Joyful Motherhood in a Rural Family

She signaled Guihua to calm down a bit, finally stabilizing her heart that almost jumped out of her chest.

The riddle solver looked calm, but the people around the lantern riddles gazed at Guihua in surprise and then buried their heads back into the riddles.

As he took a look at the first answer, he casually shook the paper strip in his hand: “No.1832 Bing Character Lantern Riddle answered correctly.”

He picked up the second one and glanced at it, tossing the paper strip into a nearby basket and squinting at Guihua: “No.324 A Character Lantern Riddle answered correctly!”

People in the surrounding crowd whispered to each other.

“It’s actually No.324 A Character Lantern Riddle, such a high-ranking lantern riddle has been answered correctly, it’s simply amazing!”

“Didn’t they just announce that the top 500 lantern riddles wouldn’t be solved by many even until the end? And that was not long ago…”

“It’s even a woman who managed to solve the riddles; these elder scholars have lost face now, haven’t they?”

“Let’s see about the others; are there any more who managed to solve them…”

The whispers from the crowd didn’t affect the riddle solver’s actions, as he continued to announce the results while picking up the paper strips.

“No.4635 Ding Character Lantern Riddle answered correctly!”

“No.869 Yi Character Lantern Riddle answered correctly!”

“No.156 A Character Lantern Riddle answered correctly!”

As soon as these words came out, not only did the surrounding people suddenly fall silent, but even the riddle solver raised his head and looked at Guihua in surprise.

The other riddle solvers also stood up, looking at the remaining riddles in the solver’s hand!

The riddles behind were naturally easy to solve, but the difficulty of the first 500 A Character lantern riddles was, of course, harder and harder. However, the seemingly ordinary married woman in front of them had cracked them open. How could that not be astonishing to the crowd?

Liu Sisi subconsciously took two steps back; she didn’t expect that solving a few lantern riddles would attract so much attention from everyone.

It seemed that she didn’t take this matter seriously enough herself, so she couldn’t blame others!

With so many eyes suddenly focused on Guihua, she felt goosebumps all over her body, and subconsciously turned around to look for Liu Sisi’s figure.

As she scanned around, Liu Sisi was no longer where she had been standing, which made her even more anxious, as she searched left and right.

Her expression immediately caught the attention of the crowd, who also started looking left and right.

Over at the riddle solver’s place, it seemed like they all had a look at the remaining riddles and discussed for quite a while before continuing to announce the results.

“The remaining riddles are all answered correctly. According to the rules, answering an A Character lantern riddle correctly earns a big lantern.”

The riddle solver got up to greet her: “Madam, since you answered the remaining riddles correctly, you will receive this year’s first big lantern as a reward.”

As he spoke, the riddle solver instructed his men to bring out a huge lantern and hand it over to Guihua.

This lantern, carried by two people, was slowly moved to the front.

“It’s so big? How…how am I going to take it away?”

Guihua looked around for help but couldn’t find where Liu Sisi’s figure had gone.

“Madam, if you think it’s too hard to carry away, we can also convert it to silver for you. However… after the conversion, the amount of silver you get will be halved. What do you think…”

The riddle solver was quite happy!

He hadn’t expected someone to solve the riddles so quickly, so there was only this one big lantern on hand.

If it were really taken away, he didn’t know what to do if more people solved the riddles later!

Although the converted silver wasn’t much, it was still a windfall, and Guihua was delighted.

When she finally squeezed out of the crowd, she found out that Zhang Peng and Di Yelei, and the others, had already left the queue.

“Hey! Why aren’t you queuing anymore? Oh, yes, where’s Sisi? Where did she go?”

Guihua, thrilled, greeted them with excitement.

She handed the 20 taels of silver to Di Yelei without thinking: “Brother Ye Lei, this is the silver Sisi deserves. I’ll give it to you first!”

Di Yelei took it casually—it was actually 20 taels of silver!

“Sisi is over there waiting for us, let’s go,” Di Yelei said as he led the group to the other side.

They turned the corner, entered a wine-house not far away, where Liu Sisi had been waiting with Zhang Yun and YingEr sitting by her side.

She had chosen a spot near the window and smiled at them as they approached.

“You’re finally here. I ordered some dishes, but I don’t know whether they’re to your taste.”

As everyone arrived, Di Yelei handed the silver to Liu Sisi and casually laughed: “They say that money wouldn’t fall from the sky, but look! Isn’t this money that fell from the sky?”

“What happened?” Liu Sisi asked, raising an eyebrow in surprise.

“It’s like this…”

Guihua felt quite accomplished today and happily told the story of what had just happened, with a bit of exaggeration here and there.

“Oh my! I’ve never had such good fortune before! I was so nervous being stared at by so many pairs of eyes that I almost couldn’t breathe. Luckily, I could convert the big lantern into silver taels and take them with me. I don’t know what I would have done if I had to move that huge lantern! But I was really surprised to get 20 taels of silver for just a few characters.”

Liu Sisi just smiled and didn’t say anything.

Guihua was obviously very excited; it wasn’t until the ordered dishes were served one after another that she finally sat down.

“Ah! By the way, why didn’t you guys hand in all the riddle answers you had? If we handed in all these answers tonight, wouldn’t we get hundreds of taels of silver?”

After saying this, she picked up a teacup and took a few big gulps.

Liu Sisi also picked up the teacup: “I’m afraid if we really handed in all these riddle answers, it wouldn’t be that easy for us to leave peacefully.” After saying this, she took a small sip. The bitterness of the tea made her put down the teacup.

She wouldn’t drink the tea if she wasn’t so thirsty, as it was not good for the children.

“Why? Is it because those people don’t want to give away all that silver?”

Guihua was a bit confused.

Zhang Peng sighed beside her: “Sister-in-law means that if we submitted all the riddles, those elder scholars would think that sister-in-law purposely meant to make them lose face. Do you think we can leave so easily?”

Maybe in the end they would get some silver, but they would have to deal with their opponents for a long time.

One of the reasons they handed out the 20 taels of silver was to make them concede and not pursue further.

“Oh! So that’s how it is…”

Guihua suddenly realized! Liu Sisi looked at everyone with approval – they all seemed to understand why she had destroyed the remaining riddle answers and didn’t hand them in!