When Feng Yulan opened the door, the old-fashioned wall clock struck eleven. The dim light in the hallway shone on her tired face, stretching her shadow very long, like a thin ghost.
"Where the hell have you been? You're back so late!"
Mother-in-law Zhang Shumin's voice came from the kitchen, accompanied by a muffled "dong" sound - that was the sound of a rolling pin hitting the chopping board.
Feng Yulan didn't respond, but silently took off her supermarket work jacket and hung it on the paint-peeled hook behind the door.
"I'm talking to you! Are you deaf?"
Zhang Shumin suddenly appeared at the kitchen door, clutching the shiny rolling pin. A woman in her fifties, her back straight, her short, dyed-black hair neatly tucked behind her ears, her eyes like two shiny black beans, strikingly sharp against her wrinkled face.
"Supermarket inventory, working overtime." Feng Yulan answered softly, her voice dry as if she hadn't had a drink of water in a long time.
"Bullshit!" Zhang Shumin's rolling pin banged against the door frame again, making a frightening sound. "I think you're going to seduce some random guy, right?"
Feng Yulan did not refute, but just lowered her head and changed into her home slippers - a pair of plastic slippers with worn edges and a crack on the big toe of her right foot.
"Kneel down."
Feng Yulan's body executed the command before her brain. Her knees slammed heavily on the hardwood floor, and pain climbed up her bones, but her face showed no expression.
Zhang Shumin weighed the rolling pin in her hand and asked, "Do you know the origin of this rolling pin?"
Feng Yulan shook her head. Of course, she didn't know that this rolling pin had already broken three times, and each time Zhang Shumin had carefully wrapped it with tape and continued to use it.
"This is what I brought when I got married," Zhang Shumin's voice suddenly softened, her fingers stroking the varying shades of oil stains on the rolling pin. "It's been around for over 30 years, and it's almost as good as new."
Feng Yulan stared at the floor in silence. She remembered Zhang Shuo saying that Zhang Shumin had bought the rolling pin from a flea market, but she insisted it was a dowry, and no one dared to refute her.
"But ever since I married you," Zhang Shumin's voice suddenly turned cold, "this family has been in chaos."
When the rolling pin smacked Feng Yulan's back with the sound of wind, she only swayed slightly. The sound of wood hitting her body was muffled, but the pain was unmistakable.
One, two, three... Feng Yulan counted as calmly as if she was counting goods in a supermarket.
"You're unfaithful to your husband!" Zhang Shumin cursed with every slap. "I'll make sure you come home late!"
"Tell you to talk back!"
"Let you seduce men!"
Feng Yulan knew what her mother-in-law's last sentence was referring to - the last time a supermarket employee "dropped by" to give her a ride home, Zhang Shumin saw it from the window. That night, she was punished by being forced to clean the entire floor of the house on her knees.
At the twelfth blow from the rolling pin, the sound of a door lock turning interrupted this one-sided punishment. Zhang Shumin immediately dropped the weapon, and the angry wrinkles on her face instantly softened into a kind smile: "Xiao Shuo is back?"
Zhang Shuo pushed open the door and entered, still wearing his security uniform. He was tall and broad-shouldered, but he hunched his back as he walked, as if to minimize his presence. Seeing his wife kneeling on the ground and his mother holding a rolling pin, his expression remained calm.
"Mom, I'm hungry." Zhang Shuo put the key on the tray in the entrance hall, his movements exactly the same as his mother's.
Zhang Shumin immediately put down her rolling pin and said, "The meal is already ready. We're just waiting for you to come back and eat."
She turned to Feng Yulan, her voice cold again, "Why don't you go heat up the food?"
Feng Yulan stood up silently, her knees cracking under the weight. As she passed Zhang Shuo, she caught a faint whiff of cigarette smoke from him—even though he had quit smoking three years earlier.
In the kitchen, Feng Yulan mechanically operated the microwave. Through the crack in the door, she could hear the conversation between mother and son in the living room.
"How was work today?" Zhang Shumin's voice was full of concern.
"Same old as always," Zhang Shuo replied. "Boss Wang praised me for my diligence on duty."
When Feng Yulan brought out the hot dishes, Zhang Shuo was sitting at the dining table, staring at his phone, without even looking at his wife.
"Xiao Shuo, try this sparerib." Zhang Shumin picked up a piece of meat and put it in her son's bowl. "I asked Yulan to buy it specially for her."
Feng Yulan quietly filled a bowl of rice and sat at the edge of the table. She picked up a piece of vegetable with her chopsticks, but Zhang Shumin knocked it away with her chopsticks.
"Did I ask you to eat?" the mother-in-law glared at her. "You come back so late and still have the nerve to eat?"
Feng Yulan put down her chopsticks. She wasn't hungry; she just followed the eating habits out of habit. In fact, she often couldn't remember when she had last eaten.
Zhang Shuo finally looked up at her, his eyes as calm as if he were looking at a piece of furniture: "Mom told you not to eat, so don't eat."
Feng Yulan nodded, then stood up and went to the kitchen to clean up. Behind her, she could hear Zhang Shumin's smug hum and the sound of Zhang Shuo chewing. As the water rushed over the dishes, she stared at her own reflection in the window—a woman of thirty who looked as haggard as fifty.
She wasn't ugly; she could even be considered pretty. But long-term lack of sleep and malnutrition had left her complexion sallow and prematurely wrinkled around her eyes. Most striking was the faint scar on her right cheek—a mark Zhang Shuo had inflicted two years ago by burning her with a cigarette after getting drunk.
After cleaning the kitchen, Feng Yulan tiptoed towards the bathroom. As she passed the master bedroom, she heard Zhang Shumin showing her son the new clothes she had bought.
"This is made of great material, pure wool," my mother-in-law boasted. "I used all my connections to get it for me."
Feng Yulan leaned against the wall, suddenly remembering her school days when she, too, loved shopping for clothes. Back then, she and her bestie would often go to the mall on weekends, trying on all sorts of beautiful clothes. Although they couldn't afford to buy them, the very act of trying them on was enough to bring them joy. Thinking back on those days now, they seemed like a lifetime ago.
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