...So it was "called off", as in publicly made known that it was canceled? That's different from what the father said last chapter, two years ago, where he said he would postpone it for the time being. It also makes me wonder when they were actually going to have the marriage. She was five when she was told. She's seven now. Even being generous with a marriage age of 11, that's six years in the future from the announcement. And yet, the father straight canceled the engagement enough to have it "called off", not just postponed, and then he actually gave her until her 17th birthday to achieve something great.
Like, I can give it a lot of leeway, but that doesn't make a lot of sense. The only thing that I can think of that would make sense is that "called off" just means postponed, but that's not the vibe I'm getting here.
I liked the older sister's statement about how lucky they are to live off of other people's money. That was a nice touch.