Li Xiufen took out the ancestral clay pot for stewing chicken, and in a few quick movements, put the whole old hen inside, filled it with water, and placed it on the stove to stew slowly.
Immediately after, she cleaned the giblets and chicken blood left from butchering the chicken. She went to the courtyard, picked a handful of green and red chili peppers, cut them into shreds, scooped a spoonful of her own sun-dried soybean paste, and grabbed some of her pickled chili peppers from the jar. She stir-fried the chicken giblets until they were fragrant.
Gu Chunmiao was feeling sad, but when she smelled the spicy and fragrant chicken giblets wafting from the kitchen, she sneezed twice, and for a moment, even her sadness was forgotten.
After the chicken giblets were stir-fried, the sesame leaves beside them were also ready.
Li Xiufen washed the sesame leaves clean, wrung out the water, stir-fried them in a pan until fragrant, then added shredded carrots and mung bean sprouts. After a few stirs, she poured in boiling water. Once the water boiled, she added the noodles. When the noodles were half-cooked, she gritted her teeth and added another spoonful of pork cracklings. The resulting sesame leaf hutun noodles were thick and smooth, with a unique fresh aroma of sesame leaves.
She remembered that the first time her son brought his daughter-in-law back to their hometown, Gu Chunmiao had particularly loved her sesame leaf hutun noodles.
Because her daughter-in-law liked to eat them, Li Xiufen would dry more each year and mail them to her son and daughter-in-law.
Fortunately, there had been a lot of rain this year, so she hadn't dried much sesame leaves and hadn't had a chance to mail them to her son yet.
Anyway, they were originally dried for her daughter-in-law, and now that her daughter-in-law was back, she wouldn't need to mail them anymore. She would save them all for her daughter-in-law!
Gu Chunmiao had just finished a bowl of egg noodles and wasn't hungry, but smelling the appetizing spicy stir-fried chicken giblets, she couldn't help but pick up the bowl of sesame leaf hutun noodles in front of her.
Unconsciously, she ate two large bowls...
She was now starting to suspect if her biological parents might have originated from the four provinces of Shanhe.
Otherwise, why would she have loved eating noodles since she was a child, and especially loved sesame leaf hutun noodles?
..
In a small village, there were no secrets.
The next morning, everyone in the production team knew that the daughter-in-law of the Old He Family had returned.
And she had been kicked out by her adoptive parents.
The wife of the production team's accountant, Liu, who had always been at odds with Li Xiufen, was the first to come to watch the excitement.
"Sister-in-law Xiufen, I heard your daughter-in-law isn't Commander Gu's biological child? That she was switched at birth?"
"Oh my~ then what will happen to your Zhanjun?"
"Before, you relied on Commander Gu's father-in-law to get promoted so quickly. Now that his wife has been kicked out by Commander Gu and his wife, will your Zhanjun have a good future in the military?"
Old Mrs. Liu's voice was exceptionally loud, as if she deliberately wanted to embarrass Li Xiufen.
Hmph~ This Li Xiufen, relying on her daughter-in-law being the daughter of a compound leader, had been so glorious in the village these past few years!
And the result?
The leader's daughter-in-law turned out to be a false young lady!
Truly satisfying!!
Gu Chunmiao bit her lip tightly, feeling so embarrassed she was about to cry.
Li Xiufen couldn't stand seeing such a beautiful daughter-in-law being wronged. She reached out, pushed Gu Chunmiao into the house, put her hands on her hips, and started to lash out at Old Mrs. Liu:
"So what? What's it to you?"
"Someone like you, even if you were told to copy the answers in the literacy class, you still couldn't get it right, and you look down on my daughter-in-law?"
"My daughter-in-law is a top scholar! A high-achieving student from Tsinghua University! The quotations she memorized will last longer than your life! And you dare to look down on my Miaomiao? Your own ugly children, if you tied them all together, wouldn't even compare to a single strand of my Miaomiao's hair!"
Old Mrs. Liu trembled with anger, pointing at Li Xiufen, "You, you, you..." After a long pause, she sneered and said:
"Li Xiufen, don't get too smug! So what if she's a university student? Your daughter-in-law has been kicked out of the city by someone. From now on, she won't get any state-subsidized grain from the city! And our production team's rations won't be for her, a city person! Just wait to starve."
"I want to see how you, Li Xiufen, with just your own work points, can support your precious city daughter-in-law!"
Li Xiufen didn't care and poked at Old Mrs. Liu's sore spot: "My daughter-in-law has hands and feet, and she's a university student. The commune will definitely arrange a job for her! You should worry more about your three foolish sons!
They're already old, and they still wet the bed at night, needing you, their mother, to hold them and coax them to sleep, tsk tsk...
No matter how useless my son is, he still married a smart and beautiful daughter-in-law. What about your sons? Where are their wives? Let me see them?"
Old Mrs. Liu's face turned ashen with anger.
Everyone in the village knew that she had ruined her health by taking folk remedies to have sons back then. She did have sons, three of them, but not one of them was sharp-witted.
Old Mrs. Liu, relying on her husband being the production team's accountant, didn't allow anyone to call her sons foolish.
But everyone in the village knew that the combined IQ of Accountant Liu's three sons was less than that of a normal five-year-old child.
Old Mrs. Liu was hit where it hurt by Li Xiufen, and she jumped up and down in anger, cursing: "No matter how foolish my sons are, they still earn work points in our production team! So what if your daughter-in-law is a university student? Does she have work points in our production team? Does she have rations?"
Li Xiufen lost a point for the moment but still spoke stubbornly: "Hmph~ No need! My work points alone can support my daughter-in-law..."
Gu Chunmiao suddenly walked out from the inner room, holding an envelope in her hand.
"Mom, I won't take work points from our production team. The organization has assigned me a job at our commune's Agricultural Technology Station."
Li Xiufen immediately perked up: "Did you hear that? My daughter-in-law has a salary! That's a proper iron rice bowl, eating state-subsidized grain. Jealous? Even if you're jealous, it's not your turn!"
Old Mrs. Liu couldn't win the argument with Li Xiufen, so she turned and left, muttering, "What's there to be proud of? A fake... treating her like a treasure?"
Li Xiulan came out from next door and casually added a final blow to her cousin: "Even if she's fake, she's not for you! Isn't that infuriating? haha~"
After the crowd dispersed, Gu Chunmiao was about to explain to her mother-in-law that she wouldn't be staying at home for too long. Once she settled into her job, she would get the divorce papers finalized with He Zhanjun, and then rent a place near the Agricultural Technology Station, so as not to trouble her mother-in-law.
But before she could speak, Li Xiufen had already made arrangements for her:
"Go wash your face! The towel is new, the hot water was boiled this morning, be careful not to scald your hand when you mix it."
"Come eat after you wash your face. Last year you said you liked the pickled melon I made, I made a lot this year, and I saved it all for you."
"After eating, we'll go to the commune. First, we'll call Zhanjun, then you'll report to the commune..."
Gu Chunmiao hesitated for a moment, then her mother-in-law pushed her towards the washbasin stand.
The red-painted washbasin stand had a new towel hanging on it, a newly opened sandalwood soap, and a bottle of unopened cold cream placed beside it.
Gu Chunmiao's eyes turned red.
Her mother-in-law was reluctant to buy cold cream. This bottle of cold cream must have been something she gave to her mother-in-law last New Year.
She never expected that after going through so many twists and turns, it would end up being used by her...
✦✦✦