Chapter 164
In fact, Jiang Ma is very hard-working. In such a cold day, she sits in the fire barrel and makes meatballs. Aren’t her hands cold?
It’s so cold that my fingers are red from the cold.
When Jiang Ning was a child, there were no fire buckets. She was a small person, not much taller than a table, and her fingertips were so frozen that they seemed numb. In winter, adults' clothes were too heavy for her to wash. When the clothes were put into the water, she couldn't even lift them out. Whenever Aunt Jiang saw this, she would help her wash them.
She watched Jiang Bai cleaning the room silently like an outsider. She knew that Jiang Bai recognized this family from the bottom of his heart. In his heart, he was a member of this family and had the responsibility to build it well.
To him, his parents were partial to his elder brother but they did not expel him from the family. This family always accepted him.
But no matter in the past life or this life, she was not a part of this family. She was always excluded from this family. They believed from the bottom of their hearts that she belonged to someone else's family.
I don’t know if it’s the butterfly effect, but in this life, Jiang’s father earns much more money than in his previous life at this time. He builds his house earlier, and the house is taller and bigger than in his previous life. Even the location has changed.
There was no Jiang Hehua in the previous life. The Jiang family's homestead was just a little below the old house, and there was a ready-made waterproof platform. If a house was to be built for Jiang Bai in the future, it could be built at the original address of the house, or at the mud house where the great-grandmother lived in her old age, which was later used as a pigpen. In this way, the two brothers could live close to each other. Even if the original pigpen was demolished and a new bungalow was built for Jiang's father and mother to live in when they got old, the two brothers could live with them and it would be convenient for them to take care of them.
She looked at this house which was different from that in her previous life. Her heart felt like there was a big hole. The snow-white walls and snow-white floor tiles looked like a ridiculous snow cave in her eyes. The whiter the house in reality was, the bigger and more desolate the snow cave in her heart was. It was as if a big hand was desperately pulling her into the boundless and icy snow cave. She struggled desperately at the entrance of the cave.
This made her panic. She wanted to go out and pull Grandpa Jiang away from here. She wanted to leave here immediately.
Grandpa Jiang had finished touring the new house and, with his hands behind his back, he walked on the snowy road and went up to the platform.
Two familiar old men were missing from the high platform at the entrance of the village. According to the old people who were listening to storytelling around the radio on the platform, one of them died in the second half of the year, and the other died last month. Both are gone.
Grandpa Jiang seemed to have gotten used to it.
After he turned 40, the familiar people in his life began to leave one after another. He also got used to seeing off old colleagues and old friends one after another. Grandpa Jiang also had the psychological expectation that one day it would be his turn.
He just wanted to come back every year to see the old friends who were still there. But after just one year, he might miss some of the familiar old friends and never see them again.
Grandpa Jiang would be silent for a while, sigh for a while, and then ask: "He looked healthy, why did he pass away so early?"
Not long after, the old men on the platform began to brag happily one after another. The one who boasted the loudest was, of course, Grandpa Jiang, who had two grandchildren who were college students, and one who was admitted to Beijing University!
I didn’t go home for the Chinese New Year last year, and he was so depressed!
Jiang Ma was still calling downstairs: "Ning Ning! Ning Ning! You're back now, why don't you help with some chores? Do you think you're a big shot? Your brother knows to sweep the house with a broom, but you're sitting upstairs embroidering, and you haven't moved even after being called for a long time."
Jiang Ning walked down the stairs slowly, and at the entrance, she saw Jiang Bai who was cleaning diligently.
Jiang Bai didn't know that the house he was working so hard to clean was not actually his home.
This house belongs to Jiang Song. It was left to him by Jiang's father and mother. It was their beloved eldest son whom they hoped would come back when he got old.
After they got married, neither she nor Jiang Bai had the right to live here.
Jiang Song also promised that when he gets old, he will return to his hometown village to retire.
Jiang Ning even felt that Jiang Song was sincere when he said this and he really meant it.
He said a lot of sincere words, but he always let people down, let down those who trusted him and loved him, family, friendship, and love, one by one.
In the end, those who were hurt by him left him one by one.
When Jiang Ning came down, he saw Jiang Ma cutting slices of meat, sprinkling starch on both sides of the slices, covering them with white gauze, and beating them with a mallet. The lean meat mixed with sweet potato starch was beaten as thin as a cicada's wing. When eating hot pot in winter, it can be dipped in a boiling pot and become very tender.
Seeing Jiang Ning coming down, she pointed with her chin at the minced meat and lotus root next to her and complained, "You are already eighteen years old, a grown-up girl, but how come you don't care about work? Your brother knows how to sweep the floor, but you are sitting in the show building and refusing to come down. You really think you are a guest."
She kept mumbling, "Your father and I came back late. We just got home last night. Tomorrow is New Year's Eve. There are so many things to do. Fortunately, your aunt asked Ahao to send rice, flour and rice cakes this morning. This meat was also sent by your aunt, otherwise we would have no meat for the New Year."
Seeing Jiang Ning's slow movements, Jiang's mother was furious: "Hurry up!"
Jiang Ning said: "I'll wash my hands."
While Jiang's mother was pounding the meat, she was sitting on the side making meatballs.
There was not a single extra word exchanged between the mother and daughter, except for the dull thumping sound of the mallet in Mother Jiang's hand hitting the slices of meat on the gauze.
While knocking on the door, Jiang's mother kept nagging, "I don't know what you'll do in the future. Who would dare to marry someone as lazy as you? Look, every young girl rushes to work when she comes home. It's okay for you at home now, but if you're still like this when you get to your husband's house, people will criticize you and scold you. You must not be lazy when you get to your husband's house, okay?"
She worked very skillfully and soon finished covering a piece of gauze with slices of meat. She tore them off the gauze one by one and spread them flat in a clean bamboo sieve.
She used her understanding of the world and how women survive in this world to teach Jiang Ning.
Jiang Ning rubbed the lotus root meatballs in her hands and asked Jiang's mother: "Mom, were you also beaten by your grandmother every day when you were a child?"
In the few memories Jiang Ning had from childhood, her grandmother was a very gentle person who never spoke loudly.
Mother Jiang was stunned for a moment, not knowing what she was thinking of. Her eyes turned red and she shook her head and said, "I am the eldest sister in the family, who dares to hit me?" There was some pride in her tone when she said this.
Jiang Ning asked in confusion: "Then why do you always hit me?"
Jiang Ma glared at him and said, "You asked for it. You deserve it!"
Jiang Ning responded to her with silence.
Mother Jiang also fell silent and recalled her childhood.
All her childhood memories were of her grandmother scolding Grandma Jiang, from one end of the village to the other, scolding her for being lazy and gluttonous. Even when she was pregnant, she would scold her for several hours if she ate a handful of beans. Because Grandma Jiang was also a woman with bound feet, she could not do heavy work and could only do some sewing, mending and cleaning at home.
Her grandmother was her grandfather's later wife, Grandpa Jiang's stepmother and Grandma Jiang's stepmother. She had no children of her own, but adopted a baby girl who was washed down by the mountain stream and lay in a wooden basin. She gave all the delicious food to the baby girl, and did not give it to her and her brothers, sisters, and brothers. She never beat or scolded her husband's son born to his previous wife, that is, Jiang Ma's father, but she often scolded Grandma Jiang with all kinds of ugly words.
Mother Jiang grew up watching Grandma Jiang being insulted in various ways. Her grandmother scolded Grandma Jiang for not being able to do work outside the home, so she worked very hard, taking care of everything at home and outside the home, hoping to make Grandma Jiang's life better. Grandma Jiang gave birth to seven children in total. She had bound feet and could not take care of the children, so her younger brothers and sisters were all raised by Mother Jiang, who carried one on her back and held two by her hands.
Even so, her grandmother still scolded Grandma Jiang every day. On the third day after she gave birth, she drove Grandma Jiang out to herd cattle, which required her to wade through the icy mountain stream. The day before she gave birth, she also asked Grandma Jiang to fetch water. Mother Jiang couldn't bear to see this, so she took over the burden on Grandma Jiang's shoulders and grunted as she carried two full buckets of water that only men had the strength to carry.
Grandma Jiang couldn't work on the embankment, so when she was fourteen or fifteen years old, she followed the adults in the village to work on the embankment. She couldn't carry it, so she gritted her teeth and persevered. She thought that as long as she could do it and do all the work that Grandma Jiang couldn't do outside, her grandmother would not scold Grandma Jiang.
How did her reputation for her ability in her youth spread? That's how it got out.
Mother Jiang may not have realized that her current personality is not at all like Grandma Jiang. Instead, it is exactly like her step-grandmother whom she disliked when she was a child.
Mother Jiang didn't realize all this, she just thought of her mother and her eyes turned red.
She said: "Your grandma is very smart and capable. No matter what pattern, she can embroider it after just one look. The tiger-head shoes and bellybands you wore when you were little were all embroidered by your grandma." When talking about Grandma Jiang, Jiang's mother's tone was full of admiration: "Your grandma suffered from a pair of bound feet and could not walk. Your grandpa was the team leader at that time. Your grandma helped your grandpa to calculate many accounts behind the scenes."
Jiang Ning also remembered that the pillowcases, pillowcases and quilt covers that Jiang's mother brought as a dowry when she got married were all embroidered with many auspicious patterns, and looked very beautiful.
When she thinks back to the pillowcases, pillowcases and sheets embroidered with various patterns, as well as the tiger-head shoes and small clothes they wore when they were young, she feels that Jiang Ma must have been loved by Grandma Jiang. It is obvious that she put a lot of time and energy into embroidery. If she didn't love Jiang Ma, she wouldn't have embroidered so many exquisite and complicated auspicious patterns.
Grandma Jiang is slender and weak, while Mother Jiang is strong and healthy. Grandma Jiang has three-inch golden lotus feet, and Mother Jiang has a pair of thirty-nine-inch big feet. Grandma Jiang is very weak and sick all year round. Mother Jiang has been working like a cow since she was a child.
To use Jiang Ma’s own words to describe herself, “I am a reincarnated cow, destined to work like a cow and a horse all my life.”
Apart from looking like Grandma Jiang, Jiang's mother's personality also grew up in the completely opposite direction of Grandma Jiang.
Jiang's mother was still talking about how Jiang's grandmother was suppressed and insulted by her grandmother when she was young, but Jiang Ning was lost in her own thoughts.
The women here seem to be trapped in a vicious circle, repeating themselves over and over again. They dare not resist the injustice of fate and the men who oppress them, so they wield knives to oppress women weaker than them.
Jiang Ma's grandmother treated Jiang's grandmother like this, and Jiang Ma treated her like this too.
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