This day, at noon, the atmosphere at the Zhao familyâs dinner table was slightly awkward. Jiahui had eaten in advance and did not come to the table. Zhang Qiaoer said she had a headache, so she also did not come out. As if unaffected by the happenings, the source of conflict, Zheng Yuefen, not only ate a large bowl of rice, but she also ate a dozen pieces of meat. Meixiang looked at her several times. She felt that her second sister-in-lawâs heart was too big.
After eating, Zheng Yuefen went to Zhang Yulanâs house next door.
Your sister-in-law is pregnant with a baby? The first and second sisters-in-law are really destined to be together.
But isnât it too fated? Zheng Yuefenâs heart was dissatisfied.
Even if she did not go to school much, she also knew that, no matter what, a single child is valuable. Originally, she was valued for having a baby alone. If Dong Jiahui was also pregnant, compared to her, she would be worthless.
âSister, you said that Dong Jiahui divorced her ex-husband because she couldnât have a baby. How can she have a baby at Zhaoâs house? Wouldnât she be divorced in vain? â
Zhang Yulan was not as concerned about Dong Jiahuiâs pregnancy as Zheng Yuefen was, since she did not have to eat her rice if the Zhao family had more children, and even if she had ten or eight, it would not affect her in any way.
As for sharing a common hatred with Zheng Yuefen, she really didnât have this feeling. She never treats Zheng Yuefen, this silly woman, as a friend. On the contrary, the more she makes trouble in the Zhao family, the happier she is in her heart.
âSome people would have difficulty giving birth; some would have waited many years to be pregnant. There is a family in our village. At first, she couldnât get pregnant. Later, they listened to the guidance of other people. They adopted a baby girl. The next year, she was pregnant. Maybe your sister-in-law was also in the same situation as them.â
Here, Zhang Yulan looked at Zheng Yuefen and said with a fake smile, âNow your mother-in-law is happy, two grandchildren will be added to the family at once. She must be waking up with a smile. â
Zheng Yuefen chattered, âMy mother-in-law is happy, but itâs not because of me. You havenât seen her look at me for a bowl of noodles today. Itâs the first time in so many years. I get chills when I think about it. Iâve been married to the Zhao family for so many years, and Iâve been pregnant twice. Itâs not as good as a new one who was divorced. â
Zhang Yulan became interested when she heard this. She asked Zheng Yuefen about todayâs affairs. Zheng Yuefen said it again.
âI remember when you were pregnant with Shitou, your aunt had to cook an egg for you every day. Red dates, walnuts, and peanuts were sent to your house like it didnât cost a lot of money. The young wives in the village regretted that they didnât marry into the Zhao family. Whatâs the matter this time? Was it really because of your sister-in-law? Did they ignore you when she was pregnant? â
Zheng Yuefen naturally wouldnât mention that she had eaten noodles the night before yesterday. She didnât say that she couldnât have her share today because there wasnât enough white flour at home. She just wanted to complain to others and win othersâ sympathy. The more misunderstandings others made, the more she appeared wrong.
After a while of gossip, the two went to work together in the field. The captain, Ding Huishan, had given Zheng Yuefen a reduced workload. She went to the field to actually not do heavy work, but to pretend to do so.
â Itâs your sister-in-lawâs comfort that really counts. She only has to open the door of the warehouse twice a day and rest at home at other times. Unlike you, you have to run to the field every day and have nowhere to rest when you are tired. â
Zhang Yulanâs words immediately spoke to Zheng Yuefenâs heart. There were so many people in the village, but she only loved to talk to Zhang Yulan. It was because Zhang Yulanâs words made people especially love to listen to them.
The answer to Zheng Yuefenâs curiosity came in the afternoon, and the team just happened to have two wives who were married in Xiaoling Village.
âIn fact, this Lu family was quite evil. It hasnât stopped since the second wife. â
Seriously? Whatâs so evil about him? Hurry up and tell us. â
The gossip was burning, and a group of ten or so young wives put down the work in their hands and gathered together on the ridge.
âIâm not from the Lu familyâs team. I donât know much. I only heard that the Lu family married once about half a year ago, but the child didnât live with them. I heard that it was knocked out in the stomach by the Lu family. â
âAh? Itâs heartless, right? You canât beat the child out on purpose. â
âOr how should I say it⌠Is it strange? The wife of the Lu family has a bad reputation. Itâs said that she had another man on the team. Itâs estimated that sheâs not pregnant with the Lu familyâs seed. â
Hearing this, they couldnât understand it anymore.
âWhat do you mean? This wife was so fierce, she looked for a man in the brigade and was pregnant. â
âNo, how does the Lu family know that the child was not from their family?â
âThen I donât know. I also went back to my motherâs house and listened to it. My motherâs house is not close to Luâs house; they are two teams apart. â
The other wife in Xiaoling Village spoke, âI know more than you. In fact, there was a rumour on the team that Lu Chengyuan, the only son of the Lu family, Dong Jiahuiâs ex-husband, had a problem in that part. They havenât done it several times since they got married.
This is absolutely hot news. Everyone was stunned.
âGod, itâs the first time Iâve heard of such a thing.â
There are no mass media in the countryside these days. Everyone lives in this simple land. What they hear is nothing but the gossip of parents. Especially the young wives. They donât have much experience. This kind of man canât be humane. A woman looks for a mistress and is beaten when she is pregnant. It sounds similar to a story.
âI heard that the wife bled a lot. She was sent to the health centre when the bedding was all wet. They almost werenât able to save her. â
âSo serious? Then what happened to her? â
They all have some mixed feelings about this wife. First of all, it is certainly wrong for her to find another man, but he had a husband who wasnât capable. It doesnât seem that she canât understand it.
Itâs true that itâs too much to be pregnant with a concubineâs child, but itâs also a bit pathetic to beat her like that.
âShe was in the health center for two days, the Lu family picked her up, and then Iâm not sure what happened. When she hasnât gone out, the villagers rarely see her.
That means the situation was not very good. Itâs impossible to say that sheâs been hurt and canât get out of the house, or that the Lu family has restricted her freedom. Anyway, no matter what happens to her, itâs enough for people to sigh.
âWhat about her motherâs family? They didnât come out to give her a statement?â
After such a big incident, were the two days of hospitalization, not enough?
âIn the village, the Lu familyâs prestige was quite high, and this wife was at fault in the first place. I donât know about the specifics, I only know that she is still in the Lu family. â
They sighed. Not that they loved Li Caifeng, but a woman who had no family to protect her when something happened was pitiful.
After gossiping about the Lu family, everyone inevitably gossiped about Dong Jiahui.
âDong Jiahui was also miserable, and fortunately, she divorced that man; otherwise, she would face a lifetime of widowhood.â
âIn that case, the marriage is good. How can you marry our Secretary Zhao without a divorce.â
âI pity Secretary Zhao. Heâs a great man. Heâs not useless. â
âI think she fell into the blessing nest. Secretary Zhao is tall, strong, and manly! â
âOh, are you in love with Secretary Zhao? Donât. They are all family members. We canât have principled problems. â
âAll of you are really annoying. Why are you so bad? You still make fun of me and see if I donât tear your mouth out. â
There was joy on the ridge, and laughter spread far away. Even Ding Huaishan heard it in another field hundreds of meters away.
âIf these women donât work hard and just gossip all day, I will be deducting two points today.â
The scorekeeper responded and went with his notebook to see which ones were there.
In the evening, Zheng Yuefen came back and saw her nephew Heidan squatting on the ground outside the courtyard wall. She was about to walk past him, but she didnât know what came to her mind. Her feet turned and went in the direction of Heidan.
âHeidan, why are you squatting outside by yourself?â
Zheng Yuefen reached out and patted Heidanâs head, and just before she touched it, Heidan dodged it. He doesnât like to make contact with people.
Zheng Yuefen awkwardly withdrew her hand and said, with a smile, âYo, whatâs wrong? Youâre so angry, you donât even care about Auntie. â
Since Heidan followed Jiahui to learn to read, his temperament has changed a lot compared to before. To be honest, Heidan was better than Shitou. He can see the shadow of Wang Mei faintly. After Jiahui came, she was willing to spend money and made clothes for Heidan and Yingbao every season. Therefore, their clothes are clean, unlike other children in the village with patches.
People in the village joked that Shitou followed Heidan, just like the young master of a landlordâs family in the old days, who took a little man with him when he went out, and there was no doubt that the one who looked like a man was her own son, Shitou.
Zheng Yuefen expressed her dissatisfaction about making clothes, saying that there were only three children in the family, so why couldnât Dong Jiahui make clothes for Heidan and Yingbao while making clothes for Shitou. But Dong Jiahui always said that she was too busy and asked Zheng Yuefen to make clothes for Shitou by herself.
Zheng Yuefen went to her mother-in-law to seek her comment, but her mother-in-law said that the money that Dong Jiahui spent on making clothes for her children was her own money, not the money of the family. As for her mother-in-law, she could not control it.
A word was not only sent back to Zheng Yuefen but also blocked Zheng Yuefenâs mind from asking for money.
Zheng Yuefen loathed Jiahui, and with her nephews and nieces who were getting closer and closer to Jiahui, she also loathed them, but of course, she wasnât close to them originally.
âHeidan, do you know that your aunt is pregnant with a baby? In a few months, your aunt will give birth to your brother. With a brother, your aunt can certainly no longer love you. After all, you cannot compare yourself to your auntâs own child. â
Heidan stopped moving and looked at Zheng Yuefen. Zheng Yuefen told him to look over and think about whether her words had reached his heart. She continued to smile and said, âSee, she wonât let you call her mother, proving that she doesnât take you as her own son in her heart. Your mother is not here, and your father married your aunt. People say that if you have a stepmother, there will be a stepfather, and you have become the cabbage seedling that no one loves and no one cares about. â
Zheng Yuefenâs image at this moment is similar to that of a witch who coaxed Snow White to eat a poisoned apple. She does not believe that Dong Jiahui truly loves her stepson, and she thinks that what Dong Jiahui usually does is just pretend in front of people.
Heidan pursed his lips and did not say anything. He is already six years old and he can already tell who the people that were good to him were and who the people that were bad to him. This aunt usually does not care about him at all; her treatment of him and Shitou was completely different. He knows that this aunt does not like him, he is wary of Zheng Yuefen, but no matter how wary he is, his mind was still a child after all. He was not mature enough, so Zheng Yuefenâs words have more or less reached his heart.
He naturally knew that his Auntie didnât give birth to him, but compared to his own mother, who often scolded the children in the village, Auntie treated him more gently and attentively.
Heidanâs heart had actually recognized Jiahui as his stepmother, but he was too introverted and embarrassed to express himself, which is why he kept calling her Aunt and didnât change the way he called her.
He found out about his auntâs pregnancy at noon. He didnât feel much at that time. Now, after listening to his auntâs words, he had an unspeakable panic and discomfort.
âIâm telling you, if you donât want your aunt to have a brother, you have to
Zheng Yuefenâs words were just half said, and the footsteps behind her stuck her unspoken words in her throat.
âSister-in-law, I didnât know you were so kind and secretly helped us educate our children.â
The voice that spoke was none other than Zhao Donglin!
Zhao Donglin went to the town today to deliver materials, and after delivering the materials, he remembered that Jiahui likes to eat marinated food from the state restaurant, so he bought a packet and brought it back, and met his cousin Zhao Donglai at the entrance of the village, who was carrying a sack of rice to the rice mill.
Zhao Donglin remembers when he married Jiahui, his sister-in-law said a lot of things in front of Heidan that should not be said. Because of that, Heidan had resistance to Jiahui. After the wedding, Jiahui made a lot of effort to ease their relationship.
Heidan is a smart kid. He was careful, sensitive, and whatever he thought in his heart, he would never say it out loud, but he would not make a fuss. He especially understood and knew how to advance and retreat. He belongs to the kind of kid who canât be beaten or scolded.
Zhao Donglin watched with his own eyes how Jiahui broke Heidanâs temperament little by little. He not only accepted her but also had a brighter temperament than before. He was very grateful to Jiahui in his heart.
This time, Jiahui is pregnant. She was actually already worried that her pregnancy would affect Heidanâs and Yingbaoâs moods.
âI have nothing to worry about myself. Iâm sure Iâll be impartial, but Iâm afraid of what others will say in front of our children. After all, Iâm not their real mother. Itâs difficult for stepmothers. Itâs difficult for others to not think badly of stepmothers. Even if I havenât done anything wrong with them, they are waiting for me to make mistakes. â
âTo be honest, even though I did not give birth to Heidan and Yingbao, I love them as much as their own mother; if someone said to them, âthat is not your mother, she will not be sincere to you,â I would cry; I do not want to face this situation at all.
Zhao Donglin also reassured her at the time, saying she was overthinking it and that no one would talk nonsense in front of the children, but the reality threw him a slap in the face.
At that time, he said with conviction, âYou have done well enough; it can be seen with oneâs eyes.â
Jiahui said, âYou do not understand, the evil in human nature was particularly terrible, many people from the inside, do not want you to live a happy life, they are good at obtaining inner happiness by constantly hurting others.â
âBig brother, I was just talking to Heidan for fun.â
Zhao Donglin walked over and took Heidanâs hand into the courtyard, not wanting to hear another word from Zheng Yuefen.
The author has something to say: I tried my best. The next chapter will be the separation of the family.