I used rebirth to bury his captivating gaze.

Chapter 42 The White Dowry List Written by the Second Brother (After the engagement was called off,

The next day, Yang Zhannan rode his big-bar bicycle with Yang Zhi to a farmhouse in Qianjia Village, more than three miles south of the village, where Yang Zhi had worked as a carpenter a few days earlier.

After finishing the carpentry work, he came to collect his carpentry tools.

A few days ago, this farming family needed Yang Zhannan to do carpentry work for their son's wedding furniture.

The couple looked to be in their fifties, and they appeared to be honest and simple farmers.

There is one daughter in the family who is not yet married, and the rest of the family members are all married and living elsewhere. The son, who just got married, lives in the west room. The elderly couple lives on the kang (heated brick bed) in the south of the east room, and the youngest girl in the family, who is seventeen or eighteen years old, lives on the kang in the north.

The little girl is well-behaved and very cute.

A few days ago, when they were making furniture, the parents took a liking to Yang Zhi, the young assistant who was helping with the carpentry work.

They intend to find this old maid a good young man to be her husband.

The two elders were good at judging people. They observed that the two carpenters, an old man and a young boy, an uncle and nephew, were skilled at managing a household and keeping a good living through their words, actions, and outward appearance.

At the dinner table, the old man Yu Delong brought up this topic, but Yang Zhi rejected it outright.

While eating, Yang Zhi mentioned that he already had a girlfriend and was engaged to a girl from his village. The betrothal gifts had already been paid.

He was telling the truth. When he said this, he and Liu Yue were still deeply in love and had even exchanged betrothal gifts through a matchmaker named Zou.

Yang Zhi had already broken off the engagement, and before Yang Zhannan came, Diao Yan had repeatedly asked him to help arrange the marriage.

If it weren't for saving face for her, Diao Yan would have come along to propose marriage in person. She was furious at the thought of Liu Yue's back-and-forth battle with her son's relatives.

Yang Zhannan agreed, and since he had promised, he would keep his word, just like he had a carpentry skill to pass on to her. After all, he didn't have a son, so who else would he pass it on to if not him?

The Yang family's carpentry skills are passed down through generations, and according to the old traditions passed down from their ancestors, they are passed down only to sons, not daughters.

Each generation passes it down to only one male descendant, because the carpentry tools passed down from their ancestors for many years consist of only one set.

Even if he has several sons-in-law, it won't work, because sons-in-law are, after all, people from other families.

Many years later, this carpentry skill and tools were lost because everything made of wood was improved and recreated in later generations.

The conversation drifted off-topic, and with Yang Zhi's approval, the youngest daughter of the family agreed to get engaged to him.

His nod made everyone in the house extremely happy.

For lunch, we went to a butcher shop at the east end of the village and bought two jin of pork to make pork and sauerkraut dumplings.

According to local customs, a female matchmaker was found in the village where the bride was to be married, and a list of betrothal gifts was prepared.

This dowry list was written on white paper, whereas all other dowry lists are written on red paper. The items requested were mostly the same as those for Yuqiu's wedding.

The Leng family didn't want so much. They were afraid the boy would run away. It was only with great difficulty that the man agreed, so their precious daughter could marry a young man who could earn money.

Adding a comment Yang Zhannan made while eating, "Don't be shy, just write it however you like."

With the dowry list written on a piece of white paper and in black ink, Yang Zhixin's girlfriend was settled. The next step was to bring his girlfriend into the Yang family home, set an engagement date, and that would complete the marriage.

After dinner, the two put their carpentry tools on the back of their bicycle and pushed it home.

Yang Zhi was sullen on the way back. Yang Zhannan tried to comfort him the whole way, saying earnestly, "Men just get married and live a simple life, dealing with the mundane things like firewood, rice, oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar, and tea. There's nothing else. I think this family's girl is nice. She's very steady and seems to have a good temper. She's perfect for living with you, who has a bad temper, so you won't fight."

He talked for three miles, but Yang only listened as if it were just a passing breeze. However, she was a little angry. What was she angry about? Her first love, a young commune member, with whom she was engaged, had already exchanged betrothal gifts and was just one step away from getting married at the end of the year. How could she suddenly ask the matchmaker to break off the engagement? It was a pity that she had given him her whole heart.

Yang Zhi was a second-year junior high school student at Tuan Ding Shan Middle School. He had good grades. One day after school, when he was riding his bicycle on the West Bridge on his way back to the village, she suddenly stopped him. She casually told him that she wanted to date him.

Yang Zhi thought she was quite cute, with two long whips that reached past her knees, flapping back and forth in the gentle autumn breeze.

And so, every day after school, Liu Yue would wait for Yang Zhi at the bridge west of the village. Then Yang Zhi would hurry home after school and ride his bicycle there. He would park his bicycle in a dark spot, and the two of them would walk down the dry stone bridge and start talking about their love.

The two began their relationship in this way. Yang, disregarding his family's objections, dropped out of school to be with Liu Yue. They went through the motions with a matchmaker, Zou, and officially got engaged and exchanged betrothal gifts.

Then their engagement was not approved by both sets of parents. Diao Yan tried to stop it but to no avail. Yang Zhi would go to the south wing to talk to Yang Zhannan whenever he had something to say, treating the west wing as an outsider. Later, she simply stopped caring about it.

While Yang Zhi was preparing a dowry list with the girl from another village, he couldn't forget his girlfriend from their first meeting. Although the two families lived very close to each other, separated by one house to the east, it was said that in Yang Zhi's previous life, he married that big, shrewish woman. On that day, Liu Yue was not yet married. Liu Yue stood in front of the two folding glass windows of her open house, poked her head out, and cursed and spat at the big bride dressed in red.

The bride's choice of Liu Yue was a way of showcasing her victory over men. She had won the heart of a carpenter with large, capable hands.

Yang Zhi was overjoyed to see his bride, but that joy soon faded.

In the village where Yang Zhi's mother lived, there was a saying: "Zhang the Big-Snotty One, Li the Old Tan, and Yang the Small-Eyed One."

These past few days, Liu Yue has been kept under control by her mother and not allowed to leave the house. The news she heard was that her fourth sister, Liu Ying, was an intelligence agent.

The information Liu Ying received came from Yang Yuhan, her classmate from junior high school, who told her that Yang Zhi was about to get engaged and exchange betrothal gifts.

Upon hearing this, Liu Yue became anxious. She wanted to renew her engagement with Yang Zhi, her first love, whose engagement had just been broken off by her mother.

Liu Ying and Yang Yuhan were asked to help, and of course, Yang Yuhan and Liu Ying visited each other's homes.

Yang Zhi often went to the west room of the south wing and learned about Liu Yue's recent situation. He knew that he had misunderstood Liu Yue. The broken engagement was her mother's doing. Her mother insisted that she marry into the city to work as a worker. It just so happened that Liu Yue had a younger uncle living in the county town. There must have been her younger uncle interfering in the middle, and with her mother's interference, the engagement between the two of them had been going on and on.

Separated by a house, the third daughter of the Liu family in the east courtyard heard that Yang Zhi had prepared a dowry list with a girl from another village, indicating that they would soon be engaged or exchange dowries. She felt indignant and wanted to escape the body imprisoned by her mother.

Just then, she discovered that the back window, which had been tightly closed, suddenly had a crack, and she slipped out in the middle of the night.

I ran all the way to the gate of the Yang family's house in one breath. It was such a short distance, how could I describe it as just one breath? I was so anxious that every second felt like an eternity.

But the gate was tightly closed. Just as she was about to sit at the gate and wait to see Yang Zhi at dawn, she suddenly looked up and saw the hooked nose of the iron rooster on the roof of Old Wang's house in the west courtyard of the Yang family, with the body of a rooster and the limbs of a fox. She was so frightened that she ran back to her own house.