Chapter 715 What? You think I'm dirty?
The kids next to them laughed at him: "Sister Chang is so stupid!"
Bang!
A piece of vegetable stem was thrown over, accompanied by Aunt Rui's warning voice: "Niu Xiaozhou!"
The little guy quickly covered his head and cried out.
Aunt Rui glared at him, then turned to Zhou Yuchang and said, "Don't pay attention to her. It's like this when you first start making dumplings. Don't look at how skilled Aning is now. When she, Ayue, and Aru first started cooking, they almost burned down the Jishantang building."
Tang Ning was immediately dissatisfied: "Aunt Rui, that happened so long ago, and it wasn't a house on fire, it was just a little too angry..."
"Is that a little too big?"
Aunt Rui mercilessly exposed Tang Ning's attempt to save face: "If the three of you had just stared at the pot together, you could have burned the bottom of it. The flames would have even smoked the roof of the house black. And who taught you to use oil to put out the fire? If I hadn't been quick, all your hair would have been burned off."
"The kitchen was saved because of its good fortune, not because you showed mercy."
Zhou Yuchang found what Aunt Rui said so interesting that she couldn't help but burst out laughing.
When she smiled, Aunt Rui and Tang Ning both looked at her.
Aunt Rui smiled and said, "I told you, young girls should smile more often to look good. Otherwise, when you are old and your teeth have fallen out, your teeth will be exposed when you grin, and you will find it ugly when you smile."
Zhou Yuchang's face, which had just been stern, couldn't hold it back anymore.
Tang Ning: "Grandma Liu, Aunt Rui scolded you."
Aunt Rui knocked Tang Ning on the forehead with her backhand finger, smearing flour all over her face: "Stop trying to sow discord, your grandmother Liu is very beautiful."
Grandma Liu couldn't help laughing, and a group of children around her also laughed.
Zhou Yuchang felt uncomfortable and didn't know whether she should continue laughing, but Aunt Rui only said one sentence as if she had forgotten her. She turned her head and gave Tang Ning a glare, and as if she had eyes behind her, she grabbed the ear of a naughty boy and pulled him out.
"Stop playing around and start wrapping it quickly, or you won't be able to eat it until dark!"
Strength lies in numbers, and it doesn’t take much time to wrap a large bowl of dumplings.
Aunt Rui brought the dumplings to the kitchen, and Tang Ning took Zhou Yuchang to light the fire.
Zhou Yuchang sat on a small stool in front of the kitchen, staring at the flames in the kitchen, and faintly smelled the faint fragrance of wintersweet.
When she turned her head, she could see the two wintersweets that Aunt Rui had brought back earlier were placed in a ceramic pot with a chipped corner on the windowsill next to the kitchen door. The petals swayed gently in the wind.
The kitchen was very shabby, the earthen stove was blackened by the fire, there were old beams, and simple kitchen utensils, but Aunt Rui, wearing red nail polish and velvet flowers, was standing there with a smile on her face.
She was making dumplings skillfully while humming a little tune.
The song was a tune Zhou Yuchang had never heard before. It was melodious and moving, and unexpectedly beautiful.
Zhou Yuchang paused for a moment, lost in thought, before she couldn't help but whisper, "What is Aunt Rui singing? I don't think I've ever heard it before."
Aunt Rui was stirring the boiling pot with a large spoon. She smiled and said, "Of course you haven't heard of this. This is a piece written by a friend of mine when she was still a prostitute. She played the qin beautifully, with a voice like an oriole. The moment she opened her mouth, she could charm even the most distinguished men."
"At that time, all the girls in our building were dressed up, but none of them could compare to her in playing a little tune. So many people envied her, but I was the only one who got along well with her, so she taught me this tune. How about it? It's nice, isn't it?"
Zhou Yuchang was stunned. A prostitute? In the building?
Aunt Rui, she is...
The little girl's eyes widened in shock, and the firewood in her hand almost fell to the ground.
Aunt Rui raised an eyebrow: "Why, do you look down on women like us who used to be prostitutes? Or do you think I'm dirty?"
Zhou Yuchang hurriedly said: "I don't have it!"
She had never come into contact with women from brothels. Even if she occasionally heard people mention them, most of them were prostitutes who were willing to debase themselves by using their beauty to please men. She just didn't expect that such a cheerful, enthusiastic and always smiling woman would have such a background.
Zhou Yuchang stood up anxiously, fearing she might misunderstand. "I don't look down on you, nor do I think you're dirty. I just didn't expect... I..."
She was at a loss and wanted to explain hurriedly, but when the words came to her lips, she felt that whatever she said seemed to be somewhat derogatory.
Zhou Yuchang could only curl her fingers nervously and stood there at a loss.
Seeing that she was about to cry, Tang Ning reached out and pulled her to sit down again: "Okay, Aunt Rui was just teasing you."
Touching Zhou Yuchang's cold hand, Tang Ning scolded:
"Aunt Rui, Ah Chang is not like us. She has a soft temper. If you make her cry, I won't help you comfort her."
Aunt Rui, who had originally had a gloomy face, burst into laughter when she heard this, as if the person with thorns just now was not her at all.
She took a large spoon and scooped a spoonful of cold water from the water tank beside her into the hot pot, pressing down the dumplings that were about to roll out of the pot. Then she smiled at Zhou Yuchang and said, "I'm just having fun with you, little girl. Don't really cry, I'm just teasing you."
Zhou Yuchang hesitated: "Aunt Rui..."
"Don't worry, I'm really fine. I've been in that place of pleasure for over twenty years, and I've grown thick-skinned. What kind of nasty things haven't I heard? I can remain calm even when people curse at me in person. You, a little girl, don't know what's wrong, so you just casually ask what's wrong."
Aunt Rui was stirring the dumplings in the pot, while she curved her eyes and spoke openly about her past.
"I didn't go there voluntarily. My family was poor when I was little and my parents couldn't afford to raise me. They couldn't bear to see my younger brother become a boy, so they had no choice but to sell me, a worthless girl."
"Once you step foot in those places, it's impossible to come out clean. If you want to save your body and not get stained, you'll lose your life. People like me who were sold to brothels at a young age almost never have a good ending. When you're beautiful, you're admired by thousands of people, but when you're old and ugly, you're just wrapped in a straw mat and don't even have a grave. I'm lucky to be able to redeem myself safely from there."
Zhou Yuchang stared at Aunt Rui in a daze, watching her talk about her past without changing her expression, talking about those dirty and despicable past events.
She seemed not to care about revealing these things in front of others, let alone what others would think of her.
Zhou Yuchang whispered, "Aren't you afraid of what others will say about you?"
Aunt Rui curled her lips when she heard this: "What are you talking about? When I was young, I slept with men to earn money to save my life. I paid for it in cash. Now I have redeemed myself and live a peaceful life. I don't steal or rob."
"Besides, I can't stop them from talking. They can talk if they want. I won't hear what they say behind my back. If any of those bastards dare to stand before me, I can beat them to a pulp with just one stick."
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