[Control group – a standard to compare against, the basis to show how special something or someone else is.] Xu He had always been the foil to his second elder sister. Fair-skinned and delicate, she was the apple of the Xu family’s eye, the village’s belle, with suitors lining up from the village entrance to the farthest hillside. He, however, was sallow-faced and frail, the Xus’ unpresentable younger son. His sole skill lay in cooking, yet toiling daily from stove to field, covered in grime, he went unnoticed. Villagers murmured over meals: how could the same parents produce such vastly different children? With his sister as the benchmark, Brother He would surely find it harder to marry. Yet many young men sought out Xu He, though these suitors only approached him to pry information about his sister. Over the years, Xu He had grown accustomed to it. But recently, even the village idler Zhang Fangyuan tried to question him. He dodged and weaved, yet was cornered on his way home. The man declared: “He Ger, your cooking is truly delicious. If you were my husband, it would be even more so.”