Money buys happiness is all that came to mind as I was reading this short story. The only happiness the girl displayed was when Liu Feng purchased all sorts of gold and jewelry for Manshan after their wedding. That was the only time she “really” showed interest in him, which leads me to believe she was greedy from the start and was looking for money rather than a spouse. To me, Manshan seems like the modern day gold-digger and Liu was somehow okay with that. It’s also interesting to see the attitude of the mother transform over the course of the story. Even though Liu was criminalized, the fact that he had money made that obsolete to the mother in law, but what if he was a criminal and still poor? Why did money cause the mother-in-law to completely disregard the crime that Liu committed. This was something that made me ponder as I was reading.