Originally, the Zhao family had also lived in the countryside. Because of the original owner’s unrequited, bottomless subsidies, the entire family had moved into town to live two months prior, relying entirely on the original owner’s handouts for their food, drinks, and daily expenses. Coming up to her with such eager eyes now meant that, nine times out of ten, they were broke again.
Not resisting in the least, Zhao Yaoyao simply let herself be pulled along toward home.
The house the Zhao family rented in town belonged to the cousin of the original owner’s sister-in-law. They were charged ten yuan a month under the guise of the landlord taking pity on the sister-in-law for being burdened with a whole family, renting it to them at a low price.
Yet surrounding rental properties typically cost around five yuan, most of them being factory-allocated housing where people actually held jobs in town. The Zhao family was the only bunch of absolute oddballs: they had no jobs, no property, and no farmland in town, yet they stubbornly squeezed their way in headfirst. In the words of the sister-in-law, Wang Yan, they were going to make their way into the big cities in the future and strive to become part of the upper crust.
Having such aspirational thoughts was fine and dandy, but they were lazy and idle, clinging onto a living blood-bag to leech off of. Not only could they never succeed that way, but even if they did, it would be thoroughly despicable.
After walking for a few minutes, they turned into the mouth of an alley and arrived at the Zhao family’s residence. The house wasn’t very large; stepping through the front door revealed three rooms—a main hall, an east room, and a west room. In the adjacent corner, an open-air stove had been set up, and an appetizing aroma of meat drifted from a large black pot.
Reaching out to take the pork from her hands, Zhang Ying spoke with a hint of disgust: “Next time you come back to your natal family, buy more meat. There are a lot of people here who can eat. Bringing just this tiny bit of meat out is not only embarrassing, but Xiaolian won’t be happy either.”
“Xiaolian likes to eat fruit. Now that she’s finished her month of confinement, she can eat it. The next time you come back, buy more fruit. Besides, your nephew’s clothes are getting small too. After you go inside and exchange pleasantries in a moment, be a bit more self-aware and accompany Xiaolian to buy some children’s clothes. Oh right, the thirty yuan you gave the family this month has already been spent. Give us a little more, otherwise we won’t even have money to buy groceries.”
Zhang Ying talked on and on by herself, completely failing to notice that the expression on the person beside her was growing increasingly ugly.
Zhao Yaoyao looked at her with cold eyes. The original owner had let everyone down, but she had never once let them down; yet all her sacrifices in exchange amounted to nothing more than calculated exploitation by her own family.
Before she even stepped into the room, Zhao Youwang poked his head out. Upon seeing her, he deliberately pretended not to see her either, casually walking over to the small dirt stove, scooping out all the meat inside, and leaving behind only a single portion while locking the rest away in a nearby cabinet. Muttering under his breath, he grumbled, “This is meant to nourish Xiaolian’s health, not something just anyone can eat. Talk about knowing how to pick your timing—the meat finishes stewing and you suddenly know to show up.”
Inside the room, Wang Yan was nursing her baby. Catching sight of the meat in the bowl, she set the child aside and said, “Stew less meat from now on. You have to budget and live frugally.”
“And another thing, with the baby here, there’s an extra mouth to feed from now on. In the future, don’t drag just any random person back into the house to eat meals here.”
The latter half of her sentence was pointedly spoken for Zhao Yaoyao to hear.
“Yo, Second Sister is here! Sit down, sit down quickly.” Wang Yan chewed on a mouthful of meat while piling a fake, flattering smile onto her face.
Before Zhao Yaoyao had even taken a seat, Zhao Youwang raised his voice and demanded, “How much money did you bring us this time?”
“If you ask me, you might as well stop squeezing it out bit by bit. Just hand over whatever you’ve got on you all at once so we don’t have to wait around for you to send money every month—it’s an absolute pain.”
“I heard that Second Brother-in-law has made it all the way to deputy battalion commander now. Between the military allowance and his salary, he’s got to be pulling in over a hundred yuan a month! His old man used to work at the coal mine and didn’t make a small sum either; even paralyzed, he must have received quite a payout in compensation. One way or another, the Shen family has got to have eight hundred or a thousand yuan lying around by now. Just hand it all over to me in one lump sum.”
Wolfing down the meat in her mouth, Wang Yan licked the bottom of the bowl clean of every last drop of soup. With an oily hand, she gave Zhao Youwang a tug and scolded, “Don’t talk to Second Sister like that.”
Shifting the direction of her tone, she continued, “Second Sister, Youwang speaks bluntly, so don’t take it to heart. Now that the baby’s born, the place we’re renting is getting a bit small, and we can’t just keep renting other people’s houses forever, right? You tell me.”
“Just like Youwang said, why don’t you help out, get us a house, or have Second Brother-in-law use his connections to hook Youwang up with an iron-rice-bowl job? Only when your natal family is doing well can they stand behind you and back you up, right?”
Zhang Ying grinned broadly and chimed in from the side: “Aiya, we’re all family and blood relatives—talking about ‘helping out’ is way too formal. We’ll just leave this whole matter entirely in Second Girl’s hands.”
“Heh!” Zhao Yaoyao let out a cold laugh, sweeping her gaze around the surroundings. Their food, clothing, and daily luxuries were lived in far more comfortably than her own.
“What are you laughing at?” Zhao Youwang glared at her, displeasure flaring up in his heart.
“Every single one of you is lazy, idle, and lacks any drive to improve yourselves, yet you spend every day clinging onto my body to suck my blood, and you don’t even treat me like a human being. Where do you even get the gall?”
Standing up, Zhao Yaoyao pointed straight at them and cursed: “Were your little brains wrapped in plastic? How do you have the unmitigated shamelessness to open your mouths and ask me for money? Let me tell you this: don’t even think about getting a single cent out of me from now on. Not only that, but everything you took from me in the past has got to be spit right back out!”
Choked with rage to the point of breathlessness, Zhang Ying pointed a trembling finger at her for a long time without managing to form a complete sentence: “You… you…”
“What about you? You old dying hag, do you seriously think you’re some kind of high-class dish!” With a sharp slap, Zhao Yaoyao knocked Zhang Ying’s hand aside and kept up her non-stop output: “If this姑奶奶 (gūnǎinai – a proud self-reference) doesn’t turn your household completely upside down today, I’ll change my last name!”
Instinctively reaching the heavy carpentry hammer resting by the wall, she began smashing anything and everything that caught her eye. The neatly arranged house was wrecked into utter chaos in moments, even shattering two thermos bottles and sending water streaming all across the floor.
“That was part of my dowry given by my natal family! Are the two of you dead or something? Why aren’t you hurrying up and stopping her?!” Wang Yan shrieked and screamed, looking with a heart-paching expression at the smashed thermos bottles.
When Zhao Youwang tried to step in and stop her, she sent him retreating with a swift swing of the hammer. Unfortunately, her current physical frame was truly too weak; after just a few strikes, she was panting heavily.
The sounds of the brawl quickly attracted the surrounding residents. Running out into the courtyard, she collapsed flat onto the ground and started playing the thief crying ‘stop thief’, wailing pitifully: “Please, stop beating me! I really don’t have any money to give you anymore, I’m begging you…”
She was naturally delicate and frail to begin with; crying made her look exceptionally pitiful and forlorn—like a white lotus flower that had been bullied to the absolute limit.
“Yaoyao hurts so much… I promise I’ll work hard to earn money, I’m begging you all not to hit me anymore, cough, cough…”
Covering her mouth as she coughed, she actually coughed up a streak of real blood.
A pair of alluring peach-blossom eyes brimmed with shimmering tears, on the verge of falling at any moment, as she curled her small body tightly into a ball, trembling all over in sheer terror.
The neighboring onlookers couldn’t bear to watch any longer and stepped forward one after another to offer persuasion: “Zhang Auntie, she’s still flesh and blood dropped straight from your own body after all. No matter what, you shouldn’t beat and curse a child like this—it’ll break the child’s heart.”
“This poor girl has had it rough too. Every ten days or half a month she’s hauling things back to her natal family; just last time she even stewed an old hen for her natal family, only to end up standing right there in the courtyard watching them finish eating it with longing eyes, without even getting a single sip of the soup.”
“The Zhao family’s ability to live this comfortably is inseparable from this girl’s hard work. Beating someone like this is definitely not right!”
Losing all face and driven to a blind fury by the gossip of the onlookers, Zhao Youwang looked at the person lying on the ground, and a vicious maliciousness suddenly rose from the bottom of his heart. Picking up the hammer that had been dropped on the ground, he hoisted it high overhead and roared with fierce malevolence: “Fine, Zhao Yaoyao! Since you want to put on an act, today I’ll break your arms and legs for real!”