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Chapter 686: Chapter 676 You Are the Bad Guy
Wang Dan had explained things to Shen Yunfang in the kitchen and then tactfully took her leave.
Of course, someone like Wang Dan, even though she might want to please Shen Yunfang at this moment to gain more benefits, couldn’t change her true nature.
After the important matters had been discussed, and as soon as it looked like there was work to be done, she quickly made excuses to slip away. However, as she left, she still made a point of saying that they should call them for dinner, and that she would come over with her children and husband to give the couple a proper welcome.
Hearing such shameless words, Shen Yunfang felt she had become immune to them. Having dealt with the Li Family’s outrageous behavior, these words even seemed decent to her. Her standards had lowered again and again, and now she could completely accept such talk.
But that was depending on the person, and she definitely didn’t have such patience for Li Xianghe who aspired to be the lady of the house.
Seeing Li Xianghe sitting so blatantly on the kang bed, preparing not to lift a finger, Shen Yunfang threw the rag directly into the sink.
"You sort it out," Shen Yunfang said, not directly confronting Li Xianghe, as that would be beneath her. Instead, she tossed the difficult task to the man behind her, letting him handle it.
Li Hongjun didn’t say anything, just nudged his wife and said, "Alright, you don’t need to worry about this. Just go and tidy up that room." The children were in that room, and too much dust wasn’t good for the little ones.
Shen Yunfang readily agreed, of course happy to have less work to do, and promptly left.
Li Hongjun watched his wife leave, then turned to face the two people sitting across from each other on the kang bed. The old man was getting on in years, and as his son, he couldn’t order his father to work, but Li Xianghe was still young. There was no reason for her to sit around waiting for his wife to serve her.
"You clean up this room. If you want to stay here, don’t expect others to wait on you," Li Hongjun signaled to Li Xianghe to get up and start working.
"Second brother, what are you doing? If the second sister-in-law doesn’t want to work, you tell me to do it? I’m a married daughter, there’s no practice of making a married daughter do work. Right, dad?" Li Xianghe saw the whole scene clearly. Why should she do the work just because Shen Yunfang didn’t want to?
The old man considered his second son, then his daughter, and finally said, "If your second brother asks you to work, just do a bit, it won’t tire you."
"Dad, why are you so biased?" Li Xianghe couldn’t believe it. In the past, when she followed her father to her elder brother’s house to freeload meals, her sister-in-law assigned her work but her father had always taken her side. Why was it different with her second brother?
"Are you going to do it or not? If not, then go straight back to the Sun Family’s house. Our home can’t accommodate lazy people." Li Hongjun said without any hint of courtesy.
Li Xianghe felt like getting angry but was also afraid that her second brother might actually send her away.
"I still have a child to watch, I don’t have time for other things." At this moment, she remembered she was a mother.
"It’s fine, let Niuniu go to that room and join Pangpang and Manman," Li Hongjun said, looking at the quiet child on the kang bed, holding back a little, his tone softening considerably.
Li Xianghe was reluctant, but seeing her second brother’s stern face, she could only begrudgingly get off the kang and start working.
Li Hongjun stepped forward and picked up Niuniu, taking her to the other room.
"Li Xianghe is working, the child will stay in this room," he told his wife after putting the child down.
"Hmm, okay, just put her on the kang. I just wiped it down. Let Pangpang and Manman play with her," Shen Yunfang glanced at the child in her free moment.
Li Hongjun obediently placed the child down, "Niuniu, those are your brother and sister. Do you want to play with them for a while?" His voice unconsciously softened when he spoke to his niece.
Niuniu seemed as if she hadn’t heard him at all, still lost in her own thoughts.
Li Hongjun sighed unconsciously as he watched the child, feeling heart-wrenched by an abnormal child’s condition.
The Li Family hadn’t had a proper cleaning in months, and Shen Yunfang had only managed to tidy up the room they were to stay in before lunch. As for the other areas, they would have to be cleaned up slowly afterward.
Seeing that it was about time, she hurried to the kitchen to start cooking. Li Hongjun and Liu Jianjun had already scrubbed the water tank, filled it up, and carried in a bundle of firewood, so she didn’t need to worry about that.
She started the fire and scrubbed the cast-iron pot several times. Because she was short on time, Shen Yunfang didn’t prepare anything fancy, just a pot of corn mush with pancake made from mixed dough around the edges and another pot with stewed cabbage and potatoes.
When the food was served, Li Xianghe was not satisfied at all.
"Second sister-in-law, after working all morning, is this what we get to eat?" Li Xianghe did not hold back as she poked around the dish with her chopsticks, only to find not a single piece of meat.
"If you don’t want to eat, then don’t. And another thing, even though you’re married, there are basic manners to follow. The elders haven’t started eating and you’re already rifling through the dishes. Who taught you that? Have you no upbringing?" Li Hongjun didn’t wait for his wife to speak before he started scolding.
Throughout the day, Li Xianghe had already been rebuked several times by her second brother. Although she wanted to argue back, considering her situation, she swallowed her words and turned to see her daughter still sitting there dumbly, looking like a fool. Her anger erupted and she yanked the child over.
"Are you dead or what? It’s time to eat, don’t you know that? Always looking so dumb and silly. If I had known you’d be like this, I would have tossed you into the outhouse when you were born." She didn’t stop there, her hand shaped like a fan, she slapped Niuniu on the back.
Perhaps immersed in her own thoughts, Niuniu was startled by the sudden strike and burst into tears with a loud cry.
"You’re crying? You think you have a reason to? Hold those tears back!" Instead of comforting the child, seeing her cry made Li Xianghe even angrier, and she hit her a few more times.
"Don’t hit Niuniu, you’re a bad person! If you hit her again, I’ll have my dad hit you!" Manman, seeing her aunt making her sister cry, was very angry and the first to jump out and accuse her of cruelty.
Just now, the children had played together for a bit, or rather, Manman had dragged Niuniu to play for a while, and Manman was quite satisfied with her quiet and obedient sister. So when she saw someone bullying her sister, she naturally stood up to protect her.
"You little brat, you’re really sticking your nose in too far. I’m disciplining my own daughter; who dares to meddle?" Li Xianghe said, glancing sideways at her second sister-in-law.
She believed the child’s words must have been instigated by her second sister-in-law.
Since she was already under scrutiny, Shen Yunfang spoke up without holding back, "You can discipline your own child all you want, but please don’t do it in my house. Take it to the Sun Family if you need to."
"On what grounds? I am a daughter of the Li Family too. On what grounds?" Li Xianghe was getting frantic.
"Because I am currently the daughter-in-law of the Li Family, and you are the daughter-in-law of the Sun Family," Shen Yunfang said calmly.
"Dad, are you just going to stand there and watch her bully me? So once I am married, am I no longer a member of the Li Family?" Li Xianghe, after receiving her second brother’s icy gaze, didn’t dare to oppose her sister-in-law directly anymore and turned to her father for support.
"All right, all right, we are all family here. Let’s all say less," the old man Li started to mediate, "Yunfang, go and pour me a glass of water."
Hearing her father giving orders to her second sister-in-law to do chores, Li Xianghe immediately puffed up with pride like a rooster winning a fight, convinced that her father was taking up her cause.
