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2
I stared at Landon, dumbstruck. "Landon, it's our wedding day, and your mother sets up a funeral altar here. Do you think that's appropriate? I'm asking you, is this appropriate?"
"What's so inappropriate about it? Don't blow this out of proportion."
"I'm blowing it out of proportion? I've given your family more than enough face!"
Seeing me angry, my mother-in-law rose from the floor with unhurried grace. She shot me a sidelong look and said, flat and toneless, "Davi, you did take my family's bride price. Making a scene now, that's just because you think it wasn't enough, isn't it?"
"That's not what I meant."
She put on an understanding face. "All right, all right, I know what's on your mind. It's about money, isn't it? Seeing as you're carrying my eldest grandchild, I'll count you a couple more pounds. Happy now?"
At that, I could only find it funny.
Landon had said his mother would decide the bride price.
Said she'd make sure I was satisfied.
The result: on our wedding day, they dragged me out of the car and pinned me onto a scale.
Like a hog waiting to be slaughtered.
My mother-in-law held a calculator, grinning as she pressed it to zero.
Her words still seemed to hang in my ears. "This phoenix crown's awfully heavy, and I can't count that toward the weight. Tell you what, this outfit, the jewelry, I'll knock off ten pounds. That's not unreasonable, is it? And you're pregnant, the baby's got to be another ten pounds too, right? Seeing as it's my family's child, I'll count it as five. How's that?"
"Oh! That's eighty pounds all together. Pork's ten dollars a pound these days, so Mother will figure you at a thousand, one in a thousand, get it? Hahaha! Comes out to eighty thousand total!"
With that, she briskly made the transfer.
And now, smooth as ever, she'd transferred another two thousand, then held the transfer record up in front of me.
"Look, I counted you two extra pounds. Good enough? If it's good enough, then kneel down and kowtow to your father-in-law and confess your sin."
Landon didn't spare me another glance. He knelt at once before the memorial tablet. "Dad! I've brought my sinful wife to offer you a toast."
"Sinful wife? Landon, have you lost your mind? I don't kneel and kowtow, and that makes me a sinful wife? Your Fox family really is a joke."
The emcee wiped at a nervous sweat. "Er, I think, calling her a sinful wife is a bit much. Let's just say daughter-in-law."
My mother-in-law shoved him aside at once, her voice pitching sky-high. "How could that do! The bride price we gave her, that was all the compensation money from my old man's death. If it weren't for her, would my old man be dead? She took a dead man's money, which means my family's short a life! If she's not a sinful wife, then am I?"
Hearing that, something dropped in my chest.
The two of them, one pronouncing my crime with her chin in the air, one kneeling on the floor kowtowing and offering incense to atone in my place.
What a pair, mother and son.
What a pair of wolves.
Down below, the Fox women, wives of the family, cracked melon seeds and gossiped away.
"Oh my, put like that, it really is the daughter-in-law's fault. Who told her to take a dead man's money."
"Tsk, saying she owes a life is going a bit far, but still, the old man died and left her a sum of money. However you look at it, marrying in, she ought to be burning incense for him every single day."
The emcee was so rattled he nearly lost his grip on the microphone. "This, this can't be right? That's not how you put it at all!"
My mother-in-law couldn't be bothered with his nonsense. "Off to the side with you! Davi, are you going to repent, or not?"
She and Landon turned to look at me at the same time.
Their eyes venomous, and impatient.
I lit a stick of incense and, for no clear reason, smiled.
"You've pinned such a black mark on me, so of course I'll take it."
Seeing me suddenly turn sensible, my mother-in-law looked considerably more pleased with herself.
"Then let's begin. You have to be truly devout, so your father-in-law can receive it."
I lit a stick of incense and set it neatly into the censer.
Pressing my palms together, just as she wanted, I knelt in devout prayer. "Father-in-law, I plan to send this mother and son down tonight to keep you company. You can understand that, can't you?"
"After all, if they don't die, your daughter-in-law won't be able to sleep."
