Chapter 382 A mother must be good to herself!
When Li San Niang returned to her courtyard, she saw Qiu Xiang playing cat's cradle with Lu Zhu'er.
"Qiu Xiang, thank you so much. You should go back and rest. You've been working hard all day with me."
After Qiu Xiang left, Li San Niang fetched hot water, washed Lu Zhu'er's hands, face, and feet, and applied fragrant ointment before tucking her into bed.
After telling a story to lull Lu Zhu'er to sleep, Li San Niang couldn't help but think of the story about Yu Niang that she had heard today.
If Yu Niang had divorced him earlier, would this day have been avoided?
Holding Lu Zhu'er in her arms, Li San Niang felt fortunate that Lu Zhu'er was a girl; if she were a boy, the Wang family probably wouldn't have let her go.
Li San Niang even thought that if it were a young man, she might have harbored evil intentions and drugged Wang Ziheng. Being a widow, at least she could raise her own children.
As for what Li Ersao said in the main hall earlier, "With a stepmother comes a stepfather," Li Sanniang neither agreed nor denied it.
Human hearts are made of flesh and blood. There are certainly people of high moral character who do not care about gains and losses, but most people are just ordinary mortals.
Therefore, it is quite normal for someone to treat their own child's older siblings, who have already lost their mother, badly in order to benefit their own child.
But Mother is dead, but Father is still alive, isn't he?
Li San Niang stroked Lu Zhu'er's head, and her mind drifted to the memory of Prince Heng's second wife, his cousin Wu Niang, who had given birth to a young man.
“If Prince Heng doesn’t care about Dewdrop, then I must care about Dewdrop even more and raise her well so that she can live a peaceful, happy and smooth life.”
In fact, Li San Niang had no idea when she was young that her eldest brother was not born to her father, because her father treated her eldest brother and second brother no differently, and even valued her eldest brother more.
Because Li's father felt that his eldest son was "tall and strong, and meticulous in his work, which is what a head of the family should be like."
It wasn't until Li Daxiong got married and needed to pay respects at Sun Datou's memorial tablet that Li Sanniang realized that Li Daxiong was her half-brother.
So you see, just as there are people like Li's father who raise their children with care and dedication even though they have no blood relation to them, there are also people like Wang Ziheng and Xu An who don't care about their children at all.
After sighing to herself a few more times, Li San Niang finally drifted off to sleep.
Even people who have lived in Chang'an for a long time rarely see things like Yu Niang's. Li San Niang pondered this for half the night, and the other members of the Li family also talked about it quite a bit.
Li Erxiong blew out the lamp and quickly lay down in bed. He had only been lying down for a short while when he sighed and came out.
"What's wrong, Erlang?"
Brother Li patted Sister-in-law Li lightly to indicate that he was alright, and then replied, "I was just thinking about the matter of this girl named Yu Niang that I heard about tonight."
In all my years, I have never heard of anything like this. Is this something a single person could do?
Those are my own flesh and blood!
"Hey, Erlang, when have we ever had a shortage of things like this?"
"Isn't that the Wang family, who came from another village and lived at the foot of the mountain in my hometown of Wujia Village, just like that?"
Li Erxiong became curious and asked Li Ersao to tell him in detail.
Li Ersao groped her way to the side in the dark, and when she felt that Xiao Wulang hadn't kicked off the blanket, she turned her head and looked at Li Erxiong in the moonlight outside the window: "The Wang family is poor. When Wang Dalang reached the age, no matchmaker in the countryside was willing to arrange a marriage for him because his father died early and he was raised by his mother."
You have to understand, it's not easy for a widow to raise a child all by herself.
When Wang Pozi was young, she became a widow and started a small, secluded business to make a living, and that's how she raised Wang Dalang.
Brother Li's eyes widened in disbelief; he had never expected things to turn out this way.
"Why don't you remarry? If you remarry, with your children from your previous marriage, surely someone would agree to it?"
"It's just feeding them; once they're grown up, they'll be laborers anyway."
"Sigh, it's all because of the land allocated to the village."
Granny Wang said she would never remarry, and that the land allocated to the Wang family would be rented out first, and then given directly to Wang Dalang when he grew up.
Li Erxiong nodded, feeling that this approach was understandable.
"And then what?"
"In the surrounding villages, who doesn't know that Granny Wang was a half-closed door girl when she was young?"
Therefore, when Wang Dalang reached marriageable age, no one was willing to marry their daughter into his family.
But the family still needed to carry on the family line. Later, for some reason, Granny Wang brought a mentally challenged woman to her house, saying that her distant relatives had too many children and couldn't afford to raise them, so she sent her over to make a living.
And so, the silly girl married Wang Dalang.
But the foolish woman's mother didn't make it to the gates of hell; she died shortly after giving birth, before her postpartum confinement period was over.
Brother Li frowned, a bad feeling creeping into his heart.
"She died before she was even out of her postpartum period, and nobody bothered to investigate?"
"Who cares about rural areas?"
Who would care about a mentally impaired woman with no relatives or friends?
Fortunately, the child was a girl, named Lai Di. Lai Di was healthy and not stupid, and Wang Pozi raised Lai Di.
When Lai Di was less than a year old, the Wang family sold two acres of land and married a widow who brought two young boys with her.
At this point, Li Ersao fell silent and did not continue.
Seeing this, Li Erxiong felt that what was about to happen was probably not a pleasant one.
Li Erxiong didn't urge her, and just waited. After a while, when she had calmed down, Li Ersao continued, "The widow's child was about five or six years older than Lai Di. Once, the village head came to inform the village chief to gather people to the threshing ground to discuss something, so he sent a few fast-moving people to each house to inform them."
Because the Wang family lived at the foot of the mountain, the furthest away, the fastest person went to the Wang family's house.
Li Ersao closed her eyes, thinking about what the young man who had run back had told her, and felt a little stifled.
"When this person arrived at the Wang family's house, the courtyard gate was open, so he went straight in. But after entering, he heard a baby crying. He followed the sound of crying and saw..."
Li Ersao paused, then paused, "I saw the two young boys from the Wang family, who were only eight or nine years old, arranging for the younger sister."
At first, they thought it was just the kids teasing her, but then they changed their perspective and realized that the two of them were naked, facing a naked woman named Lai Di.
"ah!"
That was the exclamation from Brother Li!
Having said that, Li Ersao spoke even faster.
"He was so frightened that he cried out, which was heard by the people inside the house. He turned around and ran to the threshing ground, where he told everyone about it."
Later, the village head took charge and drove the whole family out, taking back the land they had been allocated.
As for Lai Di, she died the day after the incident.
The Wang family's version of events is that he caught a chill, developed a high fever during the night, and died.
The story told by Sister-in-law Li was hard for Brother Li to accept; he couldn't believe that such a vicious person could exist in the world.
“I was already quite old then, thirteen. I remember it very clearly. After that incident, my mother never let me go out alone. Whenever I went out, I was either with my mother or my older brother.”
It's a dirty matter, and the villagers don't allow us to mention it, so that's how it is.
A child who hasn't grown up can't be without their mother; if it's unavoidable, then the mother must take the child with her.
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