"Yeah! I can't sleep in this room without building a kang. Every winter, no matter how thick the quilt is, I will wake up from the cold. This year, I even had a fever! So the first thing I do when I earn money is to build a kang. Mom is in a hurry to go to work every day, and a watch will make things more convenient. I bought one for her. If I don't buy one for Dad, I'm afraid of getting beaten."
What the second sister resented was that her parents left her with her grandmother, and her life was difficult. But in her imagination, she was very happy to be with her parents, so she had to play the victim.
"Huh? How did you survive the previous winter?"
"I just endured it! I had a cough from the cold, and my mom didn't have money to see a doctor or buy medicine, so she made me some fried tofu with ginger and rock sugar. I had to eat it quickly while it was hot. Just imagine, the tofu is sweet, and so is the ginger. There are also crumbs of rock sugar that need to be chewed, and it has to be eaten while it's hot. I swallowed it with my eyes closed."
"You little girl, rock sugar is such a precious thing, I gave you plenty! And you don't even appreciate it?"
Zhou's mother, who came in with a quilt, just heard what her little girl said and used her free hand to knock on her forehead.
Zhou Xiang covered his forehead, which was hurt by the blow, and looked at his mother accusingly, "Do you still want your smart little girl? You beat me stupid. Do you think my dad won't be angry with you? He's still waiting for me to get the certificate for him!"
Zhou's mother put the quilt in her hand on the kang and ignored her little girl.
Zhou Yu looked at the interaction between his mother and sister. It was so nice and he was really envious.
Zhou Xiang rolled his eyes and said, "Mom, my second sister is envious, so you should knock her on the forehead too."
After saying that, she pushed Zhou Yu in front of Zhou's mother. Zhou's mother looked up at her daughter, who was now taller than herself, and rubbed her head with her hand. "It's Mom who is sorry for you three."
Zhou Yu felt the long-lost motherly love, and tears couldn't stop flowing from his eyes.
"mom!"
Zhou's mother hugged her eldest daughter, and Zhou Yu lay on her mother's shoulder and cried.
Zhou wanted to step aside and leave the space to his second sister and mother.
Zhou's father, who was cooking, looked into the inner room and saw that she had burst into tears for some reason. When he saw his little girl coming out, he looked at her with a questioning look.
Zhou Xiang shook her head and said, "It's okay. I'm just excited. I'll be fine after a few tears."
Father Zhou shook his head. It was annoying that women cried all the time!
The dinner was very rich, with braised fish fillets and sweet and sour pork ribs, two of which were freshly made, and the others were leftover dishes from the 30th. The staple food was steamed buns.
Zhou Xiang picked up some food for his second sister and said, "Try the fish fillet made by Dad. I think it's the best. And the sweet and sour spareribs."
Zhou Yu looked at the food piled up in the bowl and quickly stopped his sister, "That's enough, that's enough, eat it first and then take more."
"Yeah! Now that my second sister is home, we can eat without worry. Dad doesn't stop us from eating except when friends come over for drinks. Normally, he doesn't stop us from eating."
"How dare you talk about your daddy like that, kid!" Zhou's father pretended to be angry, knowing that he had indeed been a bit harsh on his little girl in the past. She had turned from a chubby little girl into a skinny monkey.
"Well, second sister, I made a mistake. Dad is very nice now. He often cooks meat dishes for me."
He emphasized the word "now".
Zhou Yu also thought of his sister who was chubby and cute when she was little. Everyone liked to tease her when they saw her. But after coming to the town for five years, she has become as thin as a stick.
Maybe my sister is not living as well as she thinks.
My grandmother told me that my father never bought food and daily necessities for the family. After deducting the food expenses for three people, my mother only had fifteen yuan left in a month. After deducting most of the money for food and daily necessities, the remaining money was enough for buying vegetables.
When it came time to pay tuition, Mom would borrow money everywhere. When my grandmother talked about this, her tone wasn't sympathetic, but rather gloating.
Dad was not the son-in-law that grandma liked. Looking at mom's half-white hair, Zhou Yu sighed for her in his heart. Her husband didn't care about the family, and her mother and father-in-law took advantage of the situation. It was really hard for her.
Thinking of this, Zhou Yu picked up a piece of meat and put it in Zhou's mother's bowl, "Mom, eat more."
Mother Zhou nodded with red eyes.
Zhou Xiang was afraid that Ling Ran would feel embarrassed to eat, so he put some food into his bowl and said, "Since you plan to eat at my house for two days, you can't lie. Eat as much as you should, otherwise you will be the one who starves."
Ling Ran's mouth grinned happily to his ears, "Yeah, I will eat my fill."
Seeing his father's envious look, Zhou Xiang quickly picked up a piece of fish for him and said, "Dad, this is your favorite."
The best dish my father cooks is his favorite dish.
Father Zhou felt balanced and picked up his wine glass and took a sip.
After dinner, it was dark, and Ling Ran took the flashlight given by Zhou's mother and went home. He was also assigned a task, which was to tell the gatekeeper, Old Ma, that Zhou wanted to do some work here, and asked if Master Ma Gua could come.
Zhou Yu put down his bowl and chopsticks and went back to the house. Zhou Xiang looked at his mother, shook his head at each other, and then went home. Let's talk about it in two days!
At night, lying on the kang, smelling the stinky feet in the room, Zhou Xiang asked, "Second sister, how often do you wash your feet?"
"About three or four days! Why? Does it smell?"
"Can't you smell it yourself?"
Zhou Yu shook her head. Zhou wanted to push her up and said, "Go wash your feet quickly. There's hot water in the stove at the head of the kang every day. You can use as much as you want. You have to wash your feet every day from now on."
"Why are you so picky?" Zhou Yu got up reluctantly to fetch water and wash his feet.
"Second sister, we are all girls. If other people smell the stinky smell of a girl's feet, they will say that she is too lazy and it will be difficult for her to find a partner."
"Hmph, I want to find someone who listens to me. I don't want to be like Mom, who is bullied by Dad and dares not say a word. If she could control Dad, would our family be in such trouble? Can't single-income families get by just fine? Even with two working people in our family, life isn't as good as with a single working person!"
"That's what I said, but after a woman gets married, she has no control over many things. My mother asked my father to give her money to help with the family expenses, but he always beat her.
No matter how strong a woman is, she can never beat a man! Dad spends all his salary in a few days, and he eats out at home every day for the remaining twenty days. Mom doesn't support four people, but five.
Dad would rather give the fish to his so-called friends than give it to me. He just asks me to soak rice in vegetable soup. Look how thin I am now?
Dad doesn't do any housework, and Mom looks after the warehouse alone. During the busy farming season, she doesn't even come home for lunch, so all the housework is mine. It was only recently that I earned some money and bought things for Dad to coax him, and now he is more talkative.
Now I take leave to study at home and do housework at the same time. My mother doesn’t have to do housework after get off work. I also give her some money so that she doesn’t have to worry about money or rush about housework. Now her life is going well.
What I feared most in the past was finding the door locked when I got home from school, because most of the time it was just two people fighting again and I didn’t know where they were. I was so scared.”
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
