“Oh, my steamed buns!”
They only made steamed buns once a month at most. She absolutely couldn’t let them get ruined, or all that flour would have gone to waste.
Li Chunhua hurried into the kitchen. The fire in the stove had already gone out. When she lifted the lid of the pot, she found that there had been fewer than thirty steamed buns to begin with, and now eight or nine were missing.
Li Chunhua looked puzzled.
Where had the steamed buns gone?
Could Xiao Shi have stolen them? Even if he had, there was no way he could have eaten so many.
Could that wretched girl have eaten them?
Although the thought crossed her mind, she quickly dismissed it as unlikely. She knew her daughter’s appetite. Even if she stuffed herself to death, she couldn’t have eaten that many. Besides, when the girl left the house, her hands had been empty.
Strange. Where had the steamed buns gone?
No matter how much Li Chunhua racked her brains, she could never have imagined that Wen Jiaojiao had taken them.
With Li Chunhua watching her, Wen Jiaojiao couldn’t take anything out of the house except the clothes on her back.
But after living in the village for so many years, she had plenty of ways to get around that.
She had prepared a cloth bag and stuffed nine steamed buns inside—just enough to last her three days.
The earthen walls around the village houses were low. She tossed the bag of steamed buns over the wall, and since there weren’t many people behind the Wen family’s house, she slipped out unnoticed.
Once outside, she retrieved the bag and headed straight for Dasha Village.
Wen Jiaojiao’s village was called Dahe Village. Liu Lan’s maiden family lived in the same village, but her husband’s family was in Dasha Village.
Since Wen Jiaojiao had decided to leave today, she had to go and tell Aunt Liu first.
By the time Wen Lili came looking for her with her family, Wen Jiaojiao had already arrived in Dasha Village.
Wen Lili had been hit pretty badly. At the time, the pain had been so severe that she couldn’t move.
In reality, though, her injuries were only superficial. She couldn’t move simply because she couldn’t bear the pain.
She was considered unusually delicate and spoiled for a village girl.
“Wen Jiaojiao! Get out here! You’ve gotten completely out of control! You think you can hit anyone you want now?!”
Lu Cuifen kicked open the shabby wooden door of the Wen family’s house.
Bang!
Li Chunhua hurried out, heart aching at the sight of her damaged door.
“Cuifen! What did my door ever do to you? If you break it, you have to pay for it!”
“Chunhua, shut your mouth! Do you really think your rotten door is more important than my Lili? Get your daughter out here! I’ll beat her half to death today!”
Lu Cuifen was tall and broad-shouldered. She rolled up her sleeves, revealing a pair of dark, muscular arms.
Li Chunhua’s eyelid twitched at the sight.
When it came to height and physical strength, she really couldn’t beat this second sister-in-law of hers. Lu Cuifen was only about a head shorter than most men.
Wen Lili had inherited her mother’s dark complexion and plump figure, though she was nowhere near as tall—only around 155 centimeters.
She looked like a dark, chubby potato.
At least while she was young, the older generation liked children who were round and plump.
“Jiaojiao isn’t home. She’ll be back later. Besides, those two girls were just fooling around. Why are you, as an elder, getting involved? And you even came here with your husband. What? Are you planning to beat someone to death today?!”
Li Chunhua glared at them as she shouted.
Whether she was in the right or wrong, no one was going to take advantage of her.
The moment Lu Cuifen heard that, she exploded.
Pointing straight at Li Chunhua’s nose, she cursed, “Li Chunhua, have you no shame? That wretched Wen Jiaojiao nearly beat my daughter to death, and you call it fooling around?”
“I know she’s in the house. Get her out here! I’ll have a little ‘fun’ with her too!”
From the way Lu Cuifen was acting, if Wen Jiaojiao dared show herself, she would beat her half to death even if she couldn’t kill her.
Wen Laowu’s second brother stood behind his wife, supporting his daughter without saying a word.
Wen Lili’s eyes were filled with resentment. She trusted her mother completely.
She only wished her mother would beat Wen Jiaojiao’s ugly face until it looked like a pig’s head.
The entire family was acting so aggressively that Li Chunhua felt a little nervous.
She was actually relieved that the wretched girl had gone out. Otherwise, she would probably be beaten half to death today.
That girl had nothing valuable except for her face. If that face were ruined, all the years they had spent raising her would have been for nothing.
Li Chunhua gave a cold laugh.
“Second sister-in-law, I already told you. That girl went out. If you don’t believe me, search the house yourself. Or you can wait until she comes back.”
Without another word, Lu Cuifen stormed inside and began searching.
She first went into Li Chunhua and Wen Shi’s room, checking every possible place someone could hide.
Finding no one, she headed straight for Wen Jiaojiao’s room.
She rummaged through everything, throwing all the clothes out of the wardrobe.
Wen Lili stomped on them viciously, as though trying to vent all her anger.
Li Chunhua simply leaned against the doorway and watched.
Every now and then, a mocking glint appeared in her eyes.
Serves her right.
She deserves to have every single one of those clothes trampled into the dirt!
Li Chunhua didn’t care when they stepped all over the clothes.
But when Lu Cuifen couldn’t find anyone and began kicking the wardrobe in frustration, Li Chunhua finally rushed over to stop her.
“Hey! Hey!”
“Lu Cuifen, you’re looking for a person, so look for a person! Why are you destroying my wardrobe just because you can’t find her? If you kick a hole in it, you have to pay for it!”
Li Chunhua stared at the footprints left on the wardrobe, her heart aching.
That was money!
A wardrobe was supposed to last for decades. She absolutely couldn’t let them kick it to pieces.
After Li Chunhua desperately tried to stop her, Lu Cuifen finally stopped kicking.
She shouted angrily, “Where did she go?”
“Don’t tell me you sent her to hide at your mother’s family home?”
“How could I? She went to work in the fields. She’ll be back tonight. You can come back then.”
Li Chunhua was already calculating.
First, she needed to get this family out of here.
By tonight, Wen Laosan would have returned from work. Surely they wouldn’t dare cripple his daughter right in front of her father.
Lu Cuifen’s face darkened.
“Li Chunhua, don’t even think about fooling me. This matter isn’t over until I get an explanation. No one is getting away with this today!”
After throwing out those threatening words, Lu Cuifen and her family left angrily.
They split up.
Wen Laowu’s second brother went to the Wen family’s fields to look for Wen Jiaojiao, while Lu Cuifen took her daughter to the eldest brother’s house to find their mother-in-law.
Village elders usually lived with their eldest son.
And in the Wen family, Wen Lili was the only precious granddaughter, so they could only go to the old lady and ask her to decide what should be done.
Dasha Village
Wen Jiaojiao was saying goodbye to Liu Lan.
“Auntie, I have to leave for the county today. I came here to let you know.”
Liu Lan froze.
“Wasn’t it supposed to be three days from now? Isn’t today too early?”
“Something unexpected happened.”
Wen Jiaojiao gave a bitter smile and told her about what had happened that morning.
“I don’t dare go home anymore. With the way my second aunt is, I might not even survive if I go back to the fields today.”
“Don’t worry about me, Auntie. I’ve been to the county before, and I know how to take the train. So please don’t worry.”
She had entered society at a young age in her previous life. There was no way anyone would be able to sell her off.
After hearing the whole story, Liu Lan immediately cursed.
“How can that daughter of Wen Laowu’s second brother be so shameless? She’s so young and already acting like some street thug, stealing things! There isn’t a single decent person in Lu Cuifen’s family!”
Everyone in the surrounding villages knew how troublesome Wen Lili’s cousin was.
After cursing Lu Cuifen, Liu Lan turned her anger toward Li Chunhua.
“That Li Chunhua is such a heartless woman! Ever since she had a son, she doesn’t even know how to love her own daughter anymore. One day, she’ll—”
Liu Lan was so furious that she couldn’t even finish the sentence.
She looked at Wen Jiaojiao with eyes full of sympathy.
“Jiaojiao, don’t blame your auntie for being too blunt. Your mother and father don’t treat you nearly as well as they treat Xiao Shi.”
“My advice to you is this: once you join the military, try to find yourself a military officer as a husband. If you can avoid coming back here, then don’t come back.”
“If Li Chunhua and the others find out that you’ve joined the military, they’ll cling to you and drag you down for the rest of your life.”