They Say I Can Curse People (18)

Chapter 49

The girls of Tonglin Town’s current generation were fundamentally different from Third Aunt Chang Fang’s era.

Many households in the village had bold slogans spray-painted on their exterior walls: “Sons and daughters are equally valuable, daughters can carry on the family line.”

There were also quite a few villagers who followed national policies, resisting external pressures and raising only one or two daughters.

For instance, the girls in Sanli Village all knew about Mei Yue from the Mei family, who was an only daughter.

The girls in Laoma Village were aware of the family by the river dam who had only two daughters but sent both to school.

These families were often talked about by the adults in the village: “Who knows what they’re thinking? What will they do when their daughters grow up and marry?” “Taking in a son-in-law isn’t ideal either. After all, a son-in-law is only half a son, and half a son can never be as filial as your own son.” “They’ll understand the consequences when they’re old.”

Naturally, these conversations weren’t hidden from the children at home. But for the girls born without Hukou due to their parents’ pursuit of a son, these words took on a completely different meaning—

Some people didn’t chase after sons and treated their daughters well. Even when criticized, they still treated their daughters well.

Especially since these families were right there in the village, visible every day. You could see them going into the mountains to gather firewood, with a lidded enamel teacup in their parents’ baskets. The older children liked picking mulberries while gathering firewood, and their parents would join in, saying their kids loved them.

When they returned home with pigweed, they’d see girls their age who had just returned from school eating mulberries from teacups with spoons.

How could one not envy them?

“If only I had parents like that.” “Why can’t my parents be like that?”

As the adults constantly repeated, “You have to give in to your younger brother. If it weren’t for wanting to have him, why would we have had you?” the girls of this generation made different choices than the previous one—they began to resent their parents inwardly.

Why couldn’t their parents be like Mei Yue’s? Why did they have to keep trying for a son? Those families who didn’t chase after sons weren’t struggling to get by! And they did far more work than their brothers, so why were daughters considered useless?

Without realizing it, these daughter-loving families provided a haven of hope for the other girls in the village.

Now, as the adults began talking about stories from Yulan Town and Chang Fang’s story, a small number of them returned home and looked at their own children—three daughters and one son. Originally focused solely on the son, they couldn’t help but have some new thoughts after seeing other families.

The children in these families were still young, so there was some consideration of sending them to school to see if they might strike it lucky.

But other adults were different. Their over-quota daughters were already in their teens, not doing well in school and stubborn to boot.

These adults lectured their older children: “Look at other people’s kids. They all grew up eating rice, so how come they’re so capable? And then there’s you lot—not a single one of you is easy to handle.”

Having grown up hearing these things, the girls naturally associated Hua Jing from Yulan Town with the educated girls in the village, saying, “It’s because her family was willing to send her to school. If she hadn’t gone to school, she definitely wouldn’t have so much money now.”

“Chang Fang didn’t go to school either, and she’s doing well now.”

“Sister Chang Fang is my role model. She’s successful now, and I want to be successful like her in the future. Her parents must regret it so much. Even though Sister Chang Fang is successful now, she doesn’t take care of her parents because they didn’t let her go to school, didn’t raise her, and treated her badly, so she doesn’t care about them.”

This earned her a beating.

After the beating, all her parents got was: “You treat me badly. You didn’t register my Hukou, you didn’t let me go to school. This morning, my brother got an egg, and I didn’t even get one! When I’m successful in the future, I definitely won’t take care of you.”

The girl shouted loudly. At this age, children still hoped their parents would treat them better. Behind the accusations, every word was a reminder that her lack of filial piety was due to poor treatment, every word saying that if they treated her just a little better, she would definitely be good to them when she succeeded.

Unfortunately, the adults couldn’t understand. All they heard was unfilialness.

That night, the couple lay in bed, tossing and turning, unable to sleep.

“These girls nowadays hear too many stories. It makes them ambitious and wild. Each one thinks they’re something special. If we give them a little less, they hold grudges. I’m not afraid she won’t take care of us when she’s successful—what kind of success could she possibly have with that attitude? What really bothers me is how wild her heart has become. What have we ever done to wrong her? She holds grudges over every little thing. Thinking about it makes me feel terrible!”

It felt like this child had been raised for nothing. Sometimes they really wished they could just strangle her and be done with it.

“Why don’t we send her to your mother’s place?”

“No, if she leaves, who will cut pigweed, gather firewood, and feed the pigs? We’re so busy at home.”

The couple tossed and turned, wishing they could get up and give her another beating. But they knew now that beating her wouldn’t help—this child was coming up with more and more twisted logic.

Meanwhile, the person eavesdropping in the corner suddenly had a devious idea.

The next day, no one fed the pigs at home.

These older children, who were capable of labor, decided to spend the whole day digging up medicinal herbs.

“Wherever we work, we’re still working.” Doing more at home didn’t earn them any money, so they might as well dig herbs and earn their own. If that didn’t work out, they could use the money they earned to register their own Hukou.

These teenagers already knew their parents planned to marry them off before registering their Hukou.

Now that they had a way to earn money, they didn’t want that.

So the whole village became even more chaotic.

Yun Song really wanted to control the direction of the situation, but they had only started it, and now things were completely out of hand.

However, after hearing the villagers discussing Chang Fang, Yun Song still gave her some advice.

“Before, everyone only knew you were selling medicinal herbs. They didn’t know how profitable it was. Now that they know, someone is bound to come after you.”

It wasn’t that Yun Song was being overly suspicious, but she had seen too many such situations in the city.

“Try to come back to the school area as early as possible, and let us know if you need to go out.”

The school area had its advantages—it was safe, but during the day, things were less certain.

Among the incidents they dealt with in the city, the most common was two businesses competing for customers, which often escalated into physical fights.

This was also why Yun Song knew that using Chang Fang, a native of Tonglin Town, would be more effective for promotion, but she chose not to.

“Huh? Why would they target me? To steal my herbs?”

“I’ve encountered situations in the city where people became jealous of others’ earnings, lost their temper, and even resorted to stabbing. From now on, don’t go to the village alone. We’ll go with you every time.” Yun Song didn’t treat Chang Fang like a child and directly laid out the worst possible scenario.

Chang Fang nodded, indicating that she would comply.

Chang Fang had been genuinely happy these past few days. Whenever she returned to the village, everyone greeted her, mentioning that she was now doing business and even buying meat for her family, and then inquired about how much she was earning.

She felt proud each time, but her modesty still shone through: “Not much, really.”

“I heard you enrolled your younger sister in kindergarten in town. That must have cost a lot, right?”

“It wasn’t too expensive. We enrolled her mid-term, and the money came from the Golden Cicada Flowers I found earlier. They’re quite valuable but rare, so I haven’t come across any more since then.”

“So, how much do these herbs sell for per pound?” The adults in the village, wanting to save face, found an excuse: “I noticed my daughter has been working with Tiger Ginger lately. How much can that fetch?”

Chang Fang didn’t grasp the adults’ underlying motives and genuinely thought they were inquiring about their children’s earnings.

Although Chang Fang was an adult, her heart leaned more towards the children. She feared that if she revealed too much, these adults might pressure their kids for money, so she said, “It’s not much. Many herbs, once dried, only fetch about ten to twenty cents per pound. Plus, there aren’t many herbs in the mountains. When I collect in the village, most kids only bring a few pounds, so it’s just a few cents in the end.”

After hearing this, the adults were skeptical.

“Is it really that unprofitable?”

“How can that be? Don’t let her modest appearance fool you. Businesspeople are always shrewd.”

After all, it was true that Chang Fang had enrolled her sister in kindergarten and bought pork for her family.

Chang Fang’s Eldest Cousin found out about this and felt particularly resentful.

Unlike others who were merely surprised by Chang Fang’s newfound wealth, her Eldest Cousin harbored deeper feelings. Chang Fang had once lived under his roof, and he believed she was responsible for his brother’s death. Now, seeing her life improve, he couldn’t help but feel bitter.

He went to town to inquire about the prices of herbs and discovered that some could fetch up to two yuan per pound. It was the off-season for farming, so he decided to start digging and selling herbs as well.

But it wasn’t that simple.

The mountains were abundant with Bitter Wormwood and wild chrysanthemums—annual herbs that were cheap. After digging them up and drying them, they sold for just a few cents per pound. Moreover, the children had already scoured the area repeatedly, leaving little behind.

Some herbs were more valuable but took years to mature. After a whole day of laborious digging with a basket, one might only gather a few pounds, which, once dried, wouldn’t even fetch ten yuan.

The problem was, Eldest Cousin was currently earning twelve yuan a day by helping with construction work in the village, and that included two meals.

Digging herbs was less profitable than doing odd jobs.

The children were satisfied with such earnings since no one would pay ten yuan for their labor, but Eldest Cousin had entered this venture hoping to make big money. How could he be content?

At this point, he went to visit Chang Fang’s parents—his aunt and uncle.