Chapter 49 Saved by Skill

Hao Yu pondered for a moment. "That works too. We can always climb over the wall to get in and out anyway."

Under normal circumstances, marriage could not be forced upon someone. If they pretended not to be home for a few days and the villagers realized Hao Yu would not change his mind, the vast majority of them would naturally give up on continuing their lobbying.

As for the tiny minority who refused to give up, with their numbers so small, dealing with them would become effortless.

Having made up their minds, Hao Yu and Jiang Yuan put the matter out of their heads.

They had dinner with Xie Waniniang and Xiaoyang, and then resumed their lives step by step, business as usual.

On the contrary, Wang Xiaozhi and Chen Zhao, starting the very second day after receiving Jiang Yuan's entrustment, devoted themselves wholeheartedly to asking around for a young woman who met Hao Yu's criteria.

As for their two children, Wang Xiaozhi entrusted them to her mother-in-law once again.

Her mother-in-law and her own mother were close friends. After she married into the family, although her mother-in-law outwardly maintained a fair balance, she had actually always shown her special partiality.

Of course, this was also related to the fact that Wang Xiaozhi was far more filial than any of her sisters-in-law.

Regarding the task Jiang Yuan had entrusted the couple with, Wang Xiaozhi not only did not hide it from her mother-in-law, but she also privately asked the old lady if she knew anyone who met the conditions.

Her mother-in-law was a kind-hearted person and would never intentionally trick Hao Yu for personal gain, so Wang Xiaozhi dearly hoped her mother-in-law could recommend a suitable candidate.

Unfortunately, her mother-in-law was merely an ordinary rural elderly woman. Her relatives and friends belonged to the exact same social circle, and the young women in their families all married early before turning twenty.

Wang Xiaozhi felt rather regretful, but she remained full of drive and enthusiasm.

As for her sisters-in-law, whose interests had been piqued, they did not run over to block the entrance at Hao Yu's house, but instead all sought out Wang Xiaozhi in unison.

They were not fools. Jiang Yuan had intentionally brought items over as gifts, which clearly meant he needed Wang Xiaozhi to handle something for him. Now that rumors had suddenly spread in the village about Hao Yu planning to get married, how could they possibly forsake convenience close to home and look elsewhere?

Wang Xiaozhi did not mind if Hao Yu married someone from her sisters-in-law's maternal families, but the problem was that these sisters-in-law of hers had made the exact same mistake as the rest of the villagers.

Unable to dig up suitable candidates among their own relatives, their very first reaction was not to give up, but rather to try and use her to persuade Hao Yu to relax his criteria.

Wang Xiaozhi was quite speechless about this, yet held back by social decorum, she found it difficult to use overly sharp language to push them back.

Fortunately, she still had her parents-in-law living with them, and both elderly people were very sensible.

"Enough is enough. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder; what does what you consider a good young age have to do with someone like Hao Yu?" Elder Chen said, tapping his dry tobacco pipe. "When a man takes a wife, doesn't he pick someone he finds pleasing to his own eye? Does he have to listen to you instead?"

Old Mrs. Chen also chimed in, "Xiaozhi is just helping out by running errands. When people ask her to find someone like this, can she possibly say, 'I think this kind is no good, only that kind is good'? There is no such way of doing things for others in this world."

Elder Chen delivered the final verdict. "If you have someone suitable, tell Xiaozhi. If not, shut your mouths sooner rather than later."

Unlike Old Mrs. Chen, who was always bright and fond of smiling, Elder Chen was stern and unsmiling year-round. Aside from Old Mrs. Chen, no one in the Chen family was unafraid of him.

With him putting it that way, Wang Xiaozhi's sisters-in-law no longer dared to continue pestering her.

Wang Xiaozhi managed to make a clean escape. Tidying up, she and Chen Zhao left Mingfu Village early the very next day.

They first went to Baihe Town, which was closest to Mingfu Village, to inquire whether there were any young women with suitable conditions in the town and the surrounding few villages.

After finishing their inquiries in Baihe Town, Wang Xiaozhi and Chen Zhao successively rushed to the county seat of Tang County and another three towns relatively close to Baihe Town, making a round through each of them.

To the surprise of both, there were actually quite a few young women over the age of twenty in the surrounding areas whose marriages had been delayed for various reasons.

Wang Xiaozhi was illiterate, and Chen Zhao was barely literate. After bustling about for more than twenty days, the labor fruit they ultimately handed over to Jiang Yuan was a small booklet filled with many typos and various abstract drawings.

As a side note, the couple also honestly brought back the five hundred-cash silver piece and more than twenty copper coins that they had not spent.

After Wang Xiaozhi opened the money pouch and dumped the silver and coins onto the table, Jiang Yuan was directly amused to the point of laughter by the couple.

The bits of silver he had given Wang Xiaozhi amounted to only about eight qian in total, yet the couple had braved the cold wind to run around for over twenty days and had actually managed to bring more than half of it back for him.

He didn't even need to think to know that the couple must have survived those days by gnawing on dry steamed buns every single day.

Without wasting words, Jiang Yuan snatched Wang Xiaozhi's coarse cloth money pouch and stuffed the scattered silver pieces and copper coins back into it. "You saved this yourselves through your own hard work and ability. Take it back home and keep it to spend slowly."

Hearing this, Xie Waniniang, who was boiling eggs and brown sugar water for them, couldn't help but laugh out loud.

Hao Yu also smiled and said, "A-Yuan is right. You've worked so hard running around for so many days; as your uncle, how could I possibly let you gnaw on dry steamed buns every day?"

Subtracting the travel fare for going back and forth, plus the one-wen city entry fee each person had to pay upon entering the county seat, if these two wanted to avoid starving, they could only make do by gnawing on plain buns. This made him feel rather bad inside.

How could Wang Xiaozhi and Chen Zhao have the face to take this money? Chen Zhao smiled and replied to Hao Yu, "Uncle, white flour steamed buns are delicious. Ordinarily, Xiaozhi and I couldn't even eat them if we wanted to."

Hao Yu patted his shoulder. "Then take all this money to buy good things. The New Year is fast approaching; even if you adults don't eat well, the children need to."

Seeing the two of them shaking their heads and waving their hands in refusal, Hao Yu earnestly persuaded them again, "Listen to your uncle and take it. Now that the world is peaceful, the village school will surely reopen. If you don't find a way to save money now, when your Chen Fang gets a little older, what will you use to send him to the school?"

Mentioning sending the child to school instantly silenced Chen Zhao and Wang Xiaozhi, cutting off their refusals.

Although their family's daily meals were not considered good—most of the time being a watery porridge dominated by vegetables—at least they had not reached the point of starving with the whole family having only cold water to quench their hunger.

Yet they certainly weren't wealthy enough to send every boy in the family to the school.

The two boys in his eldest brother's family—the older one was fast approaching the age to begin his formal education, yet his father had never once mentioned sending the eldest grandson to study in town.

Chen Zhao knew his father wasn't unwilling, but rather worried that once this precedent was set, the fathers and mothers of the other younger grandsons would also make a fuss to send their own children to school when they reached the right age.

If the family had money, Elder Chen naturally wouldn't mind, but the problem was that the Chen family could not afford to support more than two children studying.

Once numbers grew, regardless of whether it was a major or minor matter, people would always suffer less from poverty than from uneven distribution. It was precisely because of this that Elder Chen had the intention of dividing the family property among his sons after the New Year.

Once the family was divided, whatever kind of life each household lived afterward would be their own affair. They wouldn't be able to blame their elderly father, nor would they harbor bitterness toward their brothers over competing for interests.

As for the old couple, they were still able to move around for now, so they didn't want to live with any particular son just yet.