Article 28: The Elder Daughter-in-Law
The eldest brother, Jiang Yeming, remained silent.
So many years have passed, but since Dad passed away, half of the sky has fallen on this family. No one is protecting them anymore, and more and more people are bullying them.
He had become so used to being scolded and slandered that he had long forgotten what resistance was.
In that case, their punches will be even more powerful.
I thought he could get the villagers to help him allocate land today.
My mother used to value the opinions of the villagers the most. She would often say things like, "The villagers will laugh at us, the villagers will talk about us, be careful not to let them see us..."
But she actually drove the villagers away with her insults.
Who knows what they'll say about the Jiang family's child in the future, and how he'll ever be able to hold his head high in the village again.
Jiang Yeming didn't think he was wrong; he even thought his mother was getting senile.
"Mother, I know you've changed a lot lately. It's one thing for you to protect Sanwa and distance yourself from me, but after you made such a scene today, how will we celebrate our child's one-month birthday?"
He pointed angrily at Sanwa, "How will you marry the woman you've chosen for him if it weren't for the help of the people in the village?"
He made a good point, but Song Chunxue didn't want to concern herself with it.
"So they can insult and ostracize me to my face?" she sneered. "In the end, you just don't care about me as your mother."
She almost forgot that the reason for today's commotion was that the eldest brother wanted to divide the land.
Song Chunxue put her hands on her hips and said, "From now on, I'll be good to whoever is good to me. If you want to divide the land, of course I won't let you starve, but how to divide it is up to me."
“Jiang Yeming, things have come to this point. If you can behave yourself and make me happy in the future, I will give you some land. But if you continue to be so ungrateful, then you can just let your father-in-law give you the land.”
"The people in the village are so kind, I want to see if they'll give you any of their land."
After saying that, Song Chunxue turned to Sanwa and said, "Come on, let's go back inside. I have a piece of cloth there. I'll sew you a T-shirt to change into."
The old man was furious and roared, "Mother, what have I done to offend you that you treat me like this!"
"If you had any conscience, you wouldn't ask such a stupid question."
Disappointment doesn't happen overnight, and Song Chunxue didn't want to waste her breath arguing with him.
＊
In the afternoon, before Song Chunxue went out to work in the fields, she discovered that the eldest son and his wife were not in the thatched kiln.
They didn't make mud bricks in the field either.
When she passed by Zhao Yufang's house, she was carrying a basket and about to go out.
"You were really something today. I heard you cursed everyone in the village, and even your eldest son and his wife were so angry that they went back to your parents' house."
Zhao Yufang, dressed in gray, ran up the slope with a smile, ready to catch up with Song Chunxue.
"Wait for me! Why are you running so fast?"
Song Chunxue turned to look at her, "I was afraid you would blame me for scolding your man."
“You’re not wrong to criticize, so who cares?” She took two roasted potatoes out of the basket. “Here, these are from my family and they’re quite sweet.”
Song Chunxue took it, peeled off the skin, and found that the outside was covered in ash.
Where did you bake it?
"It'll be cooked perfectly in the stove. You should try it next time."
Song Chunxue took a bite of the still-warm roasted potato; it tasted delicious, becoming more fragrant the more she chewed.
It would be even better if there were a few more scallions.
They hadn't walked far along the path when they came across a scallion patch, filled with lush green scallions.
"Want some? These are from my garden. I'll go pick some for you."
Following Song Chunxue's gaze, Zhao Yufang knew what she was thinking, and then ran into her own scallion garden.
Song Chunxue thought to herself, "Why is Zhao Yufang being so nice to me these days?"
“Here you go,” Zhao Yufang quickly picked a handful and handed it to her, “I have two more roasted potatoes in this basket, you can have them both.”
Song Chunxue chewed on a scallion and looked at her indifferently, "Why have you been so affectionate with me these past two days? Are you up to something?"
Zhao Yufang slapped her and glared at her, annoyed, "You're not happy even though I'm nice to you? You don't know how to appreciate kindness."
"However, I do need your help with something. My eldest son is getting married, and we're a little short on cash. I remember your family just sold some sheep."
Song Chunxue stopped chewing her potato. "You want to borrow money?"
"Well, I don't have any other acquaintances I can borrow from."
Looking at the thin Zhao Yufang, whose eyes were always wet due to poor health, and the eye discharge in the corners of her eyes was particularly noticeable.
Song Chunxue knew that the two of them were kindred spirits and had been bullied a lot in the village over the years.
"Okay, how much do you want to borrow?"
Zhao Yufang looked at her in surprise and excitedly knocked the potato out of her hand.
"Huh? You're really willing to lend it to me?"
“Getting a daughter-in-law is the most important thing. You can’t just sell your dowry, which doesn’t even fetch much money.”
Song Chunxue remembers that Zhao Yufang's family did not raise sheep, but only two donkeys. Both female donkeys had given birth to foals, one of which did not survive.
One donkey is simply not enough to marry a wife.
Zhao Yufang's health isn't good, and she's not as hardworking and capable as Zhao Yufang, so she hasn't saved much money over the years.
Her two children disliked working and were very cunning; they would go out to earn money but always come back empty-handed.
To raise money, Zhao Yufang sold her dowry, only to be swindled and regret it for the rest of her life.
"Do you have one tael of silver?"
Zhao Yufang smiled cautiously and held up one finger, "Five hundred coins is fine too, I can always scrape together that much."
In Zhao Yufang's memory, Song Chunxue was a notorious miser and a money-grubber; if you mentioned money to her, she would get angry.
If Zhao Yufang hadn't been truly desperate, she wouldn't have asked her for help.
"Two taels, I'll lend you two taels, pay me back at the end of the year."
"..." Zhao Yufang was so excited that she couldn't speak, her small eyes wide with anger.
Song Chunxue glanced at her, pointed to the fork in the road ahead, and said indifferently, "Watch the road. Or are you going to help me hoe the ground and dig up the wormwood?"
“Okay, okay,” Zhao Yufang nodded vigorously. “I’ll hoe the ground and dig up the artemisia for you, as long as you lend me the money.”
She swallowed hard, her voice trembling with excitement. "Are you serious? You really intend to lend me two taels of silver?"
She happened to be short two taels of silver, which was a great relief for her.
She was worried that Song Chunxue was just teasing her and that she was saying that on purpose.
"I'm not lying to you. Come pick it up whenever you have time. I promised and I won't go back on my word." With that, Song Chunxue had already walked quite a distance away.
She was reluctant to lend the money, but Zhao Yufang was in trouble and would repay it quickly. By the end of the year, their little donkey would be ready to be sold, and then she would go and ask for the money back.
Zhao Yufang was the only person she was willing to confide in. She rarely spoke ill of her behind her back, and no matter what others said about her, she was willing to associate with Song Chunxue.
Song Chunxue then helped her this time.
So she needed to save money as soon as possible, pick out the Artemisia capillaris from the grain fields, and then dig up more dandelions in the shady part of the mountain.
Actually, the money that came into their family even faster came from the flock of sheep that Sanwa owned.
Tomorrow she will carry a large basket on her back to feed the sheep the weeds she pulled out of the grain field.
"Song Chunxue, I heard that you've set your sights on Xia Ying for Sanwa. Do you know how much dowry her family is asking for?"
As she passed by the Cheng family's field ridge, the eldest daughter-in-law of the Cheng family asked her a question with a forced smile.
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