She looked at the little old woman in front of her, who was even thinner than her, and her eyes welled up with tears.
The old lady just took a liking to a gray cheongsam in the cooperative. Her eyes were glued to it. She said she had never worn a cheongsam before, but she could never bring herself to spend her cloth coupons and money to buy herself a new dress.
Ling Huanwu suppressed the urge to burst into tears and rushed forward to take her mother-in-law's hand, calling out affectionately, "Mother, Mother, my dear mother."
The setting sun dyed the clouds orange-red in the evening.
Smoke mingled with the aroma of cooked food drifted in the warm light, sparrows flew away from the eaves with a touch of golden light, and twilight gently crept in.
The shadows of the old man and the young man on the street stretched out very long.
Anyone who saw them would think they were mother and daughter.
When she returned to the guesthouse, Zhou Jiuzhen had already made up the bed and was sitting on the bed waiting for her.
Wang Guihua brought the hot food she had bought to the wooden table in the guesthouse, and soon the small, cramped room was filled with the aroma of the food.
The three of them sat around the table eating, none of them mentioning where they had gone that day.
Ling Huanwu and her mother-in-law also assumed that Zhou Jiuzhen stayed at home all day.
The three chatted and laughed, passing food to each other.
Suddenly, the mother-in-law's gaze shifted to the enamel mug on the table. She picked it up and examined it closely. "How did this enamel mug get broken like this? It was perfectly fine when I came here yesterday. Will we have to pay for it when we check out tomorrow?"
Zhou Jiuzhen and Ling Huanwu both looked at the enamel cup that had several pieces of paint chipped off. Their faces turned bright red, and they dared not look up at anyone.
Last night, at this dinner table, their enamel cups wobbled and fell to the floor countless times.
Ling Huanwu picked it up, but it fell again soon after, which broke her down and brought her to tears.
They initially thought their mother-in-law was just saying it casually, but to their surprise, she changed the subject and said something that left them both stunned and shaking their heads in disbelief.
"Huanwu is too tired, she's become as thin as a willow branch. I'll take care of Jiuzhen at night from now on!"
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