"Mom, I'm back." Song Yinhua put the heavy basket on the ground, took out the fruit inside, and washed it with water as she spoke. "Caixing, I picked a lot of green apples on the back mountain. Come and eat them. I also have some candy here, given to me by Aunt Song."
Song Caixing squatted in the corner of the yard, head down, shelling edamame, barely daring to breathe.
"What's wrong with you two?" Song Yinhua clearly sensed something was off. "Did something happen at home?"
Qiao Guilan glared angrily at Song Yinhua without saying a word.
Song Caixing kept her head down, shelling edamame. She had been scolded by Qiao Guilan until Song Yinhua went home, so she didn't dare to say anything out of line.
Her eldest sister, Song Yinhua, couldn't always be home to protect her.
She'd better not offend anyone.
"Cai Xing?" Song Yinhua called out.
Song Caixing kept her head down and worked, still not daring to utter a sound.
"Mom, what happened at home?" Song Yinhua asked Qiao Guilan, knowing something must have happened.
"It's nothing." Qiao Guilan glared at Song Yinhua, then turned and went back into the house.
Song Yinhua looked completely bewildered. She walked up to Song Caixing and asked, "Caixing, what's wrong with Mom?"
"I don't know anything, don't ask me," Song Caixing said timidly, picked up the shelled edamame and hurriedly walked away.
As soon as Song Erzhuang returned that evening, Qiao Guilan called him into her room.
The two were talking inside, and Qiao Guilan started crying and blew her nose several times.
“Fortune telling is all fake, it’s all charlatanry, how can you still believe this nonsense?” Song Erzhuang saw Qiao Guilan crying with snot and tears streaming down her face. “Look at you crying like your own father has died.”
"That fortune teller was very accurate. He said that Yin Hua would bring misfortune to her mother, which would mean that she wouldn't be able to have a child for the next five years, and even if she did get pregnant, she wouldn't be able to keep the baby."
Qiao Guilan spoke while crying, and then blew her nose.
"The fortune teller said that the honeysuckle has absorbed my good fortune, and that I don't have much time left. I was wondering why my whole body has been aching lately!"
Qiao Guilan blew her nose again and continued speaking while wiping away her tears.
"I don't care if I die, but Baogen can't be harmed. Yinhua is sucking away my good fortune, and she's going to suck away Baogen's too. Our whole family will die at her hands!"
“My family is so poor. I haven’t had a single good day since I married you. It’s all been because of Yin Hua that we suffer.”
Song Erzhuang didn't believe in these things. "What nonsense are you talking about? Don't go to fortune tellers anymore. Does Yinhua know about this?"
Qiao Guilan blew her nose and wiped it with the corner of her clothes. "I haven't told her yet, and I haven't asked Cai Xing to tell her either."
"Don't mention this again, and don't go to fortune tellers anymore." Song Erzhuang was annoyed by Qiao Guilan's crying. "When you were pregnant with Xiao Si, the fortune teller also said it would be a boy, but in the end, it was a girl!"
"The fortune teller said it was Yin Hua who brought them bad luck," Qiao Guilan cried again. "If it weren't for our Baogen's good fortune, Qiuxue and Caixing wouldn't be alive..."
"Okay, okay! Stop talking nonsense!"
Qiao Guilan continued, "The fortune teller predicted that your sister-in-law is blessed, that Hanwen will be a very wealthy boss, and that Xuewen will become a high-ranking official. He also predicted that all of your sister-in-law's daughters will marry well. The fortune teller even predicted Liu Sannai's grandson's fortune, and said that his predictions were accurate."
"Has the fortune telling been done for my sister-in-law's family too?" Song Erzhuang asked.
Qiao Guilan nodded while crying, her nose turning red from blowing her nose.
Song Erzhuang didn't ask any more questions. "Wash your face and go eat dinner. I've worked all day and I'm starving."
Qiao Guilan pressed further, "What about Yinhua?"
"What's wrong, Yinhua? Just live your life as usual!"
The family of four was having dinner, and all that could be heard was the sound of chopsticks hitting bowls.
No one spoke.
This is very unusual.
Song Yinhua asked several times if something had happened, but Song Erzhuang said nothing was wrong.
Qiao Guilan looked at Song Yinhua as if she were looking at an enemy.
Thinking that all the suffering she had endured in the past was caused by the eldest daughter, she really wanted to separate from the eldest daughter immediately!
After finishing her meal, Qiao Guilan looked like she couldn't even stand up.
It was as if Song Yinhua had already taken away half of her life.
"You were fine this morning, and you could even help take care of other people's children during the day. Now you can't even stand up?" Song Erzhuang couldn't stand his wife's fussiness. He stretched out his thick arm and easily picked up Qiao Guilan and carried her into the house.
Qiao Guilan looked weak and aggrieved. "Isn't it all because you, my eldest daughter, have drained my good fortune? I think we should just separate the family!"
"What are you saying! If our daughter is kicked out of the house before she's even married, people will think she's done something awful!"
Song Yinhua heard her parents arguing coming from the room.
She asked Song Caixing if anything had happened today.
Song Caixing looked at Song Yinhua, opened her mouth as if to say something, but remembering her mother's warning, she dared not say anything.
When Song Caixing went to sleep at night, she took her pillow to the main room to make a makeshift bed. Song Baogen, who had just returned from a date with his girlfriend in the middle of the night, stepped on her head, almost scaring her to death.
"Caixing, why are you sleeping here? You almost scared me to death!"
"You almost scared me to death! Second brother, don't you know how to watch where you're going?" Song Caixing asked angrily.
Song Baogen noticed that Song Caixing was in a bad mood. "What's wrong? Did you and your older sister have a fight? Did you get into trouble and get scolded by your older sister?"
"No, I'm not talking to you anymore, I'm so sleepy, I'm going to sleep!" Song Caixing threw a tantrum, covered her head with the blanket, and ignored her second brother.
Song Baogen wanted to knock on Song Yinhua's door to ask about the situation, but seeing that it was so late, he didn't disturb her and went back to his own room to rest.
The village was quiet at one or two in the morning.
A dark figure scaled the walls of the Song family's courtyard, and, familiar with the place, went to the back wall of Song Yinhua's room and knocked on the small window.
They knocked on the small window for over ten minutes, knocking once every now and then.
The shadowy figure stealthily pried open the rusted window latch and cautiously peered inside.
Suddenly, a basin of boiling water was poured out of the window.
"Ahhhhh..."
A piercing scream echoed through the silent night sky.
Song Baogen jumped up and rushed to Song Yinhua's room, "Big sister, what's wrong?"
"A thief kept knocking on the window behind the house and peeping in. I poured boiling water on him." Song Yinhua had already lit the kerosene lamp in the house. "That thief shouldn't have run out of the yard yet. Go and catch him!"
Song Baogen immediately went to catch the thief.
The door to the main room was already open. As Song Baogen and Song Yinhua ran out of the main room one after the other, they heard their father, Song Erzhuang, roar in his rough voice, "Stop! Which bastard dares to steal something?"
The dark figure stumbled and fled in panic. Thinking it was a thief, Song Erzhuang chased after it and punched it in the stomach, making the figure vomit up its dinner.
Song Baogen rushed forward and jumped up, delivering another kick.
Just as Song Baogen was about to launch a physical attack, the dark figure, unable to withstand the beating from the father and son, immediately begged for mercy, "Stop hitting me! Stop hitting me! I was drunk and went to the wrong place."
At this moment, Song Yinhua approached with a kerosene lamp, and the father and his two children realized that she was the ninth son of Old Mrs. Zhou, their neighbor.
His wife is heavily pregnant and will give birth in the next two months.
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