"Do I want to hold it in? Every ti I ask you for money, you either say you don’t have any or accuse of always asking for money. Being accused like that, don’t you think I have any self-respect?"
Su Qing’s heart grew heavier as she spoke: "I’ve been sent down to this village for more than two years, and I’ve often heard the old folks say, ’marry a man and you’ll be clothed and fed,’ but how have you treated ? And why should I have to live so repressed?"
Sitting up, Su Qing slapped Zhou Weimin hard twice on the body, her face now streaming with tears.
"Can’t you just settle down?" Zhou Weimin couldn’t lie down any longer with all the commotion, his temper flaring. He angrily threw off the coarse blanket covering him, sat up, and looked coldly at Su Qing: "Have I starved you or left you naked?"
Su Qing: "Have you ever bought a new piece of clothing since we got married?"
"Can’t you buy it yourself?"
The house was not soundproof, and to avoid waking others and especially their son, Zhou Weimin kept his voice low no matter how uncomfortable he felt inside.
"How can I buy it with no money?"
Su Qing also suppressed her emotions, her voice full of pain and indignation.
"Fine, from now on I’ll set aside ten yuan a month from my salary for you." Zhou Weimin knew his mother well, and unless it was for household expenses, not a cent that landed in her hands would be leaked out.
But then again, he had given a whopping two hundred yuan as a bride price when he married the woman before him.
And they hadn’t even been married for two years. She hadn’t seed to buy much on a daily basis, so where had the money gone? Zhou Weimin was puzzled but didn’t feel like asking Su Qing for a detailed account.
The reason?
He gave it as a bride price, hence how Su Qing wanted to spend it was none of his concern.
"You earn thirty-five yuan a month but only give ten, isn’t that a bit too little?" Su Qing stopped her tears and looked straight at Zhou Weimin, "I’m not asking for much, just fifteen a month, not a yuan less."
Zhou Weimin expressionlessly said, "Just ten, take it or leave it." Lying back down on the kang bed, he still turned his back to Su Qing: "My job didn’t co with the wind. Before I formally started working, I made it clear in front of the whole family,
that for the first four years, not a single penny of my salary could be touched, all of it had to be handed over to the public fund, held by my mother. When the four years were up, I only had to give half of my salary to the family. Today, you make such a fuss with , complaining about my mother grinding you down,
not giving you money for treatnt, whether it’s true or false is not the point for now, but just because I am her son, it doesn’t an that I can criticize my mother’s faults just because you’re my wife."
Tears welled up again in her eyes, Su Qing’s voice choked: "According to you, I deserve to be ground down by your mother at ho and continue to live a repressed life in the future?"
"Didn’t I agree to give you ten yuan each month? Don’t be too greedy. As for you saying my mother grinds you down, it all cos down to my mother making you cook, wash, and work, but which daughter-in-law doesn’t do these things?"
What about city people? Don’t they eat daily and wear clothes?
If they need to eat and wear clothes, and don’t cook or wash themselves, should they expect to be served like the young ladies of the large households before liberation, attended by maids and nursemaids?
"But every ti it’s washing clothes for the whole family..."
Before being sent down to the countryside, she only washed her own clothes at ho, occasionally adding a couple of her parents’ garnts to the basin. When had she ever washed for the entire family?
Even after coming to Aoli Village to join the work brigade, before she married into the Zhou Family, she only ever washed her own clothes,
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