Transmigrated as an Unwanted Ugly Girl

He spoke in a roundabout way, a sentence here and a sentence there, but he still managed to make his point perfectly clear.

The old woman was a reasonable sort. She’d been quite fond of her late brother’s wife; the two sisters-in-law had been close back in the day. That was why, after her brother and his wife passed away, she kept a close eye on their son, worried he would struggle. His wife, from the Yang Family, was a good woman too—straightforward and open-hearted.

’But that’s no excuse for not finding Qingmu a wife, is it?’

She gave a rare sigh, a smile playing on her lips, and said, "I know you think your grand-aunt is being nosy—" She waved a hand to cut off Zheng Changhe’s explanation. "I was bustling about for Qingmu before because I was afraid he wouldn’t be able to marry and things would get delayed. Now that your life has improved and your family is living in harmony, if this old bag of bones were to stick her nose in and stir things up, wouldn’t I just be making a nuisance of myself? You and your wife should decide what to do. But you still need to hurry. You can’t delay this."

Zheng Changhe was overjoyed and quickly said, "We won’t delay, we’ve been quietly making inquiries. We mainly want to build up our family’s savings a bit more, so we won’t seem rushed when it’s time for the wedding. So, Grand-aunt, about this business with Lian’er..."

The old woman pursed her lips in annoyance. "We’re not talking about it. I should have known you’d already decided to wait a few years before finding a match for Qingmu. I’m old. I can’t manage these things anymore. Hmph, that woman, how dare she fool me! Just wait until I get home, I’ll give her a thrashing! None of them have any foresight. When I first tried to find a match for Qingmu, they all made excuses and refused, acting as if their daughters were phoenixes. I even thought about matching my own granddaughter to Qingmu, but the ages weren’t right—the older one is already married, and the younger one is too little. Otherwise, would I have let them off so easy? Now they hear you’ve bought land and they come scrambling to make an offer, even keeping me completely in the dark! And they had the nerve to tell me: ’For Third Aunt’s sake, and since Third Aunt is vouching for him, he must be a good man. We just want our daughter to have a good life. As long as the man is decent, we won’t even mention the betrothal gifts—what amount of gifts could be better than a good person?’ You hear that? That’s how they tricked me!"

Zheng Changhe quickly comforted the old woman, telling her not to be angry and that such people weren’t worth getting upset over.

’Listening to this, Juhua couldn’t help but think that the grand-aunt’s family must have several branches. Judging from her words, their relationships were incredibly complicated. It’s a good thing our own family isn’t so large.’

When the grand-aunt left with her niece-in-law, that Mrs. Li wore a look of utter displeasure, as if someone owed her eight hundred cash. The grand-aunt was even more displeased and almost refused to leave with her, wanting to stay the night at the Zheng Family’s home and leave alone the next day. But for some unknown reason, the two of them ended up leaving together after all.

’They’re probably in for another war of words and a bout of sulking once they get home, though!’

Juhua waited for Qingmu to return. The two of them went to the vegetable garden to tidy the plots, fixing up the trellises for the Huang Gua and cowpeas and propping up the climbing vines. They packed more soil around the waterlogged eggplant seedlings and then went to the pepper patch to weed around the pepper plants.

In the midst of their work, Juhua watched Qingmu’s serious expression as he focused on his task. Thinking of the grand-aunt’s words, she couldn’t help but smile.

Her smile baffled Qingmu. "What are you smiling at?" he asked. "Did Grand-aunt share some good news or something?"

Juhua sighed. "Good news? I suppose it is. But it’s not the kind of good news we’d like."

She then relayed the whole conversation to Qingmu word for word, adding at the end, "Brother, it seems to me that if you don’t get married, there will be no end to the people coming to our door with proposals! In a way, that’s a good thing—it shows you’re better than the rest. But having it happen all the time is annoying, isn’t it?"

Qingmu was silent for a moment, then said, "It doesn’t matter who comes asking, we just won’t agree. Don’t overthink it. It’s like this for every family. You shouldn’t think your brother is that much better than anyone else."

Juhua asked in surprise, "It’s like this for every family? No way!"

Seeing his sister’s "my-brother-is-better-than-everyone-else" expression, Qingmu felt very pleased. He glanced at her with a smile and said, "There are people trying to find a match for Huai Zi, but he hasn’t agreed to any yet. Someone’s trying to set Liu Sanshun up, too, but he just hasn’t found anyone he likes. And Changxing just went to a matchmaking meeting yesterday. See? Isn’t this something that happens in every family?"

He almost blurted out, ’And families with daughters are even busier,’ but thinking of his sister’s special circumstances, he quickly swallowed the words.

He had only mentioned Huai Zi’s situation to get Juhua’s attention.

’Juhua couldn’t help but find her own sentimentality amusing—she had thought so many people were coming with proposals only because her brother, Qingmu, was the best. She hadn’t realized that once all the young people grew up, they were all just paired off this way and that.’

’Everyone picks from everyone else, and one by one, marriages are made. Otherwise, since young men and women couldn’t freely date like in the world from her previous life, how else would these marriages ever happen?’

And so, she was suddenly filled with curiosity and asked Qingmu which families had found a wife and which had married off a daughter.

But Qingmu had been focused on his studies, so how would he know the details? He only knew about the few people he had just mentioned by pure chance.

Seeing his sister’s curious expression, he laughed and said, "You should be asking Liu Xiaomei about these things, how would I know? However, I do know about Huai Zi’s situation. That girl, Yu Qin, who visited last time, wanted to marry him, but Huai Zi wasn’t willing. He even offended his fourth maternal aunt over it."

Juhua thought to herself, ’Just as I expected. I saw that coming a mile away.’

She then asked casually, "How can first cousins get married? They’re too closely related."

Qingmu asked, puzzled, "Why can’t first cousins get married? Don’t plenty of families do that to strengthen their ties?"