Chapter 4 Hard Time at Home

Marrying off her own dear daughter to Wang the Simpleton? Bai Xue certainly would not allow it.

Before she could voice her objections, Bai Yanjiao, who was standing by the side, couldn't hold back her impatience.

Hands on her hips, she took a step forward, pointed at An Hao, and lashed out, "An Hao, you spiteful thing! You're forcing my mom to throw me into a pit of fire! There's a limit to ruining someone, and you've crossed it!"

The smile on An Hao's lips deepened, "So you admit it's a pit of fire! You know it's ruining someone!"

"You! You!!" Bai Yanjiao opened her mouth to retort angrily but she stuttered without being able to say anything coherent.

An Hao watched her and chuckled to herself secretly.

Even though Yanjiao didn't finish her sentence, she knew that her father An Shuchao must have had some thoughts. She didn't believe her father's heart was made of iron and that he truly wished for her to marry the Simpleton.

"Fine! Fine! If you're going to be like that, then I won't interfere anymore," Bai Xue, seeing this, teared up, a belly full of grievances looking at An Shuchao while complaining. "I've married into the An Family for three years now, and which day haven't I dedicated myself to this home. With An Hao speaking ill of me like this, I really feel terrible. I wash my hands of this matter, you, Old An, make the decision."

An Shuchao felt his daughter had a point. If he forced An Hao to marry Wang the Simpleton, what would the villagers think of him?

For the rest of his life, he would not be able to hold his head high, being the butt of gossip – and he was a man who valued face!

At the same time, he was confronted with the serious problem of providing for the family. An Hao was attending school, preparing for college entrance exams next year, An Ping was in middle school, Yanjiao was not good at studies, so she stopped and was doing nothing at home; Bai Xue doted on her daughter terribly, preferring to suffer herself rather than having her do more chores, what could he, as a stepfather, even say?

For a moment, An Shuchao also felt exceedingly worried.

He sighed deeply, crouched down, and took several strong draws from his smoking pipe, "Forget it, let's not talk about this matter anymore. Xue, tomorrow you go return the dowry to the village chief's wife."

Left without a choice, Bai Xue could only agree.

An Hao was also aware of the family's situation; all the talk was worthless in the face of financial difficulties. For a family like hers, life was incredibly tough, depending solely on her father – he could work himself to death and still not become wealthy.

Thoughts began spinning in An Hao's mind; she should do something to lighten the family's burden.

In her previous life, she had learnt quite a lot to make ends meet, lived more than a decade longer than anybody else, and still had some grasp on the nation's policies and market trends.

Tomorrow, she planned to go into the city to see if she could find some way to make money.

Once An Shuchao had made up his mind, Bai Xue really started to worry. She had taken ten yuan as a reservation fee from the future bride of the village chief. Considering it was almost New Year's, she had asked someone to fetch several yards of cloth from the cooperative in town thirty miles away to make clothes for An Shuchao and An Ping, and bought two hair ribbons for Yanjiao, along with a bag of candy and two pounds of meat.

Ten yuan was already a considerable sum to their family, and she had spent half of it on these items.

If this arrangement fell through, she would have to return the items to the village chief's wife.

Now what was she to do? She had nothing to give back to them.

After much thought, this matter still had to be discussed directly with An Shuchao, so she took out the five yuan from her pocket and handed it to him, "If that's the case, then please remember to return these five yuan to the village chief's family tomorrow. The other five yuan I've used to prepare some New Year goods for the family, seeing it's almost the New Year. I thought we could have a good one this year. But looking at our current situation... you'll have to take another five yuan from the house for the village chief."

"Alright... alright," An Shuchao took the money, heaved a sigh, and put it in his pocket. There wasn't much money left at home; it seemed that after the New Year, he would have to find ways to earn some money through manual labor.