Chapter 5: Record of Moving to the City in the 90s (5)

Every time the neighbors spoke up, they deliberately chose the exact moment when the old Jiang couple were about to speak. It made the two of them furious. They scrambled up from the ground and tried to start grappling with the people who kept exposing the Jiang Family’s dirty laundry. In the middle of all the shoving and jostling, Grandma Jiang turned and pounced onto Jiang Chunhua. It didn’t look like anyone had pushed her at all. To anyone watching, it looked like she had done it herself.

After knocking Jiang Chunhua over, the cleaver¹ slashed straight across her neck.

“Oh, good heavens! That old woman from the Jiang Family is vicious. Her daughter won’t obey her, so she tries to take her life. Just look at what she did to her daughter’s neck.” From Auntie Liu’s angle, Grandma Jiang’s hand really had touched Jiang Chunhua’s hand that was holding the cleaver.

In an instant, everyone standing around scattered.

Grandpa Jiang leaped three feet into the air and vanished in the blink of an eye.

His wife had hacked their daughter. That was the kind of thing that could land someone in prison. He couldn’t let himself get dragged into it.

Jiang Chunhua was shocked and terrified. Her own mother had actually wanted her dead?

She had only been holding the cleaver to scare people. She was living just fine and had no desire to die.

One hand clamped over her neck, she kicked her mother off her body and scrambled up from the ground, retreating far away. “Mom, you really wanted my life? How can you be so cruel? All I wanted was to stop you from ruining my life, and you wanted to kill me for it?”

The look Jiang Chunhua gave her mother was full of fear.

A lot of people who hadn’t understood what was going on before now believed Jiang Chunhua’s words. Grandma Jiang had gotten angry enough to try to kill her own daughter.

Grandma Jiang was terrified. Her daughter’s neck had been cut. She had seen with her own eyes how the wound started bleeding. How could she not be scared?

Besides, she knew she hadn’t done it on purpose. Somehow, her footing had slipped, and this was the result.

“It wasn’t me, really, it wasn’t me. I gave birth to you, I raised you. How could I possibly want your life? I’m your real mother. How could I be that heartless?” Grandma Jiang defended herself anxiously.

She absolutely could not take the blame for this. If it stuck, she would be the one going to prison.

After Jiang Chunhua pressed on the wound for a while, the bleeding stopped. It wasn’t serious, but the whole incident had truly frightened her badly.

“It wasn’t you? You’re not heartless? Is there anyone in this world more heartless than you? When my eldest sister was fifteen, you said you’d found her a fine marriage in the city. And what happened? You sold her into the city to a cripple for one thousand yuan². That was twenty-five years ago. Two years later, you sold my second sister too, also for one thousand yuan. This time it was to a blind man in the city. Before the end of that same year, you sold my third sister as well, again for one thousand yuan, to an old man over fifty. You were heartless enough to sell three of your own daughters in a row. How could you possibly care about a fourth daughter like me, one you couldn’t squeeze any profit out of? Back when I was giving birth to my third child, my eldest and second child had nowhere to go, so I sent them back for you to watch for two days. I was only in the hospital for three days, and you let those two children go hungry for all three. If that doesn’t count as heartless, then everyone in the world must be a saint.” The moment Jiang Chunhua finished speaking, the crowd erupted again.

One thousand yuan twenty-five years ago?

Good grief. In the sixties, any family that could come up with one thousand yuan was an extraordinary family. Why would they set their sights on a country girl?

Granted, the Jiang Family all had good looks. You couldn’t find anyone better-looking in ten villages around. But no matter how pretty you were, you were still from the countryside, and city people genuinely looked down on rural folk.

So the first three daughters ended up with either a cripple or a blind man, and if not that, then some old man old enough to be their grandfather.

If someone paid one thousand yuan to take a girl from your family, it was for one reason only: to make sure their own son wouldn’t suffer. So after she got married, what kind of life would she be living?

The moment you so much as raised your voice, your in-laws would hit you with, “We spent one thousand yuan to buy you.”

Just tell me, would you still be able to hold your head up in your husband’s family?

These days in the countryside, if a family paid an extravagant bride price to bring in a wife, once she entered the house, which one of those women dared to speak loudly?

Jiang Chunhua was right. This was selling daughters.

Any family that truly cared about their daughter would never arrange a match with people like that.

How was that marriage? That was sending her into someone else’s house to be a servant and maid.

For girls, the Jiang Family was practically a living hell.

That made it easy for everyone to understand. When Jiang Chunhua married Su Dakui, the Su family had been well-off by village standards, but even then, thirty yuan as a bride price would have been the absolute limit.

So maybe what Jiang Chunhua said was really true. The old Jiang couple hadn’t managed to squeeze any benefit out of Jiang Chunhua, and that was why they had always looked down on Jiang Chunhua and her whole family.

Grandma Jiang couldn’t argue back anymore. Covering her face, she tried to run, but Jiang Chunhua grabbed hold of her.

“Mom, let all the neighbors here be witnesses today. From this day on, whatever bond there was between us is over. From now on, you can act as if you never gave birth to me, and I’ll act as if I no longer have any family on my mother’s side. From here on out, we go our separate ways. I won’t dare come see you ever again, in case you’re in a bad mood someday and decide to slash me again.” After saying that, she let go of the arm she had been gripping and turned straight into the main gate.

Grandma Jiang was completely dumbfounded. Jiang Chunhua was cutting ties with her?

All around her, people were pointing at her and laughing at her misfortune.

“Serves her right. That’s beastly, selling three daughters one after another.”

“Jiang Chunhua’s finally seen her parents’ true colors. Cutting ties is a relief.”

“If she didn’t cut ties, was she supposed to wait to get slashed again?”

Voices rose from every direction, all kinds of comments drilling into Grandma Jiang’s ears, and she was so angry her chest started to ache.

This is our family’s business. What does it have to do with you people? Who asked you to keep yapping?

Jiang Chunhua had already ducked inside and wasn’t coming out again. The whole affair had gone a bit too far, and Grandma Jiang knew she wouldn’t get anything good out of staying, so she lowered her head and went back.

She had truly lost all face today.

After Jiang Chunhua went back home, she ignored everyone, fetched some water herself, and in the east room she wiped herself down and changed into a clean set of clothes.

When Su Dakui looked at the wound on his wife’s neck, he felt a little distressed.

He genuinely cherished his wife. She was good-looking, fiery by nature, and devoted to the family.

It was just that her parents’ family were no good. Now they had finally gotten exactly what they deserved.

His wife had probably really been frightened this time.

But even Su Dakui was a little dumbfounded. His mother-in-law really dared to kill someone?

“I don’t believe it. It had to be an accident. Killing someone means paying with your life. For someone who values her life that much, would she really dare?” Su Huandan whispered to her second sister.

She absolutely could not say that to their mother, in case their mom stayed angry for less than two days and went back again.

Second Sister hurriedly nodded. “Exactly. Let’s just leave it at that. Once Mom’s away from that family, she can finally have some easier days. All year round, after finishing the work at home, she still had to go over there and slave away for them. Actually, from the start, Mom never asked the three of us to go over there and work with her. We just felt bad for her and went to help on our own.”

They just hadn’t expected that family to be so shameless. The moment they saw the three sisters helping too, they practically wished they could make them wash their underwear as well.

Once you helped even once, if you stopped later, their mother would only end up even more exhausted. It was a vicious cycle.

And that was how things had come to this.

So was the matter completely settled here?

Not quite. The Jiang Family was highly skilled at turning the tables and blaming the victim.

Translator’s Notes