Chapter 75

Yan Li could maintain a silent understanding between father and son.

In the afternoon, he went to help his grandmother; Zhang Hong, unaware of the situation, scolded Old Yan to his face after tasting the braised pork Yan Li had cooked when she got home.

Though Old Yan usually acted the part of the family patriarch, whenever Zhang Hong flew into a rage, he could only take the scolding.

Worse still, Zhang Hong's accusations were perfectly reasonable.

Their household ran a restaurant; one taste of this braised pork revealed just how profitable it was.

The child had kindly sent back the recipe and reminded them multiple times, yet they ignored it, letting it gather dust in a corner for months.

That was all money!

Just thinking about it, Zhang Hong felt a sharp pang of regret; Old Yan felt it too, otherwise he wouldn't have sat there quietly taking the abuse.

Yan Li admired Old Yan's miserable state—he knew that even if he stayed silent, someone else would step in to defend him.

If Zhang Hong scolded him now, his grandmother would likely come over and scold him too once she found out; the other uncles, aunts, and elders in the village would probably chide him as well once they heard.

Given that, Yan Li might as well play the dutiful son.

At least Old Yan now felt deeply guilty; after a few soothing words, Yan Li could make him cook for him every day during the holiday, exploiting his laziness.

He was truly filial and thoughtful!

Seeing the scolding had gone on long enough, Yan Li made an excuse about not arguing during the holiday and defused the tension; the family then ate their New Year's Eve dinner and watched the Spring Festival Gala.

The program lineup was extensive, but the most memorable was Zhao Ben Shan, Gao Xiumin, and Fan Wei's skit "Heart Trouble."

The Iron Triangle received another standing ovation after "Selling the Crutch" and "Selling the Car"; Yan Li's family laughed heartily.

At midnight, Yan Li and Old Yan went outside to set off firecrackers; other households in the village also kept firing them, and in a nearby village, someone seemed to be launching fireworks.

Yan Li took a moment to check his system, expecting some special "Spring Festival Intelligence" bonus for such a unique day.

But the system didn't support traditional holidays—it still offered only the ordinary monthly intelligence.

That's right: this year's Lunar New Year's Day fell exactly on February 1st, so today's trigger was the monthly intelligence.

After returning indoors from the firecrackers, Yan Li huddled in the corner of the sofa pretending to play with his phone, actually studying today's intelligence.

Zhang Hong glanced at Yan Li, head bowed over his phone, nudged her husband Yan Jiang, gave him a look, and whispered.

"This kid drank a lot—quickly ask about that woman who called him."

Yan Jiang, whose alcohol tolerance was worse than his son's and whose face was flushed red, remembered how Yan Li had defended him earlier, shook his fat head, and spoke up for his son.

"If he doesn't want to say, don't press him. Why are you so concerned?"

Zhang Hong replied: "I'm not planning to do anything—just asking isn't allowed? He's young; what if he gets scammed?"

"This kid's sly as a monkey—you'd get scammed before he does. If you want to ask, go ahead yourself."

"If I could get it out of him, would I be asking you? Hurry up."

Seeing Old Yan stay silent, Zhang Hong glared at him repeatedly, urged him incessantly, nearly grabbed him by the neck—finally, she brought up the braised pork; Old Yan, guilty and defenseless, had no choice but to comply.

As the firecracker noise began to fade, Old Yan prepared his words and was about to speak when Yan Li suddenly spoke up.

"Dad, Mom, how much money do we have left?"

Old Yan: "Huh?"

Zhang Hong was also stunned: "Why are you asking that?"

"Just curious."

Zhang Hong eyed Yan Li suspiciously but didn't hide it: "We have over 200,000 in the bank, and a few ten thousand lent out to friends and relatives."

"So little?"

Yan Li was surprised—he'd assumed the family had at least 300,000 to 400,000.

Hearing this, Old Yan objected: "Little? Go ask around the whole village—how many families have over 100,000 saved? Some struggle to scrape together ten or twenty thousand!"

This was the bulk of his life's savings, something he'd always taken pride in; his son's words struck a nerve.

Zhang Hong also laid out the numbers for her son: their household was just a small restaurant, with limited profits—barely earning a few ten thousand a year.

And even this amount was recent; back in the 90s, money wasn't so inflated, and they earned far less.

Over the years, they built a new house, Yan Li's tuition and living expenses in Jingcheng were high, and they spent money treating his grandfather's illness before he passed.

After all these scattered expenses, having this much saved already showed Zhang Hong and her husband were skilled at managing the household.

With this accounting, Yan Li realized he'd indeed been overly optimistic about his family's financial situation.

This was a bad habit he'd developed after starting to trade stocks—he was growing increasingly careless about small sums.

After sealing a few contracts worth hundreds of thousands recently, the habit had worsened—he barely noticed sums of several thousand or ten thousand.

But in today's society, most people earned only a few hundred a month; countless others worked hard all year without breaking ten thousand.

Old Yan and Zhang Hong were rural-born, poorly educated, and not particularly clever.

Yet they'd managed their household and business brilliantly—by ordinary standards, they were undeniably capable.

The more Yan Li thought about it, the more he admired his parents; he showered them with praise. Old Yan, drunk, laughed heartily, but Zhang Hong sensed something off and grabbed her son.

"Tell me honestly—what's going on? Why suddenly ask about our money? Did something go wrong with your business?"

"No."

Seeing Zhang Hong didn't believe him, Yan Li explained: "A friend just introduced me to a house—excellent quality, unusually cheap. I don't have enough cash on hand, so I wanted to ask if we had any savings."

"Friend" meant the system; today's monthly intelligence listed several high-quality, low-priced houses for sale in Jingcheng.

Yan Li coveted them—this was information from the monthly intelligence, its value obvious; if he missed it now, he might not get another chance for a long time.

But his own funds were tight—selling some stocks and internet cafe licenses now would mean a loss, so he turned his thoughts to the family's savings.

These few thousand in the bank earning interest were a waste—better to buy a house and wait for appreciation.

"Buy a house?"

Zhang Hong murmured the words, then fell silent.

After all, Yan Li was their only child; their money would eventually be his, so Zhang Hong had no reason to hide the savings from him.

But this money was, after all, the savings of the couple for the greater part of their lives, painstakingly scraped together over so many years — no amount of caution in spending it would be excessive.

Unless…

Old Yan blurted out: "What made you suddenly think of buying a house? Do you have a girlfriend?"

Yan Li was startled, then glanced at Zhang Hong, who had instantly perked up, and nodded sheepishly.

"Mm."

"I knew it."

Zhang Hong shouted excitedly, then asked: "Did she tell you to buy the house? Are you two getting married?"

"……"

Yan Li sidestepped the heavy stuff, brushed past the girlfriend topic in a few sentences, and shifted the focus onto the house.

"Dad, Mom, you don't know — the marriage customs are different now. It's all the fashion to buy a house in the city. If you don't have a house, girls won't even give you the time of day."

Yan Li laid heavy emphasis on the importance of buying a house in the city, and its connection to and necessity for getting married.

At this stage, there weren't many commercial housing units back in his hometown; ordinary people really didn't have that concept. Especially those from the countryside — they generally leaned toward building a new house rather than buying one.

By approaching it through marriage, Yan Li had managed to hit Zhang Hong's sore spot.

Zhang Hong had just dodged the topic when she heard about buying a house, but the moment she learned it was tied to taking a wife, she made the call on the spot.

"Buy it — we absolutely have to buy a house. If the money's not enough, Mom will borrow some and we'll still buy."

Yan Li saw his mother's iron-clad resolve, and along with his happiness came a tiny thread of hidden worry.

He didn't know if this decision was entirely right. Once the house was bought, what would he do when Mom came after him for a daughter-in-law…

(End of chapter)