Traveling to Daliang Kingdom starts from falling into the water

Chapter 738 Things Backfired
Since it is an engagement and not a wedding for good fortune, the man's family naturally has to ask a matchmaker to go to the woman's family to propose marriage first. Only after the woman's family agrees can the betrothal gift be formally given to the woman's family.

The matchmaker invited an official matchmaker without any objection, because the two families already had an engagement, and the "Nacai" among the six rituals was just a formality, as was the "Asking for the Name" that came after.

The so-called "asking for the name" is that the matchmaker asks the woman's name, age and "eight characters", and uses divination and fortune-telling to see whether the man and woman will conflict with each other, and whether there are other reasons why they are not suitable for getting married. "Asking for the name" is also called "passing the small note" or "matching the eight characters".

After "asking the name" comes "Najib".

That is, the man's family gives the son's birth date and time to the matchmaker to bring to the woman's side. This is also called "Guo Da Tie" or "Tong Shu".

After the exchange of "Gengtie" at this step, the next step is "Nazheng" where the man's family gives the woman's family a betrothal gift, and the woman's family sends back a dowry list, and then "asks for a date" and "welcomes the bride in person".

Originally, Mr. Qi Sanye wanted to keep his daughter for a few more years before marrying her off, so he decided to exchange the "Geng Tie" first, and then go through the process of the betrothal gift together when it was almost time to "ask for the date".

Zhou Sishun had exactly the same idea.

With three or four years to prepare the bride price, he could set up a brick kiln or do something to earn some money to reduce the burden on his third daughter.

But things backfired.

I don't know what Mrs. Qi San meant. She insisted on going straight to the "Nazheng" in one go, saying that only after the betrothal gifts are given and there are "red and green papers" can the law protect them.

In addition, the mother-in-law also asked Mr. Qi San to secretly have the shops deliver a lot of things to his new house in Beijing without consulting his father-in-law.

He had seen brothers and sisters of the man's family privately give betrothal gifts to their sons and nephews, but he had never seen the woman's family prepare betrothal gifts for her son-in-law.

Not to mention that Zhou Sishun was not happy to accept this kindness, Mrs. Zhou was also at a loss whether to laugh or cry, but she and Mrs. Qi San were good sisters before they got married.

She knew that Mrs. Qi San had no intention of belittling or humiliating the man, but rather wanted to strike while the iron was hot and send back a list of dowry, much of which would be given to Hui Jie'er as a dowry.

After all, Old Master Qi was already old. Once he passed away, even if Old Madam Qi was still around, the Qi family would inevitably be divided. Madam Qi San told her clearly that there was only this one girl in her third room.

In terms of the dowry funded by the public treasury, compared with the large number of legitimate and illegitimate daughters in other branches of the Qi family, the third branch only has this one daughter, so she is at a disadvantage.

What's more, this old sister also trusts the character of her Zhou family. No matter how valuable these things sent privately are, they will eventually return to Hui Jie'er.

All in all, this mother still wanted to ask for more dowry for her only daughter from her husband's family. Although her behavior was a little inappropriate, her intention is commendable.

After all, it’s not like her Zhou family can’t afford a decent betrothal gift. It’s no exaggeration to say that even for a princess, let alone Hui Jie’er, the betrothal gift would be decent enough.

Without the presence of her in-laws (Gu Erzhu) and their spouses, Mrs. Zhou frankly expressed to her frowning brother-in-law and his wife some of Mrs. Qi's concerns that were difficult to tell to outsiders.

Zhou Sishun was not surprised to hear that the several branches of the Qi family were not as harmonious as they seemed. What's more, money was involved. Which daughter-in-law didn't want to make more profits for her children?

Even though his San Ya was the respected Madam Gao, she still gave the two shares of his San Ya's fragrant soap workshop to her eldest grandson and his wife.

As the eldest grandson's wife, who is well matched with the Gao family, how could the eldest young lady's wife be short of dowry? Not to mention that San Ya said that Yunkelai in the hands of the old lady would eventually be inherited by the eldest grandson's wife.

This is human nature, and it is also the human heart. People are always biased, just like his wife. She has several children, but she still loves her son the most. She would feel embarrassed if she asked her elder brother and sister-in-law to give her money, but she was happy when San Ya gave her money, and she felt as comfortable as if she used her own money.

"...Don't keep asking me and your elder brother to spend money. Jiang Ge'er is not only your elder brother and I's nephew, he is also your elder brother's disciple.

Besides, Xia'er is such a smart child, she had already prepared for it, and this time she secretly enclosed two silver notes with a face value of 10,000 taels in the letter she sent me."

Zhou Sishun was stunned.

There are another 20,000 taels here, plus the 20,000 taels spent by his relative-in-law (Gu Erzhu), and the silver notes that his brother-in-law stuffed into his pocket before he left, shouldn’t it be 50,000 taels?
This child is just living a miserable life!
"If it weren't for the inconvenience of going back and forth now, I would have simply given all the gifts. I didn't want to mention the 20,000 taels to you two.

Your eldest brother has already said that he has a say in Jiang Ge'er and He Ge'er's marriage. He has made the decision. Why should you, as his younger brother, be polite to him?

As your sister-in-law, I will not harm you. You should listen to me this time. Your brother has a lot of money. If we don’t spend it, who knows who will spend it on others.”

Zhou Sishun couldn't help but laugh out loud and shook his head, "Big brother won't do anything reckless, so I'll trouble you to take care of it, sister-in-law. If the child dares to disobey you later--"

"Stop!" Madam Zhou glared in feigned anger, "Are we a family? If you keep talking nonsense, I'll ask your eldest brother to punish you. Let's see if he will use the family rules!"

When Li heard this, she burst into laughter.

Zhou Sishun just wanted to cover his face against this heartless daughter-in-law. He couldn't stay any longer. Seeing that the matter had been settled, he quickly left first.

After returning to Qingfeng Courtyard, he heard the servants report that not only the Fourth Young Master had not returned home yet, so he simply went into the study alone, found a list, and began to grind ink and doodle.

I wrote down what I could according to the description. If there were words I didn't know how to write, I would circle them or cross them out. I wrote down what the betrothal gift included, stroke by stroke.

He then silently calculated in his mind how much money it would cost if he picked and chose from the list drawn up by his third daughter, and added the preparations his eldest sister-in-law had mentioned.

Soon, Zhou Si discovered that he didn't need to do any detailed calculations. Before his daughter-in-law even came home, he had to owe at least 20,000 taels of silver.

How can I afford it!

Besides, he has more than one son. He also has a younger one. He wants the younger one to coax Baoya back home. Can Second Brother Gu give in to him and treat her equally?
It's dying.

"Father of the child?"

Li came out of the main courtyard, Qingping Courtyard, and returned to the main courtyard of Qingfeng Courtyard, where she saw Zhou Sishun lying on the couch in the study. Wouldn't it be uncomfortable to lie down in the room?
She quickly walked forward, called out quietly, squatted down and leaned close to Zhou Sishun's ear, "Are you worried that your niece-in-law is unhappy?"

Zhou Sishun raised his eyelids and glanced at her.

"What are you afraid of? My sister-in-law has already said that the bulk of the money is paid by our San Ya."

"Ha!" Zhou Sishun sneered, "What does it mean that a daughter who is married off is like spilled water? Do you understand? It means that a daughter who is married off belongs to her husband's family!
Her things belong not to her husband's family, but to our grandson. Besides, what does the elder brother owe us? Instead, we owe the elder sister and elder brother a great favor that we can never repay in several lifetimes!"

Mrs. Li scratched her head, "Then what do you say? The eldest sister-in-law just said that our Dajiang is the fourth young master. He can't be compared with the eldest nephew, but he can't be too far behind Hai Ge'er."