Other than matters related to Scholar Chen’s household, she couldn’t think of any reason why Eldest Aunt and the others would stay in the county for so long without returning, especially without angering Grandma. As long as it had to do with Scholar Chen’s family, Grandma rarely got upset.
With Eldest Uncle’s family not returning, the rest of the Yu family felt powerless when dealing with Yu Li. They could only maintain the current status quo and didn’t dare to disrupt the balance easily.
Yu Jin was very aware of this, so she wasn’t worried about anything for now.
Everything would have to wait until Eldest Uncle’s family came back.
Yu Li listened quietly and finished her breakfast thoroughly.
After breakfast, she didn’t rush to leave. Seeing Yu Yin sitting nearby embroidering handkerchiefs, she said, “Tomorrow, I plan to go to the county to look for work. Third Sister, I can take your pouches and handkerchiefs to the embroidery shop to sell while I’m there.”
Yu Yin’s embroidery work was usually given to the old lady. When the Yu family delivered grain to the county at the beginning of each month, they would take her work to the embroidery shop to sell. Naturally, the money went to the old lady and into the public funds, with none of it making its way to Yu Yin.
From the memories of the original body, Yu Li knew about this. She thought it would be better to sell the work herself and give the money directly to Yu Yin.
This embroidery was made by Yu Yin herself—why shouldn’t she get a single copper coin from selling it?
Even if the money had to be turned in to the household’s public fund, it didn’t make sense for all of it to be handed over. Yu Laosan, for example, only handed in part of the money he earned from odd jobs in the city during the off-season and secretly kept the rest. As for the first branch of the family, they were even more unscrupulous. Only the second branch was easy to bully. Yu Laosan’s honest nature and the couple’s naivety meant that any money they earned from odd jobs during the farming off-season was entirely confiscated by the old lady, leaving them without a single coin to their name.
Yu Jin and Yu Yin were stunned.
The sisters looked at her in confusion. “Eldest Sister, you’re going to the county to find work?”
Yu Li nodded and answered honestly, “The Fu family’s money is gone, and the grain is nearly finished too. I need to earn money to buy more.”
The sisters were truly dumbfounded this time. The Fu family, considered the wealthiest in the village, was out of money? And almost out of grain? How was that possible?
When their eldest sister was sold to the Fu family for a wedding blessing, they had comforted themselves by thinking that, at the very least, the Fu family wouldn’t have to worry about food and clothing. Marrying into the Fu family should have been a good thing.
Who could have guessed that the Fu family was this poor?
Yu Li scratched her face awkwardly and said, “Actually, it’s because I ate too much and used up all the Fu family’s grain. We have to wait for the autumn harvest before there’s more…”
The sisters immediately thought of her appetite and exchanged speechless glances.
If that were the case, it was understandable. Even the Yu family had been using up more grain than usual lately. They could hear the old lady in the courtyard cursing every day when she fetched grain from the storeroom, though she never dared to curse Yu Li directly, fearing Yu Jin and the others might complain. This was how she vented her frustration.
Yu Jin quickly came to terms with the situation and didn’t think there was anything wrong with her eldest sister eating up the Fu family’s grain. She asked with concern, “Eldest Sister, what kind of work are you planning to find?”
“I’m not sure yet,” Yu Li replied. “I’m strong, so I can do things like washing clothes or carrying loads. I’ll decide after I get to the county.”
Yu Jin said, “Eldest Sister, washing clothes isn’t a good job. There are already plenty of women doing it in the county, and they have their own connections for finding work. If you try to join in, you might not even get any clothes to wash, let alone earn money. And by competing with them, you’d risk being ostracized and unable to find work. Plus, since they’d see you as a villager, they’d deliberately lower the price, and you’d end up earning less than others.”
Hearing this, the sisters all looked at her.
Yu Yin, surprised, said, “Second Sister, how do you know so much?”
If she didn’t know better, she might have thought her second sister had lived in the county before.
Among the sisters, it was said that only their eldest sister had ever been to the county, and that was when she was a child.
Back then, Yu Lao’er and his wife only had Yu Li and Yu Jin, their two eldest daughters, and they were still somewhat cherished. They had once taken Yu Li, who was a little older, to the county to shop.
Later, when more daughters were born in the second branch, the family’s status fell, and the parents no longer had the heart to take their daughters to the county.
Faced with the admiring gazes of her two younger sisters, Yu Jin felt a little embarrassed and said, “I just heard people talking about it.”
The four girls of the Yu family’s second branch each had different personalities.
The eldest, Yu Li, was quiet and reserved, much like her mother, and always buried herself in work without complaint.
The second, Yu Jin, was fiery and impulsive but also clever and perceptive.
The third, Yu Yin, was introverted and quiet, with a timid nature, easily startled by anything.
The youngest, Yu Zhu, was lively, though only around her sisters. In front of outsiders, she was also a bit timid.
Among them, Yu Jin was the sharpest. She understood that they couldn’t rely on their parents, and as girls from the second branch, they weren’t valued by the family. In the future, when the sisters grew older, their grandmother would likely marry them off to whoever offered the highest dowry, regardless of whether the match was good or bad.
Yu Jin had a strong sense of crisis and was always thinking about how to carve out a path for herself. She paid close attention to gathering information from the outside world, often listening to villagers returning from the county talk about what they had seen and heard.
Unfortunately, she was still young, and the household chores were overwhelming. With their grandmother keeping a close watch, even if she had ideas, she didn’t dare to act on them.
“Very good.” Yu Li patted Yu Jin’s head approvingly and said, “Second Sister, keep it up.”
Yu Jin’s face flushed slightly, and she smiled shyly.
This was the first time someone had praised her. No matter how capable a girl might be, she still longed for recognition. However, rural girls were undervalued, and no one had ever praised her before. Only Yu Yin’s embroidery had received occasional compliments.
Encouraged, Yu Jin enthusiastically analyzed the types of work available in the county, worried that her straightforward eldest sister might be deceived.
“…As for carrying loads at the docks, I’ve heard there are overseers specifically in charge of that. Most of the laborers doing heavy work at the docks are from the county. If you want to find work at the docks, you have to go through those overseers, and they’ll take a cut of your earnings.”
Even for labor-intensive work, there were many people in the county competing for it. Without farmland, most city folk had no choice but to take on manual labor unless they were scholars.
The overseers in charge of these jobs typically had a stable group of laborers under them. If someone from the countryside wanted to work at the docks, they’d need an introduction from an overseer. Because they were temporary workers, their pay would be lower, and a portion would be taken by the overseer.
Yu Jin continued sharing everything she knew, even mentioning the wages for long-term and short-term workers hired by wealthy households in the village—how much they earned monthly for long-term work and daily for short-term jobs.
“The major families in our village aren’t hiring long-term workers right now. As for short-term jobs, they only hire during the busy farming season.”
In short, there were no money-making opportunities in the village.
Since it was rare to learn so much about the working world from Yu Jin, Yu Li stayed at the Yu household for most of the day, chatting with her sisters to gather more information.
The original Yu Li had only known how to work silently and certainly didn’t know as much as Yu Jin.
—
Around noon, the Yu family returned from the fields. When they saw Yu Li, their expressions were less than pleasant.
Especially the three brothers of the third branch, Yu Jingzhong and his siblings, who reacted like mice spotting a cat. They wished they could run far away, fearing that she would catch them and force them to chop wood or clean the pigsty again.
Chopping wood was bearable, but cleaning the pigsty? They had never done such a thing before and nearly vomited from the stench.
Grandma Yu’s lips trembled as she asked, “What are you doing here?”
“I came back to check on you all,” Yu Li replied calmly. Then, as if remembering something, she added, “Oh, Grandma, how’s my dowry coming along? When are you planning to give it to me?”
A dowry was something she naturally deserved, as others had theirs, so she should have hers too.
Grandma Yu’s face stiffened.
Not only hers—the faces of Grandpa Yu and the rest of the family didn’t look good either.
To them, the twenty taels of silver given by the Fu family as bride price were already considered part of the Yu family’s assets. There was no reason to let her take it away, let alone prepare a dowry for her.
Seeing their expressions, Yu Li instantly understood that they had never intended to prepare a dowry for her.
She said nothing, simply turned and walked into the main hall, casually remarking to the Yu family, “Alright, let’s eat first. We’ll talk after.”
The Yu family: “…..”
So, does this mean if you don’t give her a dowry, she’s just going to stay and mooch off her natal family, eating until they go broke?
Honestly, it didn’t seem unreasonable.
Grandma Yu almost fainted from anger and turned to glare fiercely at Yu Lao’er and his wife.
Unable to do anything about Yu Li, they could only vent their frustration on the second branch couple, blaming them for failing to raise their daughter properly.
Yu Lao’er and Liu Shi forced awkward smiles and stood there stiffly like wooden posts. They didn’t utter a single word to comfort anyone, let alone scold their “unfilial” daughter to appease the old lady. This only made Grandma Yu feel more stifled, her chest tightening further.
That meal was an uneasy one. Apart from the second branch, everyone else ate as if there was a bone stuck in their throat. No matter how hungry they were, their appetite was gone. Even Yu Jingyi, who usually caused a ruckus at mealtimes, sat quietly beside his parents, scooping up spoonfuls of bean porridge without daring to stir up trouble.
Today’s meal was no different from usual, except for the addition of a few salted duck eggs.