A Prospective Match — Would You Like Four Brothers-in-Law?
“Cooking? Did you and Jigang eat the cakes I sent over yesterday?”
That was the first thing Bai Xiuzhen asked upon entering.
As the saying went, accepting someone’s gift made it harder to reject them, and eating their food made it harder to speak harshly. By mentioning the cakes first, Bai Xiuzhen expected that even though the two families had parted on unpleasant terms, Yan Xue would be too embarrassed to treat her coldly. Whatever she wanted to say next would naturally be easier.
Sure enough, Yan Xue did not give her a cold look. Instead, she smiled and opened the cupboard.
“There are still two left. If your family doesn’t have enough food, you can take them back. We still have sweet potatoes.”
The speech Bai Xiuzhen had prepared immediately lodged in her throat, interrupting the flow of her emotions.
“I didn’t mean that.”
She was clearly the one who had bestowed a favour, yet the way Yan Xue put it made her sound so miserly that she would give something away only to come and demand it back.
Yan Xue had never truly intended to return them. Taking advantage of Bai Xiuzhen’s response, she placed the cakes back in the cupboard.
“Then did you need something from me?”
Within just a few sentences, the superior air Bai Xiuzhen had carried upon entering was already becoming difficult to maintain. She paused before reorganising her words.
“I was looking through the calendar a couple of days ago and realised you’re about to turn eighteen. When I was your age, your eldest cousin was already crawling all over the ground. You need to start taking these things seriously.”
So that was what this was about.
Yan Xue could not say she had expected it, but she had considered this possibility.
Yan Jigang had originally been hiding in the inner room. When he heard this, he could not resist poking half his head through the doorway.
Bai Xiuzhen did not notice and continued speaking to Yan Xue.
“He’s quite a good young man, and especially handsome. I guarantee you’ll take a liking to him once you see him. Most importantly, his family is reasonable. When they heard you had a younger brother, they even agreed to let you bring Jigang with you. A family like that is difficult to find.”
A girl whose parents were both dead and who came with a dependent younger brother truly would have difficulty finding a husband. Marrying her was essentially the same as immediately becoming a father.
What was more, some people might see the death of both parents as evidence that her fate was incompatible with her family’s. Although the campaign to destroy the Four Olds had been raging for years, rural people still cared deeply about such things.
Who could say whether she would bring misfortune to someone else too?
Yan Xue lowered her head, revealing a troubled expression. Her voice also became quieter.
“Eldest Aunt, I’m still in mourning.”
“This is the new society. Who still cares about those old customs? Besides, it’s already been a year, hasn’t it? If you really wait the full three years, you’ll become an old maid. By then, it’ll be far too late.”
Bai Xiuzhen dismissed the concern.
“I’m only thinking of you. It’s difficult for you to raise Jigang alone. Once you find a man, you’ll at least have someone to take charge of the household. That’s better than carrying everything on your own. Don’t go running around for the next couple of days. Find some time to meet him. If the match works out, you can quickly arrange the wedding before the end of the lunar year.”
She had even arranged when Yan Xue would marry.
She seemed more anxious than Yan Xue, who had to raise her brother, support the household, and repay their debts alone.
Yan Xue said nothing further. She merely lowered her head even more.
“Let’s wait a little longer. I… I’m not even eighteen yet.”
Seeing that Yan Xue had not openly objected, Bai Xiuzhen assumed she was simply shy.
“That’s fine. A few more days won’t matter. Think carefully about it. The earlier you marry, the sooner your burden will become lighter, won’t it? I won’t interrupt your cooking.”
The moment she left, Yan Jigang hurried out of the inner room and grabbed the corner of Yan Xue’s clothes.
The young boy tilted his head back. His clear eyes were filled with both worry and concern, but after pursing his lips, he said nothing.
Yan Xue pinched his thin cheek.
“It’s not as though they’re finding a wife for you. Why are you so anxious?”
Yan Jigang’s face instantly turned red.
With this large tail following behind her, Yan Xue returned to the stove and resumed cooking.
“The man Eldest Aunt wants to introduce is probably quite handsome.”
Yan Jigang blinked, seemingly unable to understand why she had mentioned that.
Yan Xue slowly explained, “When someone is trying to sell something, they’ll repeatedly emphasise and even exaggerate its advantages while avoiding any mention of its flaws. Eldest Aunt kept urging me to meet him, so she must be confident that I’ll like him once I see his face. Otherwise, wouldn’t all her effort be wasted?”
Although Yan Jigang was too afraid to leave the house and had not attended school, he had lost his mother and then his father. In reality, he was far more mature than children his age.
After listening to Yan Xue, a thoughtful expression appeared on his face.
“Then… the other things…”
“If Eldest Aunt didn’t mention them, there must be areas where he falls short. The question is what those areas are.”
Yan Xue had always been a practical person. Her experiences in her previous life had given her no choice but to be realistic.
“Most things in life won’t go exactly as you wish. You only need to know what you want most. Hold on to what matters most to you. As for the things that aren’t important, you have to let them go when necessary. Sometimes you have no choice but to give them up.”
This time, Yan Jigang remained silent for even longer. She could not tell whether he had understood.
After a long while, he finally asked, “Are you… going to meet him?”
“If the conditions are suitable, there’s no harm in meeting him.”
Yan Xue smiled and glanced towards the western side of the main house.
“But before that, we need to ask around.”
That was why she had used her age as an excuse, buying herself several days.
Given Yan Jigang’s condition, the best solution would be to move somewhere else. A new environment might allow him to relax, stop thinking about those nightmares, and escape the people who spent all day imitating his speech.
In this era, it was also unrealistic for a woman to remain unmarried forever.
It was not that she could not support the household. Rather, a single woman without a man around would inevitably attract unwanted attention, especially if she lived in the countryside.
After her biological father died, her mother had raised her alone. Someone had nearly forced his way into their home—and that person had been Yan Xue’s own third paternal uncle.
Since the matter involved their son, her paternal grandparents naturally refused to defend her mother. They even accused her mother of being unable to control herself and seducing their son.
Otherwise, her mother would never have decisively taken Yan Xue and remarried so far away. She had even changed Yan Xue’s surname, completely severing ties with her former family.
Had Yan Xue arrived in the 1950s or after the beginning of the Reform and Opening-Up period, she might have gone to the city and searched for opportunities.
But this was 1969. Even urban youths were being sent down to the countryside.
Without leaving through marriage, she could not even escape this village.
Yan Xue transferred the finished dish into a bowl and said to Yan Jigang, “You eat first. I’m going to take some to Second Grandma.”
She went to the cupboard and took out another bowl.
Unexpectedly, Yan Jigang carried the plate inside and placed it on the table, then hurried back out, intending to go with her.
Winters were bitterly cold. In this region inside the passes, the north-facing windows of most houses were blocked with mud bricks to keep out the wind. Only the south-facing windows were left open for light.
Taking advantage of the fact that Eldest Uncle’s family was eating, the siblings walked around the back of the house to the western room of the main building.
Yan Xue raised her hand and knocked three times on the window.
Before long, the sound of a bolt being drawn came from inside.
The Yan family’s Second Old Madam had been widowed when she was young. Her husband died while she was only in her twenties, and both of her children died shortly afterward.
Since then, she had lived with her husband’s elder brother—Yan Jigang’s grandfather—and his family.
At the time, people in the village said that she brought death to her sons and husband. She herself had become superstitious about it and never remarried.
For formality’s sake, her husband’s elder brother’s second son, Yan Xue’s stepfather Yan Baishan, had been nominally adopted as her heir.
In truth, it was merely a formality.
The family feared that if she adopted someone from outside, her house and land would eventually fall into another family’s hands.
Yan Baishan had never lived with this nominal adoptive mother. He had continued to be raised by his biological parents.
The old woman did not seem to care. She rarely spoke or concerned herself with anything in the Yan household, living almost like an invisible person.
Yan Xue had not paid much attention to her before. However, after gaining the memories of another lifetime and reconsidering the few times they had interacted, she realised that her nominal grandmother saw everything with remarkable clarity.
“Grandma, have you eaten yet? I just made salted fish stewed with radish.”
Yan Xue passed the bowl through the opening in the window.
She had not used much oil, but the salted fish had still been fried until the pieces were faintly golden. Paired with radish cubes the size of dice, the dish looked extremely appetising.
Second Grandma always spoke slowly and unhurriedly.
“You made it for yourselves, so you should eat it. Why bring it to me?”
“You’ve made plenty of clothes and shoes for Jigang and me over the years. With my sewing skills, we’d both be walking around naked without you.”
Yan Xue had a soft, gentle face. Her eyes curved pleasantly whenever she smiled, making her especially likeable. She also knew exactly what to say.
A smile appeared on Second Grandma’s prematurely aged face.
“What nonsense are you saying?”
Then she lowered her voice.
“Your eldest aunt went over to your place just now, didn’t she?”
“I knew I couldn’t hide it from you.”
Yan Xue was not surprised.
Second Grandma did not bother speaking indirectly.
“While you were away these past few days, that distant cousin of your eldest aunt—the one married into Duogu Village—came here twice.”
There was no need for her to say anything more. Yan Xue immediately understood.
Duogu Village.
As its name suggested, the area was filled with piled stone.
It was one of the most notoriously impoverished villages in the surrounding region. Its soil was thin, its fields produced very little, and even the stone on the mountains was of poor quality. Year after year, the village failed to meet the production quotas set by the state.
Not only were women from other villages unwilling to marry there, but even the village’s own daughters had fled.
The entire village had fewer than a hundred households, yet more than thirty unmarried men.
If the prospective husband was so poor that no one else would marry him, it made sense that his family would agree to let Yan Xue bring her younger brother.
Unexpectedly, Second Grandma glanced at Yan Jigang, clearly indicating that she had more to say.
Yan Xue immediately covered her brother’s ears.
Second Grandma lowered her voice even further.
“I know the family she was talking about. They have five sons altogether. A few years ago, the eldest married a wife. She returned to her parents’ home three days after the wedding and never went back to her husband’s family.”
She had refused to continue the marriage after only three days.
Had the husband beaten her, or…
The possibilities had only just passed through Yan Xue’s mind when Second Grandma continued meaningfully, “Someone saw the second son with bloody scratch marks covering his back.”
The eldest brother had married, yet the second brother had bloody scratches all over his back…
Even Yan Xue could not help drawing in a breath. No wonder Second Grandma had not wanted Yan Jigang to hear.
“Surely the man they want to introduce to me isn’t the eldest son?”
“No. They want to introduce you to the third. During the famine years, the eldest went with some people to gather seafood on an island. The boat sank on their way back.”
That incident had been famous in the local area.
Yan Xue had still been young at the time, but even she had heard about it.
Apparently, the boat began leaking on the return journey. The person steering it told everyone to empty the contents of their buckets to lighten the load.
However, everyone on board had experienced starvation and could not bear to throw away what they had collected.
In the end, more than twenty people drowned. One family lost two people.
But even if the prospective husband was not the eldest son, marrying the third son was still extremely dangerous!
She could not gamble the rest of her life on the possibility that the family had only been interested in their eldest brother’s wife.
She had heard that the second son was still unmarried, and there were also two younger brothers who had only recently reached adulthood…
On the way back, Yan Jigang kept glancing at Yan Xue, looking as though he wanted to ask something but did not know whether he was allowed.
Yan Xue had witnessed plenty of shocking scandals online in her previous life, yet even she found this one unbelievable. She was too distracted to pay attention to him.
It was only when they began eating and Yan Jigang remained absent-minded that she finally considered how to phrase it.
Then she asked her brother, “Would you like to have four brothers-in-law?”
“Four?”
Yan Jigang nearly choked. Once he understood, he immediately shook his head.
“I don’t want that either. We’ll have to think of another solution.”
Therefore, when Bai Xiuzhen calculated that enough days had passed and came to ask whether Yan Xue had made her preparations, Yan Xue once again found an excuse to delay matters.
Bai Xiuzhen was displeased. She returned home and complained to Eldest Uncle Yan, Yan Songshan.
“Who does she think she is, some wealthy young lady? We introduce her to a man, and she starts acting all particular and difficult.”
Yan Songshan frowned as well.
“Could she have found out?”
Bai Xiuzhen was not worried about that.
“What could she possibly know? Who would have nothing better to do than discuss such things with a teenage girl? Besides, none of it has ever been proven. It’s all baseless gossip spread by outsiders.”
Although that was true, Yan Songshan still felt uneasy.
Ever since Baishan died, there had always seemed to be something wrong with that girl Yan Xue.
He could not explain exactly what was wrong.
“We need another layer of security.”
Yan Songshan’s brows remained tightly furrowed.
“Doesn’t that girl still owe money to the production team? Tell their family to repay it for her first.”
Once a financial debt existed between the two families, whether Yan Xue met the man—or whether she married him—would no longer be entirely up to her.
“You want them to repay it? But what about what they promised me before…”
Bai Xiuzhen trailed off.
Whether that family had enough money was hardly their concern.
Yan Songshan glanced at his wife.
“If they truly can’t do it, forget them. It’s not as though they’re our only option.”
He did not appear especially determined to make this particular marriage happen. Instead, he changed the subject.
“Jizu has been seeing that girl for nearly half a year now, hasn’t he?”
The mention of her eldest son immediately caused Bai Xiuzhen’s expression to darken again.
“Exactly. If our family weren’t short on space, they could marry before the end of the year.”
The Yan family’s courtyard was small, and they had many children. There was no room available for their eldest son to marry and bring in a wife. They would have to find a way to build another house, which would be both troublesome and expensive.
Besides, they did not have only one son.
Three more were waiting behind him.
If they spent everything on the eldest and second sons, what would happen to the third and fourth?
The more Bai Xiuzhen considered it, the more eager she became to remove Yan Xue and her brother from the property.
“I’ll go and speak to that family. Since they want to marry a wife, this little bit of money shouldn’t matter.”
She wrapped a scarf around her head and started towards the door.
She had only just stepped out of the main house when she saw a small donkey trot to a stop outside the courtyard gate.
Bai Xiuzhen recognised the woman riding it.
She was a close paternal aunt-cousin of Yan Xue’s mother and had married into Shan Family Village, ten li away. She had been the one who originally introduced Yan Xue’s mother to the Yan family.
Although the woman was only ten years older than Yan Xue’s mother, she had bound feet. Travelling long distances was inconvenient for her, so people usually visited her. She rarely came to the Yan family’s home.
As Bai Xiuzhen wondered what had brought her here, the bound-footed old woman climbed down from the donkey and greeted her with a warm smile.
“So you’re home too, Eldest Aunt? Perfect. I’ve found a prospective husband for Little Xue. You can help us consider whether he’s suitable.”
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