"Ah!" Chuntao let out a terrified scream, her small face instantly turning pale.
What chicken under the bed? It was clearly a living person curled up there, none other than Liu Cuilan.
Liu Cuilan squeezed into three dilapidated thatched cottages with Wang Haichao's younger brothers. Not only was it suffocating, but she also had to serve this bunch of lazy men every day.
She had long thought about building two rooms and living completely separate from them.
Adobe, thatch, and rafters were all ready, but there were still some odds and ends that she had no money to buy, let alone the wages to hire people to help.
She had been eyeing the money Chuntao got from selling the piglets for more than a day or two. She definitely couldn't get it by asking openly, so she sneaked into the room to search while Chuntao was not at home.
She turned the bed and the cabinet upside down, but couldn't find a single cent.
Liu Cuilan didn't give up, holding a kerosene lamp and bending over to look under the bed.
Chuntao's miserable scream also scared Liu Cuilan into a shudder, and the kerosene lamp in her hand fell to the ground with a "clang".
The kerosene in the lamp spilled all over the floor, and a choking smell of kerosene went straight into the nose.
Hearing that it was Chuntao's voice, Liu Cuilan quickly came back to her senses.
"What are you screaming for! Did a wolf grab your neck?"
She crawled out from under the bed cursing, without the slightest guilty look, but instead turned the tables.
"Li Chuntao, you shameless thing! Tell me, which wild man gave you this thing?"
She took out a small mirror from her pants pocket, pointed to the little figure with a bare body on the back of the mirror, and spit flew everywhere.
"Last time I found the evidence of your affair in the ditch, and today I found this again. What else do you have to say?"
What Liu Cuilan was holding tightly in her hand was exactly the small mirror someone had put on Chuntao's windowsill.
Chuntao had wanted to throw this mirror away, but Wang Xiaohong saw it and asked for it.
Usually Wang Xiaohong hid it in the cabinet, but she didn't expect Liu Cuilan to find it out.
Seeing the pattern on the back of the mirror, she immediately concluded that this was ironclad evidence of Chuntao's indiscretion, and quickly put it in her pocket.
Being caught searching for money, she happened to take out this mirror as a guise and make a false countercharge.
"I knew you were hiding this kind of filthy thing! Today I found it in your room, tell me! Who the hell is that wild man?"
"Catch a thief with stolen goods, catch an adulterer in pairs! Just based on this mirror, you want to frame me?"
Chuntao argued with a stiff neck, "I still want to ask you, what are you doing sneaking into my room? Are you trying to steal something?"
Last time Chuntao beat her with a firewood stick, Liu Cuilan hadn't calmed down yet. Today she dared to talk to her like this, which made her lungs explode with anger.
She suddenly lunged forward, reaching out to push Chuntao, "You shameless jinx! No respect for elders, how dare you talk to me like this?
Something born of a mother but not taught by a mother, let me teach you a good lesson today, and let you know what rules are!"
Liu Cuilan's face and neck were red, and white foam trickled down the corners of her mouth.
She was stronger than an old ox, and Chuntao's thin little body was unexpectedly pushed by her, staggering and almost falling down, and quickly reached out to hold the wall.
Chuntao bit her lip tightly, her eye sockets red as if bleeding, "Liu Cuilan, you say I have no respect for elders, what about yourself? You don't look like a mother-in-law!
It's fine if others gossip behind my back, but you also trample on me every day!
I work like a horse and an ox in this family, doing endless work every day, and still have to endure your beating and scolding.
I have a soft temper, but I am not to be kneaded at your will!
I can't stay in this family for another day, can't I just leave!"
Chuntao called her by her name directly, and even said she was leaving, which almost made Liu Cuilan faint with anger.
She was about to throw a tantrum and get angry, but Chuntao had already walked out of the inner room holding a cloth pocket and rushed out of the house.
"Li Chuntao! Stop right there! You are a person of the Wang family in life, and a ghost of the Wang family in death, want to leave? No way!" Liu Cuilan ran out to chase.
Looking up, she saw Wang Jieshi supporting a long bench, standing at the door.
The argument between the two just now, Wang Jieshi heard it clearly in the next room.
In order to keep this family, that plan to borrow seed had just taken shape.
At this critical juncture, Liu Cuilan actually came to make trouble, and Chuntao also said the words he was most afraid of hearing.
If Chuntao really left, who would serve him for a lifetime? How would he live the rest of his life?
"What are you doing! Looking for trouble all day long, you won't be satisfied until you break up this family, will you!" Wang Jieshi roared at Liu Cuilan with scarlet eyes.
Liu Cuilan suffered anger from Chuntao, and turning around Wang Jieshi roared at her again, which made her pat her thigh and jump up with anger.
"...Wang Jieshi! I am your birth mother! Only a mother in the world will not harm you, don't be fascinated by Li Chuntao, this jinx!
She pretends to be pitiful on the surface, but secretly does all shameful filthy things!"
She took out the small mirror from her pocket and brought it close to Wang Jieshi, "Look! This disgusting thing! This is the evidence of her affair!"
Wang Jieshi glanced at the pattern on the back of the mirror, and his chest felt as if it was pressed by a big stone, heavy and stuffy.
He gritted his teeth, snatched the mirror from Liu Cuilan's hand, and bit the bullet and said ruthlessly, "This mirror... I gave it to her!"
"What? You gave it? What kind of ecstasy soup did she pour into you, to make you lie through your teeth!"
When the mother and son were arguing fiercely in the room, Aunt Zhou had hurried over and pulled the crying Chuntao back to her home.
Old Man Zhou hadn't come back from the fields, and Zhou Zhijun had just pulled a handcart to the melon field again, so Aunt Zhou was the only one at home.
She dragged Chuntao into the north room, pressed her to sit on a chair, and turned to the kitchen to pour a mug of boiling water, and also put a few pieces of rock sugar inside.
"Tao, quickly drink some sugar water to calm down.
Liu Cuilan is a madman, it's not worth it to be like her!"
The sweet taste of rock sugar melted in her mouth, but Chuntao's heart was more bitter than coptis.
Those words just now were all the true thoughts she had held in her heart for a long time, but she had never dared to say them out loud.
Today she poured them all out, and she felt a bit happier in her heart, but if she really wanted to leave, her heart was full of misgivings.
Those invisible ropes were like entangled on her bones, pulling her hands and feet, making her unable to take half a step.
A multitude of grievances all turned into silent tears, trickling down her cheeks.
Aunt Zhou took out a coarse cloth handkerchief from her pocket and gently wiped Chuntao's tears.
"Tao ah, godmother knows you live a bitter life. If it were someone else, they would have left long ago...
You girl, you just have too soft a heart.
But this kindness also depends on the person, if you feed a wolf, it will not only not be grateful to you, but will also bite you instead.
If you really want to change your way of living, godmother supports you! We won't serve him anymore..."
How could Aunt Zhou not know the truth of "persuading peace and not persuading separation", but thinking of people like Liu Cuilan and Wang Jieshi, she really couldn't say those insincere words.
Only Aunt Zhou could understand her bitterness and say such heartwarming words to her.
Chuntao couldn't hold it in anymore, threw herself on Aunt Zhou's shoulder, and cried loudly.
Aunt Zhou held her tightly in her arms, gently patting her back with one hand as she let out a soft sigh. Poor girl, just cry. Let out all the sorrow pent up inside your heart, and you will feel better.
For the first time in her life, Chuntao wailed at the top of her lungs, crying with absolute abandon, weeping so fiercely that everything else in the world faded away.
Her frail little body trembled like a withered leaf in the autumn wind. Her tears flowed endlessly like a spring, impossible to stop, and soon soaked a large patch of Aunt Zhou's shoulder.
Those tears carried the weight of Liu Cuilan's unreasonableness, Wang Jieshi's selfish uselessness, and the cruel gossip of the villagers.
More than anything, they held her own feelings of weakness and helplessness, along with a heart overflowing with grievance and inner turmoil.
