Wang Xiumei carried the gifts and returned home.
Xia Xiaowan was already carrying dirty clothes and drawing water from the well.
Wang Xiumei nodded in satisfaction. Now that Xia Xiaowan had married into a wealthy family, she could still help her for free. She was easy to handle.
She pushed open the door.
Wang Xiumei saw her daughter sitting in the living room, blowing herself with an electric fan and drinking tea. She was half reclining on the sofa, cracking sunflower seeds and scattering the shells all over the floor.
Before Xia Xiuxiu had married, all the housework had been done by Xia Xiaowan, so no particular untidiness had shown.
But now Xia Xiaowan had married too, which meant Wang Xiumei had to do all the housework herself. Cleaning the three bedrooms, the living room, and the courtyard, as well as personally preparing all three meals every day, had exhausted her to the point that her lower back nearly felt broken.
Her husband, Xia Zhiyuan, was a key worker at the factory and often worked overtime until late at night. There was no way to count on him for housework.
Her younger daughter, Xia He, was in middle school and brought lunch to school, so Wang Xiumei had to prepare something decent for her. Wang Xiumei was nearly fifty already, and her obese body came with high blood pressure. She could neither get angry nor overexert herself.
When she saw her daughter surrounded by sunflower-seed shells, Wang Xiumei said, “Xiuer, you and Jiang Cheng go clean up the kitchen. I’m going to buy groceries!”
“Mom, what are you talking about? Didn’t Xia Xiaowan do all this work before? I don’t know how to do it either!” Xia Xiuxiu rolled her eyes as she spoke. Then she suddenly noticed the exquisite paper bag in her mother’s hand, and her eyes lit up.
“Mom, what did you buy? Is it for me? Let me see!” Xia Xiuxiu tossed aside the sunflower seeds in her hand and rushed over.
Without caring whether Wang Xiumei was pleased or not, she snatched the bag away and opened it. When she saw tea leaves and a tea set inside, her expression immediately fell.
“Mom, you can’t eat tea leaves as a meal. Why did you buy this? Weren’t you going to buy meat to make dumplings?”
Xia Xiuxiu was uneducated.
She understood even less about appreciating tea. In her eyes, the tea leaves were nowhere near as useful as several pounds of pork.
“All right, hurry up and clean the kitchen. I’m going to buy groceries now!” Wang Xiumei pushed her daughter away with a look of disdain and walked toward the room where she lived.
Seeing that her mother was truly angry, Xia Xiuxiu opened the wooden kitchen door with extreme reluctance.
Good grief, why was the kitchen so filthy? Unwashed rice bowls were sitting in the basin.
Vegetable leaves and grains of rice covered the stove. The rag was practically growing mold, and who knew how long it had been since the garbage on the floor had been cleared away?
Xia Xiuxiu never did housework at home. Looking at the disgustingly dirty kitchen, she said, “My mother is way too lazy. Xia Xiaowan has only been married for a few days, and she’s already let it get like this?”
Jiang Cheng, who was standing nearby, said, “Xia Xiuxiu, didn’t you say that you were always the one who did the housework? Why bring up Xia Xiaowan? Wasn’t it you who did it?”
Xia Xiuxiu usually spoke without thinking. For a moment, she did not know how to answer Jiang Cheng.
After all, she had told Jiang Cheng that she was very capable at managing a household and did all the housework herself.
She got up early every morning to prepare breakfast, and at night she pasted matchboxes to supplement the family income. Her father and mother both liked her very much.
Xia Xiaowan, on the other hand, was different. Apart from going to work, she did nothing but play. She would not do any housework, and she even made her younger female cousin wash the underwear she had taken off. She was a thoroughly lazy good-for-nothing.
Everyone in the family hated Xia Xiaowan. They had only kept her because both her parents had died and the whole family could not bear to abandon her.
Yet now, wasn’t everything Xia Xiuxiu said implying that Xia Xiaowan had been the one doing all the work?
No wonder the meals Xia Xiuxiu had made these past few days were either burnt or undercooked. If food had not been too precious to waste, Jiang Cheng would have stopped eating them long ago.
Jiang Cheng shook his head repeatedly, his eyes filled with disappointment.
Xia Xiuxiu grew somewhat flustered.
She worked hard in the kitchen, while Jiang Cheng could not be bothered to watch her. He took a bucket to the well to draw water.
“You’re my older female cousin, right? I’m here to draw some water…” Jiang Cheng was very awkward and inexperienced at this time, and he forced out a faint smile as he looked at Xia Xiaowan.
Xia Xiaowan raised her head and looked at the man. In her previous life, when she had married Jiang Cheng, he had been just as awkward and inexperienced.
But after she had given birth to three children,
and Jiang Cheng’s career had reached its peak, he had gradually revealed the selfishness and heartlessness deep in his bones. He obeyed his mother in everything and did everything he could to help his brothers and sisters whenever they faced difficulties.
—Only Xia Xiaowan was the exception. Until the final moment of her life, she had never received Jiang Cheng’s acknowledgment.
“Go ahead and draw it.” Xia Xiaowan moved aside, and Jiang Cheng skillfully drew a bucket of water. He turned around and gazed deeply at Xia Xiaowan several times.
He felt that Xia Xiaowan was gentle and capable, nothing like the disgraceful woman his wife had described.
After returning indoors and setting down the bucket, he helped his mother-in-law wash vegetables and assisted with the preparations.
Jiang Cheng was very good at making himself useful.
Wang Xiumei nodded. Although this son-in-law was poor, he was more diligent and more perceptive than her own daughter.
Wang Xiumei made an exception and stir-fried several dishes, then made dumplings filled with cabbage and pork.
Xia Xiaowan washed all the clothes that had piled up in the Xia family over the past few days and hung them up one by one in the courtyard.
She scooped up water and wet the ground, then scrubbed the courtyard clean and threw the garbage into the trash bin.
At noon, Xia Zhiyuan came home for lunch.
The moment he walked into the courtyard, he was met everywhere by a refreshing cleanliness. The firewood was stacked neatly at the eastern end of the courtyard, there was no garbage on the ground, and the washed clothes gave off a faint scent of soap.
Xiaowan must be back.
—Xia Zhiyuan was somewhat excited.
He knew that only Xiaowan could keep the house neat and spotless!
“Xiaowan, are you back home?” Xia Zhiyuan called loudly.
“Dad, Jiang Cheng and I are back home…” Xia Xiuxiu was lounging on the sofa, eating snacks. When she saw Xia Zhiyuan enter, she hurriedly stood up. Snack wrappers covered the floor, but Xia Xiuxiu merely rubbed her hands together and did not feel that anything was wrong.
Xia Zhiyuan smiled awkwardly. “My eldest daughter is back. Welcome, welcome!”
He put down the tool bag in his hand and looked at Xia Xiuxiu, who had not changed in the slightest, then let out a quiet sigh.
“Dad, I’m married now. Did you miss me? Oh, right—I find the room I’m living in now too cramped. Can I come back and live at home?”
Xia Xiuxiu had remembered that the room the Jiang family had given her and Jiang Cheng as their bridal room was actually a tiny shack right beside the courtyard toilet. Whenever the window was opened, a foul stench came drifting in, and she had nearly vomited.
The Xia family had three bedrooms. Xia Zhiyuan and Wang Xiumei occupied one, Xia He occupied another, and the third was shared by the brothers Xia Jianshe and Xia Zuguo.
Wang Xiumei’s mother-in-law was in poor health, so those two sons had gone to accompany the old woman. They had not lived at home for several years.
This was the bedroom Xia Xiuxiu was talking about.
Not only did it face south and have good lighting, it was also spacious. It had been sitting unused for years, but Wang Xiumei had said that no one was allowed to move into it.
“You’ll have to discuss this with your mother. I’m afraid what I say doesn’t count…” Xia Zhiyuan was speaking sincerely. He had no say in this household at all. Wang Xiumei was the one who truly ran the home.
Xia Xiuxiu nodded. Knowing that her mother was the one who made the decisions in the household, she continued, “Dad, Xia Xiaowan has also returned to her parents’ home. It looks like things aren’t going very well for her. She came alone…”
After saying this, she gave a mysterious smile.
Xia Zhiyuan’s brows knitted tightly. He still cared deeply about Xia Xiaowan, so he hurriedly asked, “Xiuer, where’s Xiaowan?”
“She’s washing clothes outside. Didn’t you see her when you came in?” Xia Xiuxiu asked suspiciously.
“The dishes are ready. Come out and carry them in!” It was Wang Xiumei’s voice.