Wen Shu talked to Li Xu for a long time before saying goodbye and leaving.
Li Xu sat in the pavilion for a while, then stood up and walked out of the village.
Only when Li Xu was no longer visible did Yingbao and the others come down from the tree.
Ying Bao said to Er Ni, Hu Zi and Jiang Wu: "Don't tell anyone about what happened just now."
The three of them nodded.
After picking the fruits, Jiang Wu and Hu Zi carried the baskets back home. Er Ni said, "What's the big deal? They just met and chatted. The village girl and her good friend even agreed to go to the mountains to chop wood together. They were gone for most of the day."
"Sister Wen is different from the people in the village. Her family has very strict education. If something bad gets out, it will be difficult for her to marry into her family in the future." Ying Bao said.
Erni: "That's perfect, why not just marry Master Li? Master Li is a scholar, and he will take the imperial examination in the future. Maybe he will become a high-ranking official."
Yingbao blinked and actually felt that what Sister Erni said made sense.
But if Li Xu was interested in Sister Wen, he would not pretend to be deaf and dumb all the time. He would definitely beg his mother to propose marriage to him.
Regardless of the disparity in social status between the two families, he must be responsible.
Yingbao silently set a time for Li Xu in her heart.
Just one month.
If Li Xu still doesn't propose to the Wen family within a month, but doesn't avoid Sister Wen's advances, then I will have to take action, humph!
But before the one-month deadline, news came that Li Xu was going to get engaged to Wen Shu.
Since Sister Wen's father was not here, the people in charge of this matter were Mrs. Wen and her son Wen Hengyin.
Of course, there are also testimonies from the school teacher and Mr. Wu.
The engagement between the two families was sudden, but no one was surprised at all.
Mrs. Wen and her children had always lived with Li Xu's mother, Mrs. An, and they understood each other's character.
Mrs. Wen admired An's character and was optimistic about Li Xu's future, so when An formally asked a matchmaker to come to her house, she agreed immediately.
Although the Wen family is a medical family, no one in the family took part in the imperial examination.
Under the guidance of Mr. Wu, Li Xu made rapid progress in his studies. Perhaps if he takes the exam again next year, he will be able to pass the imperial examination.
Considering that Li Xu was already twenty-five and had to take the exam next year, and Wen Shu was already seventeen, Mrs. Wen wrote to her husband, setting the wedding date on the eighteenth day of the twelfth lunar month of this year, and decided to hold the wedding ceremony in Dongchen Village.
As for whether anyone from the Wen family would come, Mrs. Wen didn't care at all.
Anyway, let your husband write a letter to let them know. If they want to come, they can come. If they don’t want to come, that’s fine too. As long as your daughter is happy, that’s all that matters.
In June, Wen Silang hurried to Dongchen Village with two horse-drawn carriages.
He was very dissatisfied with his wife's arbitrary behavior, but after meeting Li Xu and her son, his anger subsided a little.
Since his daughter was willing, Wen Silang had to suppress his anger and arrange to build a house here.
His daughter had to marry out of his family, so he would definitely build a house first.
Finally, Jiang Sanlang sold a piece of his own land to Mrs. Wen, which was enough for her to build a yard with six rooms.
The chief of the Chen clan also sold a piece of inferior land to Li Xu so that he could build a house and get married.
Just like that, Dongchen Village became lively again, with an endless stream of ox carts and donkey carts carrying wood and bricks and tiles.
However, Chen Laoshuan's family in Xicun and Chu Man's family started to quarrel.
When Chu Man's elder brother saw his crazy sister, he was immediately furious. In order to vent his anger for his sister, he chased Chen Laoshuan and Chen Fengshi with a machete.
Upon seeing this, Chen Laoshuan's third son picked up a carrying pole and smashed it over, knocking Brother Chu Man to the ground.
As a result, the Chen family and the Chu family had a complete falling out, and the Chu family filed a lawsuit against Chen Changping's family in the county government, accusing them of abusing and harming their daughter-in-law.
But when people from the county government came to investigate, they found that this was not the case. Instead, Chen Laoshuan's family was troubled by this woman.
As for the scars on Chu Man's face, no one knew what happened. Even Chu Man herself couldn't tell who hurt her. She just kept cursing and her crazy words were not credible at all.
So the county government ordered Chen Laoshuan's family to compensate the Chu family with twenty taels of silver, and the matter ended there.
But after such a commotion, Chen Changping was persuaded to drop out of the county school and was asked to find another academy to study in.
Chen Changping had no intention of returning to the academy, so he simply went home and occasionally wandered over to Li Xu's place to talk about history and present affairs with him.
In a blink of an eye, it is the twelfth lunar month.
The houses of the Wen family and the Li Xu family were built, freshly painted, and fully equipped with furniture.
In the past few years, An also started to grow mushrooms, and with the money earned from her son's teaching, she saved a total of several hundred taels of silver.
A small half of the money was spent on building the house, and the rest was used to buy wedding supplies and gifts.
With her son's wedding date just a few days away, An invited Chunniang and Zhou to help her son sew new bedding.
There was a clean mat on the ground, and the three of them were sitting on it sewing a quilt.
Mrs. Zhou sighed, "In a blink of an eye, the children have all grown up and started their own families. When Wen Shu first came to us, he was still a little kid who was less than ten years old."
"That's right."
Chun Niang sewed quickly and said with emotion: "My baby was just a little kid then, and now she has grown into a big girl in the blink of an eye."
In a few months, my daughter Yingbao will be twelve years old. She will be a real beauty. There will be no one prettier than her in the surrounding area.
But it is difficult for a girl like this to find a husband.
Since your own family is of low status, the family you marry into will naturally not be of high status.
But how could Chunniang be willing to do that? Why not wait until her son passed the imperial examination and then arrange a marriage for her daughter? Maybe she could even let her marry into a noble family.
An looked at Chunniang and didn't say anything.
Jiang Jiayingbao is still young, so it is not convenient for me to talk about her marriage.
In fact, she was very optimistic about the marriage between the Wen and Jiang families, but she couldn't say it at the moment.
The next day, a group of horse-drawn carriages suddenly came to the village. There were more than a dozen of them.
They asked where Mrs. Qingwen lived and drove all the carriages there.
Wen Silang and his wife came out upon hearing the noise and saw several people getting off the carriage.
"Mom, why are you here?" Wen Silang was surprised and quickly bowed to Old Madam Wen.
Old Madam Wen is nearly seventy years old, with a head full of white hair, thin cheeks, and a very sharp look in her eyes.
"What? I can't come?" The old lady got off the carriage with the help of the maid and glanced at her daughter-in-law coldly.
Wen Silang and his wife hurried forward and supported their mother.
The old lady snorted and walked towards the yard.
Several people got off the carriage, including Mrs. Lin, the third wife of Wen, and her two daughters Wen Tian and Wen Jiao.
There was also a young boy in his teens, who was Wen Hengchuan’s eldest son and the great-grandson of Old Madam Wen.
After entering the main hall and sitting down in the main seat, the accompanying maid hurriedly asked the Fourth Lady where to make tea.
Xiao Zhenniang asked the nanny to take the old lady's servants to the kitchen, and she bowed to her mother-in-law: "Please trouble me to go there in person."
The old lady ignored her and talked to her fourth son, "Why didn't you see Shu'er and Heng Yin?"
Wen Silang: "Shu'er has gone to her little sister's house, Heng Yin is studying with the teacher and has not finished school yet."
The old lady snorted, "Shu'er is getting married, isn't she? Why is she still visiting other people's houses? What kind of family rules are these?"
Mrs. Wen immediately said, "Shu'er's little sister's home is not far away, and there are no outsiders in her home."
"How dare you!" The old lady slammed the table and angrily scolded, "I'm talking to you, so you can't just interrupt me!"
Mrs. Wen looked up at her mother-in-law and her face darkened.
The mother-in-law got angry as soon as she arrived. Was she trying to intimidate her daughter-in-law