Liu Jian, like a maddened beast with bloodshot eyes, swung a wooden rod straight at Tang Qing’er’s head without the slightest hesitation.
Tang Qing’er’s gaze sharpened. She swiftly ducked to avoid the blow, then followed up with a fierce sweeping kick.
“Thud!”
Liu Jian, whose stance had always been unsteady, instantly lost his balance and crashed heavily to the ground, the wooden rod clattering away beside him.
Ignoring Liu Lishi, who was already frightened out of her wits and had fled far away, Tang Qing’er tossed aside the broom, picked up the fallen rod, and strode over to Liu Jian, who lay on the ground clutching his leg and howling in pain. She rained down blows upon him without mercy.
“You scoundrel! How dare you hit me! You worthless, lazy good-for-nothing!”
Perhaps influenced by the original host’s memories, Tang Qing’er struck harder and harder, the pent-up rage within her erupting like a volcano.
This scoundrel couldn’t carry a load on his shoulders nor lift anything with his hands, yet he swaggered around the house every day like a lord. Except for the few days after the original host first married into the family, when he had shown her some kindness, ever since Da Ya was born, he had begun fooling around with the village widow.
Returning home, he shamelessly enjoyed the original host’s servitude. At the slightest displeasure, he would beat and kick her without hesitation.
In this household, the original host had lived a life worse than a donkey!
Washing clothes, cooking, feeding the chickens and ducks, serving her in-laws, sweeping the yard and cleaning the house—even sowing seeds, weeding, and harvesting in the fields—all the heavy, exhausting labor had been piled onto her, a woman, alone!
Yet even so, these inhuman creatures in the family wouldn’t even give her a full meal.
At first, Liu Jian, aching all over from the beating, cursed and raged as he always had, thinking the woman must have gone mad. But as the blows continued, his curses turned to pleas: “Wife, wife, your husband was wrong! I’ll never dare again! Stop hitting me—I’m dying of pain!”
Tang Qing’er only stopped when she grew tired, looking down at the man who lay on the ground like a heap of mud, whimpering incessantly.
She was deeply dissatisfied with this body. If it were her former self, even holding back her strength, this man would have been on the brink of death long ago. The original host’s body was simply too weak—lacking in strength. Despite doing heavy manual labor for so long, she was severely malnourished. And having given birth not long ago, it seemed she needed to restore this body to health as soon as possible.
She spat in disgust, then returned to the kitchen to boil water. Once the water had cooled slightly, she carried a bowl back to the woodshed, closing the door that let drafts in from all sides, and prepared formula milk for her young son.
Meanwhile, Liu Jian, having seen Tang Qing’er return to the room, endured the excruciating pain all over his body and struggled to his feet. Limping, he made his way toward the door. Outside, a crowd of villagers had already gathered to watch the commotion.
His mother sat on the ground, slapping her thighs as she tearfully accused her daughter-in-law of her crimes.
Unfortunately, the villagers were all too familiar with the affairs of this family.
One meddlesome auntie sneered, cutting off Liu Lishi’s lament: “I say, Wangcai’s family, you’ve bullied your daughter-in-law so badly that it’s come back to bite you, hasn’t it?”
Another onlooker, a local loafer, chimed in mockingly: “Exactly! As the saying goes, even a clay figure has a bit of temper.”
Yet another elderly woman spoke up disapprovingly: “Liu Lishi, who in the village doesn’t know that your family treats your daughter-in-law like dirt?”
"She's already given your family a big, fat grandson, and Qing girl hasn't even finished her postpartum confinement yet, and you're already tormenting her again. No wonder she couldn't take it anymore."
The villagers chattered away, criticizing the family until both mother and son felt their faces burning with shame. Liu Jian argued stubbornly:
"You gossipy old women, your families may like boys, but ours doesn't. My uncle's family, my second uncle's family, my sister's family—which one doesn't have sons? What's so precious about boys anyway? That Tang Qing'er was bought by our family for two taels of silver. She should work like an ox or a horse for us."
Seeing that no one was taking their side, Liu Lishi scrambled to her feet, dusted off the dirt from her backside, planted her hands on her hips, and cursed:
"That's right, my son is correct. You busybodies who have nothing better to do, get lost! All of you, get lost! Don't crowd around our doorstep!"
Hearing the words of the mother and son, some villagers shook their heads, some sneered, and others directly taunted them. Everyone felt that this family had lost all conscience. Which family didn't spend money to marry a wife? Two taels of silver wasn't much in these times. Some families even paid five taels of silver as a bride price. Yet this family acted as if spending two taels was something extraordinary.
Seeing the villagers' verbal attacks, the mother and son knew they wouldn't gain any advantage by arguing further and would only make themselves a laughingstock. Exchanging a glance, they slunk back into the courtyard and closed the gate.
Perhaps afraid that Tang Qing'er might come out and beat them again, the two quickly retreated to the main room and shut the door.
Liu Jian said, "Mother, that bitch is getting out of hand. I'm afraid we won't be able to control her anymore."
Liu Lishi replied, "What should we do then? Should we divorce her? After all, aren't you interested in Liu Da Ni from the west end of the village, the one who came back after a divorce? Even though she brought along a worthless girl, I heard she brought back quite a bit of silver from her former husband's family."
Liu Jian's eyes lit up. He had actually been carrying on with Liu Da Ni for a long time and had slept with her countless times. That woman had been urging him to divorce his wife for ages.
Thinking of this, his expression turned cold again, and he sneered, "Divorcing her would be letting her off too easily. A couple of days ago, I heard about a wealthy family in town with no heirs. The husband is a live-in son-in-law and doesn't dare take a concubine, so they want to borrow a womb to bear a child. They're offering five taels of silver. Why don't we sell her off? We can use the money to help out at home."
Liu Lishi's eyes gleamed. "My son is clever, as always. That bitch cost us money to marry, so we shouldn't let her go to waste."
Hearing his mother's agreement, Liu Jian continued, "The newborn is a boy after all, so we'll keep him. We can sell the worthless girl too, to save on food."
Liu Lishi nodded. "Fine, you handle it. Once this is settled, I'll arrange for you to marry Liu Da Ni."
Liu Jian sneered, enduring the pain in his body as he went to contact a buyer. As he walked toward town, he thought viciously, "That bitch dared to hit me, so I'll sell her off to bear someone else's child." He had heard that the woman in that family was a shrew. The reason they were offering so much silver was because they had made it clear: once the child was born, they would remove the mother and keep the child, strangling her to death to avoid any future complications where the child might grow close to its birth mother instead of the shrew.
After feeding her son powdered milk, Tang Qing'er rocked him to sleep. As the sky grew darker, her daughter Da Ya still hadn't returned home, and she couldn't help but worry.
Tang Qing'er immediately went out to search, heading to several places her daughter often frequented based on memory.
Finally, she found her in a cave at the foot of the mountain behind their home.
The little girl was huddled in a corner of the cave, her eyes vacant and dull.
At the sight of her mother, she froze for a moment before bursting into loud sobs.
She threw herself into Tang Qing'er's arms, clinging tightly to her neck and crying uncontrollably.
Tang Qing'er comforted her with a pained heart, and only after a while did Da Ya's cries gradually subside.
Then, between sobs, the girl explained why she hadn't returned home—
It turned out that her daughter had witnessed Liu Lishi breaking her mother's head and leaving her lying in a pool of blood. Believing her mother had been beaten to death, she was terrified out of her wits and ran away, too scared to ever go back home.
After calming her daughter, the mother and child returned home. It was too late to cook, so Tang Qing'er took bread and milk from her space for the child to have a quick bite.
Only after her daughter fell into a deep sleep did she have the chance to enter her space to check.
Just like in her previous life, it was a large warehouse, spanning over a thousand square meters, filled with various supplies she had gathered during the Apocalypse.
She inspected the contents and felt relieved to find nothing missing, though the sheer volume of items was overwhelming.
As she organized the space, time slipped by unnoticed until midnight, when she heard the sound of the woodshed door being pried open from the outside.
She also heard Liu Jian's hushed instructions: "Keep it down. That woman is fierce now. If we wake her up, we'll be in trouble."
Another man's voice chimed in: "Look at you, a grown man acting so cowardly. We're all here together. How could we be afraid of a woman? Once we get her under control, let us have some fun before we send her off."