Wu Yutong paused to catch her breath, then continued, "With the Xia and Han families joining forces to suppress them, the Tong family soon couldn't hold out any longer."
"However, Xiaorui's maternal grandfather's family is the Xu family, one of Hedong's top aristocratic families. But back when Uncle Tong married Xiaorui's mother, the Xu family didn't approve."
"Xiaorui's mother was determined to marry Uncle Tong, though, and the Xu family had no choice but to accept it. Because of that, Uncle Tong's relationship with the Xu family was never all that good."
"But now the Tong family had no other options, so Uncle Tong could only turn to the Xu family for help."
"Although the Xu family agreed to Uncle Tong's request, they set a condition: Xiaorui had to enter a marriage alliance on the Xu family's behalf with a top aristocratic clan in the Northwest."
"I heard Xiaorui say that the Xu family had long wanted to use a marriage alliance to curry favor with that clan, but they didn't have a suitable woman to marry off. They'd set their sights on Xiaorui before, but Uncle Tong had flatly refused."
"This time, with the Tong family in crisis, they took the opportunity to make the same demand again."
"Xiaorui also told me that the clan the Xu family wants to form a marriage alliance with is a cultivation family, and apparently even stronger than the Yun City Xia Family."
"The Xu family said that if Xiaorui agreed to marry into that clan, all it would take was a word from them for the Yun City Xia Family to stop troubling the Tong family altogether. The Han family was even less of a concern."
"Uncle Tong had wanted to refuse. He didn't want to sacrifice Xiaorui's happiness for the sake