Chapter 285: Wedding Night

On the night of the twenty‑eighth of the twelfth lunar month, the cold wind seemed to have sensed the occasion and weakened a bit, but the atmosphere inside the Yan family's front‑courtyard house was hardly warmer than outside.

The few oil lamps lit with difficulty for the wedding feast, now dim and gloomy, threw each person's shadow into wavering lengths, flickering unstably, just like Yu Xiulian's uneasy heart at this moment.

Dinner time arrived. This first‑day wedding dinner ought to have carried a hint of celebration and warmth, but in the Yan household it felt more like a strictly enforced rations distribution ceremony.

Yan Bu Gui sat upright at the head, pushed his glasses, and wore a solemn expression as if presiding over an important meeting. San Dama silently set the dishes on the table—still the familiar stir‑fried cabbage, a small plate of salted vegetable chunks; the only difference was a small bowl of fried peanuts and a small pot of sour cabbage stewed with glass noodles (the glass noodles pitifully few).

Yu Xiulian lowered her head, sitting beside Yan Jiecheng, hands on her knees, fingers nervously curled. She furtively glanced up, observing this strange new home.

Yan Bu Gui picked up the communal chopsticks, did not start eating right away, but like a conductor grasping a baton, cleared his throat and began his "allocation":

"Today is the joyous day of Jiecheng and Xiulian's wedding," he first set the tone, showing the family's "generosity," then shifted: "But in daily life we must be thrifty; fairness and reason are paramount."

He first pointed to the precious bowl of peanuts. There were only twenty or thirty peanuts total. Yan Bu Gui manipulated them with his chopsticks with extreme precision, murmuring:

"I, as the head of the household, labor and worry, take five."

"Mother, managing the household is no easy task either, take four."

"Jiecheng, now the one who establishes the household, take four."

"Xiulian, the new bride, also take four." He placed Yu Xiulian's share onto a small dish, his movement meticulous.

"Jiefang and Jiekuang, half‑grown lads who eat their parents out of house and home, each get three."

Only a few peanuts remained; he glanced at them and said, "Hmm, we'll keep these for tomorrow as a little snack."

Yu Xiulian stared at the four lonely, dull‑shiny peanuts on her dish, hardly believing her eyes. Dividing peanuts by the grain? In her natal home, though also poor, they had never… never been so calculating down to the marrow!

Next came the pot of sour cabbage stewed with glass noodles. Yan Bu Gui likewise took up the communal ladle and began the distribution.

"The cabbage should be even, the glass noodles… let's count." He actually used his chopsticks to stir the pot, roughly dividing the few countable strands among everyone's bowls, muttering, "This longer one goes to Jiecheng—he works hard. This shorter one to Jiefang… uh, this broken bit goes to…"

Yu Xiulian looked at the limp noodles and bland cabbage slices in her bowl; the faint hope she held for her new life was instantly shattered by this icy "fairness."

What kind of home is this? It's clearly a workshop that reckons profit to the millimeter…? Will her future days be spent in this nitpicking, penny‑pinching grind? A huge surge of panic and bewilderment, like icy floodwater, engulfed her heart.

She instinctively glanced at Yan Jiecheng beside her; he kept his head down, silently accepting it all, as if long accustomed. Her heart grew even colder.

The meal was eaten in silence, only the faint click of chopsticks against bowls and Yan Bu Gui's occasional commentary on the "reasonableness" of the distribution. Yu Xiulian found it tasteless; she couldn't swallow even one of her four peanuts.

After the meal, chilled to the bone and filled with confusion, Yu Xiulian was led by Yan Jiecheng into the inner room that served as their new house, even more cramped.

Inside, a pair of small red candles burned, the sole warm hue of this marriage. The Double Happiness character pasted on the window cast a fuzzy red glow in the candlelight.

Yu Xiulian sat on the edge of the kang, watching the leaping flames, her mind a tangled knot. She felt neither fondness nor aversion toward Yan Jiecheng; she only wished to find something to rely on and live peacefully.

But this household before her, this grandfather who calculates to the extreme, this silent, seemingly opinionless husband… is this the fate she's wagering the rest of her life on? She seemed to see the next decades: in this home she would be like an object, calculated, allotted, arranged.

Tears welled in her eyes, but she forced them back. She must not cry on her wedding night—it would be inauspicious; moreover, in this household tears were probably the cheapest commodity of all.

Just then, a faint but distinct rustling came from outside the window, accompanied by a suppressed, tittering laugh.

Yu Xiulian stiffened all over, looking terrified at the window. Yan Jiecheng also heard it; his face flushed, he felt both annoyed and embarrassed, opened his mouth to scold but seemed unable to.

Outside the window were several idle youths from the courtyard, led by Xu Damao. Xu Damao's own marriage was unhappy, his mind twisted; he loved watching others' jokes, especially the "corner‑watching" of a wedding night, which he would never miss as a prime "show."

"Shh… keep it down!" Xu Damao lowered his voice, winking at the half‑grown lads beside him, "Let's listen to what Brother Jiecheng whispers on his wedding night."

"Heh heh, Brother Mao, what could they say? Probably just like us, sleeping with their heads covered!" Liu Guangtian leered.

"Not necessarily! The new bride—she's bound to say something intimate." Xu Damao pressed his ear tightly against the cold window paper, straining to catch any sound from inside.

Inside, Yu Xiulian heard the vulgar taunts and lewd laughter outside; she felt both shame and anger, trembling all over. When had she ever suffered such humiliation? This was no wedding.

It was clearly jumping into a hopeless, suffocating fire pit! She bit her lip hard, refusing to let a sound escape, her nails digging deep into her palms.

Yan Jiecheng, too, was furious and anxious, veins bulging on his forehead, but he was by nature timid and had long been bullied by types like Xu Damao; he dared not go out to confront them, merely letting out a stifled low growl: "Who… who's out there? Get lost!"

His weak‑voiced rebuke only provoked a louder bout of laughter outside. Xu Damao pinched his throat and mimicked in a strange tone: "Get lost~ Brother Jiecheng, a spring night's moment is worth a thousand gold! We're just here to liven things up for you!"

The red candles continued to burn, shedding droplet after droplet of red tears. Inside the new room lay the bride's cold, despairing heart and the husband's helpless anger; outside, the vulgarity and malice of the town's lowfolk.

This wedding night held no tenderness, no romance—only the chill of calculation and the humiliation of being spied upon. Yu Xiulian gazed at the pair of red candles about to burn out, as if seeing her own fledgling future already dimmed. This night was destined to become an irreparable scar in her heart.