I survived the famine by scavenging and supported my family.

"What's the use of telling you? I can't marry Miss Cao! I can't marry her!" Zhao Wenyuan vented his anger by pouring out everything that had happened in the past few days.

Finally, he pulled the money pouch containing five hundred coins from his pocket, threw it on the ground, and said, "I'm not getting married! I'll just stay single for the rest of my life! Anyway, Grandma doesn't side with me; she won't even give me money for a wedding! Humph, she always says she loves me the most! I'm the eldest grandson..."

After complaining for a while, Zhao Wenyuan was so angry that he lay down on the bed. He wouldn't eat when called to eat, and he wouldn't get up when called to get up. He looked completely dejected.

Mrs. Sun was extremely worried. When she learned that he had gone to the gambling den, she was so angry that she beat her chest and stamped her feet, regretting that she had not taught her child well.

Before Sun got married, there was a relatively wealthy family in the next village with an only son who was very spoiled. He didn't have to work in the fields and had no interest in taking the imperial examinations. He spent his days eating, drinking, sleeping and playing. For some reason, he suddenly learned to gamble.

From then on, he gradually squandered his family's wealth. When he won at gambling, he would buy two jugs of wine from town and go home drunk. After getting drunk, he would punch and kick his parents and grandparents who were trying to persuade him. When he lost at gambling, he would go home and ask for money. If they didn't give him money, he would threaten to kill himself.

How could that family let their only child commit suicide? They could only swallow their anger and give him money little by little. Unexpectedly, this only emboldened him to gamble more and more, eventually squandering his entire family fortune.

Even mortgaging his land and house deeds wasn't enough; he mortgaged his parents and grandparents as well, ultimately losing everything.

On a cold winter day, he set fire to his ancestral home. As he watched the people who lived there scream and run away in the flames, he laughed loudly. In the end, he slowly walked into the fire that others avoided and was burned to death.

The story of a family ruined by gambling left a deep psychological scar on several nearby villages, who taught their children from a young age to stay away from such things. Mrs. Sun was no exception; she had told this story to her children since they were little, but she never imagined—never that Wen Yuan, whom she had always held in the highest regard, would still become addicted to gambling!

It's all her mother-in-law's fault. She refuses to give Wen Yuan any money. They had clearly agreed that when Wen Yuan got married, she would give him ten taels of silver to host a ten-table banquet and hire people to bring his granddaughter-in-law in with great fanfare.

But now everything is gone! Everything is gone... Only five hundred coins are left. What can five hundred coins buy?

Zhao Wenyuan remained silent, hiding under the covers, filled with deep regret.

He didn't know what possessed him to walk into the gambling den today, and was forced to place a bet. Fortunately, he had heard these stories from Mrs. Sun since he was a child and knew that gambling was harmful, so he only bet ten coins at a time.

At first, things were fine; he had both wins and losses, but mostly won. However, later on, a man named Song Da won five rounds in a row, and everyone followed his lead and placed bets. As if by some strange twist of fate, Zhao Wenyuan wagered half of his life savings.

He was somewhat unwilling to accept losing the money; he was so close! He was just a hair's breadth away from winning! Just as he was about to use the remaining money to continue betting, he heard someone cursing.

A sliver of reason returned to Zhao Wenyuan. Seeing that he only had five hundred coins left in his hand, he broke out in a cold sweat and quickly carried them home.

……

But five hundred coins is hardly enough for a wedding! Mother said she would find a way, but what way could she find? He can't marry Miss Cao! Zhao Wenyuan wept bitterly and fell into a deep sleep.

Sun didn't dare tell her son that he had lost money gambling, but she went to Qian Pozi's room again to beg her before she went to bed.

As expected, Granny Qian still refused.

Sun was secretly furious. Now that her son was getting married, they were refusing to give her money. But when it came time for her eldest son to take care of her and for her children and grandchildren to surround her, she shouldn't blame her for turning her back on them!

After thinking for two days, Sun finally came up with a solution.

He instructed Wen Yuan to tell Cao Rouan that everything was ready and that Zhao Wenqi should go to pick up the bride as usual on the wedding day.

Zhao Wenyuan didn't know what method she used, he only knew that if he did what his mother said and did what she wanted, he could marry the Miss Cao who had been longing for him for so long.

Only after Zhao Wenyuan said that everything was ready did Cao Rouan finally give him a friendly look. She then said that the bride and groom should not meet for a few days before the wedding, and that he should stay home and prepare. The Cao family was waiting for him to come and pick up the bride.

Zhao Wenyuan returned home happily, thinking of asking his mother how many tables she planned to host. He also wanted to invite a few classmates, and if there were enough seats, he would like to invite more.

Sun's words were like a bucket of cold water poured over his head.

"W-what? No wedding banquet?" Zhao Wenqi was momentarily stunned. "Mother is right, I'm not having a wedding banquet?"

"Your grandmother won't give any money, so I'll have to find another way..." Sun Shi reassured everyone: "Hiring someone to play the suona for the wedding will cost 100 coins. Keep 300 coins, cook a feast for a few families in the village, and buy some candy and melon seeds to sweeten the mouths of those who come to see the bride. That'll be enough."

"Here's the remaining hundred coins. Go and invite a few young men from the village to go with you to fetch the bride." Madam Sun counted out a hundred coins and instructed him, "You must tell them that the Cao family has high standards. The cold snap has just passed, and everyone is short of money. Our family can only afford one table of food. Tell them not to let it slip when they go to fetch the bride."

The more Zhao Wenqi listened, the colder his heart became.

"Mother is sending him to deceive Miss Cao! How could he deceive Miss Cao?!" Thinking this, Zhao Wenqi got up and was about to rush out the door when Madam Sun stopped him and asked in a low voice, "Don't you want to marry Miss Cao anymore?!"

"The twenty taels of silver we gave her as a betrothal gift is already enough to save face for her. In ordinary families in town, which family would ask for such an exorbitant price as her?"

"But this time there was really no other way. If the family had money, wouldn't they have made it a grand affair for her? The grand affair is just a way to show off to outsiders. As long as you marry her and hold onto those twenty taels of silver, you can live a quiet life behind closed doors in your own home."

By the end, Mr. Sun was exhausted.

"If you don't agree, go talk to her. I'm tired too, I'm not going to help you with this anymore."

"Mother..." Zhao Wenqi grabbed Sun's arm, "I'll go, I'll go marry her... Let's just leave it at that."

On the day of the wedding, Zhao Wenqi got up early in the morning and put on his clean long gown.

After tying his hair back, Zhao Wenyuan went to the main room to pay his respects to his elders. Then, he and a group of his fellow villagers rode in the village's oxcart to the town in a lively and cheerful manner.

Upon arriving in town, the Cao family had even hung red lanterns at their door. When Zhao Wenqi went to greet the bride, he was blocked at the door and told to compose a few poems to urge the groom to come out.

Zhao Wenyuan hadn't even passed the preliminary imperial examination, nor had he finished learning the rules of poetry and rhyme. How could he possibly compose poetry?! Fortunately, he had read a few poems before and memorized them, which allowed him to successfully enter the school.

Cao Rou'an, with her head covered by a red veil, was led over by the matchmaker. After the two bowed to thank the elders of the Cao family, Zhao Wenyuan helped her and carefully led her to the oxcart.

Looking under the veil, Cao Rou'an realized she was on an oxcart! She stopped, surprised, and asked, "Why is it an oxcart?!"

"You...you didn't say you wanted to sit somewhere else." Zhao Wenyuan was embarrassed. Before his family went to prison, when he was whispering sweet nothings to Cao Rouan, he had said that he would definitely come to marry her in a grand sedan chair.

He took it as just a casual remark, but did Cao Rouan really take it seriously?

Cao Rouan kept her mouth shut and didn't say a word.

The matchmaker tried to smooth things over, saying, "Miss Cao, please get in the carriage quickly, lest you miss the auspicious time."

Cao Rouan reluctantly got onto the oxcart and didn't say a word the whole way. Zhao Wenyuan, who was walking beside the oxcart, felt uneasy and kept glancing at her.

Arrive home safely, set off firecrackers, step over a fire basin, and pay respects to the ancestors.

Zhao Wenyuan spent eighty coins to invite several village friends, who laughed and joked all the way, making Old Zhao's house lively. After sending the bride to the bridal chamber, they received wedding candy and then left arm in arm.

The Zhao family's house became quieter, with only a table of neighbors with whom the Zhao family had a close relationship in the village remaining in the front courtyard.

In the kitchen, Sun was sweating profusely as she prepared the banquet. There was no other way; five hundred coins was barely enough to cover a single table, so she had to cook the food herself.

Before long, Mrs. Sun brought out the prepared dishes and placed them on the table in the main room.

The neighbors fell silent upon seeing this. In normal households, a poorly prepared feast might only have less meat and vegetables. Who would have thought that the Zhao family's dishes would be so meager?

Apart from a braised fish about four fingers wide and a chicken that were passable, the rest were stir-fried cabbage and tofu, and stir-fried tofu and cabbage.

Besides the two main dishes, Mrs. Sun also stir-fried a plate of eggs and a plate of stewed pork with tofu and cabbage. There were only a few slices of pork, which she carefully took out and placed on top before serving to make it look nice.

Two more hot dishes were needed. She braised radishes and meat together; at first glance, it looked like chunks of meat, but upon closer inspection, it was all radishes. The last hot dish she made was radish meatball soup.

The cold dishes include shredded radish salad, tofu with scallions, and lotus root salad.

They were all neighbors, and in these times it was hard to say who was much better off than whom. The people who came to the feast didn't say anything in front of Granny Qian, but after they went back, they complained about Old Zhao's family.

That's so stingy!

Cao Rouan sat in the house, with Zhao's two grandchildren keeping her company. No one else came. Cao Rouan hadn't eaten all day and was both hungry and thirsty. She wrung out the handkerchief in her hand and asked her sister-in-law, "Huilan, is there any pastry at home? I'd like to have something to eat."

Zhao Huilan rolled her eyes where she couldn't see. "No!"

Not only were there no pastries at home, but no one even brought her dinner. Zhao Huilan hadn't eaten meat for a while, and the thought of having chicken and fish today, but not being able to eat a single bite, made her even angrier.

Sensing her sister-in-law's unfriendly tone, Cao Rouan held back and stopped talking to her.

Since there was nothing else to do here, Zhao Huilan got up and told her sixth sister to stay here with the bride. She then quietly went to the kitchen to see if Madam Sun had left her any food.

Liu Ya is from the third branch of the family. She is only six years old this year and is protected by Zhao Laosan and his wife every day. She is still innocent and ignorant. She sat by the fire pit and stared at the bride without blinking. She thought the bride was extremely beautiful and almost like the fairy her father had described.

Cao Rouan was bored, so she struck up a conversation with the little girl, Liu Ya, who could only tell her what she knew.

Hearing that what Zhao Wenqi said was almost the same, Cao Rouan endured her hunger and sat waiting until it got dark before her husband finally arrived.

Contrary to expectations, Zhao Wenqi arrived drunk. He only smelled of soap. There was no sound of people outside, and no one came to make a ruckus in the bridal chamber. Cao Rouan lowered her head and let Zhao Wenqi lift her veil.

She calculated the date; today was her wedding day, and she'd finally made it in time...

Ningning's home.

Old Zhao's eldest grandson got married and invited all the neighbors, but not his second wife.

When the news reached Ningning's family, Ning's mother scoffed, "He only learned his lesson after serving time in jail, now he knows how to sever ties with family!"

The Zhao family didn't invite anyone for two reasons: first, the Sun family didn't have the money to host a second banquet; second, they had previously tried to get the recipe but failed, and the second son's family had caused them a lot of trouble and landed them in the yamen, so they still held a grudge.

It has absolutely nothing to do with learning a lesson from severing ties.

This little incident didn't affect Ningning's family. After a month of cold winter, almost half of Zhao Ningning's family's firewood had been used up. Seeing that the weather still showed no signs of warming up, Ningning's father took Ningning to the county town to exchange ordinary porcelain bowls for silver and buy another batch of firewood.

Even after the Spring Equinox, the weather remained cold, and snow continued to fall intermittently until the Qingming Festival.

Zhao Ningning, a southerner, has already gotten used to living in the same harsh winters as the north.

The villagers were extremely worried. They made their living by farming, and now that the ground was frozen and they didn't know when it would thaw, they would already have one less season's harvest. Now that spring was so late in coming, the ground wouldn't thaw, and they couldn't plow the land or sow seeds.

It wasn't until after the Qingming Festival that the earth gradually warmed up and the frozen soil became less hard. The village head and his men chose a place with good feng shui to bury the people who had perished in the cold wave.

The villagers braved the strong winds to plow the fields, turning the soil over so that it would be ready for planting after a while. This way, at least this season's harvest would be secured.

As the winter chill fades and the spring chill lingers, willow branches quietly sprout new yellow-green buds, making the entire Wangli Village appear lush and green from afar.

Standing by the river, the village head looked at the thawing ice in the river and felt a little more at ease.

Although this winter has been unusual, the recent snowfalls have moistened the previously parched land. At this rate, the melted snow will eventually bring the river levels back to normal.

As long as the weather remains normal, we shouldn't have to worry about anything this year.

Most villagers thought the same way. As long as the weather warmed up and the river had water, they could grow crops no matter how tiring or difficult it was, carrying water day and night.

The worst fear is that it will be like before, with three consecutive years of drought, where the water poured into the fields dries up and the grains can't get any water at all.

What you fear most is what happens. The brief "spring" has passed, and after only a month, the Great Zhou Dynasty is once again experiencing scorching heat.

And it's hotter than ever before!

The willow leaves, which had just sprouted and had not yet grown, were directly baked by the huge sun and curled up. The once lush green mountains were directly scorched and turned yellow, and from a distance, they looked like a withered yellow, just like autumn.

This change caught Zhao Ningning's family off guard. Zhao Ningning took some time to clear out the freezer, making room to put several clean basins inside to freeze ice.

As soon as the weather gets hot, Qingfenglou in the county town starts selling ice cream and ice jelly again, and the business is booming, making others envious.