Dowries
Another example was the clothes. Those ‘Garments for Seasons’ were either cheesecloth or hemp cloth. There was not even a set of ordinary silk, let alone the newly-launched brocade.
Moreover, those cheap things were all put in large boxes and counted as four sets of dowries.
As for ‘Money in the Bottom of Boxes’…
It took Qiao Xuan ages to dig out those few sporadic coins.
Well, as the saying went – ‘a starving camel is still bigger than a horse’, even though the dowries were not that abundant, they were still better than that of village girls.
But those things, when compared to the real daughters of County Magistrate, were simply an insult and humiliation. But for Qiao Xuan, she believed that these things were enough for her life for now.
Even this small amount was already a large sum for the farmer families!
So, Madame Qiao might have humiliated or heavily stricken the original host of the body, but for her, it was nothing.
Compared to being completely poor, she was happy that she was able to get these to start with. She could just earn money if she needed it.
She was going to strike them back in the future! That should be extremely relaxing for her!
When she was done sorting through the dowries, Qiao Xuan generously handed out the cloth to her mother-in-law and Ms. Xu, the elder brother’s wife. She gave the clothes to the family for making dresses.
For the farmer’s families, such garments were already treasure, though they were not so valuable in her eyes.
Both Ms. Fang and Ms. Xu were startled in disbelief.
Ms. Fang was hesitant. She desired those things, but was worried that others would spread the rumor that she was stealing her daughter-in-law’s dowries.
Honestly, when the dowries were transported to her family the day before, she had heard many sour words from the other members in the family, who kept sneering and could not hide their jealousy.
Qiao Xuan smiled with bright eyes, seeing their reaction. “It is a small gift, Mom. You shouldn’t consider me as an outsider, now I am your daughter-in-law, otherwise I would feel so unassured about myself! We are a family, aren’t we? We should stick together, right?”
Ms. Fang laughed and accepted the gifts, then she added. “Dowries are the supporters of a daughter-in-law, and you should keep them instead of wasting them! We have a long life to share together.”
Qiao Xuan felt warmth attacking her heart. She was truly moved somehow. She nodded and smiled. “Thank you, Mom!”
Then, she took out two flourishing-looking silk flowers and gave them to Shao Taotao and Shao Qing respectively.
In her eyes, these silk-flowers were roughly made. Yet they still cost as much 25 wen for one pair, which was a huge expense for rural families.
Ms. Xu was very glad and expressed her thankfulness on behalf of Shao Qing. Shao Taotao liked the flowers too, and said thank-you with a reddened face, before putting the flowers on head. All women present spoke highly of how she looked.
Qiao Xuan felt a bit guilty after she gave out the garments and silk-flowers, since she did have a selfish purpose. So, she made more effort in trying to give compliments, which led to a happy laughter among all the women.
She was actually testing how her mother-in-law, brother’s wife and husband’s sister were like, when she gave out so many gifts. If any of them was greedy, she would know.
But none of them were so.
Even though Ms. Xu might seem to have some selfish thoughts, she still believed that her thoughts were reasonable.
At this moment, Qiao Xuan felt totally assured.
What she did not know, however, was that it was Ms. Xu’s turn to feel guilty.
The moment Qiao Xuan became part of the family, Ms. Xu had been put into shadow. So she had been feeling really annoyed by how she behaved. When she saw how Qiao Xuan tried to please their mother-in-law, she had been cursing her as ‘shameless’ inside her head.
But Qiao Xuan turned out to be so generous that she gave her so many garments, two of which were thick enough to be made into cotton coats in winter. She even gave Shao Qing such a beautiful silk-flower!
So, she suddenly felt that she should not have cursed her and thought of her as someone shameless.