Chapter 2 Chapter 2 The supporting character's life begins to change
"Why is the coffin lid still sleeping?" Qingmei's grandmother's harsh voice came from outside the house. Qingmei had a splitting headache and couldn't help rubbing the top of her head with her hand.
Why did she dream that she was struck by lightning?
She propped herself up and saw herself sleeping on a bamboo bed. Grandma's voice came from outside the door: "She's sick and hasn't recovered yet."
Are you sick?
Qingmei hadn't been sick much since she'd traveled across time to this period novel. The only time she'd been sick was right after she'd traveled across time and been banished to a dilapidated house, where she'd caught a cold.
As she spoke she shuddered.
No way?
Qingmei crawled to the window and exhaled a puff of white air.
The outside of the house was covered in silver, and icicles were dotted under the eaves.
In her memory, it was still scorching summer when she fainted, so how could it suddenly be winter? Could she be dreaming?
Qingmei shivered again and wanted to rub her hands to keep warm, and saw a circle of plain bracelet marks on her wrist.
Qingmei: "! No way!"
Did she really go back to the time when she first traveled through time?
Remembering that at the last moment, the jade bracelet given by Aunt Gu shattered, Qingmei couldn't help but wonder, could it be that Aunt Gu's wronged spirit helped her?
As she woke up, Qingmei felt that her consciousness was not as drowsy as in her previous life, and she seemed to have more independent thoughts in her mind.
Grandma Sun Xiufen rushed into the house, pointed at Qingmei and said, "Go collect firewood, you lazy thing! Do you want to freeze me and your father to death?"
Qingmei remembered the last time she followed Sun Xiufen's advice and went to collect firewood, she encountered a hooligan on the way and was almost insulted. The firewood she collected in the face of hunger and cold was lost to the hooligan because she ran away.
When she returned home, Sun Xiufen scolded her and said she was shameless for having an affair with another man.
"I'm not feeling well." Qingmei said sickly under Sun Xiufen's glare, "I have a headache."
After saying that, she looked out the window. Fortunately, there was no thunder!
Does this mean that Heaven didn't intervene? Could I possibly resist them in this lifetime?
Of course, Sun Xiufen didn't feel sorry for Qingmei. She stood in front of the bamboo bed and kept pestering her, "How can you afford medicine for your grandma if you don't work? You old fool—"
"Don't talk about her like that." Qingmei glared at Sun Xiufen and said, "I told you not to curse my grandma!"
"Hey, you dare yell at me?" Sun Xiufen seemed frightened. She took a step back, clutching her chest and saying, "Don't even think about me giving you a penny this month. I wouldn't even care if your grandma died in bed!"
She turned and walked away. Qingmei would get terrified whenever she brought up the topic of Qingmei's grandmother's medical expenses. She'd be working like a slave, and she really was. If there was any dirty work in the village that no one else wanted, Qingmei would do it. Even if she earned money, she still had to give it to her parents-in-law, because they were the ones in charge.
Now Qingmei wishes the evil mother-in-law would stay away from her, and it would be best if Sun Xiufen could be struck to death by lightning.
"Hey, why bother her." Grandma Qingmei stepped over the threshold with her small feet, tremblingly holding the hot water to give to Qingmei.
Qingmei quickly went downstairs and drank the hot water. The warmth that penetrated her heart made her feel very comfortable.
She went to the stove to scoop a cup of hot water, and while holding the hot water, she was thinking about what to do next, when someone came outside again.
"Zhao Xiaoxing, why are you here?" Qingmei sniffed, wrapped in the quilt, and asked, "What are you holding in your hand?"
Zhao Xiaoxing is Qingmei's sister-in-law, a proper sister-in-law. She is better off than Qingmei when she gets married. Her husband is not dead, but he is an alcoholic, and life is not easy for her.
"You have to call me sister-in-law."
Zhao Xiaoxing was used to Qingmei's disrespectful behavior towards her, so she greeted her grandmother, reached out to touch Qingmei's forehead, and then clumsily took out a packet of straw paper from her pocket. Inside the straw paper were some Chinese medicine that looked like weed roots.
"This is some leftover medicine from Sister Liu's family. She was sick for three days and drank two doses and recovered. I heard you were sick, so I gave it to you to make some."
These are the medicines left over from when Sister Liu was sick. No one else wants them, but she keeps them as a treasure.
Zhao Xiaoxing didn't know what medicine to give to what kind of people. She was uneducated and blind. She only knew that if someone was sick, they could boil this medicine in water and drink it to get better. This was a good thing and should be hidden away for use at critical moments.
Her health was not as good as Qingmei's. She had been sick four or five times this year but was reluctant to drink. She listened to her mother-in-law scolding Qingmei in the main hall for being a traitor and pretending to be sick, and said that she would find Qingmei a new home sooner or later.
Zhao Xiaoxing felt that Qingmei was not someone who could pretend to be sick, so she quickly found an excuse to run out and give it to Qingmei.
Qingmei said with a smile: "Don't drink this medicine carelessly. I see there is dandelion in it, so it should be a prescription for clearing away heat and reducing internal heat."
Zhao Xiaoxing and Qingmei are good friends. Rather than sisters-in-law, they are more like relatives who depend on each other in the face of danger.
Qingmei reached out and touched Zhao Xiaoxing's face. She lifted the hair that was covering her cheek and saw a purple bruise. "Did he drink and hit you again?"
Zhao Xiaoxing covered her face and said, "I didn't drink this time. Mom didn't give him money to buy alcohol, saying that she wanted to save it for gifts to Chen Qiaoxiang's family. He then forced me to ask for money, but I refused... Well, I'm used to it. It's just like that anyway."
Qingmei went to the field and opened the elm box. Inside, besides a few worn-out clothes, there was also a small medicine box containing oxytetracycline, berberine, and a bottle of gentian violet.
Qingmei asked Zhao Xiaoxing to come closer to her and rubbed the purple medicine on her face bit by bit.
Zhao Xiaoxing had a small nose, small eyes, and a thick mouth. Her hair stuck out in a short, thick braid, and her hands were thick and strong from years of hard work.
"Okay, okay, it's a waste to wipe too much." Zhao Xiaoxing pushed Qingmei's hand away, stood up and said, "I have to hurry and buy some wine. The snow in the yard hasn't been shoveled yet."
"Will you go to sell wild vegetable cakes tomorrow?" Qingmei asked Zhao Xiaoxing.
Zhao Xiaoxing shook her head and said, "It's hard to ride a bike in the snow. Go by yourself."
Qingmei thought to herself that she would go there on foot, but she couldn't say this out loud.
Before leaving, Zhao Xiaoxing reminded Qingmei again, "Remember to boil the medicine and drink it. It's a rare good thing, and I always can't use it. Don't be reluctant to give it to me. I'll save it for you next time."
Qingmei was deeply touched. If she could live again, Zhao Xiaoxing would still be so sincere to her.
Zhao Xiaoxing trotted in the snow to buy some wine, and almost fell after stumbling a few steps.
The money for the wine came from selling her hair in February. She had grown her hair for five years, cut it at the roots, and sold it for only six cents. When her mother-in-law saw her, she yelled at her and demanded money, but she gritted her teeth and refused to give it.
After half a year, I was able to barely weave it together, but in the end I still didn't keep the money.
She returned to the house and poured wine for her husband, who complained that she was late and scolded her. She didn't take it to heart, as she would inevitably suffer injustice in her husband's family. If she took it to heart, she would not survive.
Zhao Xiaoxing was afraid he'd get drunk and act crazy again, so after shoveling snow, she'd hide in front of the stove and weave a basket out of bamboo strips. She'd always wait until he was drunk and asleep before she'd dare enter the house.
There was a noise outside. In the distance, my father-in-law, dressed in thick clothes, came back from playing cards. He knocked the soles of his shoes at the door and came in as if to scare me: "Boil some water."
"Hey." Zhao Xiaoxing was eager to burn firewood so that it would be warm.
"I'm sure it won't be wrong this time." The father-in-law walked into the room and didn't find that Sun Xiufen was angry.
He smelled of unpleasant tobacco. He moved onto the kang and said, "Hu Zi came back from the county and saw with his own eyes that the Gu family was going on a shopping spree. Radios, bicycles, sewing machines, rolls of fine cotton and Dacron, all packed into a small carriage.
"Didn't he ask why I bought it?" Sun Xiufen had some guesses in her mind, but she never thought that such good luck would fall upon that girl.
Li Laoer said, "What else can we do? We've already fallen for the Chen family. We're going to bring Chen Qiaoxiang home in a grand ceremony to be an officer's wife!"
Sun Xiufen slapped her thigh and said, "I knew I had to establish a good relationship with the Chen family sooner rather than later. Our youngest son is gone, but at least if we can arrange a good job for our eldest son, we'll be set up for the future!"
"Who says it's not true? You don't know how proud the Chen family is, their noses pointed to the sky." Li Lao Er exhaled a puff of dry tobacco, coughed twice, and said, "You have to get along well with others, control your harsh temper, smile more, and get along with each other. Only by being harmonious can we have a way out."
"It's no use for me to be kind. I'm bullied by the widow." Sun Xiufen took the opportunity to flatter Qingmei and told her that she refused to do the work she was asked to do in the dilapidated house.
Li Laoer and Sun Xiufen thought the same thing: their childhood sweetheart was the jinx who killed their youngest son, Li Tuanjie. After all, the youngest son had attended elementary school for three years and was a hundred times better than the eldest, Li Xianjin, who drank all day.
In the end, the youngest son died, leaving behind a useless eldest son who didn't even give them a grandson. They had to shamelessly curry favor with the 20-year-old Sun Qiaoxiang for him.
"That young widow has been getting close to a man lately." Sun Xiufen spat on the ground and said, "She killed my son, and now she wants to find a lover? Dream on. I will never let her have her wish."
Li Laoer lit his pipe and said to his wife, "We have no one to rely on when we are old, and we don't have a daughter who can be a wife like Sun Qiaoxiang. If we don't have a grandson anymore, we will be bullied to death."
Sun Xiufen thought for a moment and said, "Then hurry up and marry the young widow off. It doesn't matter what family she's from, as long as the betrothal gift is sufficient. After all, we'll be in-laws and they'll be able to help us out when we need help."
Li Lao Er shook his head: "You have to choose carefully. Don't be like her father, who lives with her stepmother and her family in the city and doesn't care about her life or death."
Sun Xiufen said, "It's better not to worry. We can keep the betrothal gifts. But we really need to hurry up, otherwise the young widow will not get any of the betrothal gifts after the fact."
Sun Xiufen sighed again, "If only our daughter could marry an officer, she would live a life of luxury and be flattered by others. How comfortable that would be."
Li Laoer sighed: "If I had such a relative, I would wake up laughing in my dreams."
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