Quick Transmigration: Refusing to Be a Victim's Child

Sanya, oblivious to the change in the other person's gaze, simply wiped away her tears and gritted her teeth, saying:

"We can't just sit here and do nothing; we need to find an opportunity to bring this matter into the open."

Now my eldest sister has been sold by my uncle for money, and who knows when he'll turn on us again!

She became more and more agitated as she spoke, her chest heaving violently, wishing she could run away immediately and sever ties with the first wife.

The other two remained silent upon hearing this, but each had their own thoughts.

For a moment, only the crackling sound of burning firewood filled the kitchen...

*

Ever since the old man went to the county town to bring his third son back, the atmosphere at home has become more and more oppressive.

First, Madam Qian was scolded by the old man, and then she took her two children and went back to her parents' home crying, making the neighbors laugh at her.

Following this, the old woman in the house (Zhao) was diagnosed by a nearby doctor and found that she had suffered a stroke and become paralyzed on one side of her body due to the stress and lack of care she had been under.

After a few days of recuperation, Zhao was able to get out of bed, but she was no longer able to do daily work and needed help with everything from dressing to eating.

Moreover, Zhao's right side is paralyzed, and she can only use her left hand to hold the spoon when eating. As soon as she puts the thin porridge into her mouth, it leaks out from half of her mouth, which is really disgusting to see.

At first, Shao Dashan felt sorry for his wife suffering for no reason, but as time went on, he also became annoyed. He would rather get a bunch of straw and sleep separately from his wife than go near her and look at her crooked eyes, drooling, and stuttering speech.

Nowadays, the family has neither stored grain nor savings, and most of the pots and pans are borrowed from neighbors.

Over time, even when the villagers saw Shao's dog sneaking by, they would try to stay far away from it.

To make matters worse, the entire Shao family didn't even have a change of clothes; the only shoes and socks they wore when they went out were the ones they were already wearing.

Even in the sweltering summer, clothes washed with water can dry overnight, but how can the fabric withstand such frequent washing?

In just one month, apart from the "couple" in the main house who had two sets of old clothes to rotate, everyone else in the family could only wear tattered clothes with patches upon patches on top of patches.

"Clang-"

The wooden door to the west wing was kicked open, and Madam Sun, with a stern face, walked into the room carrying a steaming bowl of medicine.

As soon as she entered the house, she heard her husband's intermittent cries of pain:

"Oh my, you're finally back! Quick, quick, scratch my back and shoulders too."

"Why are you scratching? The old doctor warned you that if you keep moving around, you might aggravate the injuries on your hands and feet and end up with a disability."

Sun refused outright, ignoring her husband's urging, convinced that his unbearable itching was due to his wounds healing quickly.

She skillfully lifted her husband's head, held the bowl to his lips, and urged him on.

"Hurry up and drink your medicine. I still need to go to the old well to queue for water later."

The weather this year is ridiculously hot. It's only been a short time since summer started, but the water level of the river at the entrance of the village has already dropped significantly, and the crops in the fields are wilting from the heat.

Shao Jiaquan was hoping for a good harvest in the second half of the year so he could save up more food for the winter, but the weather was getting increasingly hot and unbearable.

In just one month, water had to be carried to irrigate the fields.

If this continues, even drinking water may become a problem.

The atmosphere in the village is becoming increasingly gloomy, with everyone worried about a drought and the loss of food supplies for every household.

If it weren't for the fact that the man in the family and his mother-in-law needed to be taken care of, and the old man, out of consideration for his two grandsons, didn't let Sun Shi do farm work, only letting her stay home to do laundry and cook, she would have been sunburned and peeled like the three maids.

But her husband is always restless, always complaining of aches and pains, never finding a moment's peace. He's even harder to please than the old woman in the main house.

The more Sun thought about it, the angrier she became. Seeing that her husband refused to drink his medicine, she slammed the bowl heavily onto the stool in anger.

"What are you trying to do now? I'm already exhausted from running around all day, what more do you want?"

These medicinal herbs were something she managed to get from her mother-in-law with great difficulty. They were all tonics that could strengthen the body. Didn't you see that the old lady was able to get out of bed after drinking them for only a few days?

Now the family is borrowing food from all over the place to make ends meet, and they have no spare money to continue to hire doctors.

If she hadn't shamelessly gone to the main room to get the medicine, would this jerk still be comfortably lying in bed giving her attitude?

Shao Zhixue's face was splashed with the medicine, making his already unpleasant complexion even more gloomy.

But his injury this time was not a good thing, and the shameful news had spread to his wife's family. Even if he was angry, he didn't dare to take it out on her, otherwise he would anger her and drive her away, and then attract his father-in-law and the others, who would then give him another scolding.

In that case, not only will you lose face, but you might not even have anyone to serve you.

Thinking about it this way, he could only suppress his anger and explain:

“My injuries are to my arms and legs, what does it have to do with the rest of my body? If you don’t want to scratch my back, you can take off the clothes I’m wearing and put on the old ones from yesterday.”

I don't know which brother-in-law this woman got the clothes from, but as soon as he put them on, he was either itchy or bitten by mosquitoes. Unfortunately, he couldn't move, and after a few days, he was covered in sores all over his body.

Sun felt that her husband was being unreasonable; why was it that he was the one who was uncomfortable wearing the clothes?

My second sister-in-law also took a set back to her room, and later altered it for the two children. How come they were all fine? It's always that scoundrel of a man who causes so much trouble.

If I could lie in bed and be waited on, I wouldn't keep finding fault with him like this.

The doctors who came to see him said he would be able to sit up again in a while, but he kept causing trouble, which made his wounds swell and fester from time to time.

This only caused more trouble for the Sun family.

Shao Zhixue was angry, but he couldn't vent his anger on his wife, especially since he had recently felt that there was something wrong with his manhood. Now even urinating felt like being cut by a knife or scalded by fire, and he trembled with pain all over his body.

Unfortunately, he couldn't tell his wife about this. Fortunately, he was injured and didn't have to pay his share of food at night, so he could wait until he recovered and secretly call a doctor.

***

The couple were blaming each other inside the house, while their daughter, Siya, had just returned from the fields and was planning to fill a can with cold water before going out again.

As she passed by the door of the third house, she hesitated for a long time, looking at her straw sandals with her toes sticking out and the blisters on her hands, before finally walking up to the door and knocking.

"Knock knock knock!"

"Who?"

Just as Sun was about to give in to her husband's pleas and wiped her sweat off as she took off his outer garment, she heard a knock on the door.

"...Mother, it's me, Siya."

Siya responded softly, glancing at the slightly ajar wooden door, picking at her nails, and whispered:

"I need to talk to you about something, could you let me in first...?"

"Oh, it's Siya. Let's talk about it when Auntie has time. You're such a big girl now, it's time to be more sensible."

Upon hearing this, Madam Sun quickly changed the subject, pausing in her tracks as she was about to step forward, and said:

"You're back to get water, right? Hurry back to the fields, or the old man will punish you again if you linger too long."

Siya hesitated as she tried to push the door open, feeling a pang of sadness, yet she stubbornly refused to leave.

She lowered her head, gritted her teeth, and pleaded:

"Mom, could you talk to Grandpa and Grandma and let me go back to the fourth branch of the family and live with you?"

"That won't do!"

Without even thinking, Ms. Sun refused outright.

The situation is different now. The fourth branch of the family can't even support themselves, let alone have the energy to feed another person.

Even though they eat and live together, they still have to be careful with every penny when it comes to making a living. It's not just about a bowl of wild vegetable porridge.

Besides, this girl looks heartless. She's not stupid; she wouldn't pull someone close to her.

She won't do anything that doesn't benefit her.

-

Looking at the heavily closed door, Shao Siya felt as if she had been slapped across the face, the pain burning intensely.

Tears welled up in her eyes, but she held them back, refusing to let the sobs escape her throat.

She wiped her face hard with her sleeve, and as she turned around, she saw Er Ya standing at the gate.

She shuddered, as if her most shameful moment had been laid bare before her, and a wave of humiliation surged through her.

Er Ya, who was standing at the door, saw that she was staring straight at her without changing her expression, and simply walked into the courtyard on her own.

She calmly walked to the water vat, picked up a ladle, scooped half a ladleful of water from the vat, tilted her head back and drank it down in one gulp. Wiping her mouth, she casually reminded him:

"Grandpa has been waiting for you for ages. If you don't go back to work soon, you might not get any dinner tonight."

Upon hearing this, Siya felt no gratitude but instead thought the other party was deliberately mocking her, and became furious.

She clenched her fists, deliberately bumped into Er Ya as she passed by, and muttered through gritted teeth:

"Don't be so smug. Do you think you two sisters are any better off? Your mother took your younger brother and sister to the county to live a better life, but she didn't take you with her."

Her second aunt, Qian, had been sent back to her parents' home for two days after being reprimanded by her grandfather.

The mother and her two children returned dejectedly and stayed for less than a night. Before dawn, Qian took her two children and secretly went to the county.

According to the villagers who returned from the county town, their second uncle, Shao Changgui, helped them find a job washing clothes. Now the mother and her two children are staying in the county, which is a way to save food for the family.

From then on, Shao Changgui didn't send a single penny home for a whole month, claiming that he had spent all his wages on renting a house for his wife and children.

In the end, the old man, with a dark face, went to the county town and finally got back one hundred coins. That little bit of money was barely enough to buy some salt and lard for the family.

If people don't eat oil and salt, how can they have the strength to do farm work?

That's why the three sisters were like pitiful creatures no one wanted, being passed around from one family member to another.

Deep down, they all felt some regret.

They knew perfectly well that when their eldest sister, Shao Daya, deliberately made their adoptive father sick when she wanted to go back to her biological mother, they stood by and watched coldly. During their adoptive father's illness, they even blamed and complained to each other, which completely chilled their adoptive father's heart.

But now that things have come to this, they have already apologized to their adoptive father. What more do you want from them?

Unfortunately, their adoptive father, who once treated them like his own children, now not only ignores them but also avoids household chores whenever possible.

Even when their adoptive father was at home, he would feign illness every few days, and his work was far less efficient than before, making the farm work even more difficult for the three sisters.

But no matter how much the old man scolded him, he wouldn't listen. If the old man tried to hit him, he would run away, crying and screaming, which attracted the villagers to come and watch the spectacle.

The new woman wasn't faking illness, but she always made things worse than she was doing anything. She would cry whenever someone mentioned her, and she loved to run to the county to complain to her family.

Unfortunately, the Fang family members were always idle. Every time Madam Fang went to visit, they would come over, and they would even bring the eldest son and his wife to stay at the Fang family's house for a few days from time to time.

As a result, everyone in the Shao family was starving and skin and bones, but the family dog ​​lived better than the sisters, with its fur shiny and smooth.

Those in the village who didn't know the situation saw that when Fang went back to her parents' home, she would always bring back some coarse rice or a few ounces of minced pork. In the eyes of outsiders, she became a good daughter-in-law praised by everyone.

As a result, their adoptive father's complexion also improved significantly. He no longer looked as old as before, and at least he wouldn't be mistaken for being the same age as the old man.

But all of this was earned through the suffering of these sisters.

If they had a choice, they would rather their adoptive father be the same as before than see him become like this.

……

The two were preoccupied with their own thoughts and arrived at the field late. The old man whipped them a few times with a tree branch before finally stopping them.

At this moment, Village Chief Yu arrived and, seeing the scene, couldn't help but shake his head and sigh.

He coughed lightly, called the old man to the edge of the field, and said:

“Dashan, your third son was sick and urgently needed money. I lent you the money because of our past friendship.”

"Look, you promised to pay me back when I got back from my studies, and it's been almost two months. Shouldn't you pay me back by now?"

Before Shao Dashan could explain, Village Chief Yu turned his head to look at the fields beside him, his expression grave, and said:

"If all else fails, sell a few acres of your family's land to get through this difficult time. You can't keep borrowing from your neighbors to make ends meet; staying alive is the most important thing."

After saying that, Village Chief Yu patted Shao Dashan on the shoulder and turned to leave.

As Shao Dashan watched Village Chief Yu's retreating figure, he felt as if a thousand-pound weight was pressing down on his back, causing him to bend even further.

He actually wanted to delay paying back the money later, but he was afraid of offending Village Chief Yu.

But he was truly unwilling to sell his family's land, which was the foundation of the Shao family.

Shao Dashan felt his heart bleeding, and his gaze involuntarily fell on his granddaughters.

The three sisters felt uneasy under the old man's gaze, but could only bury their heads and continue working.

Under the blazing sun, the heat felt like it was peeling off layers of skin. Bending over for too long caused severe back pain, and beads of sweat trickled down their foreheads, but they dared not raise their hands to wipe them away. Their palms burned with pain, but no one dared to utter a sound of complaint…

*

When he got home that day, Shao Dashan sat in the yard with a worried look on his face and his brows furrowed into a knot.

The three sisters didn't even have time for dinner before rushing off to do housework, afraid that they might upset their grandfather again if they were not careful.

Just then, Shao Linshen swaggered into the house, carrying a small rag stained with oil.

As soon as Shao Linshen entered the room, he threw what he was carrying to Madam Sun and shouted at the top of his lungs:

"Sister-in-law, we're in for a treat today. Spread this stuff in the pan a few more times. We've been working in the fields a lot, so we can't have our dishes completely dry."

"My father-in-law has instructed me that although our parents are sometimes biased, we, as their son and daughter-in-law, should still be filial to them."

"Dad, Mom, you've both worked so hard these past few days. Today's meal is very nutritious and oily, so please don't be shy and eat your fill. It's good for you two to recover."