Although Xu Erni and Xu Nanxing are cousins and are of similar age, generally speaking, in a family that favors boys over girls, the relationship between the two should be better.
But Xu Erni knew from a young age that her cousin was different from them.
At the very least, my cousin's name - Xu Nanxing, sounds very nice.
I heard that it was given by my cousin’s biological mother, my deceased second aunt.
Unlike her name - Xu Erni, there are many girls named Ni in the village, whether they are young girls in their teens, women in their thirties, or even old men in their fifties or sixties, they may all have this name.
If you shout "Er Ni" in the village, you can call many people with the same name.
Xu Erni was very envious of her cousin for having such a unique name.
Especially when I heard from my mother that my cousin's biological mother was a lady from a wealthy family. She was not only educated but also beautiful.
However, she also always remembered the jealous and mean look on her mother's face when she talked about her second aunt: "So what if she's from a young lady's family? That's the behavior of a capitalist. Everyone will condemn her!"
"The child was born and killed his mother. This is a mother-killer! I don't know what your grandmother was thinking. She brought such an unlucky thing back to her hometown. Won't this kill all these uncles and aunts?"
"Humph! The second son's new wife only gave birth to a boy in her lifetime, so he's adoring him like crazy. But he definitely won't want this money-losing child he had earlier. Then he'll have to stay in our house forever! What bad luck!"
My cousin is also disliked by her family because of her reputation as a jinx.
Erni and her group of kids didn't want to play with her, and the naughty boys in the village would chase her, scold her, and throw stones at her.
My cousin started helping with housework when she was very young.
I don’t know when it started, but Xu Erni started to hate this cousin very much.
Perhaps it was because of the distinctiveness of the other person's name, or perhaps it was because her cousin's parents were honest workers, while her parents were destined to be farmers all their lives and never be able to get ahead, so she felt jealous of her cousin.
So I saw my cousin busy from morning to night since she was 3 years old, while I didn’t have to do anything and just played around the village every day.
She was even proud of it.
You see, even though my cousin is supposed to be a city dweller, she still has to live in the countryside like her.
My cousin's parents are both workers. They earn wages and have benefits and subsidies, but she still doesn't have enough food or warm clothes in the countryside.
You can eat meat during the Chinese New Year and get lucky money.
My cousin's father took his stepmother and younger brother back to his hometown to celebrate the New Year without saying a word to my cousin.
He doesn't care at all whether his cousin is living well in his hometown.
There was no mention of taking her back to the city.
At that time, Erni actually felt a little gloating.
My cousin has to live in the countryside forever and can't go back to the city.
She will be a country girl for the rest of her life!
This idea continued until my cousin was 7 years old.
My cousin is old enough to go to school.
There is a primary school in the next village, and children from nearby villages who want to go to school will go to the primary school in the next village.
There are many children in their village. They go to the next village to study before dawn every day and come back after dark.
In addition to my cousin, there are also Erni and my cousin from my uncle's family who are of the same age in the family.
Suddenly, there are three children in the family who need to go to school.
It costs one dollar a year to go to elementary school. In addition, you have to pay a few cents for textbooks, as well as notebooks and pens.
This is a considerable burden for ordinary rural families.
Although their family received a monthly subsidy from their second uncle, sending three children to school together was a considerable expense.
Without a second thought, my grandparents decided not to let my cousin go to school.
The saying goes that girls don’t need to study, reading too much is useless, and it is better to learn to do housework.
Anyway, the second brother doesn't care about her. He just needs to wait until she is old enough to get married and get a dowry.
Originally, the old couple did not plan to let Erni go to school, but when Erni's mother saw that the eldest wife's child had to spend money to go to school, she threw a tantrum and insisted that her daughter go to school as well.
Anyway, the big house can’t take all the benefits.
In the end, Erni's mother kept pestering her, and Erni finally went to elementary school with her cousin as she wished.
Seeing her cousin's eyes full of envy, Erni felt very proud.
She has books to read, and she will definitely live a better life than her cousin in the future!
But before she could be happy for long, her cousin was taken back to the city by her second uncle.
My second uncle said that the textile factory where he worked had an attached elementary and middle school, and there was no tuition required, so he wanted my cousin to go to school at the factory.
Old Master Xu didn't doubt it. It didn't cost any money anyway, and it was none of his business whether the girl went to school or not.
In this way, my cousin was taken back to the city by my second uncle.
After her cousin returned to the city, Erni felt very jealous.
She also didn't expect that her second uncle would be willing to take her cousin back.
Her cousin will become a city dweller, but she is destined to be a rural person. This difference really makes Erni uncomfortable.
But before she could feel bad about it for long, something even more unbelievable happened.
All the housework that my cousin used to do fell on her!
Erni was dumbfounded. She had to go to school every day, so how could she have time to do housework?
She has never done any housework!
Wasn’t this my cousin’s job before?
"What's the point of a girl like you studying? We don't keep idlers in our family! You can eat only after you finish your housework, otherwise you don't have to go to school."
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