Previously, when Cai Wei was weak after giving birth and lingering on the sickbed, Qin Fei wanted to invite a few of her friends to Dali to accompany her, but Cai Wei stopped her, for fear of delaying the fact that they were busy helping weak girls and setting up a women's school. But when the bad news of the little princess's untimely death reached the ears of those friends, they came uninvited as if they had made an appointment in advance.

On the evening of the second day when Qin Fei and Cai Wei had a big quarrel and planned to deal with Cui Xiang, Cai Wei's childhood handkerchiefs in Meizhou, Sichuan suddenly appeared in front of her, which made Cai Wei surprised and delighted.

Since she left Meizhou at the age of twelve to go to the capital to join her family, she has never seen this group of childhood sisters. There are three girlfriends who came to see her, Zou Qing is the eldest daughter of Zou Fu who sent Cai Wei to Beijing in the past, and the twin sisters Geng Yu and Geng Yue are the youngest daughters of Geng Zhi who sent Cai Wei to Beijing as a dowry.

All three of them are in their twenties, one or two years older than Cai Wei, but they are not married. Cai Wei had heard them mention in the letter before that Zou Qing was because none of the men who came to propose marriage could pass the three questions of her son-in-law, and they all failed. Everyone else advised Zou Fu to restrain his daughter, this woman should marry a chicken and a dog, don't be too demanding, if a man is willing to marry, marry it quickly. Otherwise, in a few years, my daughter will be old, and I am afraid that no one will want to give me no amount of dowry, and I am afraid that it will not be good to have children. This will pick and choose, and be careful that no one will be an old aunt in the future.

Zou Qing wrote in the letter at the time: "How do you guess my father dealt with those who love to meddle with other people's family affairs and have broken mouths? His old man directly rewarded them with a roll of the eyes, and dropped a sentence, 'My old Zou picks a son-in-law and does your!' My daughter has a good Junzi orchid, even if she keeps it in my garden for the rest of her life, it is better than being arched by a pig! Big deal, Lao Tzu and her brother raised her for the rest of her life! ’”

When Cai Wei saw this place, she felt both happy and moved. She knew that Uncle Zou really didn't care if his daughter could get married, what he cared about was whether his daughter could get the happiness she wanted after she got married.

Not only Zou Fu is like this, but Geng Zhi also has the same thoughts, so when Geng Yu and Geng Yue sisters directly told their father that it was terrible to marry, they would be rubbed by their mother-in-law, and they would be beaten by their husbands, and they would not have to pay for their lives if they were killed, and once a woman got married, she didn't want to run away from her husband's house unless she was divorced, Geng Zhi didn't scold them for talking nonsense like ordinary strict fathers, but quietly listened to them.

The sisters cited a bunch of tragic examples of women who were close to Zuo after they got married, and their heads shook like waves and drums, saying that it was too dangerous to marry in these years, and they would rather not marry in this life and not marry to ensure peace! I just want to be with my parents and relatives, and the sisters live a quiet life as companions.

After listening to it, Geng Zhi agreed to the invitation of his two daughters without saying a word, and since then he has refused to allow the matchmaker to come to the door, anyway, none of the local marriageable young men have a look.

These two fathers were able to do this because they respected Li Zhen's doctrine as much as Cai Wei's father, and they did not have the idea of preference for sons over daughters in their hearts, and they could treat their children equally. In addition, it is also because they have traveled all over the world, experienced the world for a long time, or heard and seen, or hearsay, and know that it is not easy for women in this world to live. It's okay when you're at home, but once you get married, if you get married to a bad mother-in-law or a husband who doesn't get along well, let alone wash your face with tears all day long, you will lose your life early, and you won't have a place to reason.

Therefore, for the lifelong happiness of their daughters, these two fathers made up their minds early in the morning, if they can't find a good son-in-law, their daughters won't marry if they don't marry, what others like to say is what they want, what they care about is their daughter's happiness, not their own face.

Because of the support of two fathers who really love their daughters and despise the conventions of the world, Caiwei, the three good sisters, insist on the world's eyes, let the time pass year after year, that is, they will not marry and continue to enjoy the comfortable life of being daughters at home.

These three girls are all kind and compassionate women, not the kind people who care about others eating chaff as long as they have a comfortable life. The more comfortable their own little life is, the more sympathetic they are for those women in miserable circumstances, and from time to time they help them, and later, with the support of their relatives at home, they set up a women's hall to house and rescue those homeless and weak women who have no one to rely on.

At this time, the three Sichuan girls gathered around Cai Wei's sickbed and told her about the difficulties and obstacles they encountered in establishing An Nu Tang. Although they are not married and have children, they also know how painful it is for a mother to lose a child, in the face of this great pain, any comfort and persuasion will not help, because they are not her, and they can't feel her heart-wrenching pain, the only thing they can do is to stay by her side, and try to pull her mind out of this misfortune, so that she is no longer blindly immersed in sadness.

"Awei, do you know? At the beginning, the county magistrate didn't allow us to build such a hall, and we obviously built it on our own land, and he didn't allow it. We went to intercede with his wife, but his wife only wiped her tears and said, 'It's useless to look for me, the master's heart is now on that Fang'er, when I'm the wife of the main house, it's like a decoration, alas, I'm really useless, woo woo woo ......'"

Geng Yu, who has always been sharp and spicy, actually learned the wife's cowardly tone ten out of ten.

Geng Yue continued: "We have exhausted all kinds of methods, whether it is to argue with reason or to find someone to intercede, it is useless, and then my brother gave us an idea, and directly stuffed a thousand taels of silver to the county magistrate, and the dog official was relieved, and he did not list the An Nutang we built as an illegal private house, and insisted on bringing someone to forcibly demolish it." ”

Zou Qing also said: "Although we encountered all kinds of difficulties, but in the end we still built this ann nu hall, at the beginning it was to take in those women who were abandoned by their husbands' families and their mothers' families, as well as those widows who were old and helpless, but I didn't think that later, the most people who took in were some baby girls and girls. ”

Cai Wei listened to their words, although there were few joys and more anger and helplessness in the things mentioned, but Cai Wei felt a different kind of power from their expressions and tones. It is a kind of Ling Han who opens alone, dares to bloom proudly in this cold and snowy winter, and wants to use the dark fragrance of his body to dispel the persistence and persistence of the cold winter that envelops the women, and it is a vigorous vitality that cannot be forced back even if the wind and frost sword cannot retreat!

She was infected by the power of the three best friends, and she was even more worried about the fate of the women they were talking about. "Why are there so many baby girls and girls in the country, and are they all orphans?"

Zou Qing sighed, "At first, we brought back some baby girls who were abandoned on the side of the road, and we didn't know if their biological parents were still there. Later, many people directly sent the girl who had just been born a few days ago to us, saying that it was better to send it to us than to be thrown away or drowned by them, so that the baby could still be fed. ”

The two sisters of the Geng family said one by one: "Ah Wei, you know, when our Yan Qin first founded the country, because of the long-term war in Shuzhong, ten rooms and nine emptiness, the imperial court used many methods to transfer many people from Huguang and Jiangxi to our Shu land. Those people are more patriarchal than our Shu people, and they can't wait to give birth to all of them as sons, and the harvest in the fields has not been good over the years, and many people have seen that life is difficult, so they simply sold the older female babies, and the newborn baby girls drowned directly in the toilet, even those three or four-year-old girls were also beaten to death by freezing and starvation. ”

This drowning of babies, especially the drowning of baby girls, the vulgarity of abusing girls, Cai Wei knew before, although she was also angry and sad at the time, but at this moment, after she had just lost her daughter, she heard the word drowning babies, and felt extremely resentful, but after the initial grief and indignation, there was more of an indescribable sadness in her heart.

Is it to blame those ruthless parents for this drowning of babies, or to blame the country's thousands of years of patriarchal and patriarchal cultural traditions?