Volume 1: Reborn in the 1980s, selling lunch boxes with my mother Chapter 58: The Fierce Aunts
The next morning, my uncle Hu Jianguo brought several strong laborers to harvest rice for my sister's family.
My aunt Jiang Xiuxiu also carried a vegetable basket with several pounds of pork and two fish in it. She told everyone she met that they went to my sister's house to harvest rice.
You asked her who her sister is?
Isn’t it Hu Qiongfang, whose husband and mother-in-law just died in Liuzhutou Village?
Her sister-in-law is so pitiful. As soon as her husband died, her brother-in-law took the family money and divided the property with them.
She is a woman with two children. Life is already difficult, and there is no man in the family to help harvest the rice. So she needs help from her relatives in her family, right?
My aunt really knows how to flatter people.
She didn't say a bad word about the Jiang family, but those who heard these words couldn't help but start whispering and talking about them behind their backs.
Yes, the Jiang family is a big family in Liuzhutou Village. After Hu Qiongfang lost her husband, she did not abandon her two children and remarry. Instead, she stayed in the Jiang family and raised Jiang Leping's two children for the Jiang family.
With such a virtuous daughter-in-law, the Jiang family should provide some financial support, but at least they could arrange a few people to help harvest the rice in the fields during the busy farming season, right?
It's not thirty acres! It's just three acres of paddy field. A few grown men can finish mowing it in half a day. How difficult is it?
Even a virtuous woman like Hu Qiongfang can't survive in Liuzhutou Village. In the future, who would dare to marry their daughter to this village?
As Jiang Xiuxiu walked along, she kept telling people how pitiful her sister-in-law was. She didn't say a single curse word, and she scolded the entire Jiang family so much that they couldn't even raise their heads.
What fighting power!
Jiang Tian felt that she and her aunt really met too late.
My second uncle was right. There were only three acres of rice, and my eldest uncle brought four people over. The six big men finished harvesting the rice in half a day.
My aunt is also a good fighter. Hu Qiongfang is a person who doesn't want to trouble others. Chen Xiaohong really wants to roll her eyes at her sister-in-law.
Sometimes the more you are unwilling to trouble others, the more they think you don't need help.
Otherwise, why do we say “the crying child gets the milk”?
Chen Xiaohong looked around her sister-in-law's house, then smilingly took Jiang Cheng with her and went to the village chief's house to borrow the village tractor to haul rice for Hu Qiongfang.
The harvested rice ears are bundled and taken to the threshing ground. Then the rice ears are untied and spread out to dry for a day to wait for the moisture on them to evaporate. This way, when the rice is threshed, the rice grains on the ears can be easily removed.
In the early years, the villagers used shoulder poles to carry rice ears to the threshing ground. Later, the village had a tractor, and the villagers took turns to borrow it, which saved a lot of effort when harvesting rice.
There are only two tractors in Liuzhutou Village, one is collectively owned by the village, and the other was bought by someone else. This family bought the tractor specifically for hauling bricks for people. If villagers want to borrow one, they can only borrow the one from the village.
Of course, there are more wolves than meat, so who gets to use it first and who gets to use it later, and who can't borrow even if they want to, all depends on the village chief's opinion.
Anyway, before the busy farming season every year, a lot of people invite the village chief and other village officials to dinner.
As a young widow, it was certainly not convenient for Hu Qiongfang to invite several grown men to her home for dinner and drinks.
However, there is no need to spend this money.
The second aunt took the skinny Jiang Cheng to the village chief's house for a stroll, and after showing off her misery, she borrowed the tractor.
Not lending?
If we don't lend the money to the Hu family, wouldn't it be even more of a reason for them to go out and slander their village and bully the orphans and widows?
Although the village chief Zhou Linhai’s surname is not Jiang, his wife’s surname is Jiang!
Zhou Linhai now feels somewhat resentful towards this woman, Hu Qiongfang .
You're a widow, can't you just live in peace?
I have been farming honestly in the village and raising two children. If I really encounter difficulties, how can the village not lend a hand?
Zhou Linhai wanted to tell his youngest son about Jiang Tian , but he kept it to himself and waited for Hu Qiongfang to come and ask him for help.
Since ancient times, the debt of favor has been the hardest to repay. He helped a little this year, and a little next year. When Hu Qiongfang felt that she owed their family too many favors, he would ask a matchmaker to come to their house and ask for marriage on behalf of his youngest son. How could Hu Qiongfang refuse?
Unexpectedly, this Hu Qiongfang was just like a stone in a toilet, with a bad and stubborn temper!
You're a woman, can't you be more gentle?
He went out to fish for eels at night and dug loaches at noon. He could have just said a few soft words and begged the elders of the Jiang family to find someone to harvest the rice in the field, but he had to spend his own money to hire someone to harvest the rice!
If you don’t know, you might think that the people in Liuzhutou Village are just bullying a widow.
Now that the two gossipy women from the Hu family had spread the news, all the men in the village had their faces slapped.
Zhou Linhai felt that he had failed in his attempt to sell favors, and now he was slapped in the face by the two daughters-in-law of the Hu family. He was not as excited as he was at the beginning about "marrying Jiang Tian to his youngest son".
He still holds the old idea that women should be gentle, virtuous and obedient.
I used to think that Hu Qiongfang was filial and virtuous, and the daughter she raised would definitely not be much worse.
Ever since Hu Qiongfang started to "rely on herself", Zhou Linhai felt that she would most likely lead Jiang Tian astray. Sure enough, Jiang Tian is becoming more and more aggressive. Previously, when someone proposed to Hu Qiongfang, she even threw feces water at the person.
Is this something a teenage girl can do?
If he dares to throw feces at people now, won’t he be forced to chop his son with a kitchen knife in the future?
Because of these incidents , Zhou Linhai no longer cared as much about Hu Qiongfang and her two sons as before.
Now I heard that after the rice is harvested, Hu Qiongfang will move to a town on the provincial road with her two children. I feel more and more that this woman is restless.
Are you looking down on your village and want to climb up the social ladder in town?
Zhou Linhai now wished that they would leave quickly.
Otherwise, the two daughters-in-law of the old Hu family would have to run to their village time and time again with things.
Every time she comes, she would talk about how difficult life her sister-in-law has.
Yes, these two gossipy women did not curse anyone by name, but everyone knows that Hu Qiongfang is from their Liuzhutou Village.
If they are asked to make a few more trips, the reputation of their Liuzhutou Village will be ruined.
Tractors are more useful than cows. After pulling the rice ears to the threshing ground, Hu Jianguo drank some wine with several brothers from the same clan who came to help. After sending them back, he and Hu Jianjun worked for two more days and finally harvested all the rice from his sister's family.
The next step is to queue up to pay the public grain tax.
Hu Jianjun had a good brother who worked at the township grain station. He told Hu Qiongfang not to queue up by herself. Instead, he would weigh out the public grain that the family had to pay, and when the day came, he would come and deliver it to the station. The two families would pay together, saving Hu Qiongfang the trouble of queuing up.
Hu Qiongfang was filled with shame: "Brother, brother, I was the one who let you down and my parents down back then."
Hu Jianjun sighed and patted his sister on the shoulder: "How can a family hold grudges? It's all in the past. When I'm done, I'll take the kids back to see their parents."
Hu Qiongfang held back her tears and agreed.
