milk is more precious than formula. The longer she breastfed him, the healthier he became. He never had headaches or fevers from a young age.
Guan Huichun was very proud of this and would praise his child to everyone he met for being willing to drink milk. He even said that his child wouldn't let him wean, and he was full of pride.
Guan Huichun raised her son like a treasure, and apart from having a bad temper, he really never did anything wrong.
Finding a partner was the only thing that touched Guan Huichun's sore spot.
Guan Huichun didn't have any other requirements for his daughter-in-law, but she definitely had to have a city household registration.
She was a strong-willed person her whole life, believing that appearances were more important than substance.
If Zhao Gan were to marry a country woman, where would she put her face? Shu Lan is too strong-willed in her words and actions; she's not someone who's easily manipulated or submissive. Guan Huichun and she never seem to get along.
What Guan Huichun disliked even more was that Shulan was particularly good at seducing men. They had only been dating for less than two months when she hooked up with Zhao Gan to go to the movies and ice skating.
Is that a place a respectable woman would go?
Do you think Guan Huichun doesn't understand what the men and women in the movie theater are thinking?
The thought of her son being intimate with another man made Guan Huichun feel as if she had eaten a sour orange, extremely distressed.
Guan Huichun said:
“These country folk have never seen the world. It’s a disgrace to me to be related to them by marriage. We have to keep our TV, radio, and other belongings safe. I’m afraid these country folk will steal them. Those people are like rats, they’d love to suck my son’s blood to climb up the social ladder. What wouldn’t they do?”
Guan Huixian gave Guan Huichun a lot of advice.
The two sisters finally agreed that on the fourth day of the Lunar New Year, all the valuables in the Zhao family's possessions should be put away.
Zhao Gan's attitude was the same as Guan Huichun's; he looked down on the low-ceilinged Shu family's house and showed his displeasure as soon as he entered.
The Shu family's mud-brick house had low ceilings, and after a recent snowfall, the ground was damp. In this dilapidated house, there was a fashionable calendar featuring women hanging on the wall.
Zhao Gan also collected this calendar; he bought the whole set, which cost him over a hundred yuan.
I didn't expect the Shu family to be willing to spend money on this.
Before Zhao Gan arrived, Guan Huichun kept nagging him, saying that the Shu family was poor and their New Year's Eve dinner would definitely be meager. Influenced by his mother, Zhao Gan was extremely unwilling.
But when the dishes were served, Zhao Gan was dumbfounded.
Braised free-range chicken, braised fish, pork stew with cabbage and kelp, mutton hot pot, meatballs, steamed pork with rice flour, boiled river shrimp, baby squid cake...
There were these hot dishes alone, plus 8 cold dishes, such as salted goose and pig's head meat.
What surprised Zhao Gan even more was that there was a plate of hairy crabs on the table.
Locals in Deyang only eat hairy crabs around the Mid-Autumn Festival. After winter sets in, you can't find them in Deyang. Even if you can find them, nobody eats them. They're a precious delicacy, expensive and with very little meat. Ordinary people would rather eat pork than spend money on them.
The crabs were brought in from Yangcheng Lake by Dai Donglin.
There aren't many Yangcheng Lake crabs this season, and the ones Dai Donglin got from his aunt's house were gifts from old friends of the Dai family. Everyone there is a person who cares about face and status, so naturally they couldn't send inferior gifts.
You can't even find a hairy crab of this quality anywhere else, let alone eat it.
Why? It's a special supply. What does "special supply" mean? It means it's specially supplied to a certain group of people and can't be sold on the market.
Since no one was checking for smuggling during the Spring Festival, Dai Donglin took Mi Fei and a few others to Guangdong Province. He arranged for mutton and hairy crabs for Chu Yu in advance, and also sent a case of Moutai to Shu Aiguo.
Shu Aiguo still found it strange that Dai Donglin was being too polite. It was Deng Fangping who knew the reason and insisted that he accept it.
A plate of hairy crabs made Zhao Gan lower his chin slightly.
Shu Hui wiped her hands and came out of the kitchen, put down the vegetables and walked back.
My dear reader, there's more to this chapter! Please click the next page to continue reading—even more exciting content awaits!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
