Lin Hui retreated step by step, shouting nonstop, "Shen Yuchu, what are you trying to do? What on earth are you doing? I am your oldest sister!"
"To hell with you being my oldest sister!" Shen Yuchu bent down, picked up a small wooden stool from the ground, and hurled it straight at Lin Hui.
With a loud crash, the small wooden stool smashed to pieces.
Lin Hui dodged out of the way, and when she saw the splintered stool lying on the ground, she froze in shock.
Shen Yuchu strode over, snatched the hair clip right off Lin Hui's head, threw it on the ground, and crushed it beneath her heel.
"Damn it all! I'd rather smash it to pieces than let you have it!"
"Shen Yuchu, I'm your oldest sister."
"Shut your trap! A married daughter is like water poured out—you're some kind of exemplary oldest sister, coming back either to plunder the family or acting like you're dead! I've never heard of anyone hauling things from her maiden home to her husband's family every single day. What, your family raised you from a baby, and now that you're married, they're supposed to support your husband's whole clan too? In your dreams!"
Shen Yuchu marched over to the nearby tricycle, grabbed Lin Hui's child by the arm, and yanked the kid down. With all her might, she hauled off every single thing Shen Chunfen had just loaded onto the vehicle for Lin Hui.
Shen Yuchu glared at Lin Hui. "I swear you won't walk away with a single thing today! Just try me!"
As Lin Hui stared at her, Shen Yuchu scooped up a basin, bent down, and headed for the riverbank, where the water was still crusted with ice and slush.
Shen Yuchu scooped up a huge basin of icy water and splashed it right over Lin Hui. "I'll teach you to come back to your maiden home to loot! When you were growing up, you never did a lick of work, you just ate and drank your fill, and they even paid for you to go to college! Now that you're married, you still come back to haul things away from your family—bags on the left, bags on the right—and somehow it's still not enough, so now you're bringing woven plastic sacks? Doesn't your husband's family have any? Lin Hui, your husband's family has three daughters! You've pocketed everything from your oldest sister-in-law, your second sister-in-law, and your third sister-in-law, and on top of that, you still come scrounging from your parents' house! Looking at you, life in the city can't be going very well either—you must be dirt poor! Otherwise, why else would you come crawling back to the countryside with such a shameless face to scavenge? Is your father-in-law's cannery about to go under or what?"
Hearing this, Lin Hui bounced three feet into the air, ice shards rattling straight off her body. "You're talking nonsense! It's not going under at all!"
"Then how come, ever since you got married, you've never once brought a single jar of canned food back to your family? Tell me that!"
"..."
The onlookers who had gathered to watch the spectacle began pointing at Lin Hui.
Auntie Dong spoke up. "That's right, every time this Lin Hui comes back to her maiden home, she arrives empty-handed. But when she heads back to the city, she's always dragging bags big and small."
Auntie Li chimed in, "Oh my, thank goodness my daughter isn't like that. Ever since my Sanhua got married, whenever there's anything good to eat in the city, she brings it back for me. Just the other day, she even brought me a piece of dacron fabric."
"You hit the nail on the head, sister. My girl is the same way; just yesterday she brought me home a whole package of pastries. Pastries from the city are really something else—they're so rich they're practically dripping oil."
"..."
The crowd's murmurs left Lin Hui with no ground to stand on.
On top of that, drenched in freezing water, her entire body was shaking with cold. Shivering violently, she looked at Shen Chunfen, who was still dazed on the ground, and snapped, "Mom, I'm leaving. Since this family doesn't want me here, I'm never coming back again!"
With that, Lin Hui scooped up her child and left, heading down the dirt path toward the asphalt road at the village entrance.
Being a rural village, there was a shortcut along a small dirt path. Previously, Lin Hui had never used it because she always wanted to walk the asphalt road where Shen Chunfen's tricycle could haul her things for her.
Today, she was traveling light, carrying only her child.
Looking out at the crowd of onlookers, Shen Yuchu raised her voice. "Aunties, come over and have some peanuts! Don't just stand there!"
With that, Shen Yuchu untied the woven plastic sack Shen Chunfen had just packed for Lin Hui and began handing out the peanuts to everyone.
"Have a taste, Aunties! These are things I usually don't even get to eat myself, yet my mother-in-law was about to hand them all over to Lin Hui. I heard Lin Hui's family has farmland too, and since she's a city resident, doesn't her husband's family still have land back in the countryside?"
"Oh, yes, they do! Their family has land!"
"They got their share when the land was divided!"
"My second aunt lives in their village, they definitely have land!"
"..."
After distributing the peanuts to the crowd, Shen Yuchu announced, "I'm going to go change my clothes. Oh, and my mother-in-law can just stay right there on the ground until she sobers up—none of you worry about her."
Everyone understood what Shen Yuchu meant and waved with smiles. As the old saying goes, eating someone's food makes your mouth soft, and taking someone's gifts makes your hands weak. Since everyone had eaten her peanuts, naturally nobody was going to meddle in her business.
Shen Yuchu fished out the household hair dryer. Shen Chunfen had never let her use it before, but now she washed her hair, plugged it straight into the outlet, and dried it.
Next, she took out the hat Shen Chunfen had only given her to wear for the Chinese New Year, put it on, and changed into the new clothes she usually couldn't bear to wear except during the holidays.
Once she was fully dressed, she looked at herself in the mirror and rubbed her cheeks. She wasn't really that dark or that ugly, was she? Why did Shen Chunfen yell at her and call her such horrible things every single day?
Could it be because the original owner of this body never bathed?
A thought struck Shen Yuchu. She grabbed some money from the house and headed out. "Auntie, our place is close to the main street—is the bathhouse open?"
"It's open! Just follow the path, there's a bathhouse right over there. What's wrong? Are you going to take a bath?"
"Lin Xuan's wife, it's not even a holiday, and Lin Xuan isn't even back—why on earth are you going to take a bath?"
Shen Yuchu covered her nose. "Didn't I just fall into the river? If I don't go soak in the bathhouse, I'll catch a cold and suffer through taking medicine. Medicine costs money, and the bathhouse costs money either way, so I choose the bathhouse."
"Fair enough, go on then!"
Clutching her new clothes and wearing her new hat, Shen Yuchu set off.
Auntie Dong snacked on a peanut. "Sister, why do I feel like something's off with Lin Xuan's wife?"
"What could possibly be off?"
"Usually, whenever she sees us, she looks like she wants to burrow her head into a crack in the ground. Today, she actually dared to lift her chin and talk to us, and she's being so generous besides."
"Hmph, she fell into an icy river in this freezing weather and Shen Chunfen didn't even care, too busy packing things for her own precious daughter. Someone who's practically come back from the gates of hell—what else is there for her to be afraid of?"
"That's true..."
When Shen Yuchu reached the bathhouse, she enjoyed a wonderful bath. Once she was washed clean and paid her fee, she stepped out of the bathhouse just as a military jeep roared past her, kicking up a thick cloud of dust from the ground.
Her freshly scrubbed, clean face instantly turned dark with grime again, and the sudden gust of dust made her cough uncontrollably.