Zhou Jiuzhen saw that Zhao's relatives were all present and didn't want to offend her.
Now, his address of "Aunt Chu" made Chu Mei's expression extremely awkward.
The distant aunts and uncles stared wide-eyed in disbelief, "Oh dear, Er Gou, why are you still calling your mother 'aunt'? This is unfilial..."
The crowd chimed in with their own words, each one a accusation against him.
Seeing her son being criticized, Chu Mei quickly stood up to defend him, "Er Gou doesn't remember us, don't blame her!"
After she finished speaking, she glared at Ling Huanwu, the culprit, and believed that it was all Ling Huanwu's fault that caused the rift between her and Zhou Jiuzhen.
"What are you still standing there for? Hurry up and clean up the floor, then apologize to your second aunt and eldest aunt, and immediately go and cook some good dishes to serve. Otherwise, once your reputation as a lazy wife spreads, how will you face anyone?"
Zhou Jiuzhen's gaze fell on Ling Huanwu's silent profile beside him. He held Ling Huanwu tightly with one hand and clenched his other fist so tightly that his knuckles turned white.
She humiliated his wife like this even in front of him, let alone when he wasn't there.
Zhou Jiuzhen suppressed his anger, forced a smile, and looked at Chu Mei. "Aunt Chu, you must be a very good cook, otherwise I wouldn't have been so fat when I was little. How about you cook for us today while everyone else is here?"
Chu Mei's face lit up with a smile upon hearing this, her tone incredibly soft, yet she still scolded Ling Huanwu, "Your wife can't even cook properly. We elders are waiting on empty stomachs, and when we say a few words to her, she gets all sullen. She really needs to be disciplined. Just you wait, I'll show you a few of my skills."
Seeing that Chu Mei had put on an apron and was about to start cooking, Zhou Jiuzhen pulled Ling Huanwu to the table and pressed her into a chair.
She stood by the table, her voice firm and resolute: "Aunt Chu, Huanwu loves stir-fried garlic sprouts with cured pork, with a caramelized sugar coating; also stir-fry green peppers with eggs, with plenty of eggs, and seaweed soup, the seaweed should be stir-fried before boiling... Finally, roast two sweet potatoes in the stove, Huanwu loves them!"
Chu Mei was stunned.
She had never "ordered food" like this before in her life.
But then she thought of how her youngest son had suffered so much in all these years since he was away from her.
Now that she had finally reunited with her son, the guilt in her heart outweighed her resentment, so she could only bite the bullet and agree, "Mother will do it right away."
The sounds of chopping vegetables and burning firewood came from the kitchen outside. Ling Huanwu quietly tugged at Zhou Jiuzhen's sleeve, somewhat puzzled, "What are you doing? She's still your mother, no matter what!"
Zhou Jiuzhen patted her hand, his fingertips warm, "You're still my wife!"
Before long, Chu Mei came out with the food.
The stir-fried garlic shoots with meat were dark in color, the stir-fried green peppers with eggs had more green peppers than eggs, and the seaweed soup had no oil at all.
She put the dishes on the table and was about to say, "We don't have much food at home," when Zhou Jiuzhen picked up his chopsticks first, put a piece of cured meat in his mouth, chewed it a couple of times, and spat it into the bone dish. His brows were furrowed. "Mom, why isn't this meat cooked well? There's not enough sugar either. It's dry and tough. It's not even as good as half of what Huanwu made for me last time."
He picked up another bite of the stir-fried green peppers and eggs, and pursed his lips: "Where are the eggs? It's all green peppers. Huanwu is never this stingy when she cooks. And this seaweed soup, the seaweed wasn't even stir-fried, it's so hard to swallow."
Chu Mei's face flushed instantly, and her eyes welled up with tears. "Er Gou, Mother... Mother hasn't done these things in so long, I'm rusty..."
"Sticky?" Zhou Jiuzhen put down his chopsticks, his voice turning colder. "When you said Huanwu wasn't a good cook before, you didn't say that. When you first married into the Zhao family, didn't my grandmother treat you like this? Making you get up before dawn to cook, scolding you if you didn't do it well, and punishing you if you were slow?"
Chu Mei's body stiffened abruptly, tears streaming down her face. Her lips moved, but she couldn't utter a word.
Seeing this, the second aunt quickly intervened, "Ergou, what you're saying is wrong! Your mother is only doing this for your wife's own good, teaching her how to do things..."
"For her own good?" Zhou Jiuzhen turned to look at her, his gaze as cold as ice. "Second Aunt, I remember when you married into the family, you were forced to kneel in the ancestral hall by my uncle's mother, right? Just because you burned a pot of porridge. You cried back then, saying, 'I will definitely not bully my daughter-in-law when I become a mother-in-law.' How come you're helping my mother to torment my wife now?"
He then looked at his third aunt: "Third aunt, I remember you complaining to me when you were little that your mother-in-law made you wash clothes with cold water in the dead of winter, and your hands were so cold they were oozing pus. How come when it comes to my wife, you think 'doing more work is only right'?"
A few questions left my second aunt and third aunt looking pale and then red, their mouths agape for a long time, but they couldn't utter a single word.
The entire room was filled with people who had traveled a long way to the island to freeload, all with their heads down, no one daring to speak.
Zhou Jiuzhen's words were like a hammer, striking the most unspoken part of everyone's heart, turning all the "taken-for-granted" bullying into feelings of guilt.
Zhou Jiuzhen stopped looking at them, picked up his chopsticks and put a piece of edible cured meat on Ling Huanwu's plate, softening his voice, "Huanwu, ignore them, let's eat. From now on, I'll either cook the meals at home, or we'll eat at the army base. You won't have to lift a finger anymore."
Ling Huanwu looked at his straight back, and her eyes welled up with tears, but not because she felt wronged.
This time, it's warm.
She suddenly understood the determination behind Zhou Jiuzhen's words to her at the beach.
Standing by the table, watching her son protecting his wife, Chu Mei suddenly understood something.
That means her second dog had already regained his childhood memories.
But he usually pretended not to know her.
Chu Mei felt as if her heart was being torn apart by this thought, and her tears fell even more fiercely, but she couldn't utter a single word of explanation.
Zhou Jiuzhen pointed to the mess on the ground and looked at the relatives in the house who used to call him "Er Gou" when he was a child.
As time goes by, they all become the very thing they hated most.
He spoke each word firmly and forcefully, “Why should my wife apologize to you? She is my wife. I don’t even acknowledge you as my family, so what right do you have to order my wife around!”
"This is my home. Please take the trash you've thrown on the ground with you and get out of my house!"
The aunts and uncles all looked ashen-faced and hurriedly packed their bags to go to the educated youth settlement.
They had originally thought the city was chaotic and that they could stay here for a while to hide, but they never expected to be kicked out in such a sorry state before they had even stayed for one night.
At the main gate, they all crowded around, trying to get out.
Zhou Jiuzhen ignored them and made them apologize one by one before they could leave.
As Chu Mei watched her relatives, who had been flattering her, blush and apologize to Ling Huanwu, she felt as if she had been slapped countless times in the face.
She knew that from then on, she would never be able to hold her head high in front of these relatives again.
Chu Mei suppressed the bitterness in her heart, feeling utterly remorseful for having made things difficult for Ling Huanwu earlier.
She had previously thought that Zhou Jiuzhen was interested in Su Haiting, which made her dislike Ling Huanwu even more.
Just as she awkwardly walked up to Ling Huanwu and was about to speak, the sound of a helicopter flying overhead suddenly drew their attention, followed by cheers from the crowd outside.
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