Chapter 2 Breakfast
Upon hearing this, Sister-in-law Xue stormed out of the room. Her mother-in-law had previously said that Lin Yuanshu was known for being gentle, capable, and easy to talk to. However, apart from being capable, he was completely lacking in the other two virtues. If Lin Yuanshu was easy to talk to, then there was no one in the world who was not easy to talk to.
If she had known Lin Yuanshu was like this, she should have opposed Lin Yuanshu marrying into the family. She didn't want such a difficult sister-in-law. She thought that country people were easy to bully, but it turned out that she was a thorny caltrop!
Zhou Xiangyang stared at Lin Yuanshan, his face flushed, shrinking into a ball. The person in front of him was too terrifying. He didn't even want to get married, let alone have children.
"I was just joking with my sister-in-law. If I hadn't said that, a whole bunch of people would have come in and made a ruckus during the wedding night. You probably don't want a bunch of people barging in, do you? Are you going to bed or sleep on the floor?" Lin Yuanshu asked politely.
Having a baby! How could that be! She's still just a child!
She knew those people's nature; they only listened to what they wanted to hear and had no sense of boundaries. Even if she said she wasn't feeling well, they would still try to come in and check, just to make their presence known.
Zhou Xiangyang paused for a moment, then pointed to the ground. The person in front of him was really clever. He didn't like wedding night pranks or having other people in the room, including the person in front of him.
"Okay, then I'll go to sleep first. Do as you please." Lin Yuanshu was really too tired. Even though the wedding procedures in the 1970s were so simple, he still felt exhausted from the bottom of his heart.
Looking at Lin Yuanshu, who had fallen asleep instantly, Zhou Xiangyang admired the man's composure. Despite being in an unfamiliar place, Lin Yuanshu acted as if he were at home, while Zhou Xiangyang himself seemed rather reserved.
He wiped the floor of the room with a tattered towel, then carefully opened the cabinet door, took out a thin quilt from the cabinet, spread it on the floor, and took the pillows off the bed and placed them on top of the quilt.
When he sleeps, he has to cover himself with something, regardless of how hot it is. So he uses a faded blue sheet as a blanket. Even though he is in his own room, he feels like an outsider.
After doing all this, as he was about to go to sleep, he suddenly remembered something. He quickly used his key to open the wooden box under the bed, took out a packet of glutinous rice strips wrapped in oil paper, gently placed it on the desk, opened the package, and then peacefully fell asleep.
On the other side, Sister-in-law Xue went out alone. When the neighbors saw that she was the only one coming out, they asked with smiles, "Where's the bride?"
The reason they didn't ask Zhou Xiangyang wasn't because they didn't value him, but because they had known him for so many years and understood his personality. Asking him to come out and greet them was like taking his life.
Sister-in-law Xue forced a smile and explained, "She's not feeling well."
Upon hearing this, the neighboring aunties all chimed in, "Are you alright? Should we go to the hospital?"
"Feeling unwell on the first day of the wedding is not a good omen."
"If the bride won't come out, we can go in!"
"That's right! We're not the kind of neighbors who don't care if it's none of our business."
Hearing this, Sister-in-law Xue was afraid that the neighbors would witness an awkward scene, so she quickly refused, saying, "No need, she's just too tired. She'll be fine after a nap. Don't worry about her."
Seeing that Sister-in-law Xue said this, the others didn't dare to insist on going in.
Aunt Wei, the neighbor next door, walked up to Aunt Zhou and whispered, "Your daughter-in-law's personality isn't much different from your son's, is it? Neither of them likes to join in the fun. My daughter-in-law is so much better; she does whatever you ask her to do!"
Zhou Ma's face immediately turned ugly, and she retorted without hesitation, "How could that be! She's just not feeling well, and you'll see her tomorrow."
Aunt Wei laughed heartily and said, "I hope he won't be like your youngest son, appearing and disappearing like a ghost."
Zhou Ma gave a polite smile, then walked up to Xue Da Sao with a grim expression and scolded, "What's wrong with you! I asked you to call someone, and you couldn't even do that. What can you do besides eat!"
Sister-in-law Xue said with great grievance, "I have tried my best to persuade her, but she keeps saying that she is not feeling well and that she has to complete the task of carrying on the family line so that you can hold your grandson as soon as possible."
After hearing what Sister-in-law Xue said, Aunt Zhou felt a little better. Looking at Sister-in-law Xue's aggrieved face, she was furious and said impatiently, "Look at her, how enlightened she is. She wanted me to hold her grandson as soon as she married in. Unlike you, you've been married in for five years and haven't laid a single egg. If you were a chicken from the countryside, you would have been eaten long ago. You useless piece of trash."
Sister-in-law Xue was speechless. It turned out that she was the only one in the family who was suffering. She was threatened by her sister-in-law one minute and scolded by her mother the next. Where could she go to seek justice?
She suddenly didn't want to tell her mother about her sister-in-law's mismatch with the description anymore. The wicked need another wicked person to teach them a lesson!
Aunt Wei approached her daughter-in-law with a smile and asked warmly, "Yiyi, are you tired? Do you want to go back and rest?"
Although Sun Yiyi was a little tired, she still declined, saying, "It's okay. I enjoy chatting with everyone. I really envy Mom for having such good neighbors."
Aunt Wei glared at Sun Yiyi, feigning displeasure, and retorted, "You're wrong about that. She's your neighbor now."
“Then others should envy me,” Sun Yiyi readily changed her tune.
The older women laughed heartily, praising Sun Yiyi.
"You've made a good daughter-in-law; she speaks so sweetly, your family won't need to buy candy anymore."
"I didn't expect your daughter-in-law to be so poised and elegant. I was too late!"
Aunt Wei glanced at Aunt Zhou with a proud look. They were neighbors, but over the years they had been trying to outdo each other. Their family situations were similar, and their spouses' jobs were similar. They used to live in a courtyard house, and then moved to a tenement building together. The only difference was that she had one son, while Aunt Zhou had two sons.
However, it's no use for Aunt Zhou to have two sons, since her younger son is not normal. Now it's time to compare daughters-in-law. It seems that the daughter-in-law she chose is obviously better than Aunt Zhou's daughter-in-law.
Even though Aunt Wei didn't say a word, Aunt Zhou knew what Aunt Wei wanted to say. She thought to herself, "What's the use of nice words? There's plenty of time. I will definitely make my daughter-in-law pregnant soon."
At four o'clock in the morning, Lin Yuanshu woke up from her sleep. She touched her stomach and realized she was hungry. Just as she was about to wake Zhou Xiangyang, she smelled a peculiar oily aroma.
The room was so small that she easily spotted the snacks on the table. She was surprised that Zhou Xiangyang was so thoughtful, knowing that she hadn't eaten much that night, and had specially prepared snacks for her.
She picked up a stick of glutinous rice and ate it. Perhaps because she was hungry, she found it quite delicious even though it was cloyingly sweet.
After filling his stomach, Lin Yuanshu felt the urge to urinate, so he took out a flashlight from the drawer and went to the toilet outside. The small room had its advantages; things were easier to find, since there was very little space to put things.
At the end of the corridor was the restroom, which was divided into men's and women's restrooms. She didn't know what the men's restroom looked like, but she knew that the women's restroom had four squat toilets with no doors and only a partition in the middle, offering no privacy whatsoever. She had no choice but to accept it.
At least it was a flush toilet, not a dry toilet. The dry toilets in the production team were truly indescribable, making it impossible to even step inside.
The toilets in the tenement building are cleaned daily by cleaners from the chemical plant, so they don't look that dirty or messy.
After using the toilet, Lin Yuanshu walked to the corner of the toilet, scooped a ladle of water from the wooden bucket and poured it into the toilet. The water pressure was not high, so he had to do it himself.
She turned on the public faucet outside the restroom and rinsed her mouth with water. It seemed she would need to go out to buy some essential household items tomorrow.
Just as Lin Yuanshu turned to leave, he bumped into Zhou Ma. She was speechless; how could she encounter someone with such a low probability of meeting her?
"Mom," Lin Yuanshu called out softly.
Aunt Zhou glanced at Lin Yuanshu and said in a serious tone, "We're having steamed buns for breakfast today, so you need to get up early to make breakfast."
The first step to being a good daughter-in-law is to make breakfast for the whole family on the second day after the wedding.
Lin Yuanshu blinked and pretended to be stupid, saying, "Mom, in order to better complete the task of carrying on the family line, I'm prepared to fight until dawn, so you don't need to wait for me to have breakfast."
Aunt Zhou paused for a moment, her expression complex, and said, "There's no need to work so hard."
She didn't know whether to say her son had worked hard or her daughter-in-law had worked hard!
Lin Yuanshu frowned, his face full of disapproval. "Mom, don't you want to hold your grandson soon? Do you know why my sister-in-law doesn't have a child yet? It's because of your lack of enthusiasm. Reproduction is the most important thing for humanity. Everything else has to take a backseat. If humanity doesn't reproduce, one day, humanity will disappear into the long river of history..."
Zhou Ma was stunned by Lin Yuanshu's words, as if stopping Lin Yuanshu's actions would lead to the extinction of humanity.
Only after Lin Yuanshu's figure had completely disappeared from sight did she realize that her initial goal was to have Lin Yuanshu make breakfast! She hadn't expected to be fooled by Lin Yuanshu.
Lin Yuanshu happily returned to her room to sleep, following in her mother-in-law's footsteps and leaving her with nowhere to go. No one was better at moral blackmail than her.
The next morning, Sister-in-law Xue was woken up early to make breakfast. She complained bitterly, "Shouldn't this be the new bride's job? It's not right that I'm making breakfast on my second day after I got married, and my sister-in-law is making breakfast on her second day after she got married!"
Zhou Ma pursed her lips and scolded without any politeness: "Just make breakfast when I tell you to, why are you talking so much?"
Sister-in-law Xue looked at Zhou Ma in disbelief. She hadn't expected Zhou Ma to be so biased, just because she couldn't have children! So she unconditionally favored her sister-in-law.
Aunt Zhou coughed lightly twice and said in a low voice, "Stop thinking about sleeping all day long. The important thing is to let me hold my grandson as soon as possible."
Hearing this, Sister-in-law Xue felt even more aggrieved. She had tried her best and tried all sorts of folk remedies and traditional Chinese medicine, but she still couldn't get pregnant. What could she do?
The communal kitchen was packed with people, so she had to set up a makeshift kitchen in the corridor. The makeshift kitchen was simply a coal stove that she had taken from her parents' room and used a silver-white aluminum pot to cook porridge.
A passing neighbor saw that it was Sister-in-law Xue cooking and asked curiously, "Why are you cooking? Where's the new bride?"
Sister-in-law Xue glanced at her neighbor, hesitated, and then sighed heavily.
She seemed to say nothing, yet she also seemed to say everything.
The neighbor immediately realized that Aunt Zhou's new daughter-in-law was no pushover.
After Zhou's father and elder brother finished breakfast and went to work, Lin Yuanshu still did not come out of his room.
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