In the room, Huang Cuilan carefully explained her mother’s demands and the conversation with her mother-in-law.
Huang Yaoguo listened to his sister’s words and rolled his eyes at her.
"Little brother?"
"Brother, what brother? I told you not to listen to mom. Are you a pig brain? When life gets peaceful, you start causing trouble again, huh? If you don’t want to continue, just say it early."
"But mom kept crying and begging . I couldn’t refuse."
Huang Yaoguo laughed and said, "Who told you to send food there every day? If she doesn’t cry to you, who does she cry to? You’re the one who spoiled her. Do you think mom hasn’t cried to ? But I don’t care. After a few tis, she couldn’t be bothered to say anything. I’m currently fed up with her; every ti it’s so trivial nonsense happening at the eldest brother’s house."
After speaking, he added worriedly, "Do you think your husband doesn’t know about you secretly sending food to mom and subsidizing the eldest brother’s family? Don’t push the honest man to the point of anger. When that happens, no one will be able to save you. Do you think that just because you’ve had three sons, no matter what mistakes you make, your husband won’t leave you?
Let tell you sothing, be smart. Don’t end up being so foolish that soone steals your man while you’re always running back to your mother in the village. I’m the biological son of mom and dad; won’t I take care of them? You, on the other hand, should keep an eye on your husband. He may not have ill intentions, but there are plenty of young girls eyeing him, not to ntion widows."
"Impossible, the father of my children is not like that. My in-laws would never allow him to abandon his wife. Xi Zi and the others wouldn’t let another woman in."
Huang Yaoguo looked at his overly emotional little sister with disappointnt. If it were soone else, he would laugh it off and ignore it, but this was his beloved little sister.
If he didn’t hit the key point this ti, sothing would happen sooner or later.
He straightened his face and pointed at Huang Cuilan up and down, "Look at what you’ve beco? Have you noticed your mother-in-law getting younger and younger? You look like sisters standing next to each other.
And your husband, he was already good looking, and now he looks even younger. Let’s not even talk about his family background, he’s soone many people would fight for. You’re still at ho causing trouble every day, doesn’t that annoy him?
Have you seen your sister-in-law, Lin Juhua? She’s smart. Her own family is a ss, but she dresses up beautifully every day. Everyone says that Zhang the Second’s in-laws aren’t capable, but his wife’s beautiful.
Among the three sisters-in-law, you don’t have to compare with Zhou Jiao, but you don’t look worse than Lin Juhua, right?
Sister, I’m your real brother; I wouldn’t lie to you. Many people are interested in your husband. If not for his lack of romantic inclinations, he would have ssed around with soone already. He’s a good person, but you also need to work hard. Don’t let the Old Zhang’s family beco tired of you."
Huang Cuilan looked herself over head to toe. She thought she was quite clean and didn’t think Lin Juhua looked that much better than her.
Huang Yaoguo was speaking with all his heart. As a man, he understood n the best. Her husband had been doing well these two years, being steady, earning a degree, gaining support from others. If there are no accidents, a promotion is not far off.
n, when they have money and status, their thoughts change. If he fancies a young woman, who could stop him? Even if he has no romantic interests, that doesn’t an no one is eyeing him. As long as they can climb onto this big tree, there are plenty of people willing to be a stepmother, enjoying a lifeti of security.
"You should, when you have ti, visit your husband’s workplace more, pick him up after work, and occasionally go shopping together. Show more concern for your own man, don’t just either work or go back to the village to see mom. Xi Zi and the others are at their grandparents’, you also need to visit often, spend more ti talking with the kids."
"Do you rember that brother of mine, Brother Shun? Earlier, he cried and made a fuss to marry his wife, had two sons and two daughters, and his wife had a say in everything. But now? Just transferred to the provincial city for not even two years, he ca back clamoring for a divorce. He didn’t even want anything from the family; he just wanted the divorce."
Huang Cuilan nodded. She vaguely rembered that man was quite handso, and his wife was even more good-looking. Even after having so many kids, she still looked like a young girl.
"They really got divorced last month. His wife was tough and took the four kids on her own, letting him leave with nothing. But Brother Shun, he wasn’t worried. He was making about eighty a month. When he went back to the provincial city, he imdiately sent out wedding invitations for us to go drink. The one he married was only eighteen, very pretty, and with a stable job."
Having finished speaking, Huang Yaozong stared at his sister. He didn’t believe that with all he said, his sister still wouldn’t wake up.
Huang Cuilan was silent for a mont and then shook her head, "The father of the children wouldn’t. Before he went for lessons in the provincial city, but he never got into any trouble. Xi Zi’s grandparents control things strictly, if sothing like Brother Shun’s happens in our ho, they’d break his leg. Little brother, I know what you an, but do you see him as such a person?"
Although Huang Cuilan said this, she felt uneasy inside. She imagined that if the father of the children did sothing like this, who would help her?
Huang Yaoguo saw through her duplicity and didn’t argue. As long as she listened, it was fine, better to pay attention to her family than cause trouble. He knew very well what kind of person their eldest sister-in-law was.
He would not want his sister to be misled by that woman, ruining their good life.
Over the next few days, Huang Cuilan changed her usual routines. Any ti she had a shift change, she’d go to Zhang Guofu’s workplace, especially during the two days each month when the grain store distributed grain; she’d observe from a distance.
Soon, Huang Cuilan realized her brother was right. There were indeed many young female colleagues who deliberately found excuses to get close to her husband every ti.
Watching Zhang Guofu, always with a gentle smile on his face, speaking politely and appropriately to others, with the elegance that only educated people have.
Huang Cuilan felt a bit panicked. She’d never seen this side of her husband. In her mory, the simple man who chuckled, avoided village won, and carried a hoe on his back was gone.
She couldn’t rember when her husband started to change.
Perhaps it started when he began evening school, or when he started reading every night? She thought and thought, realizing that for this past year, aside from necessities, he hadn’t talked about daily matters with her.
Every night he was reading and reading, while she was worrying about where to get more grain for mom, for her elder brother, or racking her brain to figure out how much grain she could buy from the black market with her little stash of money.
Huang Cuilan walked ho in a daze.
The house was still the ho she loved, but it seed like sothing had changed. There were more books, for her son, her daughter, her husband, but none for herself.
She went back to the bedroom and saw the desk piled high with newspapers and books, open books with unfamiliar tables and small numbers, and sighed deeply.
Opening the cupboard, Zhang Guofu’s neatly stacked clothes stood starkly in contrast, black and white with no patches, making her own washed-out clothes look even more worn.
Huang Cuilan slowly realized that her husband’s clothing was mostly prepared by her mother-in-law and that she hadn’t noticed when doing the laundry.
This made it obvious how dissatisfied her mother-in-law was with her. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have taken matters into her own hands and wouldn’t have said a word to her. This was outright ignoring her.
Feeling weak, Huang Cuilan lay on the bed, closed her eyes, thinking about how to save their marital affection, thinking about how to once again earn her mother-in-law’s approval.
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