88.088 Envy
After everything settled down, Su Yu ran into Liu Quan's ex-wife in the orchard. It was she who took the initiative to greet him, "My name is He Qing. I've heard of you for several years. I heard you only graduated from junior high school. You're quite impressive."
"It's alright," Su Yu replied casually.
"You don't need to be wary of me. I won't hate you because of Liu Quan. On the contrary, I'm quite grateful to you. Without you, I would still have to endure that beheading."
Su Yu didn't respond to that question. Instead, she glanced at her stomach and asked, "Are you feeling alright? Are you close to giving birth?"
“That’s good.” He Qing looked at Su Yu and said, “You must look down on me. Your beating of Liu Quan caused quite a stir, but I, an educated youth from a neighboring village, still married him. You’re not wrong, I was only after his money and his salary. I’ve had enough of farm work and hard life. I feel nauseous at the sight of wild vegetable soup. I just didn’t expect him to be so stingy, mean, and wicked.”
“You don’t need to tell me all this,” Su Yu interrupted her.
“I still want to tell you something. I think you’re different from others. You won’t call me heartless or shameless.” During this time, she had endured countless scornful looks and insults. Even though she had expected it, she still felt aggrieved, which is why she dared to confide in someone who had been persecuted by her child’s father.
"Do you regret it?" Su Yu asked.
"I don't regret it. I got the money, so I don't have to suffer through illness anymore."
"As long as you don't regret it, that's fine. If you don't regret it, then don't complain. Since you've already disregarded other people's opinions from the beginning, then stick to it to the end. You've gained benefits from this marriage, but you've also tasted the bitter fruit. You'll have to raise two children on your own."
In Su Yu's view, having given birth to two children for a scumbag was the greatest suffering; she had lost out.
This was the first time He Qing had heard someone refer to childbirth as a bitter fruit. She smiled, placed her hand on her belly, and smiled lovingly. "Both of my children are sensible, so it's not a bitter fruit. Besides, I have money and can raise them well."
Su Yu paused for a moment, then looked away from her face and made an excuse to leave: "I have things to do in my orchard, so I can't chat with you anymore. Take your time going down the mountain."
She became increasingly certain that she was right not to have children. She would never be as selfless as He Qing, and she would never love her child the same way regardless of who the father was.
He Qing watched as Su Yu walked slowly into the orchard, realizing that she didn't want to hear about this sordid matter. However, Su Yu's attitude eased her anger. She was the one with the most right to despise herself, yet Su Yu was actually pitying her. People are really different.
When Liu Quan, that scumbag, disappeared from the orchard, no one felt it was abrupt. Everyone went about their work and lives as usual, as if he had never been in the orchard at all.
To celebrate the perfect resolution of the matter, Su Yu bought a large piece of mutton from the black market. Since Ning Jin was also home, she cooked a soup pot to make hot pot.
Ning Jin lit a fire in the yard, using tongs to hold honeycomb briquettes and place them in the fire to burn. He staggered, turned his face away, and asked, "Eating mutton in the middle of summer? Aren't you afraid of getting a sore throat?"
"The hotter it is, the more you need to nourish yourself to counteract the heat toxins." Su Yu said nonsense while cutting the mutton. She was just craving it and her mouth was watering just looking at the mutton.
"Just don't cry tomorrow." But Ning Jin still made her some mung bean soup. When he came back, he found out that Liu Quan had been caught, and that he had been caught when Liu Quan came to his house to cause trouble at night. He felt a little bad. If he were at home, Su Yu could at least sleep peacefully without having to worry.
For the first time, he was glad that he and Su Yu hadn't had any more children. If there were another two- or three-year-old child to hinder her, she would be too constrained.
The family of four enjoyed a delicious mutton hot pot meal, but the next morning they all woke up with hoarse voices and blisters on their lips, which took two days of eating porridge to clear up.
"I will never eat mutton in the summer again," Xiao Yuan said.
I don't believe it.
“I don’t believe it either, but I’ll remember this. I’ll slap your mouth every time you eat mutton in the summer,” Ping An said, hanging on the door frame.
"I didn't swear an oath." Xiao Yuan scoffed at him, grabbing his pants and threatening him to get down and not block his way out.
Ning Jin watched the two of them running out the door in a frenzy and said with disdain, "They're not fourteen or fifteen years old, they're barely four or five."
"This just means I raised you well, as if you were a very honest person at your age."
"At my age..." He stopped talking. At his age, he was always looking for food and drink, wandering the streets like a stray dog.
"By the way, we won't be going south anymore because it's getting hot. A lot of the fruit will spoil when it's brought back. I'll be doing short trips for the next month so I can come back to be with you more often."
"Running short distances is better, and it'll be less physically demanding." Su Yu thought about his cervical spine and asked, "If the college entrance exam is reinstated, would you want to go to university?"
The man immediately shook his head, his face scrunched up as if he had drunk vinegar. "I get a headache just touching books. I'm not cut out for it. Besides, I'm already thirty-six. In a few years, I'll be a grandparent. What's the point of going to university? It's too embarrassing."
Su Yu slapped him on the back of the head.
"Why did you hit me?" He pondered his words and asked incredulously, "You still want to go to university? You're almost forty!"
"Bullshit, I'm just over thirty-five, and as long as I want to study, it's not too late for me to take the college entrance exam at sixty." Su Yu raised her chin and glanced at him.
The man found it amusing, stood up, lifted her chin and kissed her, dodging the hand that was about to pinch his waist, and pleaded, "You're ambitious, my wife is ambitious. If you want to take the exam, then take it. I'll sell everything I own to support your studies."
“How rare! I have money, sister.”
"Who do you think you are, acting all high and mighty in front of me?"
Ning Jin took the woman's hand, bent over and carried her into the yard. Just then, Xiao Yuan shouted, "Mom, my grandpa brought us beef."
He immediately let go, took a big step forward, straightening his clothes with his hands, looking like he was trying to avoid suspicion because his wife had come to catch him cheating.
"Dad, where did this beef come from?" Su Yu asked.
"Your third sister's ox in the village fell and died, so they slaughtered it and sold it. I bought ten catties and brought you four catties." The old man washed his hands, turned around and asked, "Is Xiao Wu home too? When did he get back?"
“You came back the day before yesterday. Dad, come inside and sit down. I’ll pour you a bowl of water.”
"You'll be leaving soon. Luckily, I delivered the meat in time, otherwise you wouldn't have had any to eat." Old Su finished his water and was about to leave. When asked to stay for a meal, he said he had meat at home and had asked someone to look after the sheep for a while, so he had to hurry back.
"Xiao Yuan, come visit Grandpa when you have time. Ping An too. We can go shrimp fishing at our usual spot again, and we can catch loaches too." He walked out of the alley and saw his two grandsons playing polo with someone, and called out to them.
"Dad's getting better and better, he's quite energetic," Ning Jin said as he went into the kitchen after seeing the old man out.
"The old doctor is very skilled. This spring, he prescribed medicine that also has tonics. The old man is busy herding sheep every day, and he's always on the move. No one bothers him, and his life has improved. Of course, his spirits are getting better and better."
When she went back to her parents' home, she heard her father's loud voice as soon as she entered the village. He had returned to the crowd and was chatting with people, his smile never fading.
Her older sister said the old lady has shown some spirit; she didn't even speak to her eldest grandson when they met in the village. It's just a question of how long she can hold on.
Su Yu only cut half of the four pounds of beef into a stir-fry and cooked it. She cut the rest into strips and marinated them. After marinating, she had Ning Jin light the oven. Once the large wood had burned down and stopped emitting white smoke, she hooked the baking tray with the beef strips onto the wire and lowered it into the oven. Half a day later, she took the baking tray out, and the tender beef had turned into lean and chewy strips of meat.
It was divided in two, with one half given to the man to take and eat on the way.
After Ning Jin left, Su Yu no longer had any exercise to pass the time and sleep well at night. The books she used to read were buried underground. She could even memorize her notes. The night before, she went to retrieve the comic books and drawings of her two children. The drawings were quite decent. The next day, she went to the recycling station.
"You're here?" the people at the scrap yard greeted her.
"You're here." She entered the room and rummaged through the smelly space. There were two sets of high school textbooks, one of which was covered in notes and neatly bound together. It was as if some disappointed person had accumulated enough despair and exchanged their hopes for the mundane necessities of life.
"Huh?" Su Yu picked up a copper coin from the soil. It was from the Kangxi era, a valuable item, both for its monetary value and its ability to ward off evil spirits; it was also a collectible. Next, Su Yu focused on rummaging through the junk pile, hoping to find more small antiques. After searching a large area, she found eight coins. She also found two books without covers, about painting; she didn't know if they were genuine or not, but she mixed them in with old newspapers and took them home.
"Auntie, why are you spending money on kindling again? I'll cut some thatch and bring it to you next time. Thatch is cleaner than this waste paper." Er Ya frowned as she looked at the pile of paper, estimating it weighed several pounds.
"No need, I bought a newspaper and left it in the kitchen. It'll help me pass the time while I'm tending the fire. Er Ya, where have you been? Xiao Yuan told me you didn't go to school today," Su Yu asked as they walked back together.
“I went to see my older sister. She came back before, but my mom kicked her out before letting her in.” Er Ya sighed. “She’s even thinner than me, so I just wanted to go see her.”
"Is she alright?" Su Yu asked casually.
“It’s not good. She’s been married for almost three years and hasn’t gotten pregnant yet. My brother-in-law’s family is quite resentful of her.” Er Ya thought about the bruises on her sister’s face and began to worry about her own future.
“I lent her five yuan so she could see a doctor, the same doctor you took me to before. That doctor must be quite skilled.” Actually, she was a little apprehensive. She was still haunted by what the doctor had said a few years ago about her future fertility problems if she didn’t take good care of herself. She wanted to see if her health had improved and whether it would affect her future fertility. She didn’t want to have a hard time in her husband’s family because she couldn’t have children, like her sister.
But she was embarrassed; if anyone knew she was an unmarried young woman going to see a doctor for this illness, they would laugh themselves to death.
"Going to see a doctor is the right thing to do."
Before she even reached her doorstep, her two dogs started scratching at the door and whimpering when they heard her voice. Su Yu didn't say anything more to Er Ya, but quickly went back to open the door, patted the dogs' heads, and brought them inside. "I just filled in the hole, and you two dug another one for me. You're such a nuisance."
Er Ya stood outside the door, listening to the barking of dogs and the voices of people inside, reluctant to leave. It was just a wall away, but she felt like she was living in winter forever, while it seemed like there was no winter next door.
"Sis, you're back! Why didn't you come in? I've been waiting for you all day."
Er Ya patted Xiao Hu's head and followed him back. She often envied the two dogs named Xiao Hei and Xiao Hua. Their names were as casual as hers, but their lives were much better than hers.
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