It was quiet outside the door again. Meng Tao waited for a while and got off the bed. The swelling behind her head had almost subsided. She no longer felt any discomfort, her eyes were no longer dizzy, her head did not hurt, and she could move freely.

She picked up the cup, opened the door and went out to the main room in the middle to find the thermos and pour some hot water to drink.

Drinking water was secondary. Her main purpose was to find something - the sticky grass that Wang Shuifeng mentioned.

I'll let you plot and set traps to harm people, but I'm going to use my big trick too, just wait and see!

As the saying goes, long illness makes a good doctor. Wang Shuifeng gave birth to seven children in a row, and her health was deteriorating. The children were young and the family was too poor to make ends meet. It was impossible for them to rely on Tian Agui alone. In her early years, Wang Shuifeng had to work in the fields to earn work points, and when she returned home she had to take care of the children and do housework. Over time, her health deteriorated. She suffered from many diseases, including gynecological diseases. She had no money to go to the hospital, so she had to find a country doctor to prescribe herbal medicine. Unexpectedly, the medicine made her better. She also gradually got to know a lot of herbal medicines. She often picked some herbs herself, dried them, prepared them, and put them away. If she saved up a lot, she could take them to the purchasing station to exchange for some money. After Meng Taohua entered the Tian family, Wang Shuifeng wanted to order her to work all the time. She always felt that leaving her idle was a waste of labor. So most of the time, the task of drying and collecting herbs was handed over to Meng Taohua.

So Meng Taohua not only knew where Wang Shuifeng collected herbs, but also got to know some herbs. She remembered that not long ago Wang Shuifeng picked up three plants she had never seen before and taught Meng Taohua to dry them in the sun. However, she did not tell her what the effects of these plants were. She did tell her that she could not put them in her mouth to taste them or smell them, otherwise she would not die, but would instead cause a big disaster or a scandal!

Now that I think about it, that plant must be the sticky grass that can make people lose control, almost certainly.

There was no one in the main room. Meng Tao put the cup on the table and looked up at the wooden building.

After Wang Shuifeng coaxed three hundred yuan from Meng Taohua, she rebuilt the Tian family's courtyard house. The three main rooms were also renovated, new tiles were replaced, and a wooden building was added. The wooden building was divided into two sides, one side was where Tian Laoliu and Tian Laoqi slept, and the other side was where sundries were stored, and Wang Shuifeng's herbs were also on it.

Meng Tao quickly went up the wooden ladder on the left, walked lightly across the wooden floor, and came to a window hole dug out of the earth wall at the back, where a large pile of medicinal herbs were stored. Meng Tao searched carefully and finally found a brown paper package in the corner of the window hole. She opened it carefully and found three dried black herbs inside. This was the herb that Wang Shuifeng asked Meng Taohua to dry and then packaged separately for storage - sticky grass.

The three herbs were intact when Meng Taohua collected them, but now one of them is missing two leaves.

Meng Tao sneered: You used two leaves to make the egg custard for her, didn't you? Well, they are in large numbers, so just use all three! By the way, I took a detour to where Tian Laoliu and Tian Laoqi slept. The two brothers were both in junior high school and often corresponded with their third brother Tian Zhigao. Meng Tao found a stack of letters from their old books, took a rough look, and took away three letters from Tian Zhigao, which had the address of Tian Zhigao's unit and information about the "sister-in-law in the city".

Normally, Tian Zhigao's letters home and the money he sent back would be directly addressed to Tian Yalan's name, and never had anything to do with Meng Taohua. The reason was simple: Meng Taohua had a low level of education and could not read letters, let alone reply.

Meng Taohua was in the third grade and might not be illiterate. She wanted to read the letter from Tian Zhigao, but Tian Yalan not only refused to give it to her, but also ridiculed and mocked her.

This family of bad guys bullied Meng Taohua so blatantly.

Putting the letter into the space, Meng Tao went downstairs to the table in the main hall, picked up the thermos and poured half a cup of water. Listening to the laughter coming from the yard outside, she walked to the door and glanced outside.

The Tian family gathered at the kitchen door, watching Shi Datou kill and pluck the chicken, while gossiping and telling jokes.

In the novel, Shi Datou's father knew how to set traps, and Shi Datou often brought pheasants to honor his aunt Wang Shuifeng, so these two chickens should have been brought by Shi Datou today. They were two big pheasants, and it was rare to have meat to eat in that era, so these people were so happy, as if it were a holiday.

While listening to them talking, Meng Tao counted the number of people.

Those present in the courtyard at this time were Shi Datou, Tian Agui, Wang Shuifeng, Tian Xianglan, Liang Tiezhu and his wife, Tian Baoshan, Zhao Liulian and his wife, and the fourth son of the Tian family, Tian Zhiyuan.

In the novel, Tian Zhiyuan's temperament and personality are exactly the same as Tian Zhigao. He has a high school education and is 21 years old. Tian Zhigao will find a very good job for him. Tian Zhiyuan is proud of his bright future, so he is arrogant and does not work on the farm. He wears a white shirt, black trousers, shoes and socks all day long. People who don't know him would think he is already a state cadre. The woman he is holding his hand is his new girlfriend. Her name seems to be Du Meiqiu. She is pretty and is the village beauty of the neighboring village. Although he is affectionate to the girl now, he will be the same as Tian Zhigao after entering the city and marry a city girl directly.

The sixth and seventh children of the Tian family are both teenage boys, middle school students who live in the school dormitory and only go home on weekends.

I heard Tian Agui ask Liang Tiezhu: "Why don't you bring the children to dinner?"

Wang Shuifeng poked her head out of the kitchen and said, "That's what we have to do. Your sister-in-law is too stingy. How can she eat meat without inviting her brothers from her natal family? When she gets humiliated at her husband's house, she will come back to her natal family and ask you to support her."

After that, he turned to Tian Baoshan and Zhao Liulian and asked, "Where are Daya and Erya?"

Tian Baoshan: "The two sisters are too tired from playing, so they went to sleep. Mom, cook the chicken later and save the chicken legs for them. Keep all eight of them, big and small. If they can't finish them, Lian'er can eat them - Lian'er is pregnant with your eldest grandson."

"I understand." Wang Shuifeng agreed.

Tian Baoshan got married after Tian Zhigao married Meng Taohua and received the "bride price" and food from Meng's grandfather. After being a bachelor for many years, he finally had a woman. He really loved his daughter-in-law Zhao Liulian. Zhao Liulian gave birth to two girls four years after she got married. Wang Shuifeng was unhappy about it, but Tian Baoshan protected his wife very much and would not allow Wang Shuifeng to complain about her.

But he was as cruel to Meng Taohua as a bully landlord. He asked Meng Taohua to do all the things that Zhao Liulian should do, including washing all the clothes of the couple and the diapers of the baby. Zhao Liulian also wanted Meng Taohua to serve her during the confinement period. He scolded and blamed her for any negligence. He also woke her up in the middle of the night to hold the crying baby, while he and his wife just hugged each other and slept soundly.

Meng Taohua may be a little cowardly, but Tian Baoshan and his wife are really not good people.

Meng Tao felt that something seemed to be missing among this group of people. After looking carefully, she found that Tian Laowu and Tian Yalan were missing.

Tian Yalan is one year younger than Meng Taohua. Meng Taohua has never liked studying since she was a child, and her grandfather couldn't do anything about it so he just let her go. Tian Yalan did graduate from junior high school.

At the age of 18, Tian Yalan is pretty, with willow eyebrows, almond eyes and a pointed chin. She is as proud as a peacock in the village. She has been a black-hearted person since childhood. In the later part of the novel, she did a lot of evil things and harmed many people. Meng Taohua entered the Tian family and was harmed by her. Such a person actually lived well to the end, all thanks to her pair of male and female protagonists, brothers and sisters, who covered up all her sins.

Tian Yalan must eat sticky grass. Where did she go? Didn't she see that the family had killed a chicken and had meat to eat? Meng Tao muttered to herself, took the water cup back to the room, drank a few sips slowly, and then went out again, this time to go to the toilet in the backyard.

When Meng Taohua first entered the Tian family, Wang Shuifeng treated her like a new daughter-in-law for a few days and allowed her to live in the west room of the main house. After taking away all the things she had bought for her wedding, she said that her second brother Tian Baoshan was going to get married, and asked her to vacate the room and move into this low house built against the gable of the main house. It is said that this house was previously occupied by Old Lady Tian, ​​and it had been vacant since her death until Meng Taohua moved in.

The only advantage of this remote cabin is that it is easy to get in and out of the backyard without anyone seeing you.

The backyard is a large vegetable garden, which surrounds the entire back wall of the main house. Meng Tao entered from the right door, used the toilet first, and then came out from the left door. She walked along the base of the wall and quickly came to the back of the kitchen under the cover of a pile of messy wood and firewood. This is the chicken coop and pigpen, which are usually taken care of by Meng Taohua. So the chickens and pigs did not make any special sounds when they saw Meng Tao. Meng Taohua pretended to check whether there were eggs in the chicken coop, leaned over and looked inside through the small window on the earthen wall... Coincidentally, there was no one in the kitchen!

Everyone gathered at the kitchen door to grab the wild fruits that Shi Datou brought from the mountains.

The time is now!

Meng Tao's heart was beating faster than ever before. It turned out that doing bad things was so exciting. She lay on the window and looked at the two large iron pots bubbling on the stove below. One was stewing chicken with dried cowpeas, and the other was cooking three-ingredient flour paste.

The porridge from the three-in-one flour is grayish, and the juice from the stewed cowpea is also dark, similar in color to the herbal juice. Meng Tao simply sprinkled the crushed sticky grass into the pot, and both pots had it! After that, he quickly retreated, and while those people were still fighting over the wild fruits, he quickly went back to the hut from the backyard.

She was ready to deal with it. Even if they saw her walking around, she wasn't afraid. Who wouldn't be able to tell the difference? But it would be best if she wasn't discovered.

Then just drink water quietly and wait for the egg soup.

(End of this chapter)