Seeing Ye Xiaoxiao return with her little ones, Li Mother didn’t even bother to spare a glance. She spat angrily, pulling out her trump card: “Today, none of you will eat!”
Ye Xiaoxiao had already expected this. Being denied food now and then wasn’t anything new, so she wasn’t disappointed.
She hung all of her family’s clothes to dry, ignored the other bucket entirely, and, taking her children by the hand, prepared to leave.
Li Mother stood there waiting, expecting Ye Xiaoxiao to submit, to beg, so she could slap her. But she… just left. She left! Li Mother seethed, half-angry at her own foolishness.
Her “good” daughters-in-law fanned the flames beside her.
Chen Xiuying folded her arms and pretended to be sincere, “Sister-in-law, don’t go, stay for breakfast.”
Tian Jiali, loving the drama, added, “Yes, Sister-in-law, stay! Don’t worry, we won’t steal the clear soup from you. And even if you don’t eat, you can’t skip washing the dishes, right?” She said it with a smug look.
Li Anguo, Erya, Sanwa, and Siya were so angry their cheeks flushed red. They didn’t dare confront their aunts head-on—their tiny fists were no match for such sandbags.
Ye Xiaoxiao, however, remained the calmest of all. She ignored everyone. There was no need to argue with fools or respond to provocations from idiots.
She didn’t even glance at the disgusting group, letting them enjoy their moment of laughter—it wasn’t often they got such a chance.
She waited for Li Mother to writhe in frustration, waited for the three Li daughters-in-law to make a spectacle of themselves.
Ye Xiaoxiao, with her children, went out and sought out the village’s loudmouthed Aunt Ge. She knocked on her door, and when Aunt Ge appeared, Ye Xiaoxiao asked,
“Auntie, could I borrow two sweet potatoes? I’ve been sick for a few days and haven’t eaten a single grain of rice. My mother-in-law said the household is too poor to even boil a pot of rice, so I’ve been enduring. I’ve only had water for days, my stomach feels awful, and the children have only had clear broth for days. We can’t bear it anymore.” Ye Xiaoxiao’s eyes reddened as she held Aunt Ge’s hand, pleading.
Aunt Ge was quite a character—gossip queen and enthusiastic observer. If something went missing at one house or another, she would have the whole village talking by sundown. The rare thing about her was she had boundaries.
Aunt Ge sized Ye Xiaoxiao up from head to toe. The sun rising in the west—Tianyou’s wife actually wanted to use her!
But this time, she decided to play along, curious to see the Li family’s folly.
She shouted at the top of her lungs, “Everyone, come see something rare! Li Tianyou sends only seventy bucks home each month, and now his family is out of food. The sick daughter-in-law hasn’t eaten for days, and the children have had only clear broth. Come take a look, come listen!” Her proclamation had the flair of a 2-yuan store advertisement decades later: “Passersby, don’t miss this, come in and see!”
Ye Xiaoxiao internally stifled a laugh, pretending to be annoyed on the surface.
“Aunt Ge, don’t just flap your mouth making up stories. My father-in-law and mother-in-law told me, in front of me, that Li Tianyou never sent any money home while serving in the army all these years. Our survival depended entirely on the Li family; otherwise, we would have starved.”
All centuries-old foxes, playing “Liaozhai” tricks!
Aunt Ge’s mouth was big, but she was sharp! Ye Xiaoxiao’s reverse strategy caught her off guard. Though not new, it was effective.
The villagers, drawn by the commotion, stared at Ye Xiaoxiao like she was crazy.
“So it’s just this fool who doesn’t know Li Tianyou sends money home every month? I’ve seen Li Father go to the post office many times,” said Aunt He, whose son worked in the provincial city and occasionally sent money back.
The crowd nodded, eyes increasingly suspicious, gossip igniting like wildfire.
How could it be? Li Tianyou’s wife didn’t know he sent money home? Preposterous!
Even though the Li family was well-known in the village, she had managed to hide it?
Don’t blame the villagers. Before Li Tianyou joined the army, the Li household had been dirt poor. After he joined, life improved. And of course, they bragged about it!
Li Father often went out boasting about how much money Tianyou sent and how well they were living.
Ignoring the incredulous expressions around her, Ye Xiaoxiao hastily denied it, asserting firmly, “What money? Uncle, Auntie, don’t talk nonsense! My in-laws once swore in front of me that Li Tianyou never sent a cent while in the army. They’d never seen a more heartless son. If not for their kindness, giving us a few spoonfuls of soup and wild vegetables, we’d have starved long ago!”
She added, with a wink, “And if they lied, may heaven strike them with thunder, their descendants cut off, and meet a cruel fate.”
Ye Xiaoxiao had graciously “explained” for Li Father and Mother—of course, the last part about the curse was her addition. Who would be so foolish as to curse their own family?
The crowd gasped, unable to believe it.
Such ruthlessness, even invoking heaven’s thunder for money! Li Father and Mother were no ordinary people.
People glanced at the sky, thinking the thunder must be lost—otherwise, why wasn’t it striking those two troublemakers? They even wanted to help guide it: “Tell us, where’s the thunder?”