“Your uncle went out to work as a mason.”
Renovation work fell within the scope of masonry, and Beijing was also “going out”—Xia Xiaolan felt she wasn’t wrong. Even with relatives, when there wasn’t much interaction, one couldn’t just reveal everything about their business. Given her aunt’s personality, she might think they were showing off, and Xia Xiaolan didn’t want to create unnecessary problems.
Liu Fang couldn’t understand. “With such a big store, why does your uncle still need to work as a mason?”
He’d only earn a few yuan a day!
The store could make more than that selling just one piece of clothing.
“Aunt manages the store, and Uncle naturally has to do his work—he can’t just stay idle at home all day, right?”
Xia Xiaolan’s words weren’t lies, just deliberately vague in crucial places.
Liu Fang immediately jumped to her conclusions—so the store was Li Fengmei’s venture?
Strange. Li Fengmei’s family background wasn’t impressive, so how could she open such a store in the provincial capital? If Li Fengmei hadn’t been so plain-looking, Liu Fang would have suspected she’d gotten involved with someone.
Learning that “Blue Phoenix” belonged to her sister-in-law, whom she’d never gotten along with, and that her brother seemed to have little standing in it, Liu Fang had to temporarily set aside her wild speculations. She needed to catch the last bus back to the county, so Li Fengmei and Liu Fen closed the store at four, picked up Liu Zitao, and then all went to dinner.
Neither Li Fengmei nor Liu Fen were extravagant people. Usually, they closed the store around eight, either going home to cook or buying a couple of baked flatbreads from the street to fill their stomachs. But with Liu Fang visiting the commercial district for two days, they had to treat their guest at a state-run restaurant.
Li Fengmei didn’t mind spending money on herself, but treating her disliked sister-in-law to a meal made her heartache.
Though it pained her, she had to order expensive dishes. She wasn’t being genuinely hospitable to Liu Fang—she remembered how Liu Fang had looked down on her maiden family’s inability to prosper, and Li Fengmei wanted to prove a point.
The Liang family was well-off, but Li Fengmei didn’t care. No matter how poor she got, she wouldn’t beg Liu Fang for help. Now she could afford to treat guests at a state-run restaurant in the provincial capital with her own money—she disliked Liu Fang and had no desire to fake sisterly affection. It was best to maintain their old pattern of meeting once or twice a year.
Even better if they could go years without contact, but given Liu Fang’s personality, Li Fengmei thought that impossible.
Even a meal couldn’t keep Liu Fang quiet. She finally found time to question Xia Xiaolan.
The questions and answers remained the same as always—she had a boyfriend, he was from out of town, a minor official.
“Aunt, I don’t need matchmaking. I’m quite happy with my boyfriend.”
Zhou Cheng treated her well, and Xia Xiaolan wasn’t an ungrateful person. True, they had differences about their marriage timeline, and his family opposed their relationship—these issues had caused some friction between them. But she wouldn’t even tell these troubles to her mother to avoid worrying Liu Fen, let alone the not-so-close Liu Fang.
Zhou Cheng had given her his heart. Even if they couldn’t make it work in the future, that was a future matter. Xia Xiaolan had just been intimate with Zhou Cheng in Beijing—going to matchmaking sessions right after returning home… she’d feel less than human doing such a thing.
But Liu Fang thought nothing of it.
So what if she had a boyfriend? Couldn’t she still choose again?
These days, even married people can divorce. What was a poor little official from out of town compared to the match she had in mind?
“You’re still young, what do you know? How could your aunt harm you?”
Liu Fang rambled on, clearly not taking Xia Xiaolan’s relationship seriously.
Xia Xiaolan thought to herself, you won’t harm me—you’ll just try to sell me off to the highest bidder.
In earlier years, Liu Yong had been too restless to be a simple farmer. When the Reform and Opening Up policy came, he chose a high-risk, high-reward business.
Being involved in smuggling didn’t make Liu Yong a villain—people who had experienced poverty naturally wanted to earn more money. Though illegal, Liu Yong never betrayed or killed anyone for money.
Liu Fen was too honest and proper. Xia Xiaolan had been gradually changing her mother’s mindset for half a year—she was changing, just too slowly.
The third Liu child had developed her personality. While Liu Fang wasn’t purely evil, she was selfish. Other daughters who married well would secretly help their maiden families.
Liu Fang only cared about her comfort in the Liang family, completely indifferent to whether her maiden family starved.
Xia Xiaolan knew her personality—how could she expect Liu Fang to introduce a truly good match?
If there was a good prospect, Liu Fang would surely save him for her daughter Liang Huan, not Xia Xiaolan. So Xia Xiaolan would bet that even if this match seemed good on the surface, it was just for show.
In communication, the most frustrating thing was talking past each other. If Aunt Liu Fang visited again, Xia Xiaolan decided she’d use studying as an excuse to avoid receiving her.
“Xiaofang, eat quickly—sister-in-law’s worried you’ll miss your bus home.”
Li Fengmei just wanted to send this plague away. Liu Fang simply couldn’t take a hint—both Liu Fen and Xia Xiaolan had repeatedly refused her matchmaking, yet she kept talking to herself.
Xia Xiaolan ignored her, busily serving her mother:
“Mom, eat more, these sweet and sour ribs are really good.”
“The fried meatballs are nice too.”
“Taotao, try this.”
As Xia Xiaolan busied herself with serving dishes, Liu Fang looked down on her behavior.
Such a country bumpkin who’d never seen the world—even after months in the provincial capital, she couldn’t shed her petty ways, acting as if she’d never eaten such food before. These dishes were just… Liu Fang wanted to say they weren’t special but hesitated.
This meal from Li Fengmei wasn’t low-standard. Though the Liang family was well-off in the county, they couldn’t eat like this every day.
Eating meat was fine, but dining out daily wasn’t possible.
Though Liang Bing’an never let Liu Fang want money, he wasn’t printing it.
Liu Fang looked down on individual businesspeople, but if someone ran a business as large as Li Fengmei’s, with seemingly endless money, were they still just ordinary individual businesspeople? Liu Fang thought she should discuss this situation with her husband. She felt she couldn’t maintain her old attitude toward her brother’s family—if her maiden family was respectable enough, why shouldn’t she let them associate with her in-laws?
Other women had their maiden families visiting their in-laws, but Liu Fang didn’t—she feared her maiden family would embarrass her. She thought these petty thoughts weren’t obvious, but who didn’t know?
Xia Xiaolan focused on her meal. After dinner, they finally saw Liu Fang off.
Liu Fen felt something wasn’t right but couldn’t pinpoint it—perhaps they shouldn’t have told Liu Fang their address in the commercial district.
“Chen’s wife said your aunt has been coming several times a month. I thought something had happened…”
Liu Fen’s voice grew quieter as she spoke.
Women in this world were easily bullied, just as she and her daughter had been in the Xia family. Wasn’t it her brother who had come to help the mother and daughter in time? Liu Fen thought that as sisters, if Liu Fang encountered similar troubles, how could she as the elder sister ignore them?
Now thinking about it, Liu Fang’s personality was completely different from hers—how could she possibly be mistreated in the Liang family?
Liu Fen felt she’d caused trouble—if Liu Fang kept coming to the commercial district, refusing to give up until she achieved her goal, wouldn’t that make everyone’s life difficult?
“Mom, it’s fine. Let Aunt come if she wants. She just likes to talk to herself—it’s not a major problem.”