20. 020 Grandma Ping An is deflated
On the third floor of the old family compound, Grandma Ping'an pushed open the door carrying an empty basin. She saw the dishes and chopsticks that Ping'an hadn't washed on the table when she came downstairs. "Lazy woman," she muttered under her breath, putting the basin down and striding towards the bedroom facing the main door. Without knocking, she slammed the door open. "Second daughter-in-law, why didn't you wash the dishes on the table? Come out and clean them up! You're always hiding inside whenever you have a spare moment. You've become so lazy, yet you never seem to eat a bite less."
"Mom, I'm tired from work. You stay home all day and don't do any housework, so you can wash the clothes for me." Zhao Wen's wife lay in bed, unwilling to get up. She took advantage of the fact that her husband was also in bed, and her mother-in-law couldn't do anything about it.
"If I don't do any work, who washes your dog skin? I wash all the clothes for the whole family. You lazy woman, you're so lazy and slovenly. If I don't wash your underwear, you won't change it for a month. You'll smell stinky as soon as you spread your legs." Grandma Ping'an got more and more into her rant, almost saying that marrying her was like having her ancestral graves splattered with excrement.
"That's enough!" Zhao Wen shouted, pointing at his mother and yelling, "You may be shameless, but I am! What kind of nonsense are you spouting? Don't you think our family's affairs are enough to make outsiders laugh?"
The room next door belonged to his older brother and his wife. The people upstairs and downstairs were all colleagues from the same factory. Whenever his mother scolded his wife, she would bring up his underwear. He was laughed at by countless people.
Normally, Granny Liu would have kept quiet after being scolded by her son, but she was just washing clothes downstairs when someone asked her if her son-in-law had brought her anything. That's when she found out that Ning Jin had returned and brought a lot of things to pick up his stepson. She was already angry because she had been laughed at, so she wasn't going to let this lazybones get away with it.
"You deserve to be laughed at. Who told you to be blind and marry a lazy woman? She doesn't wash the dishes or cook. Her clothes are left hanging on chairs for two days before being put back on. When I die, you two will be more pathetic than the homeless people in the countryside."
Zhao Wen was utterly berated. He pointed at his mother and cursed her as an old hag, then kicked the woman who was still lying peacefully in bed. "Get out and wash the dishes! I must have been out of my mind to blow out the kerosene lamp just to save a couple of cents!"
Whenever this matter is mentioned, An Xiaocao feels guilty and short of breath. When they were initially looking for a husband, she asked her cousin for help, but when she got married, the person under the red cloth was changed to her. Back then, it wasn't yet 1960, there was no electricity, and they used kerosene lamps for lighting. After all that trouble in the dark, when she woke up in the morning and found that the person had changed, there was nothing she could do. The deed was done, and since she was so dramatic, the Zhao family reluctantly accepted it, but they simply stopped having any contact with her family.
After receiving a good scolding, An Xiaocao hastily rinsed the dishes. Hearing noises upstairs and downstairs, she knew it was time to go to work. "That old hag, she's kept me up all night with all those dishes," she muttered under her breath, wiping her hands on her clothes and rolling her eyes as she hurried toward the outhouse.
What a joke! They live in a building belonging to a food factory, and not a single person in their family works there. And yet they still look down on her.
After everyone in the house had left, Granny Liu, also known as Ping An, planned to go back to her room to lie down for a while. There were four bedrooms in the house: one for each of her two sons, one for each of her grandsons, and one for her and her two granddaughters. She lay on her wooden bed, tossing and turning for a while, but still couldn't suppress her burning desire. She put on her shoes and went out. She was going to the Ning family to see if that bastard Ning Jin had been bewitched by a vixen.
Yes, she believed that since Ping An had stayed at her house for several days, but Ning Jin had returned without bringing anything, he must have been stopped by his second wife.
When she arrived, Ning Jin was making a slingshot for his son, because Xiao Yuan had a slingshot given to him by his cousin, and he wanted one too.
"Ping An's dad, when did you get back? I was wondering why Ping An had suddenly disappeared." Granny Liu walked in, picked up a clod of dirt and threw it at the dog that was barking at her, then naturally went into the main room to bring out a stool to sit down.
"I came back a couple of days ago, Auntie. Why did you come all of a sudden?" Ning Jin asked, putting down the slingshot that was almost finished in her hand.
"I came to check on Ping An. He suddenly stayed at my house for several days before, but when I asked him if he had been bullied, he wouldn't say. Now he's suddenly stopped coming. I'm worried he might have been beaten, so I come to check on him whenever I have time." Granny Liu touched her sleeve, her eyes scanning everything in the room, her tone quite worried.
"It's alright. Ping An has a good relationship with his mother, and she's not a bad person. He went to your house to visit relatives, and he had no one to play with at home. His mother washes his clothes every day after he comes back. It doesn't look like he's being bullied at all. Auntie, don't overthink things. If you have nothing better to do, you could make a few matchboxes to buy your grandson a sweet treat." Ning Jin was practically telling him to mind his own business.
"What the hell? There's only one Ping An's mother, my Xiao Yi. Even though she's dead, Ping An's mother can't be anyone else." Granny Liu was dissatisfied with the title and even more dissatisfied with his words. She earnestly instructed Ning Jin: "You can know a person's face but not their heart. Bad people don't have 'bad person' written on their faces. Besides, you're not often at home, so even if she does something bad, you won't know. Children are even more forgetful; they'll forget everything after a good night's sleep."
She glanced at Ning Jin's expression and tentatively suggested, "How about we do it the way we used to? Every time you drive your delivery truck, you can have Ping An stay at my place for a few days. I'll keep an eye on things for you."
"No need. I married Su Yu because I trust her. Besides, Ping An has grandparents, uncles, aunts, and other relatives. Your family has quite a few children too. I'll tell Ping An to avoid causing you trouble at your house. He doesn't sleep or eat well when he stays at your house for a few days, and he's even lost weight."
The disdain in his words annoyed Granny Liu, but she still wanted the things, so she forced a smile and said, "It's not that your two brothers-in-law are useless and prolific, so there are too many mouths to feed and they can't eat or drink well. Unlike you, you have a high salary and extra income, and you even dry the fish you can't finish."
Ning Jin said the fish was a gift from Su Yu, “Auntie, you have two sons and a daughter, so don’t complain about being poor in front of your former son-in-law. If people find out, Uncle Ping An will lose face. It’s not like you don’t have children. Why would you make your old mother go out to beg for money?”
Seeing his former mother-in-law's face flushed with anger, he said that he had to support his family with the money he earned. He had his own parents and would have more children in the future, so he wouldn't spend money on his former mother-in-law's family. "Auntie, if you're willing to take care of Ping An, that's because you're a grandmother thinking of your grandson. If you're not willing, I won't blame you. After all, you're also relying on your son for a living."
Unable to be persuaded by reason, Granny Liu never expected that in just six months, her youngest son-in-law would completely side with the vixen. What would happen if the vixen had another child? "It's true that once you have a stepmother, you need a stepfather. Poor Ping An, I can't help him. The poor child should go with his mother. He's left to suffer in this world." She sincerely felt sorry for her grandson.
“You didn’t go with your mother, nor with your old man, nor with your daughter. How could my son go with his mother? He still has to see you off to your grave.” Upon hearing the old woman curse his son to die young, Ning Jin, regardless of whether it was a slip of the tongue or not, cursed her fiercely with a dark face and chased her out of the house. “Don’t come to my house again. My son is unlucky. His mother is dead and he still has to be cursed to die young by you, his own grandmother. Don’t ever step into my house again.”
Ignoring what others thought, he locked the door behind him, walked out with a gloomy face, and didn't even acknowledge the person who spoke to him.
"That's not what I meant. I just said the wrong thing without thinking," Granny Liu explained to Ning Jin's retreating figure, then cried out to the old women who were coaxing the child, "I would rather curse myself to death than curse Ping An. He is my own grandson."
"Ningjin was just angry for a moment, don't take it to heart. You're Ping An's maternal grandmother, how could we not let you visit?" someone advised.
Someone offered a way out, and Granny Liu took it, entrusting her child to someone else, saying, "I can't speak well, and I'm not well-liked. I live far away, and I'm troubling you neighbors. If the child is beaten, I'll have to ask you to speak up for him. Ping An is still young. If he's beaten, scolded, or bullied, there's no one to stand up for him. I'm afraid he'll be threatened and I won't dare tell his father."
While everyone else was responding, Aunt Wu, who was sitting under the tree pasting matchboxes, said, "Sister-in-law, you're overthinking it. This isn't the old society. Why are you talking like Su Yu is trying to kill Ping An? I spend my days pasting matchboxes in the alley and I'm a light sleeper at night. I haven't heard your grandson cry, but I've heard him laugh quite a bit. The child has gotten fatter and taller. When people get old, it's time to enjoy their retirement. Let's not worry about things and interfere with the young people's families."
After Granny Ping An left with a dark face, someone asked Aunt Wu why she suddenly spoke up for Su Yu. Had she received a bribe?
"Am I not telling the truth? Has anyone heard Ping An cry?" Aunt Wu was the one who tried to smooth things over when Su Yu and Du Xiaojuan were arguing that day. She tossed the pasted matchbox into the basket, cracked her knuckles, and continued, "Seven out of ten stepmothers are wicked. We don't know about the other two, but there's always one good one. I don't think Su Yu is wicked. She used to have a bitter look on her face, but now..." Aunt Wu shook her head. She couldn't quite describe Su Yu's personality, "but she doesn't seem like the kind of person who would do dirty things."
When Su Yu came home from get off work that evening, Ning Jin told her about what happened that afternoon while she was chopping vegetables, pleading with her: "You should have noticed by now that Ping An is a bit slow-witted. To put it nicely, he's clueless; to put it bluntly, he's easy to coax and doesn't learn from his mistakes. He must have heard some unpleasant things at his grandma's house. I'm worried he'll be influenced by his grandma. Could you please stop him from going to his grandma's house when I'm not home?"
Su Yu was not going to take on this heavy responsibility. Even if she didn't do it, people would still say she was wrong. If she stopped Ping An from going to his maternal grandparents' house, the child didn't know what he could and couldn't say. If he blurted it out, she would be in big trouble. People outside would talk about her, and if Ping An's grandmother came and slapped her, her father probably wouldn't even have the face to come and ask for justice for her.
“Your words are worth ten or a hundred of mine. If you don’t want him to go, promise to take him to his maternal grandparents’ house when you’re resting. If he wants to go to his grandparents’ house, it’s because he’s not comfortable staying at home. If I stop him from leaving, he’ll have even more ideas.” Su Yu politely refused.
“You’re right, then I’ll talk to him.” He didn’t say anything more after being rejected. He didn’t want to talk to Ping An because he didn’t want to hear him ask why, and he had to make up reasons to fool him, which was too troublesome.
"By the way, let's send Ping'an and Xiaoyuan to school this year. They're already seven or eight years old and still can't count. While you're still at home, go and ask around to see if there's anything you need to prepare for school." Su Yu didn't know about the school enrollment requirements in this era. She was worried that Xiaoyuan wouldn't be able to attend school in the commune, since his household registration was in the village.
"Okay, then I'll go ask about school first and then talk to Ping An."
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