"Xia Yuan rejected all of them without even taking a look. The problem doesn't lie with those girls. Why don't you take a look at them?" Xia He persuaded.
"If your second aunt-in-law doesn't want any of them, then how can we! Won't that be a slap to your second aunt-in-law's face? Don't cause trouble for me! Qiao Mei, think about whether there's anyone else!" Xu Lan asked expectantly.
Qiao Mei and Xia He looked at each other and smiled. They already had a candidate for the position of their eldest sister-in-law, but they did not know if Xia Wen was willing to marry her.
"There's a Mo family from the western suburbs. They have a daughter called Mo Zhu. Do you know them, Mother?" Qiao Mei asked.
"The Mo family? The Mo family seems to be a scholarly family, similar to the Deng family. They're very cultured," Xu Lan said as she recalled carefully.
"Their family situation is much better than the Deng family. The Deng family only became educators in this generation. The Mo family has been teachers for generations and they have students everywhere! Moreover, Mo Zhu is a hardworking person and she is Eldest Brother's subordinate. She put in a lot of effort to help when Auntie and the children were kidnapped!" Xia He said.
"Really? What a nice girl!" Xu Lan said agitatedly.
"She seems to be quite interested in Eldest Brother. I think the way she looks at Eldest Brother is quite different. At that time, I even secretly asked Mo Zhu if she wanted to date Eldest Brother. She did not say no, but she did not say yes either," Xia He said.
"Oh! That means there's hope!" Xu Lan said excitedly.
"Shouldn't we thank her properly? She helped us so much. We should ask her to come to our house for a nice meal!" Qiao Mei said.
Xu Lan's eyes lit up as she paced around the house happily. As she walked, she kept talking about how to invite the Mo family to dinner.
"This weekend! Let's invite the Mo family to dinner this weekend! There are still four days for us to get things done! Let's ask Mo Zhu's parents to come to our house as our guests! To express our grat.i.tude!"
"Yes, yes, yes… We should serve the good liquor we have at home! We can't let down our guests!"
"I'll ask Xia Zhe to put in a request for some special ingredients in the next two days. We have to get all the nice stuff! Oh… Did we already eat the big lobster during the new year celebrations? That won't do. We only get one big lobster a year. I'll ask the Sun family next door if they can give me their big lobster for this year and I'll return it to them next year!"
"Wan Wen! Go and buy groceries now! Get busy! We have to do something grand! The cutlery set doesn't look so nice. Go to the mall and buy the painted porcelain ones!"
"…"
Xia He and Qiao Mei sat on the sofa with one child each in their arms and watched Xu Lan get busy. Two days ago, she had said that she always felt unwell during the rainy season. At the moment, she seemed to have turned into a different person and she had a glow to her.
After Xia Zhe finished his work, he slowly walked down the stairs. He also found it unbelievable when he saw Xu Lan like this.
"Has our mother… gone crazy?" Xia Zhe looked at Xia He and asked suspiciously.
"Yes… probably. Doesn't it look as if our family is going to hold a state banquet this weekend? Our mother is just short of hiring a chef," Xia He said with a sigh.
As soon as she finished speaking, Xu Lan shouted towards the living room from the kitchen, "Xia He! Give the state-owned restaurant a call later! See if you can get the chef to come and cook for us! It doesn't matter how much it costs!"
"Alright! I understand!" After yelling her reply, Xia He turned around and said helplessly to Xia Zhe, "See how right I am. It wasn't even such a grand occasion when I got married."
"Isn't it totally different? It's a rare thing if Eldest Brother can marry a woman he likes. Furthermore, she's from a family which has been outstanding for generations. For them, it's not about money or power, but culture. We have to get ourselves all cleaned up," Qiao Mei said with a laugh.
"In the past, Mother always lamented about why we don't have any educators in our family and that we're just a bunch of boors. Later on, after Eldest Brother started to teach, she said that Eldest Brother is just a boor who will not be able to teach his students well. She was troubled by all these things every day. You had not joined the family yet then. It was a very interesting time!" Xia He said laughingly.
Qiao Mei looked at Xia Zhe and he smiled and nodded. "It's true. During that period of time, Eldest Brother even doubted himself and felt that he had made a wrong decision to become a teacher."
"Hahaha, then it must have been hard on Eldest Brother!" Qiao Mei said as she laughed happily.