Yun Xiaoxiao hurried to queue up, took out her glass bottle, and filled it with soy sauce. With New Year’s approaching, the Cooperative was offering more items.
She also bought two jin of sticky rice cakes, which required Food Tickets.
No need for other things.
"Got everything, so let’s go," she said.
The pair hadn’t walked far when they suddenly spotted someone, their eyes lighting up.
"Educated Youth Yun, that’s Li Cuixia, actually in town."
Li Cuixia?
Yun Xiaoxiao had heard some gossip a few times; she was Cao Dali’s ex.
Looking in the direction her little sister-in-law pointed, she saw a woman dressed in a floral cotton coat with two braids, wheat-colored skin, neither fat nor thin, around one meter sixty in height, slightly less pretty than the little sister-in-law beside her.
That was Li Cuixia.
"Did she really get married?"
The little sister-in-law nodded, "It seems like it. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be wearing a cotton-padded coat without any patches. Her parents see her as nothing more than a workhorse for the family, and she put on some weight. Last time I saw her at my parents’ home, she was still wearing patched-up clothes."
Li Cuixia inadvertently locked eyes with the little sister-in-law. They were from the same team, and her maiden home wasn’t far away; they had seen each other often. Now that she saw the little sister-in-law, she ran away in fear.
"She ran off."
The little sister-in-law sighed, "She’s afraid I’ll tell her parents. I wouldn’t do that. Her family wasn’t kind to her. Even though my parents favored the sons in our family, they didn’t mistreat me, their daughter. When it es to food, if my brothers had eggs to eat, I did too."
In the countryside, gender discrimination was prevalent. To many, sons carried on the family lineage, while daughters were eventually to marry off and bee part of another family.
Only a very few households in the entire team did not discriminate based on gender.
But such cases were the minority.
"Now that Cuihua is married, she eats well, she dresses well."
As they got close to the ox cart, the little sister-in-law stopped discussing Li Cuixia. After waiting for about ten minutes, those aunties finally arrived, tardy as ever.
Seeing Yun Xiaoxiao, they asked, "Educated Youth Yun, did you see anyone selling fabric?"
"I didn’t see any this time," she replied.
The aunties wanted to press on, but Yun Xiaoxiao’s cool gaze swept over them, quickly silencing them.
They suddenly remembered that this Educated Youth Yun had once roughed up Wang Laowu and even got him locked up.
Usually, they thought her too weak and forgot all about that incident.
On the other side, Li Cuixia, who had run back home, felt uneasy, fearing that the little sister-in-law, or rather, Sister Minghua, who had spotted her, might tell her parents.
Sister Minghua, who married into the neighboring team, had given birth to twins the following year and was much cherished by her in-laws.
"Cuihua, weren’t you at the Cooperative buying things? Why have you returned?" asked Li Cuixia’s mother-in-law, puzzled to see her daughter-in-law back so soon.
The daughter-in-law had just gotten pregnant recently, which was a relief to her.
"I ran into some people from our team. Mom, what do I do if my parents find out? I don’t want to go back, and I don’t want my brother to pay such a high bride price for me."
Seeing her daughter-in-law considerate of her family, she thought for a moment, "Stay home and rest well for now. After the New Year, we’ll have your brother take you to visit your maiden home. Your household registration is still with your parents."
They were town residents, but the child’s registration followed the mother’s.
Li Cuixia felt her heart settle a bit.
"What if my parents refuse to give me my household registration?"
"First, go to your team leader. You can start by having your household registration transferred out of the team." Li Cuixia’s mother-in-law, having lived in town for many years, was quite shrewd about some things.
User Comments
0 comments from readers