Shang Qiu was definitely up to no good, but Xia Wenhua didn't take it to heart.
No matter how many tricks she has up her sleeve, the two families have never really crossed paths. As long as she doesn't take the bait, Shang Qiu has no way to deal with her.
Someone who couldn't become the female lead even with the original author's favors must not be a good person, so she wasn't at all ashamed to be rude to Shang Qiu.
Unaffected by Shang Qiu, she carried a basket of stones home and began tending to her vegetable garden.
Each plot of land only needed a row of stones to stabilize the soil. Xia Wenhua originally thought it would require a lot, but when she started working on it, she found that this basket was almost full.
Therefore, she did not go out again and naturally had no idea that Shang Qiu had been waiting at her doorstep for the entire afternoon.
The news was only told to Xia Wenhua by Sister Huang next door after Shang Qiu had left.
"Xia, do you know the girl from Battalion Commander Shang's family? I thought you weren't home. She's been waiting outside your house all afternoon. Turns out you're home."
Aunt Huang didn't mean anything by it. She wasn't familiar with Shang Qiu, but she was just worried that he might have come looking for Xia Wenhua but hadn't found her, so she wanted to pass on a message.
"That girl is strange. I thought she came to see you, since you weren't home, so I came to check on her. But as soon as she saw me, she ran away."
Previously, Sister Huang thought the Shang family was quite good, but after today's visit, she couldn't understand it anymore.
"She's guarding my door?" Xia Wenhua frowned, making no attempt to hide her disdain.
“I don’t know what she wanted from me. We bumped into each other on the street, and she wouldn’t even say a word. She insisted on calling me Sister-in-law Pei. When I asked her what she wanted, she wouldn’t say, so I just left. I never thought she would be so disgusting.”
The moment Huang called her "Sister-in-law Pei," she was thoroughly disgusted.
The leaders have said that women hold up half the sky. But this is not the old society anymore, where they didn't even have their own names.
Because of the special nature of the military, people tend to call each other by the male names to make it easier to distinguish them. But everyone is called by their real names. If we just call them by the male's surname, where do we put the females?
"It seems you really can't judge a person's character without spending time with them. This girl used to seem alright, so how did she turn out like this?"
Sister-in-law Huang sighed, realizing that Xia Wenhua didn't want to talk about Shang Qiu, so she didn't continue the conversation and instead brought up another topic.
“Xia, you’ve been here for almost a month now. Has Commander Pei said when you’re going to have a dinner party? We’re neighbors, so if you’re too busy, just call me and Lao Ye and I will help you out.”
"Invite someone to dinner?" Xia Wenhua's eyes were filled with confusion.
Her genuine expression truly shocked Sister Huang: "Could it be that Commander Pei never mentioned inviting people to dinner?"
It's normal for Xia Wenhua to be clueless since she's new here. Sister-in-law Huang originally thought Pei Songbai was reliable, but she never expected that these two had never thought of him before.
She slapped her thigh: "Oh dear, thinking about it, that makes sense. It was many years ago when we hosted a dinner party. You can't call a leader a dinner party hosted by the battalion commander's family. Surely Commander Pei doesn't know about it?"
Generally, those who are qualified to invite their subordinates to a gathering are at least officers at the battalion level or above.
Inviting someone to a meal is for your subordinates; inviting a leader changes the nature of the occasion.
Women like Sister Huang have been with the army for over ten years and have already hired people. Only Pei Songbai was promoted to regimental commander in the last two years.
His previous job was different from the norm, and he probably never had this kind of energy before. It turns out that neither of them knew anything about it.
Sister-in-law Huang meant well, fearing that the two young people might gossip if they didn't know about it. Now that it's been brought up, she sincerely explained all the problems to Xia Wenhua.
"To be honest, things aren't that peaceful right now. They're all going to the battlefield. If you maintain good relationships with your subordinates, sometimes you can save your life. Commander Pei is new and doesn't understand yet, so I think we should treat him to this meal."
She has always been a very tactful person, and she avoids speaking out about other people's affairs if possible. This is the first time she has seriously instructed Xia Wenhua to do something.
Xia Wenhua genuinely didn't know about this before, but now that she's heard about it from Sister Huang, how could she possibly refuse?
"Sister-in-law, you see, this is a misunderstanding. We didn't mean to skip this meal. We really didn't know there was such a rule, and it's my fault for not asking beforehand. Thank you for reminding us."
Xia Wenhua's expression was sincere, and her few words made people feel comfortable.
In fact, food was indeed precious these days. There were still battalion commanders whose families accompanied them to the army, and those who refused to treat them to meals ended up with a bad reputation.
Sister-in-law Huang only brought it up because she felt that Xia Wenhua wasn't that kind of person; she took a risk by saying it.
Hearing Xia Wenhua's gratitude, she finally felt relieved: "As long as you don't blame your sister-in-law for being nosy, I've always said that neither you nor Commander Pei are petty people."
As the saying goes, three women make a drama, and with so many people in the family compound, there are bound to be quite a few unsavory things that happen.
Once Aunt Huang was certain that Xia Wenhua genuinely wanted to treat everyone to dinner, she smacked her lips and began to recount what had happened before.
"Don't underestimate the importance of meals. Take Battalion Commander Shang from the Second Regiment, the one we just mentioned, you know him? His wife can't cook, so he said he wanted to invite people to eat at the canteen."
But his mother, of all times, came to join the army and insisted that so much grain was being wasted, so she refused to invite anyone to the meal, which made quite a fool of herself!
To be fair, Battalion Commander Shang is a very capable person, but because his wife is not good at socializing and his mother is too unreasonable, he has not been recognized for various awards and honors over the years.
According to Sister Huang, after Battalion Commander Shang's mother went back, the atmosphere in the entire family compound improved a lot.
It was precisely because this place was so bizarre before that it changed a lot before Shang Qiu came, which is why Shang Qiu's reputation spread so quickly.
The two chatted for a while longer, with Sister-in-law Huang's main point being to urge Xia Wenhua to take this dinner party seriously.
Since you've already invited them to dinner, don't be stingy or give them the cold shoulder; it's good for a man's career.
Xia Wenhua has always been someone who listens to advice and adapts to local customs. It's a tradition in the military that, given her current position, she has to shoulder the responsibilities that come with it.
After finishing her work in the fields, she kept thinking about this. In any case, it was just a matter of having a few more pairs of chopsticks to eat, and with Sister Huang and Sister Ye helping out, it wasn't anything difficult.
As for food, she has a little trick up her sleeve; she's smuggled out quite a bit of rice recently, enough for one feast, and it won't affect their family's standard of living at all.
When Pei Songbai returned in the afternoon, she immediately told him.
"Songbai, your sister-in-law said we should treat your men to a meal. I've also inquired about it, and it's always been this way. When would be a convenient time for us to host them?"
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