After Mother Liu left, Zhang-shi stamped her feet in anger and looked at Old Lady Qian with dissatisfaction. “Mother, why did you agree just like that? Yu’er’s tuition fees are still unaccounted for!”
Old Lady Qian glared at Zhang-shi. “Don’t you go spouting off about this. I have my own plans.”
Since the Liu family didn’t want her, there would naturally be other families who did. Besides, there was more than one girl in the An family to sell!
With three little wretches, she would surely find a way to cover her precious grandson’s tuition.
Old Lady Qian was notoriously shrewish; once she was unhappy, Zhang-shi didn’t dare to say another word, though she cursed the old woman a thousand times over in her heart.
Old Lady Qian headed out without a moment’s rest and didn’t return all day, leaving everyone wondering what she was up to.
At night.
The three sisters lay in the woodshed. An Xia looked at the scar on An Qiu’s temple, and her heart sank.
“Qiu’er, how did you get that scar on your head?”
An Qiu reached up to touch the scar behind her temple and smiled bitterly. “When Stepmother was unhappy, she branded me with iron tongs.”
An Xia clenched her fists in fury. It was rare to find someone as vicious as Zhang-shi.
Seeing An Xia’s anger, An Qiu beamed. “Second Sister, don’t be angry. It doesn’t hurt anymore, honestly.”
An Chun was turned away from them, her shoulders trembling, her voice choked with tears. “It’s all because I’m a useless big sister; I couldn’t protect you.”
An Xia sighed and comforted her. “Zhang-shi is someone without a bottom line; you were just a slightly older child yourself back then. There was nothing you could do, so don’t blame yourself, Big Sister.”
An Qiu added, “Big Sister, you’ve already protected us enough.”
After all, if An Chun hadn’t shouldered all the heavy labor, An Xia and An Qiu might have been worked to death long ago; how could they have survived until today?
An Xia closed her eyes slightly, then opened them again, as if she had made up her mind.
“Big Sister, Little Sister, I have an idea.”
An Chun turned around, and An Qiu looked at An Xia with bright, expectant eyes.
“What idea?”
After the events of the past few days, An Xia had naturally become the backbone of the three sisters.
“What if the three of us move out and live on our own? It can’t possibly be worse than it is now!” An Xia proposed.
“Move out?” An Chun looked at An Xia in disbelief.
This thought was considered sacrilegious in this era, and An Chun’s mindset was still quite traditional.
“Yes, move out!” An Xia was resolute.
An Qiu hardly hesitated. “I’ll listen to whatever Second Sister says.” Lowering her eyes, she added sadly, “After our birth mother died, the three of us no longer had a home.”
“As long as the three of us are together, anywhere is the same—anywhere is better than here.”
An Chun, being the oldest, had the deepest memories of their birth mother. An Qiu’s words made her eyes, which had only just dried, grow moist again.
She seemed to make up her mind. “Alright, I’ll listen to Xia’er too. It’s just that I’m clumsy with my words and not very smart, so I can’t think of a good way to do it.”
Seeing An Chun agree, An Xia laughed, patted her chest, and promised, “Leave the method for separating the family to me.”
“Sleep now!”
No sooner had the three of them laid down than they heard Zhang-shi’s voice coming from the direction of the latrine.
“Help… help me…”
“Save me… I fell into the pit!”
An Chun hesitated for a moment and spoke up. “Xia’er, should we…”
“Leave it alone!” An Xia interrupted before she could finish!
It is one thing for a stepmother to be unable to pour her heart out for the children of a previous wife, but to push them into a fire pit and brand them with iron tongs? For a person like that, falling into a latrine was getting off easy.
An Qiu’s eyes lit up. She turned on her side to look at An Xia, filled with admiration. “Second Sister, you must be a fairy descended to earth! You said this morning that Stepmother would fall into the latrine!”
An Xia, who had been enjoying Zhang-shi’s shrill screams, suddenly stiffened, her expression complex!
Could it be that her “crow’s beak” ability—which was sometimes accurate and sometimes not—had transmigrated with her? Or was it just a coincidence?
After Zhang-shi screamed in the latrine for half an hour, there was silence.
An Xia lazily got up. “Let’s go see the spectacle.”
As soon as the three sisters stepped out, they were hit by an overwhelming, nauseating stench.
Zhang-shi was now lying near the house’s water vat, looking half-dead, covered in disgusting filth. There were even some objects slowly crawling on her.
“Ugh!” An Xia gagged, doubling over in dry heaves!
An Laifu was standing by, looking disgusted, covering his mouth with one hand and scooping water with the other to splash onto Zhang-shi’s face and body.
“Father, what happened to Mother?” An Xia asked, her voice unusually loud.
An Laifu responded casually, “The wooden board in the latrine broke, and she accidentally fell in.”
An Xia couldn’t help but laugh, her voice filled with schadenfreude. “Father, wash Mother well! I’m afraid she’s swallowed quite a bit of excrement!”
Her voice was loud enough that even the neighbors could hear it clearly. It wouldn’t be long before the news of Zhang-shi falling into the latrine and eating excrement would spread through all of Hulu Village.
An Laifu couldn’t stand the smell anymore. He glared at An Xia. “Don’t just watch the fun; come over and help!”
How could An Xia possibly do that?
She picked at her ear and said, “Father? You want me to get some rest? I know, I’ll listen to you and go to sleep right now!”
With that, she immediately pulled the door shut and slid the bolt into place.
An Laifu was furious. He stood up and cursed, “You rebellious daughter, you think you can get away with this!”
After cursing, he started to march toward the woodshed, only to step on some slick filth.
With a “thud,” he rolled into a pile with the excrement-covered Zhang-shi.
Zhang-shi’s voice was filled with rage. “An Laifu, you god-damned bastard, are you trying to crush me to death? Get off!”
An Laifu’s temper flared too. “You fat sow, if it weren’t for you being so heavy, would the board have broken? Look at how much you stink—I’m nearly suffocated by you!”
“An Laifu? You’ve turned against heaven!!!”
Then, the sound of An Laifu’s screams echoed through the courtyard.
The next morning.
At the first light of dawn, the distant clouds were tinged with red, shrouding the far-off mountains.
An Xia and An Qiu carried baskets to the foot of the mountain to cut pig feed, though this time An Xia also wanted to climb the mountain to have a look around.
“Qiu’er, do you know the way up the mountain?”
An Qiu nodded. “I know. What is Second Sister going to do on the mountain? Picking wild vegetables?”
“Hmm, I want to see if there are any mushrooms.”
An Qiu scratched her head, looked deeply at An Xia, and said, “Okay.”
Her mind, however, was racing. Did Second Sister want to poison their stepmother? After all, a family in Hulu Village had recently lost their lives after eating mushrooms. Because of that, the people in the village currently viewed mushrooms as poison.
An Xia didn’t grasp the meaning behind An Qiu’s look. She simply wanted to go up the mountain to search for medicinal herbs and see if she could find ingredients for scar removal. She couldn’t spend her whole life sporting such a large scar.
What girl doesn’t love beauty?
An Qiu’s scar needed treatment as well.
In her past life, An Xia was the sole heir to an ancient medical family, possessing unparalleled skills in both medicine and poison. Such an old, deep-seated scar might be difficult for others to remove, but for her, it was a piece of cake.