Gu Qingyao and Mo Beihan lingered in the city for a while. When the sky darkened, Mo Beihan brought her back to the Qing River Brigade.

When he had brought her to the Gu house, Gu Qingyao took a portion of what they had bought and waved at him with a smile. “Goodbye!”

Mo Beihan smiled. “I'll speak to my mother when I get home. I'll ask her to choose an auspicious date to discuss our marriage with your family. Wait for me!”

Gu Qingyao blushed.

Mo Beihan did not go in. He went straight home after seeing Gu Qingyao enter her house.

When Gu Qingyao entered the courtyard, she found the house silent and empty.

She had just finished putting away her things in her room when Gu Jinlin returned.

Gu Jinlin smiled when he saw his younger cousin. “Are you back?”

“Mhm!”

Gu Jinlin looked around the room and behind his younger cousin. “Did you buy anything nice? Did you manage to gouge a good sum out of Mo Beihan?”

Gu Qingyao raised her brows. “Haven't you always told me I shouldn't fritter away Elder Brother Beihan's money?”

Gu Jinlin pursed his lips. When teaching the young girls in their family, of course the Gu family would not teach their children to spend other people's money. It was the same for girls. This was a matter of upbringing.

But that fellow Mo Beihan was always finding opportunities to draw close to them. He and the cousins had always been on good terms and it was not so easy to get rid of him!

As they grew up, the older cousins all understood that this jerk meant to steal their younger cousin.

So when it came to Mo Beihan, they rationally felt that their younger cousin should not be freely spending someone else's money, but emotionally, they sometimes felt that no matter how much Mo Beihan spent on their younger cousin, it was only right.

Hmph!

Gu Jinlin did not reply. Actually, he thought like that because all of them had accepted Mo Beihan as their cousin-in-law.

But he felt rather indignant when he thought about it. He had doted on this younger cousin since she was young, but now that she was grown up, she would belong to someone else. Bah!

“Did you buy anything nice? What are we eating tonight?”

After being home for so many days, he subconsciously and increasingly looked forward to mealtimes!

Gu Qingyao smiled. She dragged her third elder brother into her room and took a juicy apple from her small bag. She held it in front of Gu Jinlin.

“For you. Do you want it?”

Gu Jinlin looked at the bright red, juicy apple. His eyes almost fell out of his head!

“This… This… is an apple?”

Gu Jinlin hurriedly turned the apple over and looked at it many times.

He could recognize an apple, but he had seldom eaten one.

As far as he could recall, he had only eaten apples twice.

It had been a feat to get hold of one. Actually, he had a share more than twice, but there had been so little that he could not bear to eat it. He reserved it for his younger brothers and his mother. She had worked so hard all her life, how could he bear to eat the apple?

He had left it all for his mother and younger brothers. The two times he had eaten it was when he had taken a bite or two from his younger brothers' share.

But that apple was quite small and part of it had gone bad. It was not very sweet. But to his younger brothers who had never eaten fruits before, it was an incredibly rare find.

He looked at the big apple before him. It was so big and juicy!

It was bright red and completely flawless. Its skin was very smooth. Oh… what a treasure!

Gu Qingyao said, “This is for you. It's delicious and very sweet. Mm… so tart. What a fabulous flavor!”

Gu Jinlin could not bear to eat such a beautiful apple. “You eat it. It's so hard to get one of these. You eat some and when our grandparents are back, give them some. It's good for girls to eat fruits!”

Gu Qingyao's heart ached as she looked at her third elder brother.

In these times, children did not have such nice things to eat, not even Third Elder Brother, who had done fairly well.