Feng Jiaojiao took a bite of the flatbread, but it was only a tiny bite. She chewed for a long time without being able to swallow it.
This wasn’t the kind of cornmeal flatbread she was used to eating back in her old life—the soft, fragrant kind made from finely ground coarse grains.
Cornmeal at this time wasn’t nearly as finely ground. It was often mixed with other coarse grains such as black flour and sorghum flour.
The resulting flatbread was dark yellow, hard as a rock, and could practically be used as a weapon. It looked completely unappetizing. Although it was filling, the texture was rough and dry, practically scraping your throat.
Seeing Feng Jiaojiao mechanically chewing the same bite over and over without swallowing, An Jianjun knew immediately that she wasn’t used to it.
He took the flatbread from her hand, poured the cornmeal porridge from his own bowl into hers, and added some shredded potatoes and pickled vegetables.
“Eat this instead. I’ll have the flatbread.”
Father An and Mother An exchanged a glance, their brows slightly furrowed.
Looks like she was raised on refined grains. She really can’t get used to our coarse food.
But they can’t exactly cook a separate meal just for her every day.
What a headache.
Eldest Sister-in-Law saw what happened and was about to say something, but Eldest Brother An stopped her.
Their third brother’s wife was a city girl. It was perfectly normal for someone so pampered to need some time to adjust.
There was no reason for his wife to interfere.
The entire meal passed amid silent exchanges of glances and unspoken thoughts.
After breakfast, everyone in the An family except Feng Jiaojiao and Chen Tingting had their own work to do.
Even the little girls had to go out and gather pigweed.
Seeing Feng Jiaojiao sitting inside the house, idly playing with her clothes, An Jianjun walked over.
He held out his hand.
In his palm was a single boiled egg.
“You…”
Feng Jiaojiao stared at him in surprise.
“Mom secretly gave this to me and told me to bring it to you. She was worried you didn’t get enough to eat this morning. Eat it.”
“Stay home. If you want to sleep, take another nap. I’m going out to work.”
During the few days An Jianjun had been home, he tried to do as much work for the family as possible.
“Oh, thank you.”
A hint of sweetness spread through Feng Jiaojiao’s heart.
While Mother An was working in the fields, a group of women gathered around her and started chatting.
“Guiying, where’s your new daughter-in-law? We haven’t seen her.”
Everyone was curious.
“You mean my third son’s wife? She’s at home. There’s plenty of housework to do there, so I told her to stay home.”
Mother An knew how things worked.
There was no way she would badmouth her own daughter-in-law in front of outsiders. Wouldn’t that just make the family a laughingstock?
“Guiying, if you ask me, you need to show her who’s boss. Since that Feng Zhiqing married into your family, she should follow the local customs and work alongside everyone else. How can she stay home enjoying herself while everyone else works?”
The speaker was Grandma Li, a notorious sharp-tongued old woman in the village.
She was always stirring up trouble and loved nothing more than creating tension between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law.
Mother An immediately understood what she was trying to do.
“Give me a break. Our family isn’t some den of wolves and tigers. Besides, my third daughter-in-law is wonderful. I like spoiling her. Seeing her not work actually makes me happy.”
Mother An wasn’t about to let Grandma Li stir up trouble in her family.
“Hmph. You can keep treating her like some precious treasure. She can’t do anything. She’s only good for looking pretty and completely useless otherwise!”
Grandma Li curled her lips disdainfully.
In her eyes, Li Guiying was simply pretending to be generous.
Everyone in the village knew Feng Zhiqing was delicate and couldn’t do much farm work.
If she had married into Grandma Li’s family, Grandma Li was confident she could straighten her out within a few days.
Mother An immediately fired back.
“The old oxen and donkeys in the production team are pretty useful and hardworking. Why didn’t you marry one of them to your son? Then you wouldn’t have to worry about him staying single and causing trouble everywhere.”
Mother An had never liked the Li family.
Grandma Li had given birth to five daughters.
When she was young, she had suffered terribly from her own mother-in-law because she couldn’t give birth to a son.
It wasn’t until she was already in her forties that she finally had a son.
She considered him a precious gift from heaven, so she named him Li Tianci, meaning “Heaven-Given.”
After finally having a son, Grandma Li’s confidence soared.
Once her five daughters reached marriageable age, she married them off one by one in exchange for bride prices, using the money to raise her precious son.
She herself had suffered under her mother-in-law, yet instead of breaking the cycle, she took out all her resentment on her own daughters.
She blamed those girls for her suffering and constantly beat and scolded them.
When it came time to marry them off, she deliberately chose families willing to pay high bride prices—families with terrible reputations that ordinary women would never willingly marry into.
Everyone in the village could see exactly what the Li couple was doing, and no one thought highly of them.
On top of that, Li Tianci had been spoiled rotten since childhood. He spent his days stealing chickens and dogs and causing trouble instead of doing anything useful.
No decent family was willing to marry their daughter into the Li household.
Anyone who genuinely cared about their daughter would never willingly send her there to suffer.
The only women willing to consider it were either from families so desperate for a bride price that they would sacrifice their daughters, or widows whose husbands had died.
But even then, Grandma Li looked down on them.
She wanted to find her precious son a young, unmarried woman from a respectable family.
She kept waiting and waiting for the “perfect” daughter-in-law.
Before she knew it, her son had become a confirmed bachelor.
“You… Li Guiying, you really don’t know what’s good for you! I was only trying to help you so that you wouldn’t be bullied by your daughter-in-law when you’re old.”
Grandma Li’s biggest weakness was her son, Tianci.
Mother An immediately turned it around.
“I was helping you too! Your Tianci is still single, so I was simply giving you a suggestion based on what you wanted. Why are you getting angry?”
Mother An had never lost an argument when it came to throwing insults.
“You’ll regret this. Let’s see how long you can keep feeling so proud of yourself.”
In Grandma Li’s mind, the relationship between a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law was always a battle of power.
Either the east wind defeated the west wind, or the west wind defeated the east wind.
If you didn’t keep your daughter-in-law under control from the beginning, she would eventually take over the entire household.
Mother An snorted.
“I raised my sons. I didn’t raise my daughters-in-law. When I’m old, my four sons will take turns looking after me. I’ve never expected my daughters-in-law to do it.”
That was genuinely how Mother An felt.
Her daughters-in-law weren’t her biological children. She hadn’t raised them or cared for them from childhood, so why should she expect them to be responsible for her in old age?
Taking care of her when she became elderly was her sons’ responsibility.
They were the ones she had given birth to and raised from infancy.
If she ever needed anything, she would go to her sons.
She wouldn’t mistreat her daughters-in-law. After all, these women would spend their entire lives with her sons. As long as they were happy, that was enough.
But she also wouldn’t expect too much from them.
She certainly wasn’t going to rely on her daughters-in-law to take care of her every bodily need in old age.
“You… What’s so great about having so many sons? So what if you have more sons? You still only have one grandson! You gave birth to seven money-losing girls!”
Grandma Li thought Mother An was deliberately showing off how many sons she had.
Mother An immediately hit her where it hurt.
“What is wrong with my seven granddaughters? Are they bothering you?”
“I’m not like you, always favoring boys. Every one of my seven granddaughters is beautiful and capable. When they grow up, they’ll all be filial to their parents.”
“Unlike some people who don’t even have anyone visit them during the holidays!”
Mother An deliberately stabbed at Grandma Li’s sore spot.
After Grandma Li’s five daughters had married, not one of them ever returned to their mother’s home.
Their parents had married them off to terrible families, where they had suffered abuse from their in-laws.
How could the girls not resent their parents?
How could they possibly want to return to their mother’s family?
The An family’s little girls really were beautiful.
The An family had good genes, and each girl had her own distinctive charm.
No wonder people jokingly called them the “Seven Fairies of the An Family.”
There were plenty of rural families with many daughters, but when it came to beauty, the An family’s girls were among the prettiest in the village.
“You… Li Guiying, you’ve gone crazy! You actually treat those girls like treasures. Your brain must be broken!”
“That’s none of your business. Instead of worrying about me, you’d better think about how you’re going to find your son a wife.”
“Otherwise, I’m afraid you’ll never even get to hold a granddaughter!”
“Ah! Li Guiying! How dare you curse my son! I’ll tear that mouth of yours apart!”
The two women continued arguing furiously while everyone else tried to pull them apart.
Then, suddenly, someone shouted from nearby:
“Oh no! Qin Zhiqing fainted! Everyone, come quickly! Help us take her back to the educated youth station!”
Qin Siyu had collapsed in the fields nearby.
“What’s wrong with Qin Zhiqing?”
Everyone immediately turned their attention toward her.