Her Cultivation Diary

Chapter 2164: Chapter 1844: Learn and Improve

A blind date fair?!

Wu Lan set down the old bitter melon with its bright red pulp in her hand off to the side. "We’re already starting to organize it? What do we even do?"

They were your typical rural women in the village; they’d never properly organized anything before! They were really nervous.

Well, uh, Aunt Zhang Hong didn’t know either.

"I’m just someone who grinds tofu for a living... but," she started worrying out loud, "Lanhua’s boy, that Zhou Tianyu, Lanhua insists on signing him up too. That kid’s got high standards, and he never comes back. Tell me, how are we supposed to find him someone in the village?"

Exactly.

Wu Lan sucked in her cheeks, then remembered Aunt Zhang Hong was still sitting across from her, hurriedly relaxed her face like nothing happened, and just fretted:

"Right! Even a girl like Tian Tian—so good at running a household and looks so neat and proper—he wasn’t interested in her."

Let’s be real: that girl puts her whole mind into planning for her family and for herself. You could say she’s a bit money-minded. But nobody’s perfect; someone who can earn money, manage a home, and is hardworking to boot—how is she not one in a million?

And Zhou Tianyu turned his nose up at her because her education wasn’t good enough.

But then again, for a girl who’s educated, pretty, and sensible—why on earth would she choose your Tianyu? It’s not like he has hundreds of thousands waiting for him to inherit, and there’s no car or house in the picture. Sure, he can put in backbreaking work in the village...

But muscle doesn’t make big money!

And anyway, they both grind tofu, so how come the one doing it with such flair and success is Zhang Hong’s family?

Now, Zhou Maozhu often works together with Sancheng’s family. If you had to rank closeness, their families ought to be a bit closer, right?

Of course, not that this kind of household has no income. Zhou Maozhu is good at stir-frying tea, and he’s made quite a bit again this year. But compared with Zhang Hong’s family, the couple always feels a bit ill at ease.

Aunt Zhang Hong started worrying aloud. "Tantan already talked to me, and Director Zhu talked to me too. For this blind date fair, we’ve got to get everyone’s info nailed down."

If they say how much they earn, we need pay slips we can actually look at.

If they talk about their family situation, we’ve got to at least do the basic asking around, same for men and women.

These days people’s time cost and emotional cost are precious. Aunt Zhang Hong had been binge-watching all sorts of dating videos lately and secretly picked up quite a bit of "knowledge."

It’s fine if they don’t want to share; they can still participate. It’s just that we’ll write that clearly in the back, honest with honest. If someone doesn’t care about these external conditions, we’ll match them with someone else who doesn’t care.

Whatever conditions, whatever requirements, we say them up front!

But with things like this, Zhou Tianyu doesn’t come back, and Li Lanhua still insists on getting him a good girl...

Aunt Zhang Hong muttered, "I’d better go talk to their family again later. Either have Tianyu come back once to meet people, or at least leave us his WeChat, and I’ll explain the situation so they can chat themselves..."

Once they got to gossiping, the two of them were all animated, and Aunt Zhang Hong even asked, "So when are your Tantan and Xiaolun getting married? That Xiaolun looks so handsome, and he’s so gentle. The two of them really suit each other!"

Wu Lan thought, Xiaolun is just on the more virtuous side, but how come you’re also describing him with the word "delicate"?

As for getting married...

She curled her lip. "Ay, the kids are grown now, I don’t dare say a word. Last time I’d barely asked a couple of questions when Tantan said I was meddling, and told me to go dig up Tea Mountain instead."

In this blazing heat of July and August, digging on Tea Mountain with a big hoe for a few swings would practically cost this old mother her life!

The two of them are dating in the same village already, what’s so unspeakable about mentioning marriage? She really didn’t get young people.

Aunt Zhang Hong opened her mouth, then closed it again.

Because when she thought about it carefully, if she herself could make a lot of money in a year, she wouldn’t be eager to marry early either—once you marry, there are mother-in-laws, relatives, friends. The things you have to worry about just multiply.

Anyway, their income was closely tied to Boss Song, so she didn’t push it and instead asked:

"That Security Team you’ve got up on the mountain, those young guys must be a hot commodity!"

They’d slap their chests and it was rock hard. In the heat, they’d lift their shirts to wipe sweat, and even the flesh on their bellies was firm, divided into neat blocks.

They worked hard and were quick and efficient.

Some of them were even learning a trade under Master Jiang—let’s say it: whether that trade can make money is one thing, but isn’t it great just for cooking at home?

These days, a man who can cook is a big plus.

"You’re darn right!" Wu Lan’s eyebrows danced. "Those boys are all straight and decent-looking, great energy and presence. Sure, some have their little shortcomings, but just look at those builds—they could easily take on two or three people."

Of course they’re decent-looking. Anyone who trains rain or shine every day will have that vitality. They’re nothing like those office drones with "I hate my job" written all over their faces.

But on the flip side, because it’s heavy manual work, they’ve got lots of bachelors and not many single girls!

With the heavy responsibility on her shoulders, Aunt Zhang Hong felt a surge of duty. She calculated it all out—yep, more monks than porridge—then immediately stood up:

"I’m going to ask Director Zhu."

Secretary Xiaozu was busy packing parcels. On rainy days, some of the vegetables and fruits didn’t look so good. Boss Chang didn’t mind, but Song Tan would basically pick out that kind of produce.

Either she gave it away, or kept it for their own family to eat.

And Secretary Xiaozu had just swooped in on them—

His salary wasn’t high, and these days the grandpas weren’t as free with their money as before. You had to save where you could and spend where you should, right? These slightly flawed goods had to be a bit cheaper.

The downside of cheap was that Boss Chang’s side would just load and go. On her side, with nothing much to do on a rainy day, she’d drag the fruit out and still have to pack each one up.

Now that Aunt Zhang Hong was here, she hadn’t come empty-handed:

"Host," she said, "I heard you were mailing local specialties to your grandpa. Here, take a few jars of fermented tofu and send them along together."

"And don’t you dare mention money! If you do, aren’t you just slapping me in the face?"

Secretary Xiaozu: ...

She hadn’t even had time to bring up money yet, but still—

"Auntie, I don’t want to talk about money either, but those few jars won’t be enough to split among my grandpas! How about this: I’ll make up some money, and we’ll round it up to ten jars first."

Aunt Zhang Hong: ...

She mumbled, "So your grandpa’s brothers... there are quite a lot of them, huh."

Secretary Xiaozu thought to himself: If you count the ones who have diet restrictions, the grandpas and grandmas are even more.

After a bit of small talk, Aunt Zhang Hong’s eyes lit up:

"With that many grandpas in your family, you must’ve watched all kinds of big-family drama and husband-and-wife squabbles since you were little, right?"

"Ah, Director Zhu, no wonder you handle things in our village so smoothly. That’s family training... what’s the word... a deep tradition! Just so happens I’m worrying over how to get in touch with more girls for this blind date fair. When I gather up all the unmarried girls from the ten miles and eight villages around here, it still feels like we don’t have many!"

Not just "not many"—there were only a handful of unmarried folks in their village now, and even fewer in the others. You couldn’t scrape together five or six single men and women in all the ten miles and eight villages.

Plus, it was raining. What kind of blind date event were they even supposed to hold?

Secretary Xiaozu was stunned.

She really didn’t want to remind Aunt Zhang Hong that she herself was also single. Where was this supposed "experience" coming from?

But no problem—since they were all an amateur troupe anyway, they could always learn more!

She searched some keywords on her phone and pulled up a few public accounts, skimming through—

"Look! This Saturday the Forest Park in the city is organizing a networking event for employees. Auntie, how about I get you a spot and you go observe and learn?"