Chapter 853: A Turning Point

After buying these things, Wang An finally drove the four-wheeler home.

Because he was hauling a truckload of glass, Wang An didn't drive fast.

After all, although the glass's outer packaging was all sealed with pine wood, making it look quite proper, glass is glass—no matter how well it's packed, it still makes you a bit uneasy.

Subconsciously, it just feels like it could shatter at any moment.

Like this, swaying slowly along the road, by the time Wang An got home, it was already past 5 PM.

After unloading his own 15 sets of glass, Wang An drove the four-wheeler to deliver Wang Li's glass and Mu Xueli's glass respectively.

Having learned a lesson from Wang An's house-building experience, Wang Li didn't hire that many workers for his house.

Besides the people from Old Wang's family, there were only twenty-some outsiders.

A total of thirty-some people building a house—to be honest, it was truly more than enough.

Mainly, the food situation was relatively easier to handle. If it were like Wang An's house-building, with a swarm of people coming, anyone without some real capability would be worried to death just trying to feed them.

One only had to look at Wang An to know this.

After delivering the glass to Wang Li's, Wang An drove the four-wheeler non-stop to Sujiatun, which was his brother-in-law Mu Xueli's home.

Wang Li had that many people building; Mu Xueli's was the same, even fewer helpers because he had few relatives in Sujiatun—only twenty-some people in total.

Twenty-some people working meant the progress was a bit slower, but it was sufficient.

However, when delivering the glass to Mu Xueli, Wang An left the four-wheeler there.

Mainly because Wang An's walking tractor was at Wang Li's, and Mu Xueli's walking tractor was being used to power the circular saw.

This meant that when Mu Xueli was building his house, he could only use a horse-drawn cart to haul stones and sand, but a horse cart is really too slow.

Besides, once Wang An's house had the glass installed, it would be completely done, and the four-wheeler wouldn't be needed for a short while, so he might as well lend it to Mu Xueli.

Although both Wang Li's and Mu Xueli's families were building new houses, neither family tore down their old houses; like Wang An's old house, they were all preserved.

The reason all three families did this was because Hei Province is a place with vast land and sparse population; every family's courtyard is quite large.

Small ones are three or four mu, large ones seven or eight mu, and even courtyards of ten or so mu are not uncommon.

So locally, it's rare to see houses renovated; they basically just build new ones. Plus, keeping the old house allows it to be used as a granary or storage.

Of course, it's also a great place to pen chickens, ducks, and geese at night.

Just as Wang An finished teasing his sister-in-law and was about to stroll home, Mu Xueli suddenly said to Wang An

"Brother-in-law, my partner said she finally persuaded her younger sister. She's planning to meet Lao Wu [Wang Li] for a blind date."

Wang An froze for a moment at this, subconsciously asking

"What? She doesn't think she's too young anymore?"

The reason Wang An asked this was because after Mu Xueli previously said he wanted to introduce his sister-in-law Li Xiuyu to Wang Li, Mu Xueli had asked his partner Li Xiuhong to help ask.

Unfortunately, Li Xiuyu said she was still young and didn't want to find a partner yet, wanting to wait a year or two.

He remembered that when Mu Xueli mentioned this before, Wang Li had been a bit upset.

After all, in the matter of blind dates, saying you want to wait a year or two is, in most people's eyes, nothing but an excuse.

An excuse not to go on a blind date.

Mainly in this era, getting engaged at seventeen or eighteen is very normal.

Of course, getting engaged in your early twenties is also common; it's really just a matter of whether you want to or not.

But according to Li Xiuhong, she had explained Wang Li's situation fully, mainly mentioning Wang Li's previous disfigurement, and only then did Li Xiuyu say she wanted to wait a year or two. Now that there's a change, it's a bit suspicious.

After all, whether on Mu Xueli's face or Wang Li's, although the major scars were gone, the new skin is definitely different from the original.

So looking at them now, their whole faces indeed have a somewhat different feel from normal people.

Simply put, they really aren't very good-looking.

But this problem, with time, medically speaking, after the pigment settles on the skin, the whole face can return to normal.

Sure enough, as soon as Wang An asked, he heard Mu Xueli say

"Yeah, her family had some trouble before, took out quite a bit of interest-bearing 'famine loans' [grain loans]. Her parents thought they'd marry her off early to a good family, pay off the famine loans first."

Wang An understood immediately upon hearing this.

Mainly because Li Xiuyu's situation is so similar to Mu Xueqing's back then!

Except Wang An and Mu Xueqing already had feelings for each other, and Wang An was willing to pay money to cover Mu Xueqing's debts.

Wang Li and this Li Xiuyu were just classmates before, with no emotional foundation.

So Wang Li liking her is just a one-sided crush; she might not even have any impression of him.

Subconsciously, Wang An asked

"Then how much bride price does her family want?"

Mu Xueli scratched his head and said

"They said 500 is fine, and they don't want anything else."

It was clear that Mu Xueli, as the middleman, was also a bit embarrassed. Mainly, a 500 yuan bride price—if they asked for anything else on top, that would be downright shameless.

Although 500 yuan isn't much for Wang Li's family, in this era, it's absolutely not a small sum.

500 yuan in this era might take an ordinary peasant family several years, even over a decade, to save up. Even a formal worker would have to not eat or drink for over a year to earn 500 yuan.

So this amount of bride price can be said to be extremely high.

Wang An frowned and nodded

"Alright, I got it. I'll go back and ask Lao Wu what he thinks in a bit."

Wang An would absolutely not interfere in this kind of matter, nor would he express any opinion.

Mainly because even Wang An himself spent so much money marrying a wife; what qualification did he have to point fingers at someone else's marriage bride price?

Seeing Wang An not offering an opinion, Mu Xueli opened his mouth but ultimately didn't say anything.

Marriage is a matter for the parties involved; anything anyone else says is superfluous.

After a while, Wang An said

"Alright then, you stay home and work hard. I'm heading back. Once you and Lao Wu finish the houses, we'll go into the mountains to carry back logs."