Chapter 28: Record of Moving to the City in the 90s. 28

Yu Zexiu really went the very next day.

Su Dakui and Jiang Chunhua agreed on the spot, but not without conditions.

“Marriage has never been just about two people. As for us old folks, we have no objection at all to the two of you getting married. You’ve been together for nearly five years, and though you were apart for more than three, didn’t you still end up not breaking up? Want to get married? Huandan’s mother and I won’t oppose it. We only hope that after you’re married, your feelings for each other stay as good as ever. Marriage and dating are two completely different things. What marriage needs isn’t the romance you young people chase after. That’s useless. What matters is whether the two of you have a sense of responsibility toward marriage. Teeth and tongue still clash in the same mouth. If you two get married later, can you really avoid bumps and friction? Impossible. So you need to think this through carefully.”

Those were Su Dakui’s words.

As for Jiang Chunhua, she actually still didn’t think highly of this marriage.

The gap between the two families was just too big.

Yu Zexiu was a child from the Military Compound. What kind of family was that?

In ancient times, they would have been a family of hereditary nobility.

And what kind of family were they?

In ancient times, at best they would have been a small landlord household, and not even one with much weight.

Just think about it, wasn’t that gap enormous?

Jiang Chunhua wasn’t the kind of mother who only thought of herself and not her child. The moment she imagined this marriage actually going through, she couldn’t sleep. If her daughter married into that family, would she end up living with her head bowed and her voice lowered?

She had three daughters in total. Her eldest daughter was supported by an entire building. If her son-in-law wanted to build a career, their family would help as much as they could. Wasn’t that all for the sake of backing up their eldest daughter?

If her future eldest son-in-law really made it big, let him just dare wrong their eldest daughter.

The old couple had the confidence to stand up for their daughter. They could go smash up their son-in-law’s house if they had to.

Their second daughter didn’t need financial help, but their second son-in-law had serious health problems. Now that they even had a child, let him just dare wrong their second daughter.

The old couple would still dare go to his door and smash his windows.

But the third daughter wasn’t the same.

Given Yu Zexiu’s background, he truly had no need for any help from his wife’s family. What he liked was their third daughter herself. If anything, his family might even especially look down on her maternal relatives.

Once they were married, for their third daughter’s sake, her family wouldn’t even dare get too close. They’d be afraid of making her lose face.

By the end of the year, after the Film and Television City was fully completed, production crews from all over started arriving with their teams.

Even Yu Zexiu’s biological mother personally came to their home to talk business.

What kind of business?

She wanted to rent their third daughter’s building and the eldest daughter’s building for her company to use.

She said her company had crews coming here to film all year round. The idea was for the eldest daughter and her husband to manage things and handle the meals. The youngest daughter’s building would be booked in full, and if that wasn’t enough, they could keep using the eldest daughter’s building too.

In other words, those two buildings would be under long-term contract with their company. They wouldn’t be taking outside tenants anymore, but the advantage was safety.

It also saved their family a lot of trouble.

That year, the youngest daughter’s building alone brought in more than two hundred thousand yuan in annual rent.

As for the eldest daughter’s side, they also cleared a net profit of two hundred thousand in a year.

Just think about it, in the year 2000, how many self-employed people in business could make that much in a year?

Even the old couple’s building and the two buildings belonging to the second daughter’s family had gradually cleared out the kind of tenants they used to have, the ones with all sorts of messy job backgrounds. The people moving in now were all trying their hardest to break into the entertainment industry.

A single room was convenient for one person to live in, and the cost wasn’t too high either. Besides, everyone knew the landlord had some connection to Dingsheng Media Company.

There were tenants everywhere, and many of them paid a full year’s rent upfront, yet the number of people actually staying there regularly was quite small.

Not only were all the empty rooms in the family rented out, but there were actually fewer people living at home, which made the place much quieter too.

See? Before the third daughter had even gotten married, her maternal family had already started benefiting from what Yu Zexiu brought.

No matter how thick-skinned Jiang Chunhua might be, at this point she didn’t dare say anything about refusing, even if she wasn’t optimistic about the marriage.

Still, that didn’t mean she couldn’t say anything at all.

“You’re a good boy. Huandan’s father and I both know that clearly. So if you two get married, I would be completely at ease with you. But marriage, just like Huandan’s father said, isn’t only about the two of you. In the end, Huandan is just a country girl. Our family has only been in the city for a few years. We simply got lucky and managed to save up a bit of family wealth. Compared to most families, we’re a little better off, but compared to your family, we truly don’t measure up at all. What’s the saying? The difference is like clouds and mud. So after you’re married and Huandan goes to live with your family, you’ll really have to take extra care and look out for her. As long as you can do that, her father and I will be able to sleep soundly.”

Those words from Jiang Chunhua made Yu Zexiu feel…

especially awful inside.

In other words, they were worried that if Su Huandan married him, she’d suffer grievances in his family, right?

Yu Zexiu really couldn’t make that promise on the spot.

Because aside from his parents approving of the marriage, his biological grandmother approving, and his eldest uncle and two younger uncles not objecting, the truth was that from his grandfather, to his step-grandmother, to the two aunts born to his step-grandmother, and also his eldest aunt-in-law and two younger aunt-in-laws, none of them liked Su Huandan.

How should it be put?

His grandfather hoped he would marry someone of equal family standing.

His step-grandmother simply used Su Huandan’s background as a way to mock his parents.

As for his eldest aunt-in-law and his two younger aunt-in-laws, their own backgrounds weren’t all that impressive either. One came from a worker’s family, one from an intellectual family, and one could barely be considered from a medical family, since her whole family worked in the medical system, with no real power in their hands and all of them under leadership.

Compared to the Yu family, the maternal families of those three women were far inferior. Compared to his mother’s background, the difference was even greater, like clouds and mud.

But those three women were full of schemes, each one bent on marrying a girl from her maternal family to him.

Su Huandan’s appearance had touched their interests, so they disliked her.

The Yu family was large, with many people in it. With so many mouths, things were naturally a bit chaotic.

After he and Su Huandan got married, they wouldn’t be living in the Military Compound. His father and mother each had their own careers, and both of their companies earned exceptionally well. As for the marital home, it would be a villa at minimum, bought by his mother, and his father had also prepared a Three-entry Siheyuan in Houhai for them.

After they got married, they were planning to live on their own, but with the Yu family being such a big household, there was no way they could avoid seeing everyone.

And once they did meet, there was no guarantee Su Huandan wouldn’t have to put up with some cutting remarks.

If you looked at it that way, Su Huandan really would end up suffering a few grievances.

He hadn’t thought about it before, but now that someone had pointed it out, the marriage would have to be handled a little more slowly.

After leaving the Su family home, Yu Zexiu worked out the timing. There was still a week until the New Year, so he wanted to take Su Huandan to Shanghai to meet his biological grandmother.

As long as his grandmother liked Su Huandan and stood on her side, then if those three dared to yap at home, wouldn’t there be someone to deal with them?

As for his Step-grandmother and his two aunts?

Yu Zexiu thought the same way his parents did. They were outsiders, and whatever they said was no more worth listening to than a fart.