Transmigrated as an Unwanted Ugly Girl

Chapter 404 - 213: Mother and Daughter (2)

Still, he decided he had to ask Qingmu to find out what Juhua was thinking.

He went to ask Qingmu, but Qingmu knew nothing about it at all.

After the rest of the family had gone out—some to school, others to work building a house—Mrs. Yang and Juhua went to tend the vegetable garden, while Juhua’s maternal grandmother did needlework with Laishou.

The mother and daughter watered the newly sown Little Cabbage with some liquid manure, then scattered some plant ash over the freshly cut chive stumps. Afterward, they squatted down to pull weeds from around the lettuce, chatting idly as they worked.

Juhua saw that the lettuce had grown quite a bit and would be ready to harvest in a few days. She plucked off some of the outer leaves, planning to stir-fry them with garlic for lunch to get a fresh taste.

Mrs. Yang’s hands were busy pulling the delicate green weeds from between the rows of lettuce. "Look how tender these weeds are," she said to Juhua. "They’d be good for feeding the pigs. This stuff is so annoying. You pull it out, and it just grows right back. I don’t know where it gets all the energy."

Juhua smiled. "If you chop them up and mix them into the chicken feed, the chickens will eat them too. And if we were raising a couple of geese, these weeds would really come in handy."

Mrs. Yang looked at her daughter fondly. "If we raised any more, you’d be too busy to handle it all. Let’s wait until your sister-in-law joins the family to get geese. For now, we have enough chickens and ducks. We don’t lack for chicken or duck eggs, and it’s a hassle to raise another kind of animal."

Juhua nodded. "You’re right, it’s enough. Mom, why don’t we butcher one of the drakes later and braise it? We only need to keep one." This year, she had kept five of the hatched ducklings—two drakes and three ducks. Her older flock consisted of six females and one male. She was planning to deal with a few of them, either by butchering them for food or selling them, to keep the number of female ducks at eight.

Mrs. Yang nodded with a smile. "Alright, we’ll butcher it tomorrow." Life was better for them these days, so they weren’t reluctant to eat their own poultry and eggs. In the past, they would have certainly taken them to the market to sell.

She recalled what Shi Tou’s mother had said yesterday. After weighing it in her mind, she finally said to Juhua, "Juhua, dear, Mom wants to ask you something. If you have any thoughts about it, you have to tell me. That way I’ll know where things stand and can help you plan."

Seeing her mother ask so seriously, Juhua placed the large handful of lettuce leaves she had plucked into a furrow. "What is it, Mom? Go ahead and tell me!"

So Mrs. Yang told her what Shi Tou’s mother had said, adding, "It’s not that I want you to get married right away. I just want to find someone with good character, someone who won’t mind your past... only then can I be at ease."

Juhua had never expected this. Though she didn’t blush beet-red, she still felt a little awkward. She couldn’t help but ask, puzzled, "Mom, I’m still so young. Even if I did find someone I liked, I couldn’t marry him right away. Would his family be willing to wait?"

’Aren’t you all being a bit too optimistic?’ she thought.

Mrs. Yang looked at Juhua and asked cautiously, "I just want to know what you think. Mainly... mainly... Juhua, what are your feelings about Huai Zi? If you still like him, then no matter who else makes an offer, I won’t agree to it."

She had finally asked the question and couldn’t help but let out a secret sigh of relief.

This made Juhua even more embarrassed. ’So Mom has noticed Zhang Huai’s feelings too.’

Her thoughts were in a jumble. She unconsciously tugged at a small weed, remaining silent for a long while before finally asking Mrs. Yang, "Mom, what do you and Dad think? Do you want me to marry Brother Huai Zi?"

Mrs. Yang quickly replied, "Of course we’d like you to marry Huai Zi. We watched that boy grow up, and we’d feel at ease if you married him. But, I won’t make this decision for you. It only works if you’re willing. If you’re still bothered by what happened that year, then you absolutely can’t marry him."

Juhua was touched by her mother’s words. She thought for a moment, then smiled faintly. "Then let’s wait and see—I want to watch him a little longer. I need to see if he’s really thought it through, if he’s truly made up his mind. If he’s only asking to marry me because he thinks I’m pitiful and won’t find anyone else, then I won’t have him."

Mrs. Yang laughed when she heard this. "Yes! That’s a prudent way to handle it! But from what I can see, it doesn’t seem like he pities you; it seems like he genuinely likes you. That boy is very honest. If he didn’t feel this way, he wouldn’t put on an act and ask. Otherwise, would he have said what he did two years ago? I stopped being angry with him later because you really can’t blame him—he was just telling the truth. Think about it. When a family is idly chatting at home about who to marry, of course they’ll say who they like and who they don’t. Is he supposed to just say nice things for the sake of it? It was just bad luck for you both that Granny Hua overheard him, leading to all that pointless gossip. That’s why I was so afraid you still held a grudge against him. I didn’t even dare give Aunt Zhang an answer."

Juhua found this puzzling. ’Me, hold a grudge against Zhang Huai?’

’That’s right,’ she realized. ’Everyone thinks I was so angry I tried to drown myself!’

’Sigh! The original owner of this body was so unlucky to be misunderstood like this. She was so kind and gentle, how could she abandon her parents and brother and take her own life over something like that? Not to mention her feelings for Zhang Huai were anything but ordinary—she was actually hoping her Brother Huai Zi would marry a beautiful woman. She probably thought she was too ugly and never dared to even dream of marrying him herself.’

’Although she was a bit dejected after the rumors spread, she never developed any other ideas. It made sense. She was such a simple, innocent girl who knew almost nothing of the world. How could she have had such complicated thoughts?’

Juhua gazed at Mrs. Yang. Her mother was busy with her head down, her hair combed into a neat bun. Her complexion was rosy, and compared to when Juhua had first transmigrated here two years ago, her mother’s crow’s feet seemed to have faded a little. ’Her life has been going well for the past year or so,’ Juhua thought, ’so she must be in good spirits.’

Her hands never stopped pulling weeds from the lettuce patch, her expression focused. She said to Juhua, "You should stop pulling. Look at your hands, they’re getting all calloused. Juhua, since you love working in the vegetable garden so much, you should make a pair of gloves. Wear them when you work to keep your hands from getting rough. You’re still so young; you can’t let your hands get ruined like this. It’s usually only after a woman is married that she stops caring about these things. A young girl should still take care of herself."

Juhua’s heart stirred at her words. "Okay," she said softly. "I’ll make a pair later."

Mrs. Yang added, "Didn’t your father weave a nice straw hat for you? You should remember to wear it when you go out. I think your face is looking much better..."