Chapter 13: Son-in-law

*Plop*, face first.

"Oh, how did this happen?" The old man was startled and hurriedly went to check. Other wives also hurriedly got off the cart and helped her up.

Aunt Lin's face was covered with dust, her eyes were dull, and she didn't react for a long time.

Seeing her half-dead look, the old man was anxious, fearing that he would have to take responsibility, and went to pinch her philtrum with trembling hands.

Du Ruo observed carefully.

The ox cart wasn't high, and there were many wild grasses on the roadside. Aunt Lin wasn't old, and she was full of energy when scolding people, so she clearly didn't have any organic diseases, and should just be scared silly.

Sure enough, the next second, she heard an "Ow," and the person finally came back to her senses.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

Aunt Lin, who had come back to her senses, was like a fighting bull, red light flashing in her eyes, crying and howling as she bumped into Yao Yulan.

"I don't want to live anymore... Yao Yulan, you vicious woman, I'm going to report you to your old man..."

Yao Yulan curled her lips.

As for poison, who in the whole village was more poisonous than Aunt Lin?

As if others don't know about the filthy things done to the Second Branch of the Jiang Family back then? Bah.

It was just that she didn't want to make a big scene either. The old man hadn't been in a good mood recently, lying in bed for several days, sighing and groaning. If the Lin family really ran to the house to make trouble and disturbed the old man, it wouldn't be good.

Thinking of this, Yao Yulan climbed onto the ox cart on her own, pretending to be deaf and dumb.

Not long after, Aunt Lin also climbed up crying and howling under everyone's persuasion. No one talked to her, and she couldn't sing alone, so this farce finally came to an end.

Because of the delay on the road, it was almost dark when they returned to the village.

Several people returned to their homes, and Aunt Lin still glared at Du Ruo fiercely when she left.

Du Ruo was speechless.

She carried the basket to her arm and was about to pick up the two old hens, but someone grabbed them first.

"I'll carry them for you." Yao Yulan smiled.

It was someone else's kindness, and Du Ruo had sat on the ox cart for so long that her waist was almost broken, so she didn't refuse.

She thanked her, and the two walked toward the east end of the village together.

"Speaking of which, our two families are from the same clan, I am Jiang Tong's wife." Yao Yulan smiled.

Thinking that Du Ruo was a newcomer, she probably didn't know her husband, so she added: "Jiang family's clan head is my husband's grandfather."

So it was the granddaughter-in-law of the old clan head. No wonder she dared to confront Aunt Lin, the village head's wife. She really had the capital.

You have to know that in this era, people's clan concepts were very heavy. If a person was expelled from the clan, it was almost equivalent to being deprived of political rights for life.

"Yulan sister-in-law." Du Ruo had heard the three little ones talk about the old clan head. The old clan head had always taken good care of the Jiang family's second branch, so Du Ruo naturally felt a bit closer to his family.

Yao Yulan was very happy, "Then I'll be big and call you sister-in-law."

Originally, she didn't have any good feelings for this little wife of the Jiang family's second branch. One was that she felt Du Ruo was a young lady from an official's house and not the same kind of person as them village women; the second was that she felt Du Ruo was too ugly and really wasn't worthy of Jiang Li, feeling a bit sorry for Jiang Li.

However, after that farce just now, she changed her view of Du Ruo.

Not causing trouble, not afraid of trouble, and quite like Jiang Li.

If she were slimmer and didn't have those pustules on her face, it would be even better.

"By the way, you don't know why Aunt Lin is targeting you, right?" Anyway, she was idle, so Yao Yulan planned to give Du Ruo a hint.

Du Ruo shook her head, "I've only been here for a few days, I haven't had time to offend her. Hearing her mention my husband's name, it probably has something to do with him."

"That's right." Yao Yulan rolled her eyes, "This matter has to start from three years ago..."

Three years ago, Jiang Li was nineteen.

Village Chief Lin's daughter, Lin Qingshuang, had just reached the age of marriage.

Logically speaking, she was old enough to discuss marriage. But the Lin family had no sons, only Lin Qingshuang as an only daughter. If she married out, it would be equivalent to cutting off the family line.

After thinking about it, the Lin family decided to recruit a son-in-law, and somehow

They even spread the word that after the marriage, Jiang Li would have to change his surname, and any children born would also take the Lin surname, completely severing all ties with the Jiang family.

They believed this was a favor to Jiang Li, equivalent to rescuing him from the quagmire of the Second Branch of the Jiang Family; from then on, he would no longer be a member of the Jiang family, would not need to pay respects to Yan Pozi during holidays, and would not need to worry about the burdens like Jiang Zhan.

Who would have thought that when they sent someone to propose, Jiang Li refused point-blank.

The Lin family would not give up, feeling that Jiang Li could not let go of his younger siblings, so they offered twenty taels of silver to buy him out. With this money, Jiang Zhan and the others would have their living expenses covered, and Jiang Li would have no further worries.

Jiang Li still refused.

This angered Village Chief Lin, who felt that the man looked down on his daughter, and he was furious. Consequently, he kept sabotaging Jiang Li in various ways, claiming his sister's medicine smelled too pungent, or that his family's dog was too noisy at night—in short, he was just picking fights to force him to agree to the marriage.

As a result, after dragging it out for a year, Jiang Li still wouldn't budge. The Lin family had no choice but to let it go; after all, a forced melon is not sweet, and they prepared to look for another candidate.

But then Lin Qingshuang started acting up, threatening to die if she didn't get her way, saying that in this life, she would marry no one but Jiang Li!

You tell me, what kind of situation is this?

"I've heard of forced buying and selling, but I've never seen a young lady forcing a grown man to marry into her family. Shameless!" Yao Yulan said with a face full of disdain.

Only then did Du Ruo understand that the reason Aunt Lin looked down on her was because she had snatched away the girl's sweetheart.

No, that couldn't be called snatching; the Du family and the Jiang family had a marriage contract first, so it was not the Lin family's turn anyway. Strictly speaking, Lin Qingshuang was the one who wanted to steal a husband.

She suddenly remembered something, "Is Jiang Li... very good-looking?"

If it were true as Du Mingzhu said, that Jiang Li was coarse, ugly, and also cruel and violent, why would the Lin family choose him as a son-in-law? And why would Lin Qingshuang insist on marrying him?

It couldn't be that the whole family were masochists, right?

"Jiang Li, he has a very masculine air," Yao Yulan described. "He's six feet tall, well-proportioned, has immense strength, and just standing there, he looks like a mountain. He's especially attractive to young girls."

As she spoke, she winked suggestively at Du Ruo, "Sister-in-law, you're in luck."

Du Ruo gave a dry laugh.

Why, when hearing these adjectives, was the first person to pop into her mind Zhang Fei?

Oh, absolutely not. While it's fine for a man to be a bit rough, he shouldn't be too rough. This kind of muscular hunk really wasn't her type.

While talking, they had already arrived at the Jiang family's dilapidated little courtyard.

Jiang Zhan was standing at the courtyard gate, constantly looking toward the entrance of the village. When he saw Du Ruo, his eyes lit up, and he hurried to greet her.

Du Ruo handed the chicken to him and took two eggs from the basket to give to Yao Yulan as a token of thanks.

There was no help for it; she was currently penniless and could only rely on egg diplomacy.

Yao Yulan took the eggs and went home with a smile.

Jiang Cheng and Jiang Wan inside the house also ran out when they heard the commotion, followed by the dog.

Seeing the chicken, the eggs, and a large piece of meat, the two children were overjoyed. Jiang Cheng took the meat and headed straight for the kitchen.

"No, no, no, leave it to me!" Du Ruo quickly called out to stop him. "I don't trust your cooking skills; don't waste such good meat."

Jiang Cheng chuckled, "Don't worry, Sister-in-law, I'm just going to wash it and cut it up, I promise I won't put it in the pot!"

"That's more like it."

After running around all day, Du Ruo was also a bit tired, so she went into the house and sat on the long bench to rest her feet.

The little girl Jiang Wan brought over half a basin of hot water, "Sister-in-law, here is water for you to wash your face."

Du Ruo patted her little head and praised, "Wan'er is so well-behaved. Later, Sister-in-law will fry an egg to reward you and feed you until you're fatter—preferably... as fat as Sister-in-law, how about that?"

Jiang Wan: "..."

Looking at the little girl's startled expression, Du Ruo couldn't help but burst into laughter.

Back home, all the exhaustion seemed to have vanished. Actually, apart from a few unpleasant, extreme people, life was still quite beautiful.

That evening, Du Ruo stir-fried a plate of meat and fried a few sunny-side-up eggs, which, paired with sweet potato and brown rice porridge, left the whole family feeling satisfied.

After eating and drinking their fill, she felt sleepy and had a very strange dream.

In the dream, she was back in the car before she died, repeating the meaningless struggle. As the oxygen was slowly drawn from her lungs, her vision gradually became blurred.

In a daze, it seemed a man swam toward her. That person was desperately pounding on the car window, trying to save her, but was ultimately powerless.

Du Ruo couldn't see his face clearly; she only knew his mouth kept opening and closing, as if he were shouting something at her, but she couldn't hear a thing.

Later on, she died.

After waking up, Du Ruo sat on the bed in a daze for a long time.

She tried hard to recall the scene in the dream, especially the man's face, but unfortunately, other than it looking somewhat familiar, she gained nothing.

Since she couldn't figure it out, she stopped thinking about it. No matter what, living well in the present was the most important thing.

After breakfast, Du Ruo untied the two chickens from yesterday and kept them in the courtyard. She didn't expect them to lay eggs; she just thought of them as two more playmates for Jiang Wan and the dog.

Anyway, they couldn't be slaughtered and eaten for a while.

Then she took out the leftover meat from last night, rendered the fat into oil, minced the lean meat, and fried them into meatballs. This way, they could be preserved longer, saving them from spoiling in such hot weather.

While she was busy, Jiang Cheng, who had been out on a house call with Dr. Gu, suddenly ran back home.

"Sister-in-law!" His face was slightly pale. "The old house... something happened at the old house!"