As Wang Erhua was chewing on her third pancake, she heard the noise and immediately tossed the pancake aside, excitedly rushing toward the house.
“What are you doing?!”
Wang Fen grabbed her and her face darkened. “My son is consummating his marriage. What are you butting in for?”
“Consummating the marriage in broad daylight is improper to begin with!”
Wang Erhua struggled and deliberately raised her voice. “Listen to her! She’s screaming so miserably her voice is cracking. Don’t tell me something’s happened to her I’ll go see what’s going on!”
“So what if she screams a bit? What wedding night doesn’t have some noise?” Wang Fen stiffened her neck and held on tightly.
From inside came a string of shouts: “You big idiot! Bastard! Let me go! What did you force me to drink?!”
The crying and cursing grew more frequent. Even the onlookers outside the courtyard began whispering among themselves. Wang Fen’s face started to lose color. That little slut really had a foul mouth.
“Hey, Wang Fen, aren’t you going to check? What if someone dies?” someone couldn’t help asking.
“What death could there be when a husband and wife consummate their marriage?”
With hands on her hips, Wang Fen threatened, “I’m telling you all whoever dares step into that room today and ruin my son’s big moment, I’ll fight them to the death!”
Seeing this, Wang Erhua reluctantly sat back down.
She had wanted to make sure Wang the Fool didn’t truly ruin Lin Xiulan, but alas perhaps this was her fate.
The shouting inside gradually weakened, mixed with low groans. Wang Erhua knew Wang the Fool had probably succeeded.
Just then, footsteps sounded at the courtyard gate. The brigade leader’s son, Lin Guodong, and Lin Dayong’s younger brother, Lin Gan, walked in.
Wang Erhua’s eyes lit up and she hurried over. “Guodong, Lin Gan, what brings you here? Here for the wedding feast?”
“No, Auntie,” Lin Guodong said with a serious expression. “We’re here looking for Aunt Xiulan. Someone in the village said they saw her come this way. She needs to hurry back home.”
“Xiulan? Haven’t seen her!” Wang Erhua feigned ignorance and pointed inside. “Today’s Wang Dagen’s wedding there’s only one bride. What Xiulan?
Oh wait, listen to my mouth how could there be only the bride? We’re all people here. Real relatives, every one of us.” She laughed.
Lin Guodong’s heart skipped a beat.
He knew Lin Yinyin was supposed to marry Wang the Fool today. But before leaving the village, he’d seen Lin Yinyin still making a fuss at home. How had the bride changed so quickly?
Suddenly he remembered his father’s special instruction before they came to see the bride.
“It’s over!” Lin Gan also realized something at that moment.
His face turned pale. That bride could it be my sister-in-law Lin Xiulan?!
As soon as he said that, the door burst open with a bang.
Wang Dagen ran out bare-chested, scratch marks on his back still bleeding. Holding up his pants, he wailed, “Ma! My wife hit me! She’s not sweet not sweet at all!”
In the next second, everyone froze.
From inside the room, someone staggered out.
Her body was covered in bruises.
But where was the eighteen-year-old young bride? This was clearly a forty-year-old woman!
Her hair was disheveled, her cheeks swollen high, blood at the corner of her mouth, her eyes still unfocused.
“Lin Xiulan?!”
The bowl in Wang Fen’s hand crashed to the ground.
“Y-you… how are you here? Where’s the bride my son married?!”
Lin Xiulan was beginning to regain her senses. She trembled as she stood up, fury blazing in her eyes. “You black-hearted old hag! Your idiot son ruined me! I’m going to report you for rape!”
Clutching her clothes together, she rushed toward the gate like a madwoman.
“Stop her! Stop her!” Wang Fen screamed.
No matter how she’d gotten here, her son “taking” someone by force absolutely could not reach the brigade leader’s ears.
Several aunties, seeing through the situation, rushed forward to help. “Xiulan, let’s talk this out—don’t be rash!” they coaxed, while their hands tightly pinned her waist.
They didn’t want outsiders laughing at Wang Family Village, nor did they want to be implicated.
“I’m reporting you for rape! Just you wait!”
Wang Fen tried to cover her mouth, but Lin Xiulan struggled too fiercely. So Wang Fen grabbed a nearby broom head and shoved it into Lin Xiulan’s mouth.
Even Wang Erhua, watching the spectacle, felt her own mouth ache.
Fortunately the broom head was nearly worn bald otherwise her mouth would’ve been punctured bloody.
“Mmm Lin… Lin Gan! Save me! I’m your sister-in-law!”
Hair disheveled, mouth bloody, Lin Xiulan cried out wildly to Lin Gan.
Lin Gan, stunned until now, had just begun to move forward when a crisp female voice rang out:
“What a lively wedding banquet.”
Everyone turned toward the sound.
At the gate stood a girl in clothes washed pale from wear.
Her bright, starry eyes blinked as she looked at Lin Xiulan’s face, even nodding in satisfaction.
Yet her tone carried a hint of grievance. “Mom, so you really are here. I thought what you said this morning was just casual talk.”
“Lin Yinyin, what do you mean by that?” Wang Fen demanded first.
“Oh my, this must be Aunt Wang my former mother-in-law.”
She spoke softly, almost timidly. “It’s like this. Today I was to be married. My mom told me Wang Dagen is young and strong and… and said he’s well-endowed and skilled in bed. She said marrying into this family would be a blessing.
But for some reason, the more she talked, the angrier she became. She scolded me for not knowing what’s good for me, then sent me to the back hill to cut pig fodder, saying when I came back, I’d bow before the ancestors…
But when I returned, no one was home. My dad said she might’ve come to Wang Village, so I hurried over…”
“What?!”
The courtyard instantly exploded with uproar.
Could it be Lin Xiulan had taken a fancy to Wang the Fool?
“Bullshit!”
Lin Xiulan finally spat out the broken broom head and heard Lin Yinyin’s words. Her eyes turned red with rage.
“I’m Lin Dayong’s wife! Who would fancy a drooling idiot?!
It was Lin Yinyin, that little slut! She knocked me out when I wasn’t paying attention and tied me up to bring me here.
She’s been a jinx since childhood! Don’t listen to her nonsense!”
“Mom, how is what I said nonsense?” Lin Yinyin’s voice remained gentle, tinged with grievance.
“You were the one who said Wang Dagen is young and strong, right?
You were the one who said marrying over here would mean a life of comfort, right?
You even talked about all the benefits of marrying him how all the Wang family’s money would belong to Dagen’s wife.
You said girls from ten villages around envy it, that you envy it too. You said all that, didn’t you?”
“I—”
Before Lin Xiulan could rebut, Lin Yinyin cut in again. “But Mom, even if you envied me and fancied Wang Dagen, you should’ve told Dad first.
Dad still doesn’t know you climbed over the apricot wall no, wait, red apricot climbed the wall. Oh, that’s not right…”
Someone corrected, “It’s ‘red apricot out of the wall.’”
“Yes, yes, Auntie, you’re right! I’m not well educated, but even I know about propriety and shame.
A forty-year-old married woman fancying a young man and climbing into his bed that’s wrong.”
“Ahhh! Lin Yinyin, you bitch! I’ll kill you!” Lin Xiulan lunged forward but someone moved faster.
Slap!
Wang Fen’s palm struck Lin Xiulan’s face.
She trembled with rage. “So that’s it you had your eye on my family’s money all along!”
She grabbed the broom again and lashed at Lin Xiulan.
“So you had plans from the start! You scheming whore, daring to target my son! I’ll beat you to death, you black-hearted thing I’ll fight you!”
Just as chaos reigned, the brigade leader arrived with several village cadres.
Lin Guodong had run back to report when things spiraled out of control.
After hearing the whole story, the brigade leader’s face darkened like storm clouds.
“Enough! All of you, quiet down! What kind of spectacle is this?!”
Seeing him, Lin Xiulan crawled over and clutched his pant leg. “Brigade Leader! You must stand up for me! Lin Yinyin knocked me out and tied me here and Wang the Fool raped me”
Before she could finish, Wang Fen shrieked, “Bullshit!
You’re the one without virtue cheating and deceiving!
You said you’d sell your stepdaughter Lin Yinyin to us and even took fifty yuan in betrothal money! Then you married over yourself. I’ve never seen someone so shameless!”
“Don’t you spout nonsense, I clearly”
“Shut up, all of you!”
The brigade leader roared.
Looking at the disheveled Lin Xiulan, the furious Wang Fen, and Lin Yinyin standing among the crowd, his temples throbbed.
Too many coincidences there had to be something wrong.