Inside the room.
Under the dim, warm yellow light soft as an orange glow it fell upon Su Mo’s delicate, fair little face. She looked like a beauty in peaceful, tranquil years.
The noisy arguing outside…
The house wasn’t very soundproof, and she couldn’t quite understand Zhang Lanhua’s thick hometown dialect. She only caught bits and pieces in a daze.
After a while, Lin Yuyi noticed Su Mo had gone completely quiet. There was worry in his eyes.
“What’s wrong, my dear wife?”
“This time I even brought you a magical mosquito repellent. Don’t tell me you’re upset because you got bitten all over?”
Hearing that only made Su Mo feel worse. When had she ever been that delicate?
She pulled her leg back from his body and looked into his eyes.
“Yuyi, in your eyes no… in your mother’s eyes am I very troublesome?”
“Not a qualified daughter-in-law?”
Su Mo had always cared a lot about what others thought, let alone her mother-in-law Zhang Lanhua’s opinion.
Back when she said she wanted to get married, all her friends had urged her to think twice. They said Lin Yuyi had been raised single-handedly by his mother, and living together later would definitely bring many problems.
After all, differences in customs and habits would create small frictions in daily life.
At the time, she hadn’t taken it seriously. Instead, she thought it wasn’t a big deal.
Marriage, after all, was just about living an ordinary life of daily necessities, wasn’t it?
And even without living with one’s mother-in-law, would life really be problem-free?
Thinking about it now, Su Mo felt her earlier thinking had been slightly off. She blamed herself for not sensing even a hint of warning back then.
Lin Yuyi raised his hand and rubbed her little head, pulling her into his arms.
“Alright, my silly wife. My mom just talks a lot, but she still cares about you in her heart.”
“Want to see something nice?”
He got up and, like performing a magic trick, brought out the strawberries Zhang Lanhua had picked that afternoon from a relative’s field.
Placing them in front of Su Mo, he pinched her cheek lightly.
“You still say my mom doesn’t like you do you think I get this kind of treatment?”
A bit of warmth rose in Su Mo’s heart. That was true elderly people just had different ideas and perspectives, but their intentions still came from a good place.
She looped her arm through Lin Yuyi’s and rested her head against his chest.
“Then I want you to feed me.”
“Pfft… you!”
He flicked her forehead affectionately.
“Lin Yuyi, you’re bullying me.”
“Then do you still want to eat strawberries?”
Su Mo glared at him. Even her angry expression looked adorable.
She took a big bite and her whole face changed instantly. Sourness flooded her mouth. This was probably the sourest strawberry she had ever eaten in her life.
She couldn’t even swallow it and had to spit it out.
“So sour?” Su Mo squinted, looking aggrieved.
Lin Yuyi tried one too and found it unbearably sour.
“So sour?”
“Sour like a lemon turned into a spirit!”
Looking at the bowl of plump, red strawberries, Su Mo truly didn’t want to eat them anymore.
Lin Yuyi gave her a mischievous smile.
“But I have a sweet strawberry here. Want to eat it?”
Su Mo froze for two seconds, then instantly understood. She lightly patted his chest.
“Lin Yuyi, what are you saying!”
Her shy protest was cut off as he swept her up in his arms and laid her on the bed behind him.
“You made me sleep by the door all night before so heartless!”
Last time when they had returned to his hometown, Su Mo had been angry too.
It was still early when Zhang Lanhua suddenly came in and discovered her son and daughter-in-law clinging to each other.
She quickly averted her gaze, which landed on the strawberry Su Mo had spat out.
This made Zhang Lanhua’s heart ache terribly.
When she spoke, it was in her loud voice.
“Momo, why aren’t you eating?”
“Didn’t my youngest say strawberries are your favorite? What a pity!”
The older generation was used to saving everything. Seeing a strawberry thrown away after just one bite truly pained her.
After being scolded, Su Mo immediately pouted and acted spoiled the way she did with her own parents.
“Mom… it’s sour…”
Zhang Lanhua took away the bowl of strawberries.
“Sour? It’s only sour because you can’t get any!”
Su Mo: “…”
Only after the door shut did Su Mo fully react.
“Hey, what did your mom mean by that?”
“And why does she never knock before coming in? She just walks straight in every time.”
Once her temper rose, Su Mo couldn’t bear it.
Why did she have to keep yielding everywhere? Before marriage, Zhang Lanhua hadn’t been like this at all.
She still remembered how, one week before the wedding, Zhang Lanhua had held her hand with a kindly smile.
“Momo, whatever you want in the future if this old woman has it, I’ll give it to you. Our Lin family will never let you lack food or clothes.”
“When you marry in, just enjoy your blessings.”
“I’ll definitely take good care of you. You won’t have to touch any housework at all.”
“…”
So when Zhang Lanhua said those things, was she just saying whatever came to mind first tricking the daughter-in-law into marrying in?
Caught in the middle, Lin Yuyi felt like his head was about to split in two.
Especially since, in his eyes, these weren’t really big issues.
“Alright, alright. My mom just says things she won’t really starve you or deny you anything, right?”
“Don’t be angry. Tomorrow morning we still have to visit my uncles.”
“When the time comes, I’ll give you all the red envelopes, okay? And once we return to Shanghai, I’ll buy you that bag you’ve had your eye on for so long.”
“These little things… we’ll slowly communicate with Mom in the future.”
He held Su Mo’s hand and gently rubbed it, soothing her emotions.
“We’re living a life together from now on, right? Mom is old just yield to her a little, okay, my dear wife.”
“You’re the best.”
As the saying goes, in a woman’s eyes, a handbag cures all ills.
Besides, Lin Yuyi was on her side, so Su Mo didn’t say anything more.
But thinking about meeting Lin Yuyi’s relatives tomorrow made her inexplicably nervous.
That night, the usually confident Su Mo couldn’t sleep.
If Qin Hui found out she had embarrassed the Su family, it would be utterly humiliating.
“Ah marriage is so troublesome!”
She had thought marriage was simply the result of two people in love walking forward together.
She hadn’t expected it to be the adjustment between two families instead.
Was it still too late to regret?
Early the next morning, Su Mo heard the rooster Zhang Lanhua kept crowing outside. There went her chance to sleep in.
“I’m sleepy…”
She rolled over and burrowed into Lin Yuyi’s arms, and he held her tightly.
Sure enough, before Su Mo was fully awake, Zhang Lanhua came in again without knocking.
“Momo, get up quickly! We’re going to see your uncles soon!”
“Can I not go?”
As soon as she said that, the air seemed to freeze. Hiding in Lin Yuyi’s arms, Su Mo saw Zhang Lanhua’s face darken again.
She immediately changed her words:
“Mom, I’m not fully awake I’ll go right away!”