Chapter 20: Su Guilan
Su Yaoguang went to fetch water early in the morning and ran into the Jiang family mother and daughter sending Jiang Yihui to the private school.
Jiang Yihui saw Su Yaoguang, his face turning ugly.
The scene of Su Yaoguang killing the wild boar had tormented him for two nights, and his head was still buzzing even now. Seeing Su Yaoguang now, those vanished scenes resurfaced again.
Su Yaoguang curled her lip and said sarcastically, “A scholar is useless in every way, a soft-legged shrimp.”
“You…” Zhong Lanhua glared at Su Yaoguang.
“Oh my, are you all going to beat me as a family? Three of you bullying me alone, that’s too overbearing.” Su Yaoguang shouted loudly, and passing villagers looked over.
“Mom, don’t pay attention to this rude village girl.” Jiang Yihui said coldly.
“I’m a village girl, but your mom isn’t a village girl, and your sister isn’t a village girl? Now the Jiang family young master is something else, looking down on us native villagers.”
“It’s only women and petty men who are hard to raise…” Jiang Yihui took the book box from Jiang Yihuan’s hand and stormed off angrily.
Zhong Lanhua and Jiang Yihuan glared at Su Yaoguang. The mother and daughter knew Su Yaoguang now had frightening brute strength and didn’t dare provoke her easily, so they could only mutter softly and leave.
Su Yaoguang rolled her eyes.
She just despised this family; seeing them made her want to make them uncomfortable. The more uncomfortable they were, the more at ease she felt. Sure enough, carrying the water felt effortless.
Zhang Zhaodi came back from outside and said to Su Yaoguang, “Daughter, someone just came looking for me, saying a pregnant woman is about to give birth and asking me to go do midwifery for her.”
“Mom, why don’t you stop doing midwifery work?” Su Yaoguang said. “We can make money making cosmetics. If you do midwifery for others, you’ll always run into unreasonable families.”
“This family is paying a lot, and I’ve already agreed to it, so I’ll finish it first. Now you have Wangshu with you, you’re not alone at home, so Mom doesn’t have to worry like before.”
“Alright then, I’ll help you pack your luggage.”
“No need, I can pack myself.” Zhang Zhaodi patted the back of her hand and looked at Zhou Wangshu beside them. “Wangshu, take good care of Yaoguang.”
“Auntie, don’t worry.”
Zhang Zhaodi packed her luggage and went out the door.
When Su Yaoguang finished fetching water, Zhou Wangshu had finished chopping the firewood. He carried a back basket up the mountain, both to forage for mountain goods and to continue finding materials for Su Yaoguang to make cosmetics.
As soon as Zhou Wangshu went up the mountain, one person sneaked into the courtyard.
Su Yaoguang washed the clothes and came back to hang them in the courtyard. After hanging them up, she felt thirsty and ladled a bowl of cooled boiled water and gulped it down.
She brought out the unfinished cosmetics and continued making them.
“Strange, why do I feel like I have no strength?” Su Yaoguang stopped her movements and pressed her head. “Could it be that I’ve been too tired lately?”
But even so, she shouldn’t have no strength at all!
Su Yaoguang went back to the room and lay down on the bed.
As soon as she lay down, she immediately sensed something was wrong.
It seemed like she became this way after drinking the water. She had been fine before, with endless strength.
She struggled to get back up, took a needle from the needlework basket and pricked her finger to draw some blood, also to perk herself up.
Once she recovered a bit of strength, she slowly moved toward the kitchen and felt the water vessel holding the boiled water. Sure enough, she felt a fine powder.
Who did it? Who would drug her water? This drug definitely wasn’t poison; after all, killing her would mean a murder case, which wouldn’t benefit them either. She had no strength because her strength was too great; the person who drugged her wanted to control her and make her obediently submit.
In the village, only two households wanted to harm her: Second Uncle Su’s family and Zhong Lanhua’s family.
So far, the biggest conflict was with Second Uncle Su’s family. No matter how much grudge Zhong Lanhua and her daughter had with their mother and daughter, there was nothing worth risking coming to the house to drug them.
At the courtyard gate, Su Guilan stealthily looked around, saw no one passing by, and said to the Big Fool beside her, “Hurry inside, your wife is in there. Did you remember what Mom taught you earlier? Take off her clothes and do as the picture says, then she’s your wife. Once you have a wife, someone will give you children and cook for you.”
“I don’t want others, I just want Mom. Mom cooks for me, Mom gives me children.” The Big Fool whined with snot running.
Such a sturdy man of two hundred jin, with a scruffy beard, actually saying such shameless words. Even though Su Guilan was used to it, she still blushed.
“If you have a wife, you’ll have both Mom and wife cooking for you, with endless good things to eat. Hurry inside, or if you don’t, Mom won’t cook for you anymore.”
“I’ll go in then. Mom, don’t be angry. I want to eat meat, eat meat…” The Big Fool entered the courtyard.
Su Guilan watched his figure and urged, “Hurry into the inner room.”
Only when the Big Fool entered Su Yaoguang’s room did Su Guilan’s face show a smile.
“It took the old lady a lot of effort to find a family about to give birth to keep Zhang Zhaodi busy with midwifery, letting that family know how strong Zhang Zhaodi’s midwifery skills are, keeping her away from home for a short time. I stood guard outside for an hour until I saw that cheap little husband go up the mountain. Most importantly, that drug was both expensive and hard to get, took a ton of effort. If this doesn’t work, the old lady will eat shit. If that stinky girl Su Yaoguang is smart and obediently marries my son, for the sake of being aunt and niece, we won’t mistreat her. But she refuses to see reason. Since that’s the case, I’ll ruin your reputation so you have to marry even if you don’t want to.”
Bang bang, intense commotion came from inside.
“It’s done, it’s done.” Su Guilan said excitedly.
Then, she slapped her knee hard and deliberately shouted loudly, “Mutou, Mutou… What are we going to do now?”
“What’s wrong, Mutou’s mom?” A passing auntie asked warmly.
“That stinky boy of mine kept clamoring to see cousin Yaoguang, and as soon as we got here he went to find her. You know my silly boy has no sense of proportion, so I’m worried he’s bullying Yaoguang! Auntie, can you come in with me to check? I can’t pull that boy back alone. You have strength, I’ll help pull too.”
The auntie, upon hearing this, immediately said, “Then let’s hurry and go see!”
Passing villagers heard the commotion here and came over to ask what happened.
At this time of day, it was right when people were heading to the fields, so more and more passed by, and more and more came to join the excitement.
Zhong Lanhua also heard the commotion and came over, but she didn’t dare enter the Su family courtyard gate and just peeked inside from the doorway.
Zhong Lanhua knew that woman Su Guilan too well; she always felt things weren’t that simple. She heard Zhang Zhaodi went to do midwifery again, and just now she saw that little husband go up the mountain, so that meant only the little girl Su Yaoguang was in the room.
Tsk tsk, there’s a good show to watch.
