Transmigrated into a child bride, she punishes scumbags, raises children, and marries a soldier.

"Pah! Mind your own business, like a dog chasing a mouse!" Zhou Chuan interrupted Uncle Sun's rambling.

“Back then, when that son of a bitch Sun Gousheng ran away, your Sun family should have set me free. Instead, you kept me as a servant for over ten years without even giving me food. Now that it’s a new society, even landlords don’t have servants anymore. Your Sun family has such a big face, still not giving me a bite to eat or drink, and using me as a servant for nothing!”

"What's wrong? Do you think I'm illiterate and don't know what's going on outside? You're a whole family of black-hearted, rotten, utterly depraved, shameless scum. I didn't report you directly to the county armed forces department, just because we're from the same hometown. And yet you still take advantage of my kindness. Do you believe I'll take your whole family out and send them all to jail?"

Uncle Sun was embarrassed by being scolded by Zhou Chuan, a junior, and wanted to say something more, but his aunt stopped him.

"Alright, Elder Sun! Stop making things worse!" The village chief didn't want the Sun family to argue with Zhou Chuan anymore. If Zhou Chuan got angry and killed Wang Shi, the whole village would lose face.

"Dog-Sheng's family, I'll still call you Dog-Sheng's family for now. If you don't think about yourself, think about your dead father. You're his only remaining bloodline. Live well, have another baby, and things will get better..."

The village chief saw Wang lying on the ground, with a wet puddle under her buttocks, but he felt no sympathy for her. It was all her own fault, who else could she blame?

Zhou Chuan felt that it was about time, and she was tired of making such a fuss, so he thought for a moment and then made his conditions: "For the sake of the village chief and my deceased father, I will not kill the old woman today, but I have conditions. The first is that I will no longer be Sun Gousheng's child bride."

"Everyone, please don't call me Gousheng's son. Just call me by my real name. My surname is Zhou, and the last character is Chuan. You can just call me Zhou Chuan. My deceased father gave me this name. Sigh, what a waste of such a good name. No one in the whole village has a worse fate than me!"

The village chief nodded: "Zhou... Chuan, think positively. Your father also wants you to live a good life. I've agreed to your first condition. I'll also allocate the two acres of land that are rightfully yours to you. Whether you use it as a dowry when you get married or farm it yourself, it's a fallback plan."

This request is not excessive at all. Sun Jia Gousheng has already married a city girl as his new wife and even has a child. It is too much for the Sun family to want to keep him at home as a laborer.

Sun Mancang knelt on the ground and moved her lips but didn't dare to object. Although her two sons were a little reluctant, they acquiesced to their mother's actions.

The two daughters-in-law were heartbroken. They had lost two acres of land, which would be divided between their two families in the future... No matter how heartbroken and reluctant they were, it was not their place to object at this time.

Zhou Chuan then raised a second condition: "The second one is that the Sun family has to give me compensation. I have been a slave to the Sun family for more than 20 years. Now my body is useless and I don't have a son or daughter to rely on. When I get old, I won't have any hope. The Sun family must compensate me for my retirement!"

The village chief and the villagers looked at Zhou Chuan, who looked like he was over 50 years old, and he was as dry and withered as firewood.

Without a second thought, the village chief nodded: "Of course, of course. Even if we hire someone to do the work, we have to pay them. There's no reason why Gousheng, Zhou Chuan, never mind, I'll still call you Comrade Zhou. There's no reason why Comrade Zhou has worked for the Mancang family for over twenty years and it's all for nothing."

Given the current state of Gou Sheng's family, it will be difficult for them to have a child in the future. If they don't have any savings, they will be pitiful when they get old.

Zhou Chuan's impression of the village chief improved considerably: "I don't need much, just give me two hundred yuan..."

Before Zhou Chuan could finish speaking, Wang Shi, who was lying on the ground, suddenly exploded: "I'll fight you to the death, you shameless wretch! You're a child bride, an unwanted child bride, a worthless piece of trash that even your own mother and grandmother don't want. We raised you, and you still have the nerve to ask my family for money?" It was because Zhou Chuan didn't put the sickle to her neck again that she seized the opportunity.

As Wang cursed, she tried to struggle to her feet and fight Zhou Chuan, but Zhou Chuan wouldn't allow it. He kicked the old woman to the ground first, then, with his back to her, he began to beat her mercilessly with a sickle.

"You greedy old fool who cares about money more than your life, who's supporting whom anyway? I entered the Sun family when I was eight, not eight months old. I could do a lot of work back then. If I really couldn't do any work, would you have tolerated me until today? You would have sold me to a brothel long ago!"

Zhou Chuan didn't know if the villagers knew about Wang's sale of her eldest daughter into a brothel. In any case, he wanted to deepen the impression on those who knew and let those who didn't know the true nature of the old woman.

“I work from dawn till dusk every day without a moment’s rest, and your family is so despicable that you’ve never given me a proper meal. When your son ran away, you didn’t even have a bowl of wild vegetable soup. Now you old geezer have the nerve to say that you raised me?”

The village chief saw that Wang Shi hadn't said anything immediately after being beaten. He had never met such a foolish person as Wang Shi, who was willing to risk her life for money. The demands made by Gou Sheng's family were not unreasonable at all. Besides, it wasn't like her family didn't have two hundred yuan. Why did she have to argue with Gou Sheng's family? In the end, she had to pay the money and got beaten up for nothing.

Now, after hearing Zhou Chuan reveal that Wang had sold her eldest daughter to such a place, she looked down on her even more and secretly thought that Zhou Chuan deserved to beat her. Some people are so despicable that she wanted to beat them too, but her status didn't allow it.

The villagers then joined in the whispering, "Oh ho, no wonder the Mancang family had so much money to support Gousheng back then. It turns out they sold their eldest daughter to a place like that. Well, if it wasn't a place like that, why would they have paid such a high price?"

"We'll give it to Gou Sheng's family, stop hitting them, we'll give it to them! We'll give it to them, okay?!" Sun Mancang said dejectedly. If his wife hadn't made a fuss, he could have negotiated with Gou Sheng's family, but not now.

The two sons opened their mouths but finally sighed. Well, consider it a way of showing filial piety to their mother. The two daughters-in-law could only cry, not for their mother-in-law, Wang, who had been beaten half to death, but for the two hundred yuan they were about to give away.

Two hundred yuan! Not counting the two mu of land, now I have to pay another two hundred yuan. Two hundred yuan—enough to build two tiled houses! Just like that, it's gone, gone...

After the head of the Sun family spoke, the village chief offered a perfunctory word of advice: "Comrade Zhou, don't bother arguing with a fool. This family is still fully pawned!"

Zhou Chuan stopped: "We'll listen to the village chief!"

After catching her breath, Zhou Chuan finally felt a little better. She didn't even glance at Wang Shi lying on the ground. She was really asking for it. She wasn't even going to beat her up, but Wang Shi was just being a jerk and had to ask for a beating.

Once Zhou Chuan could breathe easily, she began to explain the situation to the villagers, lest anyone think she was asking for an exorbitant price.

“In front of everyone, I’ll do the math. I really didn’t ask for a single penny more than I should have. I won’t say it’s been more than 20 years, so that no one will say that I was too young to count the years before I was 8. I’ll start counting from the year Sun Gousheng ran away.”

“I was fifteen that year, and I’m thirty today. Fifteen years, a full fifteen years. In these fifteen years, I haven’t eaten a single grain of rice or drunk a single drop of water from the Sun family, but I’ve done my fair share of chores for them. All those eyes here, unless they’re blind, have seen me washing clothes for their whole family in the freezing cold, and they should have seen me toiling in the fields in the sweltering summer…”

"After working so hard all year, can't I earn more than fifteen yuan? I don't even make five cents a day. Is there such cheap labor in the world? I've been doing this for fifteen years, a full fifteen years. People have hearts, so you can calculate for me whether I've asked for even a penny more?"

Only two hundred yuan? How could that be? It's just that the Sun family is too poor. If Zhou Chuan asks for more, they can't come up with the money. They'll have to ask the person in charge for the debt later.

Those who initially thought Zhou Chuan was asking for an exorbitant price were now silent. Even the cheapest laborer in the countryside earns a dime a day and is provided with a meal; the Mancang family doesn't even give them a bite to eat...

Moreover, Gou Sheng's family hasn't considered another factor: Sun Gou Sheng ran away, delaying her for so many years. Now that her health has collapsed, she won't be able to have children in the future, and when she gets old, she won't even have someone to help her with her bedpan. Considering all this, the 200 yuan they asked for for retirement money isn't excessive at all.

“I think two hundred yuan is too little, five hundred yuan would be more appropriate. Comrade Zhou Chuan has been wronged so badly by your family, there can’t be no explanation at all. Two hundred yuan is just wages for long-term labor. Your Gousheng made a perfectly good young woman live a life of widowhood for fifteen years. Is there no explanation for this?”

The village chief had long disliked the Sun family's behavior, but in the past, since they were both willing to give and take, there was nothing he could do. Now that Gousheng's family wanted him to take charge, he would definitely stand on Gousheng's side and help them fight for their maximum rights.

Upon hearing that two hundred was not enough and five hundred was required, Sun Mancang quickly stood up and pleaded with the village chief: "Village chief, we country folk don't have that much money. The two hundred yuan we have at home was sent back by Gou Sheng yesterday. We gave all the money Gou Sheng sent back to her family as compensation."

"Sigh, it's all their fault for not being together. Fifteen years have passed, and we all thought Gousheng was probably dead. Who would have thought he was still alive? If we had known that my Gousheng was going to join the army, we would never have let our eldest daughter-in-law wait alone like this..."

The village chief knew that part of what he said was true; the remittance slip that Sun Gousheng sent back yesterday only had two hundred yuan on it. But he would never believe that the Mancang family had not a single penny left. However, it was already good enough to be able to squeeze two hundred yuan out of the Mancang family. Any more and they would make a fuss.

Zhou Chuan nodded to the village chief. She had never planned to squeeze much money out of Sun Mancang's family. Even if the old farmers in the countryside were good at saving, they wouldn't have much money left after a family's expenses. She might as well ask the person involved for the money.

With Zhou Chuan's approval, the village chief went into the inner room with Sun Mancang to write the agreement. The agreement was completed in no time. Since the original owner of the body was illiterate, the village chief read the contents of the agreement aloud in front of everyone.

The gist of it is that Zhou Chuan worked as a long-term laborer for the Sun family for fifteen years, and the two hundred yuan was his wages. After that, he would have nothing to do with the Sun family anymore.