As night fell, Yang Cui cooked four bowls of egg noodles and made a bowl of smashed cucumber. The mother and her four children sat by the bamboo grove in front of the house, enjoying a simple and cozy dinner while feeling the gentle breeze.
Just after they finished eating, Chen Sumei arrived with Wang Xicai and Wang Xile.
“Xile, come and kowtow to your sister Cui Cui. You wouldn’t have made it through today without her.” After saying that, Chen Sumei knelt down in front of Yang Cui with a thud.
Immediately afterwards, Wang Xile also knelt down.
"Auntie, what are you doing? Get up quickly." Yang Cui immediately reached out to help her up. "Aren't you making me feel uncomfortable?"
Chen Sumei said with tears in her eyes, "Xiaocui, thank you for being willing to help us at this time. Doctor Qi said today that if Xile had arrived any later, the consequences would have been unimaginable. You are a great benefactor to us, and you deserve it."
With their husbands being so unreliable, the villagers avoided them like the plague, fearing they would ask them for money or grain.
Only Yang Cui offered them a helping hand at this time. As the saying goes, it's easy to add flowers to brocade, but difficult to provide charcoal in the snow, and Chen Sumei was extremely grateful.
“Auntie, Xile, get up. I didn’t help much; it was all earned through your hard work.”
"You've already helped us a lot, Xiao Cui, don't worry, we'll definitely dig up a hundred pounds of earthworms for you as soon as possible."
"Actually, there's no need to rush. The ducklings are still small, so I'm not in a hurry. Just send me ten catties a day. If it's not enough, I'll let you know."
Chen Sumei then left with her child, expressing her deepest gratitude.
——
The next day, Yang Cui went into town again.
She had to go see the Chunxi Opera Troupe.
There are two performances a day. The morning performance starts at 9:00 AM and the afternoon performance starts at 1:45 PM. Each performance lasts for the time it takes for two incense sticks to burn, which is 30 minutes.
This time, Yang Cui came as a spectator, so she entered the theater openly and honestly, without covering her face like last time.
There was still an incense stick's time before the show was about to begin, but the theater was still empty except for a few small fish. Yang Cui was worried about Chunxi Troupe, wondering if it would fail to become popular.
After a while, more people arrived, but the place still looked deserted.
Coincidentally, Yang Cui ran into acquaintances here—Lin Mingfu and Lin Chunmei.
Lin Mingfu is sixteen years old this year and is Lin Mingcai's youngest brother. He is currently studying at Nanshan Academy in the city. He was also mentioned in the original work, which said that he was not having a smooth life.
Lin Chunmei is Lin Mingcai's eldest daughter, fourteen years old this year. The original novel says she married well. There was also a man and a woman with them, who looked to be about the same age as them.
When Lin Mingfu and his nephew Lin Chunmei saw Yang Cui, they were clearly taken aback. Yang Cui was now eating well, sleeping well, and dressing well. She knew how to take care of herself, and her whole demeanor was completely different. Her hair was not as elaborately styled as other women's; it was simply tied into a high ponytail, but she looked particularly energetic and capable.
"Mingfu, do you know him?" Zhao Xudong asked in a low voice when he saw Lin Mingfu lost in thought.
Lin Mingfu shook his head: "No."
Seeing that Lin Mingfu was staring at Yang Cui for a while with a displeased expression, Zhao Xiyun asked Lin Chunmei in a low voice, "Chunmei, what is your relationship with that woman?"
“She…we’re from the same village.”
Lin Chunmei was too embarrassed to say that Yang Cui was Lin Shikang's ex-wife. After all, it wasn't a glorious thing for Lin Shikang to divorce his wife. Moreover, Lin Mingfu and Zhao Xiyun seemed to have feelings for each other. Lin Chunmei was worried that if Yang Cui and Lin Shikang's affair were exposed, it would affect Lin Mingfu's marriage, so she gave a vague answer.
However, Zhao Xiyun still overthought things. They were from the same village, which meant they knew each other, and maybe they were even childhood sweethearts.
Zhao Xiyun was unhappy and looked at Yang Cui with a hint of hostility.
This left Yang Cui completely baffled.
"Knock knock knock!"
The sound of three gongs signaled the start of the show.
This was Yang Cui's first time working on such a grand production, and since she had provided the script herself, she was quite interested.
The play begins with the poor scholar male lead, dressed in patched clothes, making a vow to the female lead that he will definitely pass the imperial examination with flying colors and give her a good life.
Then the female lead nodded happily and said, in a rather affected manner, that she believed in the male lead.
Then came the time for the male lead to take the imperial examination. The male lead's mother forced the female lead to go back to her parents' home to borrow money for the male lead to take the exam. The scene of the male lead's mother forcing the female lead to go back to her parents' home to borrow money was staged twice, once when the male lead took the provincial examination and once when the male lead went to the capital to take the metropolitan examination.
As soon as the male lead leaves, the scene immediately changes to the mother-in-law abusing her daughter-in-law and granddaughter, saying nothing but contemptuous and mean-spirited things about the female lead.
The female lead was very sad and started singing a melancholy song, but Yang Cui couldn't understand a word. Then, the female lead thought of the promise the male lead had made to her, and she felt that everything was worth it, so she held back her tears.
The climax of the story is when the male protagonist becomes the third-ranked scholar in the imperial examination and prepares to marry into a high-ranking official's family. Then, he sends a letter of divorce to the female protagonist. Holding the letter, she bursts into tears and sings a plaintive and sorrowful song. After she finishes singing, she jumps into the river.
Yang Cui couldn't appreciate this kind of performance, but she had to admit that the actors' performances were quite good, especially the evil of the "mother-in-law" and the pitifulness of the female lead. When the female lead was heartbroken, the singing and instrumental music enhanced the atmosphere, and Yang Cui noticed that the female audience members were already crying.
The final foreshadowing is that the female lead is rescued and awakened. After waking up, her personality changes drastically. Gone is her former gentle, virtuous, weak, and pitiful self. She becomes fierce and says: I will never let the unfaithful man go!
After watching it, the audience was stunned.
"How could that be the end of it? What happened next?"
"That's it? Yang Xianglian sacrificed so much? Why can't she have a happy ending?"
"Does that heartless man really intend to let him marry into the family and achieve great success? Why should he?"
"Bah! You heartless bastard! You ungrateful wretch! It's outrageous that someone like you can rise to such prominence!"
"This kind of faithless man should be beaten to death with sticks!"
...
The audience was furious.
After reading it, Zhao Xiyun also angrily cursed, "How shameless! This kind of man should be torn apart by five horses!"
When Lin Mingfu and Lin Chunmei first started watching, they felt something was off. It wasn't until the end, when the male lead became the third-ranked scholar in the imperial examination and the female lead jumped into the river and woke up with a drastically changed personality, that they realized that everything coincided with the events between Lin Shikang and Yang Cui.
The uncle and nephew were stunned for a while. Then Lin Chunmei rushed up to Yang Cui and questioned, "Why would they put on this show? Were you behind it?"
Yang Cui smiled gently: "Miss Lin, I don't know what you're talking about?"
"Stop pretending! This is clearly about you and my Uncle Kang Qi!"
Lin Shih-kang was the seventh in his family's generation, so the younger generation often called him Uncle Kang the Seventh.
"So you also think your uncle, who is a third-ranked scholar, is an ungrateful and heartless man?" Yang Cui looked at Lin Chunmei with a half-smile.
"Chunmei!" Lin Mingfu called out.
Lin Chunmei then realized that she had acted impulsively. Hadn't she just taken it personally and confirmed that Lin Shikang was ungrateful?
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