Chapter 4: Record of Moving to the City in the 90s (4)

After picking out the right spot, Su Huandan planned to get started that night.

After slaughtering the chicken, Su Dakui carried it into the kitchen and shouted in his booming voice, “Go back and rest. I don’t need your help.”

When Su Huandan returned to the front yard with some picked chili peppers, she saw her second sister coming out of the kitchen.

Her second sister was even smiling as she said, “It’s better when Dad’s home.”

She said it loudly on purpose, making her father, Su Dakui, burst out laughing, and making her mother, Jiang Chunhua, start bawling.

Feeling wronged, Jiang Chunhua said to her eldest daughter, Su Huanzhu, “You father and daughters can go be close to each other then. Why are you staying here with me? All I ever do is order you around like hired laborers. I’ve abused you, have I? Your dad’s so great, then all of you go find your dad.”

Su Huanzhu was trembling with anger all over. Was there really anyone this unreasonable? Was she seriously getting more and more worked up the more she talked?

No one in the family disliked her. They were only saying that there were some things she shouldn’t have done that way.

If a wife hasn’t done well enough, can her husband not even say a few words to correct her?

And if you don’t want to be corrected, then don’t do things that make people uncomfortable.

But wasn’t it true that she often thought too simply and handled things in far too muddleheaded a way?

Jiang Chunhua had her strengths. She could endure hardship, she was hardworking, and she knew how to keep hold of the household and protect its money. Every family liked a daughter-in-law like that.

But Jiang Chunhua’s shortcomings were obvious too. The moment her natal family got involved, she turned foolish, and would rather let her daughters suffer than keep her side of the family from taking advantage.

It wasn’t that this was absolutely unacceptable, but she had to consider whether her family was worth making her daughters suffer for.

That was something she really needed to think through clearly.

But wasn’t this what family squabbles were always like?

In the Su family, whenever there was conflict, it was always tangled up with the Jiang Family.

What about other families?

Maybe it was a problem between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, maybe the daughter-in-law was lazy, or maybe the husband loved gambling.

In the end, every family had its own troubles. Household conflicts came in all forms, and if you really tried to go through them one by one, you’d never finish.

But by comparison, Su Huandan felt that the problems in her own family were all relatively minor.

Her mother would figure it out eventually, and even if she didn’t, her father would keep things under control. Nothing truly serious would happen.

By around noon, the rooster was already stewing in the pot.

It was also at that time that her maternal grandparents from the Jiang Family arrived together.

As soon as they got there, they sat down outside the front gate and started wailing.

“Oh, Su Dakui, you cursed bastard struck by heaven’s thunder! Our old Jiang family must have had eight lifetimes of rotten luck¹ to end up with a son-in-law like you! His brother-in-law came to visit him, and he beat him into a pig’s head instead! Everyone come look! Everyone come judge this!” Grandma Jiang’s voice was just as loud as her son-in-law Su Dakui’s.

She shouted loudly enough to bring everyone in the alley out of their homes.

The moment Auntie Liu from the house in front saw Grandma Jiang, she spat on the ground. “Let me tell you something, Jiang. You won’t find a more shameless family than yours in the whole world. The second your son came over, he started cursing Su Dakui’s daughter. We all heard it. We’re neighbors living all around the Su family. How could we not know whether the Su girls are lazy or not? To put it plainly, you were just bullying them because Su Dakui wasn’t home, weren’t you? You’re supposed to be their real maternal relatives, not some step-relations, but with a bunch like you as grandparents, the three Su girls really have had eight lifetimes of rotten luck.”

That speech left Grandma Jiang’s face flushing red and black with shame.

But when people got old and decided to act shameless, they really had no shame left at all.

“Get lost, all of you, get lost! What business is our family matter of yours?” Grandma Jiang snapped at Auntie Liu, then turned her head and started cursing again.

“Su Dakui, get your ass out here! If you don’t hand over one thousand yuan today, then this isn’t over. I’ll report you to the police station!” Grandma Jiang had come for one reason only, to demand money.

Su Dakui was so angry he laughed. In this life, his own father had been a local thug and scoundrel, and now his father-in-law and mother-in-law were leeches. He just wanted to ask what sins he had committed in his previous life to end up stuck with people like these.

“Did you hear that? One thousand yuan. Are you going to deal with this, or am I? Chunhua, do you know why your three older sisters don’t acknowledge your parents anymore, and don’t acknowledge the rest of you either? You really have no idea? I admit you’ve protected the family’s money, and all in all your side of the family hasn’t exactly drained us dry, but that’s not the only reason I wanted you to cut ties, and you’ve forgotten that too. The girls are all grown now. The eldest and second are both at the age to start talking marriage. With relatives like these, what good match can they possibly find? Who wouldn’t be afraid of getting entangled with the Jiang Family? Times were different when we got married. It’s not the same now. Even if our three daughters can put up with it, you still have to think about whether their future in-laws can.”

Su Dakui couldn’t be bothered with those two old geezers outside.

As long as things inside the house were steady, he didn’t need to worry.

Jiang Chunhua’s face went deathly pale in an instant. She had always been the type to think only of what was right in front of her and not what came after, but she wasn’t a stepmother. How could she just watch her own daughters’ marriages be ruined?

The moment Su Huandan saw her mother’s expression, she knew her mother was thinking of smoothing things over again.

Forget it. She really didn’t want anything more to do with the Jiang Family.

“Mom, if it really comes to it, then divorce Dad. After the divorce, this courtyard can go to you. The three of us sisters will go with Dad. Don’t worry, we’ll support Dad in his old age, and we’ll support you too. We won’t abandon you. That way you won’t have to be caught in the middle anymore.” Su Huandan’s words stunned the whole family.

Su Dakui really hadn’t been thinking about divorce. He had only wanted to scare his wife a little, make her stop caring only about her natal family while neglecting her own daughters.

A good family falling apart was no good at all. If his in-laws’ family weren’t such a bottomless pit, and if he weren’t unwilling to keep filling it, he wouldn’t have forced his wife to choose.

But when he looked at his youngest daughter, he could tell from her expression that she was serious.

Then he looked at his second daughter. She had hesitated for only a moment before taking on the same expression as her younger sister. If there really were a divorce, she would not go with her mother.

That showed she had long had enough of the Jiang Family too.

As for the eldest daughter, her temperament was softer, and her face was full of conflict.

But she wasn’t conflicted because of the Jiang Family. She was only torn because she felt sorry for her mother.

Su Dakui could read his daughters’ expressions. Could Jiang Chunhua not read them?

Of course she could see them, and of course she understood them.

Jiang Chunhua suddenly turned and rushed into the kitchen. When she came back out, she was carrying a cleaver.

She pressed the cleaver against her neck and gritted out, “No money, only one life. If that’s what you want, then say it, and I’ll give it back to you right now. After all these years, what have I ever done to wrong you? You come here every few days to make a scene, and now you’ve stirred things up so badly my husband wants to divorce me. I’m putting my words here today. Either I give this life back to you right now, or, in front of everyone here today, I’ll leave the Su family with nothing and go back with you. Once I go back, you’ll be responsible for supporting me for the rest of my life. You choose.”

At the commotion, the neighbors immediately burst into cheers.

Before the old Jiang Family couple could argue back, the neighbors all started talking at once. “Chunhua, you should’ve done this a long time ago. Your parents are really something else, bullying you without end. They’d love nothing more than to have your whole family work like hired hands for your younger brother. Who in all the nearby villages doesn’t know the vicious thoughts your parents harbor? You’re the only one soft-hearted enough to keep putting up with it. If it were me, I’d have cut ties ages ago. How are these parents? They’re flesh-eating demons that don’t even spit out the bones².” In those days, for the neighbors putting on a village-side spectacle to call the elders demons, it was easy to imagine just how outrageous the Jiang Family’s behavior had been over the years.

Translator’s Notes