Shidianzi Village.
Chen Xiaomeng was up before six in the morning.
She knew full well in her heart that marrying Jiang Runsheng was truly a case of marrying above her station.
Since she was new to the family, she needed to make a good impression on her in-laws. So she rose early to cook in the kitchen.
Her father-in-law, Jiang Decheng, was the village chief. Her mother-in-law had once served as the head of the Women’s Committee. Her husband’s elder sister worked at the supply and marketing cooperative, and Jiang Runsheng was an announcer at the broadcast station. The whole family was proper and accomplished.
In contrast, she was nothing but an ordinary country girl—no job, and besides some farm work, she couldn’t do anything else.
Though she had been reborn, what a pity she hadn’t been reborn earlier.
Her mother, Chen Xiuying, was old-fashioned and stubborn, clinging to the outdated rule that “a woman’s virtue lies in her lack of talent.” She had never valued Xiaomeng’s education.
So Chen Xiaomeng had dropped out after the third grade of elementary school.
If only she could have been reborn as a child again, with her own abilities, she could have gotten into Tsinghua or Peking University, no problem.
But it was too late to say anything now.
Then she thought again—so what if she had no education?
Qiao Qingyan was full of scholarly elegance, and in the end, she still married some penniless hunter who went into the mountains.
Meanwhile, uneducated as she was, she had married into the most cultured and distinguished family in the entire village.
Comparing herself this way, Chen Xiaomeng felt much better inside. Her brows and eyes could hardly hide her smugness—she was almost ready to strut to the skies.
She hummed a light tune, lowering her head and carefully rinsing the rice in the pot.
Inside, on the heated brick bed, Village Chief Jiang Decheng lay with his eyes closed. “Runsheng’s mother, go take a look. What’s all that commotion in the yard?”
Wei Yongqiu was getting dressed as she got up, pursing her lips in reply: “Your daughter-in-law is cooking.”
“Ah…” Jiang Decheng turned over, pillowing his head on his arm, and slowly opened his hazy eyes.
“What are you sighing about so early in the morning?” Wei Yongqiu said.
“Ah…” Jiang Decheng sighed again. “How did it have to be her of all people?”
Wei Yongqiu gave a dismissive snort. “Wasn’t it you who told your son to marry her?”
“I had no choice,” Jiang Decheng said with resignation. “If he didn’t marry her, and someone reported it to the commune, slapping him with a charge of improper conduct—does Runsheng want to keep his job at the broadcast station or not?”
Wei Yongqiu finished dressing and sat on the edge of the kang bed, reaching out to gently poke her husband’s forehead. “You’re just too honest, that’s your problem. Both you and your son—you were clearly schemed against by that little girl.”
Jiang Decheng looked at her. “What do you mean by that?”
“Too bad I wasn’t there that day. If I had been, I would have said right then and there that she was the one who seduced Runsheng while he was drunk! Our son is a proper high school graduate and a township broadcaster—how could he possibly fancy some country girl who can barely read a few characters?”
“Ah, you don’t know how things were at the time…”
Jiang Decheng paused, then continued: “Runsheng let a fine girl like Qingyan go, so how did he end up tangled up with her?”
“What else could it be? She must have used some trick to seduce him.” Wei Yongqiu lowered her voice and muttered, “You men are all the same at heart—you accept whatever comes your way. When a woman throws herself at you, how many of you can resist?”
“Our Runsheng isn’t a saint either—just a hot-blooded young man. That day his uncles came to visit, and he’d had a fair bit to drink. Caught off guard, he fell for that scheming girl’s trap.”
“Hmph, those little tricks of hers might fool men, but they’ll never get past my eyes. She clearly wants to latch onto our Runsheng—a wild pheasant dreaming of becoming a phoenix perched on a high branch.”
Jiang Decheng’s brow was tightly furrowed: “I can see Runsheng is most unwilling in his heart. He got dead drunk last night, not a trace of a smile on his face.”
He rubbed his face and sighed again: “Things have come to this. The person has already married in. Regret is useless now.”
He then instructed his wife: “Go to the kitchen and give the girl a hand. She just arrived and isn’t familiar with the house.”
But Wei Yongqiu plopped herself down on the edge of the kang and picked up her needle and thread to mend clothes:
“I’m not going. Getting up early in the morning to put on a show of cooking, deliberately trying to curry favor with us. Hmph, I’d like to see how long she can keep it up.”
Qiao Qingyan saw Xiao Jinye again two days later.
At the time, she was washing clothes by the river.
Her mother-in-law had bad legs, and she figured it must be inconvenient for the old woman to squat down to wash clothes, so she took the initiative to take on the laundry work herself.
Zeng Yumei felt sorry for her, saying their family’s clothes were made of coarse, stiff fabric and she was afraid it would hurt her delicate hands.
Unable to dissuade her in the end, she could only pick out a few soft cotton garments of Duoduo’s for her to wash by the river.
The small river was not far from the Xiao family home. Willows draped their silken strands along both banks, the water was crystal clear to the bottom, and the current flowed gently.
On ordinary days, village women often came here to wash vegetables and clothes, and adults would bring children to play in the water by the riverbank.
When Qiao Qingyan arrived carrying a wooden basin, quite a few women were already gathered at the bank doing laundry.
Seeing her unfamiliar face and her clothing and bearing so different from the rest, they all lowered their voices to whisper and speculate about whose family’s girl she might be.
Qiao Qingyan knew none of these people, and had only ever met Chunya.
Thinking they were all neighbors and Chunya was a girl of similar age, she took the initiative to walk over and greeted her with a gentle smile: “Chunya, hello.”
Chunya looked up and saw her wearing a plain, elegant white dress, with a pair of thin-strapped sandals on her feet. The style was beautiful and unique, something never seen in the countryside.
A light breeze swept over the river surface, the grass and trees along the bank swayed gently, and an unknown fragrance of flowers drifted on the wind from somewhere.
Those delicate sandals made her slender ankles and dainty toes look especially lovely.
Chunya looked down at the slightly oversized old slippers on her own feet and unconsciously curled her toes.
Only city people greeted each other so politely. Country girls were always straightforward—what need was there for such affected refinement?
Sure enough, a pampered young lady.
With Jinye-ge marrying a wife like this, would they be able to talk about things together in the days to come?
Chunya felt gloomy inside, but still managed a perfunctory reply.
Seeing her lukewarm attitude, Qiao Qingyan said no more. She found a flat, clean bluestone slab, squatted down, took the clothes from the wooden basin, and began to scrub them slowly.
A woman washing clothes nearby asked Chunya in a curious whisper: “Whose family is this girl from? She looks so unfamiliar.”
Chunya looked listless. “Aunt Zeng’s daughter-in-law.”
“Jinye’s wife!” the woman exclaimed in admiration. “She’s so beautiful.”
Chunya scrubbed the clothes even harder, the palm of her hand turning red from the rubbing.
The two women’s voices fell into Qingyan’s ears. She washed the clothes quietly, pretending not to hear.
Just then, a crisp bicycle bell rang from the bank.
A woman sat on the back of the bicycle, smiling and greeting acquaintances by the shore: “Cuie, Caixia, you’re both washing clothes?”
The woman named Cuie turned her head and replied: “Indeed we are. Where are you headed?”
The woman affectionately wrapped her arms around the waist of the man on the bicycle: “It’s all because my husband dotes on me. He specially brought me into town today and bought me this new bicycle. From now on, when I go to the street to sell vegetables, I won’t have to wear out my legs walking anymore.”
“Oh my, Liangzi really does spoil you. You’re truly blessed.”
The woman smiled even more happily. “Take your time washing. I’m heading home first. I still have clothes in the washing machine at home waiting to be hung out to dry.”
Ding-a-ling—the sound of the bicycle bell and chain gradually faded into the distance.
Once the two figures were far away, Cuie immediately pursed her lips and rolled her eyes dramatically: “Look at her showing off. Her tail is about to stick up to the sky.”
Caixia, standing nearby, asked curiously: “A washing machine and now a bicycle—where does her family get so much spare money?”
Cuie snorted coldly: “You still don’t know? It’s all from sucking her sister-in-law dry. If it were money they actually earned through honest work, they wouldn’t be so willing to squander it so recklessly.”
“Who’s her sister-in-law?”
“Ha, none other than the famously shrewish Chen Xiuying!”
Qingyan raised an eyebrow. Her stepmother?