Shidianzi Village
Chen Xiaomeng was up before six in the morning.
She knew perfectly well that marrying Jiang Runsheng was a tremendous step up for her.
As the new bride, she wanted to leave a good impression on her in-laws, so she got up at dawn and headed straight to the kitchen to prepare breakfast.
Her father-in-law, Jiang Decheng, was the village chief. Her mother-in-law had once served as the director of the Women’s Association. Her eldest sister-in-law worked at the state-run supply and marketing cooperative, and Jiang Runsheng himself was an announcer at the village broadcasting station.
The Jiang family was respectable, educated, and well-regarded.
Compared to them, she was nothing more than an ordinary country girl. She had no job and knew nothing besides farm work.
Although she had been reborn, what infuriated her was that she hadn’t gone back far enough.
Her mother, Chen Xiuying, was hopelessly old-fashioned, firmly believing that “a woman’s virtue lies in her lack of talent.” She had never valued Chen Xiaomeng’s education.
As a result, Chen Xiaomeng had dropped out after only the third grade of elementary school.
If only she’d been reborn as a child, with the knowledge she had now, she was certain she could have gotten into Tsinghua or Peking University.
But it was too late for regrets.
Then again… so what if she wasn’t educated?
Qiao Qingyan might have looked refined and scholarly, but in the end she’d still married a poor hunter who made his living in the mountains.
Meanwhile, she—the uneducated one—had married into the most cultured and prestigious family in the village.
The comparison immediately lifted her spirits.
She couldn’t hide the smug smile spreading across her face.
Humming cheerfully, she carefully rinsed the rice in the pot.
Inside the bedroom, Village Chief Jiang Decheng lay on the heated kang bed with his eyes closed.
“Runsheng’s mother, go see what’s going on outside.”
While getting dressed, Wei Yongqiu curled her lips.
“Your daughter-in-law is cooking.”
Jiang Decheng sighed and turned over, resting one arm beneath his head as he slowly opened his cloudy eyes.
“Why are you sighing so early in the morning?” Wei Yongqiu asked.
He let out another long sigh.
“Why did our son have to marry her?”
Wei Yongqiu snorted.
“Wasn’t it you who insisted he marry her?”
“I didn’t have a choice,” Jiang Decheng replied helplessly. “If he hadn’t married her and someone reported the incident to the commune, they’d accuse him of immoral conduct. Do you think he’d have been able to keep his job at the broadcasting station?”
After getting dressed, Wei Yongqiu sat on the edge of the kang and lightly poked her husband’s forehead.
“You’ve always been too honest. You and your son were both played by that little schemer.”
Jiang Decheng frowned.
“What do you mean?”
“If I’d been there that day, I’d have said right then and there that she seduced Runsheng while he was drunk! Our son is a high school graduate and the village broadcaster. Why would he ever fancy an illiterate country girl like her?”
“You don’t know what really happened…”
Jiang Decheng paused before continuing.
“With a wonderful girl like Qingyan available, how did Runsheng end up tangled with Chen Xiaomeng instead?”
“What else could it be? She seduced him on purpose.”
Lowering her voice, Wei Yongqiu muttered,
“Men are all the same. Throw yourself at them, and how many can actually resist?”
“Our Runsheng isn’t a saint. He’s a healthy young man. That day his uncles came to visit, he drank far too much, and before he knew it, he’d fallen right into that scheming girl’s trap.”
“Hmph. She may fool men, but she can’t fool me. She wanted nothing more than to latch onto our family. Just another pheasant dreaming of becoming a phoenix.”
Jiang Decheng’s brows knitted together.
“Runsheng clearly wasn’t happy about this. He got completely drunk last night and never smiled once.”
He rubbed his face and sighed again.
“What’s done is done. She’s already married into the family. Regretting it now won’t change anything.”
Then he instructed his wife,
“Go help the girl in the kitchen. She’s new here and doesn’t know her way around.”
Wei Yongqiu remained seated, picking up a needle and thread to mend clothes.
“I’m not going.”
“Getting up before dawn to cook? She’s obviously trying to win us over.”
“Hmph. We’ll see how long she can keep up the act.”
Qiao Qingyan saw Xiao Jinye again two days later.
She was washing clothes by the river.
Her mother-in-law’s legs weren’t in good condition, and Qingyan figured squatting by the river to do laundry would be difficult for an elderly woman, so she had volunteered to take over the chore.
Zeng Yumei felt sorry for her, saying the family’s clothes were made of coarse, rough fabric and would chafe her delicate hands.
Unable to refuse her enthusiasm, she finally picked out only a few of Duoduo’s soft cotton clothes for Qingyan to wash.
The small river wasn’t far from the Xiao family home.
Willows draped gracefully along both banks, while the crystal-clear water flowed gently downstream.
Village women often came here to wash vegetables and laundry, and parents frequently brought their children to splash and play in the shallow water.
By the time Qingyan arrived carrying a wooden washbasin, quite a few women had already gathered along the riverbank.
Seeing an unfamiliar young woman dressed so differently from the village girls, they lowered their voices and quietly speculated about which family she belonged to.
Qingyan didn’t recognize any of them except Chunya.
Thinking they were neighbors and about the same age, she walked over with a gentle smile.
“Hello, Chunya.”
Chunya looked up.
Qingyan wore a simple white dress and a pair of delicate strappy sandals unlike anything ever seen in the countryside.
A breeze swept across the river, rustling the grass and willow branches as a faint floral fragrance drifted through the air.
The elegant sandals made her slender ankles and dainty toes look especially beautiful.
Chunya glanced down at her own oversized, worn-out slippers and unconsciously curled her toes.
Only city people greeted others with such refined politeness.
Country girls were straightforward. They didn’t bother with such graceful formalities.
She really is a pampered young lady.
Can Brother Jinye and a woman like her really get along?
The thought left Chunya feeling strangely downhearted.
Still, she forced herself to respond politely.
Seeing Chunya’s lukewarm attitude, Qingyan didn’t press the conversation.
She found a smooth, clean stone by the river, squatted down, took the clothes from the basin, and quietly began scrubbing them.
Nearby, one of the women washing clothes asked Chunya curiously,
“Whose daughter is that? I’ve never seen her before.”
Looking listless, Chunya replied,
“She’s Aunt Zeng’s daughter-in-law.”
“Jinye’s wife?”
The woman couldn’t help admiring her.
“She’s absolutely gorgeous.”
Chunya scrubbed the clothes even harder, until her palms turned red.
Their conversation reached Qingyan’s ears, but she simply continued washing as though she hadn’t heard a thing.
Just then, the clear ring of a bicycle bell sounded from the road above.
A woman sat sideways on the back seat, smiling as she greeted acquaintances by the river.
“Cui’e! Caixia! Doing laundry again?”
Cui’e turned around with a grin.
“Of course. Where’ve you been?”
The woman affectionately wrapped her arms around the cyclist’s waist.
“My husband insisted on taking me into town today. We just bought this brand-new bicycle.”
“From now on, I won’t have to walk all the way to town carrying vegetables to sell.”
“Oh my, Liangzi really spoils you,” Cui’e laughed.
“You’re such a lucky woman.”
The woman’s smile widened.
“You all take your time. I’m heading home. The washing machine already finished the laundry, and I still have clothes waiting to be hung up.”
Ring… ring…
The bicycle bell and rattling chain gradually faded into the distance.
As soon as the couple was out of sight, Cui’e curled her lips and rolled her eyes.
“Look at her showing off. Her nose is practically in the sky.”
Caixia asked curiously,
“First a washing machine, now a bicycle. Where’d they get so much money?”
Cui’e snorted.
“You don’t know? They’re living off her husband’s elder sister. If it were money they’d honestly earned themselves, would they spend it so recklessly?”
“Who’s his elder sister?”
“Oh, don’t you know? The famous hot-tempered woman…”
“Chen Xiuying.”
Qingyan raised an eyebrow.
Her stepmother?