Xu Lijuan choked for a moment, then hurriedly tried to soothe him. "I did say those things, but you're a man. You should be able to handle certain things on your own. Otherwise, if trouble arises in the future, are you really going to make me, a woman, stand at the front line?"
Hearing this, Hu Guangjin nodded repeatedly, patted his chest, and said, "I'm a man. I should protect women."
Only after saying it did he realize: since Xu Lijuan mentioned "the future," did that mean his future included her?
Overjoyed, he immediately grabbed Xu Lijuan's hand. "Lijuan, does this mean you agree to be my partner? When you talk about our future, do you mean 'us'?"
Xu Lijuan shook him off, feigned a blush, and glared at Hu Guangjin. "Oh, we're still outside. Could you please watch yourself?"
Hu Guangjin grinned from ear to ear. "Alright, alright, I'll watch myself."
Cutting straight to the point, Xu Lijuan asked, "Guangjin, don't you trust me?"
Hu Guangjin was taken aback. "What? No, of course I trust you."
Xu Lijuan pinched her own thigh, pressing down a bit too hard. Tears instantly welled up and streamed down her face.
"Then tell me, what did you guys go to the town for this afternoon? I've heard all about it. You're going to confront Li Tiezhu. What are you even confronting him about?"
Hu Guangjin couldn't bear to see the woman he loved in tears; his heart ached fiercely.
"Oh, Lijuan, it's just a misunderstanding. It was my mom—she kept insisting that you took five hundred yuan and only gave me two hundred. Of course I didn't believe it, so I agreed to go to the town with her to sort this out. Lijuan, I'm only doing this to prove your innocence! You're such a good person, how could you ever do something like that?"
Xu Lijuan's heart skipped a heavy beat.
How on earth did that old hag Feng Yun find out she took five hundred yuan?
Only she and Li Tiezhu knew about this. Could it be that Li Tiezhu went running his mouth?
What an idiot! Didn't she specifically tell him that things were tricky and they should wait until it was all over before saying anything?
She was going to be the death of her!
"No, this just proves you don't trust me." Now genuinely panicked, Xu Lijuan let her tears fall for real. "If you really trusted me, not only would you refuse to go to the town yourself, but you'd also stop your mom from going. You just don't trust me!"
Panicking instantly, Hu Guangjin agreed without a second thought.
"Alright, alright, I promise you. I won't go to the town this afternoon, and I won't let my mom go either."
Only then did Xu Lijuan break into a smile through her tears.
Emboldened, Hu Guangjin pulled Xu Lijuan into his arms. Xu Lijuan instinctively wanted to resist, but remembering that she still needed Hu Guangjin to manage Feng Yun, she refrained from pushing him away.
Feng Yun stood with her arms crossed, surrounded by a group of village gossips.
"My, look at that—Guangjin's face is swollen like a pig's head, yet she still hasn't pushed him away. Looks like she really has fallen for him."
"People have been saying for ages that Xu Lijuan was your Guangjin's girl, but she kept denying it. Now that we've caught them red-handed, she surely can't deny it anymore."
"You really are a lucky woman, Feng Yun, getting a city girl for a daughter-in-law."
While they were chattering away, Xu Lijuan and Hu Guangjin heard the commotion and turned around together.
The moment their eyes met the gazes of a dozen people, Xu Lijuan felt so humiliated she almost passed out.
How could so many people have seen them?
What was she going to do now?
"Mom, you always said Lijuan didn't like me. Well, now you see for yourself—she does like me. Can you finally agree to our marriage?"
Hu Guangjin didn't think there was anything wrong with being caught hugging and pulling at Xu Lijuan by so many people.
In fact, he was dying for the whole world to know about his relationship with her.
With a smug expression on his pig-head-like face, he wrapped an arm around Xu Lijuan and swaggered out from behind the house. "Mom, what are you doing here? At your age, eavesdropping behind walls—aren't you afraid people will laugh at you?"
Feng Yun let out a dry chuckle, once again lamenting that this son of hers was hopelessly stupid.
Even if Xu Lijuan hadn't rejected him, and even if she really had agreed to marry him, this wasn't how he should react after getting caught embracing in public!
"Xu Lijuan." Too lazy to deal with her brain-dead son, Feng Yun fixed her gaze on Xu Lijuan. "Are you truly willing to marry our fourth boy?"
The villagers all turned to look at Xu Lijuan, and Hu Guangjin did too.
Wishing she could find a crack in the ground to crawl into, Xu Lijuan felt her shoulders burn under Hu Guangjin's embrace. She struggled a little, keeping her head lowered.
To Hu Guangjin, this behavior looked like shyness and timidity.
He pulled her even closer, speaking in a gentle, soothing tone. "Don't be afraid, Lijuan. We're in a new era now. Society encourages free love. We're a match made for each other—we don't need to care what other people think."
With that, he cast a defiant glance at Feng Yun.
His mother had always claimed that Xu Lijuan was just playing him for a fool, so he wanted to vent his pent-up frustration and show her that Lijuan wasn't that kind of person, and that his taste wasn't as bad as she thought.
Remembering Xu Lijuan's words from earlier, he turned back to Feng Yun. "Mom, you've always been prejudiced against Lijuan. I won't let you humiliate her, so I'm not going to the town with you this afternoon."
Feng Yun had anticipated this exact scenario.
Her fourth son was a stubborn blockhead, completely wrapped around Xu Lijuan's finger.
She had deliberately leaked the news about going to the town this afternoon precisely to lure Xu Lijuan to her fourth son so she could watch this little play unfold.
Desperate diseases require drastic cures. Since she had previously been the one trying to tear them apart, she was now taking the initiative to play matchmaker. She wanted to see what excuse Xu Lijuan could possibly use next to brush off her brain-addled son.
Feng Yun nodded. "Fine, I won't go to the town."
Xu Lijuan raised her head in pleasant surprise. After all, she was barely twenty years old, and her little schemes were written all over her eyes.
Feng Yun smiled. "Not only will I not go to the town, but I won't stand in the way of you two being together anymore either."
She had thoroughly replayed past events in her head. One of the reasons her fourth son had been so easily manipulated in her past life was that she herself had opposed his relationship with Xu Lijuan.
Outsiders always envied rural boys who managed to marry an educated youth from the city, but Feng Yun was a mother—she thought much further ahead.
The ancient wisdom of matching social standing existed for a reason. If the husband was weak and the wife was strong, the husband would never be able to hold his head high in front of his in-laws, constantly bullied and manipulated by his wife.
Where was the happiness in that?
When a marriage started with an unequal dynamic, how could anyone expect it to end well?
Her intentions were full of good advice, but unfortunately, young people rarely understood.
In this lifetime, she refused to play the villain anymore, nor would she meddle in her fourth son's affairs. If he insisted on marrying Xu Lijuan, he could figure out how to do it himself. Once he got a job later on, he had better make sure his filial contributions were paid in full. She had raised him this big—did he really think he could get away with unfilial behavior? She would beat him half to death.
Instantly forgetting everything else, Hu Guangjin asked excitedly, "Really?"
He spoke with too much enthusiasm, pulling at the wound on the corner of his mouth and making him wince in pain. But since it made him happy, he naturally didn't care about a little pain.
Seeing that Xu Lijuan's expression wasn't looking quite so grim, Feng Yun's heart eased, and a warm, maternal expression spread across her face.
"Lijuan, I know you're a good girl. How about this—if you agree to marry my fourth boy, I'll prepare a hundred yuan as a bride price for you. How does that sound?"