Chapter 34: Five parts flattery, four parts servility, three parts fawning
Song Li went to the courtyard where the village chief lived to visit the village chief's wife, that is, Aunt Liu.
The village head is the village chief, and she and Song Xiaoxiao will be living in Qingliu Village for a long time, so it's not good to offend her.
Having injured her back, Liu was naturally very annoyed: "What are you doing here?"
Song Li said with a forced smile, "I've come to apologize to the old lady."
As she spoke, she placed a porcelain bottle on the table and said modestly, "I was in a hurry and didn't have time to go to town to buy medicine. This is a folk remedy that my aunt told me about. She said it was very effective, so I brought it here for you to try."
Actually, she wasn't being modest at all; the bottle contained just a handful of yellow soil from her yard.
She just wanted to come over as a gesture of goodwill; she didn't actually intend to deliver the medicine.
—If Madam Liu wanted Song Xiaoxiao to be her child bride, how could she possibly be truly good to Madam Liu?
Liu was filled with anger, but she couldn't decide whether to let it out or hold it back. She felt uncomfortable and kept her mouth shut.
Song Li chuckled and said, "If Auntie is still angry with me, then hit me a few times to vent your anger."
Liu injured her back and was lying in bed unable to move at all, let alone fight.
Liu was furious!
She glared at Song Li, "Who are you trying to fool with this fake act!"
She's sharp-tongued and never holds back; she's determined to argue to the bitter end.
Muramasa, being the smooth-talking one, came in and said, "Daya didn't mean to, let's just let it go."
Song Li then chatted idly with the village headman for a few moments.
After Song Li left, Liu waited for her husband in bed.
"Are you out of your mind? Why are you taking Song Daya's side?"
Muramasa sat in a high-backed chair, puffing on his pipe, and said slowly, "She used to be just a little girl living under the roof of the Song family, thin, dry, and crazy, just a crazy beggar. But after the Song family moved out, she changed completely in just a few days, making her family well-off and her business stable. She had no land, no harvest, and was penniless. How did she do it?"
After this reminder, Madam Liu suddenly understood, but then her thoughts wandered again. "You mean... this girl is using her beauty to go out and sell herself?"
Muramasa glared at her with exasperation, "Have you ever seen a courtesan living in her own home?"
"You think you know everything?" Liu retorted defiantly.
The village head had only one son in three generations, but she single-handedly helped the Li family expand, giving birth to four sons in one go, which gave her the confidence to act like a fierce man.
"Perhaps it's a secret passage?"
"..."
In the countryside, women are often more vicious than men when they belittle other women.
Li Jiuzhuang asked helplessly, "If that's the case, why did Young Master Lou send his servant to inquire about Song Daya in our village?"
This time it was Liu's turn: "..."
Li Jiuzhuang said in a deep voice, "In short, I think Song Daya is a very capable person. You should be more polite to her in the future, and don't wait until she becomes successful before you think about currying favor with her."
Lady Liu thought to herself, "If Song Daya can't become a maid in the Lou family, how can she possibly succeed?"
But the man's expression wasn't good; he opened his mouth, then quickly closed it again.
She deserves credit for giving birth to sons, but each of them is ugly, unambitious, and not very attractive to men.
...
Back home, Song Li boiled water for Song Xiaoxiao to take a bath.
"Tell me, can you hear anything within three miles?"
"If many people are talking at the same time, can you hear what each of them is saying?"
"Sometimes you can hear what's in your heart, and sometimes you can't?"
"Don't you find it noisy to sleep at night after listening to all this?"
Song Li was very curious about the superpowers Song Xiaoxiao gained from drinking the spiritual spring water and asked a series of questions.
What kind of amazing little sister did she find?
The neighbor could write a whole book just for hearing their innermost thoughts, and she genuinely felt that her younger sister was wasting her talent playing a supporting role here.
Faced with a barrage of questions, Song Xiaoxiao only answered the last one: "No noise."
She was feeling down because she had just overheard Aunt Liu talking badly about her sister behind her back.
Song Li quickly stopped asking questions and focused on washing Song Xiaoxiao's hair.
"Okay, stop thinking about it. People only gossip behind each other's backs when they don't dare to say it to your face. You don't need to worry about it."
Song Xiaoxiao lowered her head and remained silent.
Suddenly, Song Li thought of something and asked, "Can you hear what the Zhao family next door says every day?"
Song Xiaoxiao shook her head: "I can't hear it. I can only hear bad things, whether they are spoken by others or what they are thinking."
Song Li nodded secretly, relieved.
She decided to stop giving Song Xiaoxiao the spiritual spring water until Song Xiaoxiao could calmly face the rumors.
However, without the blessing of the spiritual spring, we need to pay more attention to the nutrition of Song Xiaoxiao's meals in the future.
You need to eat more meat.
You also need to exercise more, otherwise you won't be strong enough to be bullied.
In addition, one must be literate and able to read in order to strengthen one's inner self.
True strength lies in inner strength...
After giving Song Xiaoxiao a bath, while the pot was still hot, Song Li boiled more water and took a bath herself.
The moment she sat down in the bathtub, she felt a wave of comfort wash over her. This was the first bath she had taken since transmigrating. It was a bittersweet memory; back in the modern world, she had taken bathing for granted.
She also asked Qian Hutao to wash, but Qian Hutao had no clean underwear and refused.
Song Li only had two sets of underwear to change into, and there were no extras for her, so they had to give up.
After taking a bath, Song Li went to the front yard to buy meat from Aunt Zhao.
Song Xiaoxiao was unhappy; she wanted to make hot pot for lunch.
As the saying goes, there's nothing a hot pot meal can't solve; if there is, then two meals will do.
Besides being refugees who fled famine from Nanzhou County, the Zhao family members were also hunters. So, regardless of whether Zhao Youchang and his son were actually hunting or not, they always kept meat on hand.
Because of their proximity to the Zhao family, villagers would always buy meat from them.
The village chief and Niu San's family were well-off and bought things frequently, but because the Zhao family rented the house from Niu San, Niu San always got a 20% discount on his purchases.
Song Li bought a dead rabbit and a half-dead pheasant. Disguised as Zhao's mother, Mingyue quickly helped her clean the fur and internal organs, making it easier to cook.
Before leaving, Song Li looked at "Aunt Zhao's" face, which was clearly only in her twenties but had a rough and mature complexion, and gave her a small box of whitening cushion foundation as a token of her gratitude.
Song Li carried the meat home, but when she got to the door she ran into the village head—who, like Liu Shi, smiled at her with a kind expression.
The laughter was chilling, and Song Li immediately became wary.
Although Muramasa helped her smooth things over in the morning, he couldn't recall ever smiling at her like that before.
Could it be that he's still not giving up and wants to use her and Song Xiaoxiao to curry favor with Lou Yicong?
Just as she was wondering what was going on, Muramasa suddenly pulled something out and shoved it into her hand.
Song Li looked down and saw a large piece of silver, weighing a full five taels.
"This is……?"
Song Li asked, but she had a vague idea of what was going on.
Sure enough, the village chief said, "This is your father's military allowance. He has already risen to the rank of ninth-grade captain in the army. He has made a name for himself over the years. He receives five taels of silver a month. This is this month's allowance. Your uncle and aunt haven't come to collect their money yet this month, so take it quickly."
He spoke in a mysterious tone, his eyes revealing five parts flattery, four parts servility, and three parts fawning.
"This money should have belonged to you two sisters in the first place."
He said it with righteous indignation.
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