Novella "Red Sister": The Bride Price

We had been chatting that afternoon, and the accumulation of feelings that had been stored with us for many years as a child quickly eliminated the barriers caused by so many years of time and circumstances. On the contrary, with the growth of their respective ages, the maturity of their minds gradually eliminated the distance brought about by the age difference between me and Hongjie.

I asked Sister Hong when she would get married, and according to the tradition of her hometown, after getting engaged and walking around for a year and a half, she could start talking about marriage.

Sister Hong looked at my grandmother who was sleeping next to her and said softly, "I don't want this marriage, I don't want to get married." "I was taken aback. Because even in my eyes as an adult, this is a rare good family affair.

I hadn't heard the news that she was going to leave the marriage before, in our small village, the whole village was born of an old ancestor, the family was used to living with the door open, and more were the women who walked the east and west houses, even if it was two people who mixed their mouths, it would soon spread half a street. Moreover, the marriage of The Red Sister who marries into the rich, if she withdraws from the marriage, will definitely cause a lot of sensations.

Red sister said that indeed has not retired from marriage, this time it is her parents called her back, let relatives and friends together to give her a thought criticism conference, she is dead hearted, who persuasion does not work, this does not look at a void to hide out.

I said uncle they don't agree with me but understand, brother-in-law looks very good, the family is good, they also hope that you can live a good life.

Sister Hong said that this was not the case at all. It was because the man gave a dowry of 38,000 yuan after the engagement, but the money was borrowed by her two uncles in less than a week, and her aunt, who walked behind, because she did not borrow the money, was so angry that she still did not speak to her family.

Her two uncles borrowed money, one to build a house and one to give a bride price to her son. Now that Sister Hong has proposed to withdraw from marriage, she must return the dowry, but the family cannot come up with money at all.

Sister Hong's mother, my great aunt, first couldn't pull down her face to go to her mother's house to ask for money, and then she was so crying that she couldn't help it, so she carried a big bag of gifts and bumped her guts.

As a result, just after entering the door, I was shook by two sisters-in-law, saying that after so many years, I had stained my aunt and grandmother with such a little light, and the result was that the money was not hot yet, which chased after the ass to ask for it. However, the great aunt almost fell out with her mother's family, and finally only returned less than 6,000 yuan, and there was still more than 30,000 missing.

If you can't return the bride price, you are embarrassed to mention the marriage with others, so every important New Year's Day, Red Sister still goes around as usual.

At that time, my father, as a public official with a formal job, earned about 1,000 yuan per month, and 30,000 yuan was a huge amount of money in my eyes.

I asked Sister Hong, so what are you going to do? Sister Hong looked out the window and said firmly, "Cold mix! I save my own money, and when I have saved enough money, I will go out of the marriage."

In fact, I have a very good feeling for the rich second generation brother-in-law, looking like a table of talents, standing with the red sister, it is such a good match, and the family is so generous, at that time, other girls' wedding dowries were only one or two thousand. So I couldn't help but ask Sister Hong why she wanted to get married.

Hong Jie said that the mother of the second generation of the rich let Hong Jie wear the clothes she bought when she went to his house, because there were many people in his family every day, and he could not let people see that the future daughter-in-law was not dressed properly.

The father of the rich second generation said that they must have boys after marriage, it is best to have two, three is also OK, not afraid of more, such a large family property can not be inherited, and finally add a sentence, the red sister's family is not like being able to have a son.

The grandmother of the second generation of the rich said that the mouth of the red sister is too big, the man's mouth is big and eats four squares, the woman's mouth is big and eats the poor man, the red sister's legs are also too long, two big bitter legs, a lifetime of hard work, like her, short legs and long body, is the life of Yan Wangye.

I think that although these things sound trivial, I didn't quite understand what these trivial things meant at the time, but I felt that this was not a big problem.

My own mother still said every day that I was good at singing and tasteless, and it was boring to fight, and people in that era had just solved the problem of food and clothing, and it was difficult to take into account people's psychological feelings. I said how about the brother-in-law, as long as you two are good, you don't marry his parents.

Sister Hong said that before the engagement, we had only met once during blind dates, and so many people I didn't bother to look up. I went to his house a few times after the engagement, but he was not at home every time, and he was playing with people outside every day, and now that you let us both walk on the road, I don't think I can recognize which one is him.

According to the reason, the hairy-footed son-in-law who has not passed the door should be all kinds of knots in the mother-in-law's family, and the future daughter-in-law should be all kinds of flattery, but if you think about it carefully, my rich second-generation brother-in-law does not seem to have come to the red sister's house once since he was engaged.

When I asked Sister Hong about her engagement, since his family was willing to pay such a high bride price, it must have been particularly satisfactory to you at the beginning.

Red sister said, this is also not complaining about others, is my second aunt to be a matchmaker, at the beginning did not tell people that my family is a family, people are far away from us, it is not easy to inquire.

On the day of the blind date, my second aunt specially called the little third son, and the people before and after the people called the second sister and called their parents, and the people who came from their side thought that the little third son was born to my parents.

Later, I didn't know who spoke much, and passed the words on, and people soon knew that my family was extinct, and the little third son was inherited, and then it was definitely not very willing, who was willing to find a jeopardy. But if they mention the withdrawal of marriage, the bride price we can not return, at most half of the refund, so their family is also for this refusal to mention the resignation.

Speaking of the little third son, it is because there are only two girls in the red sister's family, and her aunt has given birth to three boys in a row, so her grandmother is the master, and the youngest boy is passed on to the red sister's family. But because Hongjie's family and her aunt's family live on the opposite door, so this child usually lives with her parents, but nominally calls Hongjie's parents as parents, and calls her biological parents uncles and aunts, and Hongjie's parents have to bear the boy's food, clothing, housing, and marriage, wife and children, and in the future, after Hongjie's parents are old, this adoptive son will give Hongjie's parents a pension and send them to the end, make a banner and hold a can, and inherit all the inheritance of Hongjie's parents.

The child is still small, the usual cost of going to school, the red sister parents are taking the initiative to send the past, the family has done what delicious initiative to take the past, the New Year festival is also to seal the red envelope, the child is also sweet, the more guests come to the home, the more happy the parents call, the red sister parents always mention it is to say that we are three children, we are three children.

In the countryside, the Red Sister's family is indeed very taboo, because there are no boys in the woman's family, so many heavy physical tasks, such as watering the ground, digging vegetable cellars, harvesting crops, etc., require son-in-law to help.

The rich second generation family is such a single seedling, it will definitely hurt his son even more, but in view of the sky-high bride price, there is no way to open his mouth to withdraw from marriage.

I especially support Sister Hong, this marriage should be withdrawn. But 30,000 yuan is really not so easy to come up with.

Red sister said that she has planned, they work three shifts, almost 800 yuan a month, she goes to two shifts a day, from 8 o'clock in the morning to 12 o'clock in the evening, a month can take 1500, factory package to eat and live, she can almost all save, has saved more than ten thousand, ready to borrow a little from her aunt at the end of the year, go to her uncle to ask for a little more, it is really not possible to ask the factory if you can advance some wages, and strive to put the money together early.

Speaking of this, her expression suddenly became cheerful, and even a little eyebrow danced. She said that she is the leader of the group, usually goes to work with a novice, takes a large nuclear sample when she takes samples, and the work during the day is not heavy at all, that is, she is sleepy at night.

She said that when she worked in Zhengzhou, she sewed sofa covers for people, and standing next to her sewing machine could hear the smell of rags, and she could do the work of others for two days a day. She asked me if I believed it? I said I believed, and I believed for three days.

She said that the rich second-generation brother-in-law looked good at the fetus, in fact, the big characters did not recognize a few, and asked her how far Zhengzhou is from Henan. The next time she looks for a partner, she has to find a cultured one, otherwise what will the two of them do if they are blind in the future?

Grandma, who had been sleeping on the side, suddenly woke up and saw HongJie sitting on the kang. No head and no brain came a sentence, your grandmother has been pretending to be able to be a person all her life, and also gave you a name called Hongyu, I said that this name is not good, what is Hongyu in that play, can you still take this as a name? Sister Hong's face suddenly turned red, hiding to look at the books on my windowsill.

Sister Hong said: "Don't look at me that I have not graduated from primary school, I also love to read, when I was not in two classes, I often went to read books after work." "For the matter of Red Sister reading books, it was really unexpected to me.

I asked her what books she usually read, and she said I like to read storytelling books, and there was a newspaper seller next to our factory, and I liked to go there after work to read books.

I read and understood a lot of things, but unfortunately I didn't know many words, even guessing at them. I said I would recommend you a good book, Dream of the Red Chamber.

It was the four famous works, in fact, I hadn't seen the Dream of the Red Chamber at that time, I had only heard of it, and I had seen the fragment of Dai Yu entering Jia Province, but in order to show that the books that I, a cultured person, read were going to be graded off from Hongjie, so I blurted it out.

Sister Hong carefully wrote down the title of the book I said on her hand, took my hand and looked into my eyes and said sincerely that I was really envious that I could read a lot of books, could go a long way, could have many possible lives, and the most envious thing was that I did not have to live in this small village full of women with long tongues.

I said you can live a different life, there is a girl in a foreign country, people who are deaf, dumb and blind are self-taught, and finally became a writer, and there is also a cripple in China who is also on TV. You're much better off than they are.

Sister Hong smiled and rolled to the kang, saying that I can't become a talent, I am neither deaf nor blind, I talk and walk upside down, which is too far away from others. I was going to continue to encourage her, but she looked at me quietly and said, she understands my intentions, but she is doing very well now.

She was the leader of the group in the workshop, and even whoever went to the toilet had to ask her for leave. Now although she works two shifts a day, in fact, she can also take time to squint for a while, and she can also get double wages, so many regular workers with jobs do not have more money than she does.

She saw that my grandmother was asleep again, and whispered to me that their factory was very good, even college students.

As a junior high school student, my biggest dream is to go to high school and go to college, and college students actually went to work in Hongjie's factory, so what is the significance of my schooling. So he said to her a little sarcastically, "Do you still have college students in your factory?" You wouldn't want to quit marriage because you met a college student, would you?"

Sister Hong did not hear the displeasure in my tone, but eagerly wanted to refute my speculation, anxious to blush a little, saying that people college students can find a primary school that has not graduated?

Then he said to himself that college students sit in the office, and every afternoon when they eat, the radio in the factory can order songs, 5 cents a song, and college students are responsible for playing songs, and sometimes read articles written by him.

I asked what articles were written, and Hong Jie said that she couldn't remember, anyway, they were all written very well, and it was very good to listen.

When I said this, the evening sunset was shining on the face of The Red Sister through the old wooden window, and the pink young face emitted a bright and holy light, and I seemed to see the girl who slowly unfolded her skirt in the mirror again.

- To be continued -