"Grandma, my stomach hurts. I squatted in the outhouse for a while," Feng Yuanchun explained. "Grandma, if we can't finish the work on the private plot today, I'll do it all by myself tomorrow."
Yuanchun also came from a rural background. She often helped her parents work in the fields when she was young. After graduating from university and starting work, she would go home to do farm work during the May Day and National Day holidays.
With the original owner's memories, this farm work was a piece of cake for her.
"I made you carry manure, getting all smelly. Aren't you afraid of being disliked?" Her eldest granddaughter was about to be married, and she couldn't let her be disliked.
After scolding her eldest granddaughter, Grandma Feng buried herself in weeding.
This plot of land belonged to the villagers of Fengjia Village. Many people were working in the field. Someone laughed and said, "Aunt Ding, even if your Yuanchun carried manure, there would be people vying to marry her. How can you dislike her?"
Grandma Feng's surname was Ding, and the younger generation in the village called her Aunt Ding.
Aunt Feng, Ding Xiaotao, and Ding Chunli were both from Grandma Feng's hometown village.
Grandma Feng smiled and replied, "That's right, you won't find a girl more beautiful than my Yuanchun in all these surrounding villages. She's also one of the most hardworking girls. Whoever marries my Yuanchun is truly blessed."
"Blessed is blessed, but the dowry you're asking for is too much. In the countryside, which family can afford a hundred yuan as a dowry? It's not like she's a city girl who gets paid every month."
The person speaking had a sour tone.
A daughter, exchanged for a hundred yuan.
That's valuable.
Liu Qingqiu looked up at the woman and muttered, "Gousheng's mother, a hundred yuan isn't enough for a young man in the city to get married. They value 'three turns and one sound,' 'twenty-four legs,' and a dowry of two or three hundred yuan. That's expensive! My Yuanchun only wants a hundred yuan."
She paused, then added insult to injury, "My Yuanchun isn't illiterate; she's educated in high school. A hundred yuan to marry a high school student? That's not expensive at all!"
Gousheng's mother: "..."
Gousheng's illiterate sister: "..."
She suspected that Yuan Chun's mother was scolding her.
But she couldn't scold back.
So angry!
However, she envied Feng Yuan Chun for having a mother who was a sent-down youth, someone who could teach her to read and write.
"You good-for-nothing, you slack off even when you're doing chores! Hurry up and get to work, can't you see it's getting dark?" Gou Sheng's mother, having suffered a verbal defeat, was seething with anger. Turning around, she saw her daughter lost in thought, and a surge of anger ignited within her.
She grabbed her daughter's hair and punched her several times
, making Feng Zhaodi cry out.
The Feng family members all kept their heads down, working as if they hadn't heard a thing.
...
Chen Shengjun had just arrived home when his mother-in-law yelled and rushed over, "Damn it, Shengjun, who the hell hit you? You're bleeding!
Shengjun, tell your mother, I'm going to settle the score with him!" "Mother, no one hit me. I accidentally bumped into a tree while walking." Chen Shengjun was too ashamed to admit that he had been beaten by a woman.
Granny Chen glared angrily and slapped her son on the back. "You brat! Are you trying to drive your mother crazy? They've slapped your face so hard it's swollen, and you're still protecting them! That tree trunk could have left a five-finger mark on it! Tell me, who hit you? Don't think that just because our Chen family is poor we can be bullied. Let me tell you, I'm not someone to be trifled with!"
"Mom, it hurts so much! Can you please stop asking?" Chen Shengjun said dejectedly as he went into a small thatched house on the east side.