Free Web NovelChapter 411: Chapter 160: Recruiting a Son-in-law
News of Mr. Shi’s death reached the Zhao Village on the fifteenth of the seventh lunar month, the day of the Ghost Festival.
The Ghost Festival is also known as the Festival of the Dead.
On this day, households would visit the graves of their ancestors to burn paper offerings and pay respects to their spirits.
The Zhao Village had an old custom that forbade women from visiting the graves. So, although Chen Wanqing and the others had come along, they stopped at the edge of the cemetery and did not venture further in.
While they were waiting at the edge of the fields for the men to return from the graves, members of the Chen family also came over in a group.
Xu Suying saw her daughter, so she stopped to speak with her.
The two of them stepped aside and found a spot in a small grove of trees.
"How’s the packing coming along? When are you planning to leave?"
Chen Wanqing said, "We haven’t started packing yet. Jing said there’s no hurry. He thinks we should wait until the autumn examinations are over and the scholars have started their journeys home before we set off."
After the autumn examinations, housing prices in the Prefecture will drop quite a bit. Besides, the autumn weather will be pleasant and much more suitable for travel. It won’t be too late to head to the Prefecture then.
Xu Suying understood her daughter’s reasoning and nodded. "So you mean you’ll be leaving around the Mid-Autumn Festival, is that right?"
"Around then, yes."
"And your mother-in-law and Xiang’er? Are they going with you?"
"They’re coming with us. We wouldn’t feel comfortable leaving the two of them here by themselves."
Chen Wanqing’s words were pointed, and Xu Suying nodded, a flicker of fear in her eyes.
Both mother and daughter were thinking of the same thing: Chen Wanyue and the peddler.
’Who would have thought? The two of them were more audacious than anyone imagined, actually trying to secure a good marriage through such a shortcut.’
’It’s a good thing Qing’er and Jing are so sharp. If that peddler had been allowed to interact with Xiang’er a few more times, there’s no telling if a naive young girl like her would have been fooled by his sweet talk.’
’Bringing a son-in-law like that into the family would be utterly mortifying for everyone.’
The mother and daughter’s thoughts then turned to Chen Wanyue’s fate.
"She’s locked up in the county jail now," Xu Suying said, "but she’ll soon be transferred to the Prefecture."
All criminals sentenced to exile in Xinghuai Prefecture were to be gathered in the Prefecture city. After autumn, they would all be dispatched from there to their various places of banishment.
"Your grandfather seems even more confused now. Tsk, he’s lost so much face over this. The anger hit him so hard that he’s stopped selling his baked cakes. He just lies in bed all day, practically one of the living dead."
"Your grandmother is furious too. She keeps repeating that ’a daughter married out is like water splashed away,’ and that ’Mrs. Li divorced my son long ago, so the foolish things she did have nothing to do with our family.’ But who doesn’t know the truth? Of course it has something to do with them."
If it really had nothing to do with them, your grandmother wouldn’t be so furious she’s showing signs of a stroke.
"She looks like she’s aged a decade, and her hair is completely white. When she came to our house last October to discuss that marriage swap, I refused, and she looked like she was about to jump up and hit me. She was so hale and hearty back then, nothing like now. She can barely walk without trembling, looking like she has one foot in the grave."
Chen Wanqing really hadn’t heard about any of this from Xu Suying before.
Even though she was married right here in the Zhao Village, she found the people from the main house and the third branch of the family utterly repulsive.
Besides, Zhao Jing had his own old grievances with the people of the main house, so it was excusable that she didn’t visit. Thus, Chen Wanqing generally avoided going there. And no one from the main house, or even from the Chen and Zhao families, ever criticized her for being unfilial. It was as if they considered her behavior perfectly normal.
"I haven’t seen your third uncle today. I wonder where he’s off to now. When I asked your grandmother, she just gave me a sour look and wouldn’t say a word."
Xu Suying didn’t want to know where Chen Lin had gone out of curiosity for his whereabouts. She was worried he would commit some crime and affect De’an’s chances of taking the imperial examinations in the future.
The rules for the imperial examinations were quite strict; if a candidate had a criminal within three generations of their family, they were barred from even registering.
Fortunately, the law at the time considered a married daughter to be part of her husband’s family. Otherwise, Chen Wanyue’s imprisonment would have dragged De’an down with her.
Speaking of the matter, Xu Suying was filled with resentment.
"I don’t expect any help from them; I just wish they’d stop causing trouble. They’ll benefit too if De’an succeeds, so they’d better behave themselves and not do anything to get in his way. Otherwise, I wouldn’t mind having your father leave the Chen family and take my surname instead."
Chen Wanqing was left speechless.
’Her mother always had something shocking to say. She was used to it by now. Just having her father change his surname? It wasn’t like she was asking him to change his gender. That was a small matter, hardly surprising.’
Xu Suying then brought up Li’an. "That poor boy. He’s wasted away to skin and bones. It’s always the most conscientious ones who get hurt the most. If Li’an were just a bit more of an ingrate, he wouldn’t be in such a miserable state..."
