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Chapter 531: Chapter 521: Who Dares to Touch My Wife, Just Try It
"Xianglian, you better hurry home and take a look, it seems like your mom has come over to see you."
"Oh, really? Thanks," Li Xianglian was squatting in the field when she heard her old mother had come, and her brow immediately furrowed, sensing a bad premonition.
She stood up from the ground, took a moment to adjust, then patted the dirt off her clothes to go find her husband, Liu Jianjun. She was self-aware, not sure if her mother had found out they visited her younger brother’s family over the New Year, but she always felt her mother’s visits never boded well. Being of a soft nature, she did not want to agree to her mother’s demands against her will, so she needed her husband to deal with it.
"Well, you better rush back and see for yourself, that old lady is chasing after your Shuanzi, threatening to beat him." If she hadn’t recognized the lady chasing and trying to beat someone as Liu family’s mother-in-law when she came over, she wouldn’t have just stood by as an outsider chased a child from the village.
"What, she’s chasing Shuanzi to beat him?" Li Xianglian panicked and hurriedly ran towards her home, "Auntie Wang, could you please let my child’s father know for me? Thank you so much."
"Okay, I will go right now, you hurry on back."
Li Xianglian ran all the way from the seedling beds back to her own house and sure enough, saw two people in a standoff outside her door—one was her own mother, cursively inveighing her son with "little bastard" and "beast." As irritating as Shuanzi could be, knowing he couldn’t talk back to the person in front of him, he just stood in front of Qiu Shuping, taunting her until she was fuming and raving mad, all while he stood there laughing out loud.
Li Xianglian quickly went over and called out to her son, "Shuanzi, what are you doing? Show some manners." As was her habit, when the kids fought, she’d instinctively scold her own child first.
"Oh, you’re finally back. Take a good look at your ’wonderful’ son here, wanting to hit his own grandmother. If you don’t discipline him properly, I’ll do it for you." As she spoke, she rolled up her sleeves, ready to lay hands on the child. With her daughter back, she felt even more righteous.
But she forgot that her eldest daughter was the mother of the child in front of her, and no mother likes seeing someone about to beat her child, not even if it’s her own mother.
Qiu Shuping pulled her son, who was still acting smug, behind her, frowned at him, and said, "What are you showing off for? Hurry up and find your dad, tell him your grandma is here."
Qiu Shuping felt something was off when she heard this, as if her eldest daughter wasn’t reprimanding the child but scolding her instead. 𝓃𝓸𝓋𝓹𝓾𝓫.𝒸ℴ𝓶
Upon hearing his mother’s words, Shuanzi looked at his grandmother across from him and decided it was better to heed his mother’s advice. His own mother was like a little white rabbit in front of his grandma, so he needed to quickly bring his dad over, or else his mother would be at a disadvantage.
"Alright, I’m off, Mom, you wait for me." After saying that, Shuanzi took off running.
"Hmph, there’s not a single good thing about the Liu family." Qiu Shuping muttered resentfully after her grandson ran off. She felt completely justified—there’s an old saying that a grandson is like a grandmother’s dog, leaves once it’s fed. Look, look, you just can’t raise them to be loyal, can you?
Li Xianglian felt upset—her own children bore the Liu surname, her mother’s words were disparaging both her husband and her children.
"Mother, what brings you here today? Is there something you need?" The more she thought of how her daughter had been teetering on the edge of life and death, and her mother’s unsympathetic attitude back then, the colder her heart grew, her words coming out blunt and harsh, her facial expression far from friendly.
"What now, I can’t come by if there’s nothing wrong?" Qiu Shuping said to her daughter with the authority she was accustomed to wielding, the words slipping from her mouth before she could stop them. She immediately regretted it because she remembered why she had come today. But she also harbored the desire to test out her eldest daughter’s current attitude, so she simply continued to watch her without saying anything to smooth things over.
Li Xianglian didn’t speak, just coldly stared at her mother.
After a while, Qiu Shuping’s face began to betray her discomfort, and she had no choice but to find a way to save face, "Look at you, you’re getting worse as you get older. I worry about you and come all this way to see you, and you won’t even let me in the house, why is that?"
Li Xianglian told herself not to believe her mother, that her mother didn’t truly care about her, but instinctively, she lowered her head, sidestepped the old lady, and pushed open her own front door to let her in.
The corners of Qiu Shuping’s mouth turned up in a satisfied smile as she followed inside.
"Why aren’t Shitou and Jiajia here? Not to criticize you, but your kids could really use some discipline. Otherwise, when they grow up, they’ll be good for nothing but getting into mischief, and you’ll have your hands full," Qiu Shuping said brashly as she sat down on the brick bed. She was starting to lecture as she watched her daughter pour her a glass of water, thinking that Shitou and Jiajia were out playing, just like Shuanzi, "Add some sugar for me, I’m exhausted after coming all this way, put in a bit more."
Li Xianglian, annoyed, spooned a heaping spoonful of sugar into the cup.
Qiu Shuping took the cup, satisfied, and slurped a mouthful without caring whether the water was hot or not.
"Your in-laws haven’t been by your place recently, have they? I’m telling you, if those two old geezers show up, don’t show them any kindness. They’re definitely here to take advantage of you, and you..."
As soon as Li Xianglian heard her mother was about to start advising her on how to battle her in-laws, she felt irritated, "Mom, did you come for a reason today?" She felt her in-laws were much less trouble than her own family. Liu Jianjun wasn’t the eldest son, and his parents didn’t live with them, and they hardly visited them. Besides, his elder brother was dutiful, as was Liu Jianjun, so when they had divided the property, everything was settled amicably, and they had been living in peace for years. They would provide grain for Liu’s parents every year, but her mother always felt they were being taken advantage of and shouldn’t have to provide that grain.
"Alright, alright, I know you don’t like hearing this, no good deed goes unpunished. I’ll be waiting for the day you come crying to me," Qiu Shuping wasn’t quite satisfied yet.
"I give my in-laws far less than my younger brother gives you. If we’re going by what you say, I should also tell my brother to give less. After all, you’re living with my youngest brother, and he is supposed to take care of you," Li Xianglian retorted firmly. In the past, when her mother said these things, she would just listen patiently, letting it go in one ear and out the other, but today she couldn’t bear to listen any further.
"Oh wow, so you’re talking back to me now, huh? Can your in-laws even compare to me? I..."
"What’s the matter, Mom, you got an extra eye or an extra mouth compared to others?" Li Xianglian interrupted before her mother could finish, knowing full well that nothing pleasant would come from her mother’s mouth. Why should her mother criticize the Liu family on their turf?
She was forever grateful to her in-laws for when Jiajia was sick and her own mother wouldn’t lend a penny; they had managed to scrape together fifty yuan for her.
Qiu Shuping was silenced once again, her face flushing with anger, "You ungrateful Li Xianglian, your wings have hardened, have they? Dare to talk back to me like that, you think I wouldn’t dare hit you now?" She had always been this harsh with both of her daughters.
"Let’s see who dares to lay a finger on my wife today," Liu Jianjun entered, carrying a shovel in his hand.
