Chapter 1

On my wedding day, I stepped out of the wedding car and went straight to pin the flower on my mother-in-law.

By our agreement, she would give me a red envelope of ten thousand dollars, and I would call her Mom.

But she didn't give me an envelope. She pressed a filthy one-cent coin into my hand.

"Bernice Fox, this is a treasure my own mother gave me when I got married, the thing kept at the bottom of my dowry chest. It's sixty, seventy years old. It's worth more than any change-of-address gift."

I was still trying to process her words when a row of subtitles suddenly appeared above her head.

【Treasure from the bottom of the chest, my foot. I dug this out of a scrapyard. One cent. I want to belittle her, put her in her place, let her know that calling me Mom doesn't come so cheap!】

I flinched hard and, without thinking, took a step back.

Her eyes flickered, and a wounded look crossed her face.

"Bernice, you're not going to think it's too little, are you? Mom just wanted to leave a lasting memory at your wedding."

【If she dares refuse it, she's the wicked daughter-in-law who made trouble for her mother-in-law on the wedding day.】

I turned to look at my husband, Alfred James.

"Didn't we agree the gift would be ten thousand?"

Alfred's expression turned a little guilty.

"Don't be so money-minded. My mom just wanted to be different. Just go along with it."

Above my mother-in-law's head, more subtitles appeared.

【She chased my son for four years. What she fears most is my son not wanting her. She wants to marry in smoothly, so even with no gift she'll still call me Mom.】

I looked at her and smiled.

"Ma'am, you keep the penny at the bottom of your chest. I won't be calling you Mom."

01

The whole place went dead silent.

The smile froze on her face and cracked, bit by bit.

"Bernice, what is that supposed to mean? Whoever heard of a daughter-in-law refusing to change her form of address?"

"And whoever heard of a mother-in-law giving one cent as the gift?"

Her expression stiffened, and that row of subtitles floated up above her head.

【She always seemed so meek. Now she dares to go head to head with me. Fine, I'll show her what a top-tier passive-aggressive mother-in-law looks like.】

Her face shifted, and her eyes went red in an instant.

"Bernice, I only wanted your wedding to be a little special. If I'd known you cared this much about money, I never would have arranged it this way……"

The James relatives around her all turned reproachful eyes on me.

"This new bride is really thoughtless, picking apart her mother-in-law's good intentions."

"Exactly. So what if it's one cent? Back when we got married, there was no such thing. No money and we still changed what we called them, didn't we?"

"Right? Young people today are so grasping, money-grubbing, not a shred of warmth in them."

A trace of smugness slipped across the corner of my mother-in-law's mouth, and then she put on the look of a woman swallowing her grievances.

"Don't say that about Bernice. She probably just can't accept something new all at once. And it's my fault too, I didn't think it through. I should have talked to her beforehand."

Hearing this, everyone around praised how magnanimous she was, which made me look even more thoughtless.

"Look how reasonable your mother-in-law is. Having a mother-in-law like this is a blessing you earned over three lifetimes. Hurry up and call her Mom."

"Young people need to open up their perspective. Your mother-in-law brought out the dowry from the bottom of her chest. That shows how much she values you. Don't be ungrateful."

"That's true. The amount of the gift doesn't matter, it's the thought that counts. Your mother-in-law's gesture is the rarest thing of all."

The smugness at the corner of her mouth was getting hard to hide.

【Fight me? You're still too green. All I have to do is cry a little and she's the one making an unreasonable scene, and everyone takes my side.】

I smiled, and looked at those few people, taking my time as I spoke.

"Aunt Marlene, isn't it? Your son got married last month. Alfred told me the change-of-address gift you gave was twenty thousand."

Aunt Marlene's face changed. She mumbled under her breath, "That's my daughter-in-law. How is that the same?"

I turned to another relative. "Uncle Douglas, your daughter gets married next month. The groom's side offered ten thousand for the gift, and you followed Aunt Marlene's example and asked for twenty."

The corner of Uncle Douglas's mouth twitched. "My daughter is the treasure of our family. Twenty thousand is on the low side."

Finally I looked back at my mother-in-law.

"Ma'am, when Alfred's older brother got married last year, you gave a ten-thousand-dollar change-of-address gift. That's right, isn't it?"

Her face stiffened. "That's because your sister-in-law brought a bigger dowry. I was just saving her face."

I gave a small smile.

"And how big was her dowry? A hundred-thousand-dollar car? But I brought a two-hundred-thousand-dollar car, and an apartment in a good school district on top of it. Isn't my face worth saving?"

"Your daughters-in-law and your daughters all get a proper gift. How does it come down to one cent's worth of feeling when it's me?"

"So this rule was set for me alone?"

Her face went a shade paler. Her lips moved, but nothing came out.

【This little girl is a handful. If I can't manage her, I've still got my son!】

She shot Alfred a glance, and Alfred immediately frowned at me.

"Bernice, can you stop nitpicking over every little thing? In front of all these relatives, do you really have to embarrass my mom?"

"Am I embarrassing your mom, or is your mom deliberately trying to embarrass me? A one-cent change-of-address gift, is that telling everyone here I'm cheap?"

Alfred's face shifted. "My mom didn't mean it that way. Do you have to blow it up like this? Don't you want to get married anymore?"

【See? The moment my son mentions calling off the wedding, she caves. She'll fall right in line and call me Mom.】

My expression darkened.

"Alfred, if that's how you want to put it, that works for me too."

She was startled for a moment, then put on a look of reluctant compromise.

"All right, all right, no more saying things in anger. If Bernice really must have the ten-thousand-dollar gift, I'll go to the bank right now and get the money."

【I don't believe she'll actually let me go. The bank doesn't open until nine. Wait an hour and the wedding gets delayed. She wouldn't dare.】

I nodded without the slightest hesitation.

"Sure. I'll wait."