140, A Surprise, a Pretty Dress

The six women’s faces lit up with delight. They suppressed their excitement, grateful that they had not refused when Li Chunhua asked them to help. At first, they had merely thought that there might be some leftovers for them to take home, which would at least give their husbands and children an extra dish. Never had they imagined that such a wonderful opportunity would come their way!

All six were deeply grateful to Li Chunhua for giving them such a good chance. Their favorable impression of her family rose several degrees at once, and because of this, the Li family’s relationships with the villagers grew much closer in the days to come.

Thus, when the six women busied themselves in the Gao family’s little courtyard that afternoon, they worked with exceptional diligence, afraid that the hosts might think them slow and refuse to give them their red envelopes.

Jing Qingxin handed the neatly arranged menu to Aunt Li, letting the women look it over together before explaining the general methods of preparation. All those who had come to help were clever and capable, accustomed to housework and cooking year-round. Their skills were certainly not lacking; they had simply been limited by the absence of good ingredients.

When the women saw the menu, they were astonished once again. The banquet dishes were far too lavish! There were four meat dishes, five vegetable dishes, and one soup, making a perfect total of ten. At ordinary wedding celebrations, having six to eight dishes was already considered quite good, let alone four meat dishes. The staple foods were steamed buns and multigrain porridge as well. By village standards, this feast was truly one of a kind.

After arranging everything in the kitchen, Jing Qingxin led her two little helpers to decorate the courtyard. They pasted red wedding emblems on the gate, hung several small red lanterns from the trees, and tied red ribbons into butterfly knots. Then they affixed more wedding emblems and paper-cut designs to the doors and walls of the main room.

Finally came the bridal chamber. At noon, Gao Shen had already replaced the cloth curtain separating the inner room with a wooden door made by the village carpenter. Jing Qingxin pasted a round paper-cut design onto it: a cluster of flourishing flowers surrounding a wedding emblem. It was exceptionally beautiful, and Jiang Min, with her deft hands, had cut it herself.

Inside the room, the only bed and chest of drawers were also decorated with wedding emblems. On the wall beside the bed, Jing Qingxin pasted two cartoon dolls she had cut out herself. The boy stood on the left and the girl on the right, with a double-happiness emblem between them. Above the dolls and the emblem, she pasted four red characters meaning, “May you remain happily united for a hundred years.”

“It looks wonderful!” Xiaomei said with a bright smile.

Jing Qingxin nodded in satisfaction. Although their supplies were limited, adding a little charm wherever possible was still worthwhile. Once the red bedding was spread that evening, the room would surely look even better.

After finishing the decorations, Jing Qingxin closed the door, opened the wardrobe, and took out two long-sleeved dresses. She handed one each to Jiang Min and Li Xiaomei, smiling as she said, “These dresses are for you. You can wear them tomorrow. Try them on first and see whether they fit.”

“Elder Sister Jing, there’s one for me too?” Li Xiaomei asked in surprise. She knew that Sister Min would be serving as Elder Sister Jing’s attendant, so it was only natural for her to receive suitable clothing. But she had never expected Elder Sister Jing to give her a new dress as well—especially such a beautiful one, the very sort she had dreamed of owning!

“Of course. I’ve wanted to give you one for a long time. Tomorrow is the perfect occasion to wear it. Don’t just stand there staring—hurry and try them on. That way, we can alter them if necessary,” Jing Qingxin said with a laugh.

She had found these two dresses earlier at a wholesale market in her own era but had not yet had a chance to wear them. Jiang Min and Xiaomei were both slimmer and shorter than she was, so the dresses would certainly fit them, though they might be somewhat loose or too long.

Jiang Min held the new dress in her hands, her face filled with joy. She had not worn new clothes in several years. Most of what she wore had been altered from her mother’s old garments, and now she had an entirely new dress. For a young woman in this era, possessing even one dress of her own was a wonderful thing indeed.

The two girls turned their backs and shyly changed into the new dresses. Women of this era still wore small white undershirts as undergarments, which did nothing to enhance their figures, yet even so, changing clothes in front of Jing Qingxin left them feeling terribly embarrassed.

The dresses Jing Qingxin had chosen were all simple and elegant. The first time she had selected clothes, she had not paid much attention and had even chosen a few that revealed a small portion of the calves. Gao Shen had clearly disliked that, so the second time she went shopping, she mostly chose shirts and trousers, selecting only a few long dresses—and all of them reached the ankles, leaving the feet completely covered.

In fact, when Jing Qingxin had gone into the city a few days earlier, she had observed how the young women dressed there. Aside from the factory uniforms, some women also wore dresses. Their hemlines fell below the knees, and things were not nearly as strict as she had imagined.

The dresses she had given the two girls were both long floral prints. Jiang Min’s was pale blue with tiny flowers, while Xiaomei’s was white with a delicate floral pattern. Once they put them on, it was obvious that the dresses were too long, and the waists were rather loose as well, leaving them unable to show off their figures.

“Looks like these dresses will have to be altered. We need to cut off part of the hems and take in the waists a little more. Otherwise, they won’t flatter your figures at all,” Jing Qingxin concluded after examining how the dresses looked on them.

This book was first published by Xiaoxiang Academy. Please do not reproduce it.