Chapter 5: Tragic Woman 5

"Grandma, my stomach hurts; I was squatting in the latrine for a bit too long," Feng Yuanchun explained. "Grandma, the work on the private plot won't be finished today, so just leave it for me to do alone tomorrow."

Yuanchun was also from a rural background. When she was a child, she often followed her parents to the fields to work. After graduating from university and starting work, she would return home to do farm work during the May Day and National Day holidays.

Furthermore, with the original host's memories, this amount of farm work was far too simple in her eyes.

"I told you to carry manure water, and now you're covered in that stinky smell. Aren't you afraid people will look down on you?" Her eldest granddaughter was someone who would soon be looking for a husband; she couldn't let her become someone people disliked.

After scolding her eldest granddaughter, Grandma Feng lowered her head to pull weeds again.

This entire area consisted of the private plots of the people from Feng Village. Many people were working in the fields, and someone laughed, "Auntie Ding, even if your Yuanchun carried manure water, people would still be scrambling to marry her as a wife. How could they possibly dislike her?"

Grandma Feng's surname was Ding, so the juniors in the village all called her Auntie Ding.

Feng Third Aunt, Ding Xiaotao, and Ding Chunli were both from Grandma Feng's maternal village.

Grandma Feng replied with a smile, "That's true. In these ten villages and eight towns, you won't find a girl more beautiful than my Yuanchun, and she's one of the most hardworking as well. Whoever marries my Yuanchun is truly blessed."

"Blessing or not, the bride price your family wants is too much. Among us rural folk, which family can afford a hundred yuan bride price? She's not a city girl who gets a monthly wage."

The person speaking had a sour tone.

One daughter, exchanged for a hundred yuan.

That was expensive.

Liu Qingqiu looked up at the woman and grumbled, "Gousheng's mother, when city boys marry wives, a hundred yuan isn't even enough. They insist on the 'Three Rounds and One Sound,' twenty-four legs, and a bride price of two or three hundred yuan—that's what's truly expensive. My Yuanchun only wants a hundred."

Pausing for a moment, Liu Qingqiu drove another knife into the woman's heart, "My Yuanchun isn't an illiterate girl; she has a high school education. Marrying a high school graduate for a hundred yuan—how is that expensive?"

Gousheng's mother: "..."

Gousheng's illiterate sister: "..."

She suspected that Yuanchun's mother was insulting her.

But she couldn't insult her back.

It was so infuriating.

However, she deeply envied Feng Yuanchun for having a youth sent-down-to-the-countryside mother who could teach her how to read and write.

"You money-losing brat, even doing a little work you're lazy. Hurry up and work, can't you see it's getting dark?" Having lost the verbal argument, Gousheng's mother was bursting with anger. Turning around to see her daughter dazing off, a surge of rage immediately flared up toward her daughter.

She grabbed her daughter's hair and threw several punches.

She hit Feng Zhaodi so hard that the girl began to wail and cry.

The Feng family members all kept their heads down working, as if they hadn't heard a thing.

...

Just as Chen Shengjun arrived home, Old Lady Chen let out a loud wail and rushed over. "Gods above! Shengjun, which short-lived ghost hit you? You're bleeding! Shengjun, tell Mother quickly, I'll go settle the score with them!"

"Mother, no one hit me. I just wasn't careful while walking and bumped into a tree trunk." Chen Shengjun had no face to say he had been beaten by a woman.

Old Lady Chen glared fiercely and slapped her son's back. "You brat, are you trying to anger your mother to death? Someone hit your face so hard it's swollen, and you're actually protecting them? Could a tree trunk leave five-finger bruises on you? Speak up, who hit you? Don't think that just because our Chen family is poor, people can bully us. Let me tell you, I am not someone to be trifled with!"

"Mother, I'm in so much pain, can you please stop asking?" Depressed, Chen Shengjun entered a small thatched hut on the east side.

(End of Chapter)