country bumpkin

Sun Zihong quickly pushed open the door, and what he saw was his mother-in-law sitting on the ground crying and wailing.

The mother-in-law was wailing and crying, tears streaming down her face. Anyone who saw her pitiful state would feel sorry for her.

Sun Zihong rushed over to help his mother-in-law up, anxiously asking, "Grandma, what happened? What's wrong?"

While wiping away her tears, the mother-in-law pointed to the broken porcelain bowl in the corner and said, "I broke the family heirloom bowl. This was a treasure meant to be passed down to you. I'm so sorry to our ancestors."

Sun Zihong looked at the broken pieces of the bowl, breathed a sigh of relief, and comforted her with a smile, "Grandma, don't cry. It's just a bowl. As long as we're alright, that's all that matters."

Upon hearing this, the mother-in-law cried even harder, "What do you know? This bowl has a special meaning. Back when there was a famine, our family couldn't bear to sell it to exchange for food."

Sun Zihong scratched his head, then had a sudden inspiration and said, "Grandma, maybe this is what our ancestors meant. They know that our lives are better now than before, and we don't have to live off this bowl anymore, so they let you break it by accident."

Her mother-in-law glared at her fiercely and said, "Get out of here! You don't understand anything! This is an antique... Waaah... I smashed the family heirloom! It's going to kill me! Ah... I don't want to live anymore!"

After wailing, he continued crying and sat on the ground, raising his arms and clapping his hands. After a while, perhaps his arms got tired, so he started clapping his thighs.

Several neighbors heard the noise and came to check. Sun Zihong led the children into the house and poured them a glass of sugar water.

The two children glanced at their grandmother crying on the ground, ignored her, and quietly went back inside to drink their sweet soup.

Their grandmother often throws tantrums like this, so it's nothing new to them.

The neighbors knew the old woman well; she cried and wailed every few days, so they knew it was nothing serious and she was just being unreasonable.

Aunt Jiang, the neighbor, sat on the top of her wall with a handful of melon seeds, watching the spectacle unfolding in the neighbor's yard.

Aunt Jiang and Grandma Liu, Sun Zihong's mother-in-law, didn't get along. Seeing Grandma Liu sitting on the ground crying sadly made Aunt Jiang feel incredibly happy.

A few years ago, Aunt Jiang's rooster flew over the wall and came to Granny Liu's house, ruining the grain she had dried.

In a fit of anger, Granny Liu stewed and ate the chicken. Aunt Jiang searched for the chicken for several days and finally found the chicken bones at Granny Liu's front door, along with the shuttlecocks the children had been playing with.

She was quite certain that it was her rooster's feathers because the rooster was entirely black and easy to identify.

The roosters in the village all have colorful feathers. Her family raised five chickens. Two of them died when they were young, so now there are three left.

And only this one black one is a rooster; the others are hens.

Seeing the shuttlecock the child was holding, Aunt Jiang asked the child a question.

"Bai Rui, where did your mom buy this shuttlecock? It's so pretty, and it's black too! It's really beautiful!"

Bai Rui grew a bit older and became more shrewd. Her grandmother told her not to tell anyone that she made it herself.

She kept quiet and ran home. Aunt Jiang wouldn't give up, so she squatted at her door every day, watching when the children would play shuttlecock.

Finally, the youngest, Bai Ye, came out to play shuttlecock. He tied a rope to the shuttlecock, grabbed the rope with his hand, and spun the shuttlecock around with his little feet.

Aunt Jiang took out a piece of candy and coaxed, "Little Ye Ye, your shuttlecock is so pretty. Did you buy it or was it a gift from someone?"

When Bai Ye saw someone praising his shuttlecock and even giving him candy, he immediately blurted out, "I didn't buy it. My grandma made this shuttlecock for me. Isn't it beautiful!"

Aunt Jiang had a plan in mind and coaxed, "Is the candy tasty? Is it sweet? It's a pity it's not as fragrant as the chicken butts we eat at home."

Bai Ye pouted and retorted, "Chicken butts don't smell good at all! The chicken we ate and the chicken soup we drank a few days ago smelled much better!"

Aunt Jiang was 100% certain that Liu Pozi had killed and eaten her chickens.

Angrily, he snatched the shuttlecock from Bai Ye's hand and went to confront Granny Liu.

Granny Liu was known in the village for being unreasonable. Aunt Jiang argued with her for a whole afternoon, but she offered no explanation or compensation.

In a fit of rage, Aunt Jiang smashed a hole in the large pot in Granny Liu's yard.

The two started fighting in the yard, attracting the attention of nearby villagers. Everyone condemned Granny Liu for her inhuman behavior.

If someone's chickens eat your feed, you can just ask them to give you some more feed. Why do you have to secretly kill the chickens and eat them?

Now look what's happened! They've smashed our own pot. Let's see if we'll ever try to get something for nothing again.

From then on, the two families became enemies, and neither could stand the other.

However, Sun Zihong didn't get involved. She wouldn't get involved in such messy things. She knew exactly what kind of person her mother-in-law was.

They're never satisfied with just taking advantage of others; they throw tantrums, spread rumors, and gossip—they're masters of it all.

She wouldn't care about her mother-in-law's affairs if it weren't for the fact that she helped take care of the children. And her husband, Bai Yang, is extremely blindly filial.

He listens to his mother in everything, regardless of right or wrong. Whenever his mother cries or makes a fuss, he will only say that it is someone else's fault.

Because his father died early, he and his mother depended on each other for survival, so he developed the habit of being completely obedient to his mother.

Occasionally, when they disagreed, his mother would throw a tantrum, crying and complaining about how difficult it was to raise him, and she would have him completely under her thumb.

Last year, Aunt Jiang planted several loofahs and cowpeas around the yard.

Because they grew so fast, they weren't trellised in time. The seedlings climbed up the wall and onto the big tree next door belonging to Granny Liu.

There was a jujube tree in the corner of her yard. It was separated from Aunt Jiang's house by only one wall. So the loofah vines climbed up the big tree.

Not only did Granny Liu break the seedlings, but she also cruelly poured hot water on the loofah roots, killing them. She scalded the loofah to death.

The two women fought again because of this, and there was never a moment of peace whenever either of them was home at the same time.

Even a fart could be heard through the wall, let alone Granny Liu's nagging and cursing.

Granny Liu often made veiled insults at Aunt Jiang. Aunt Jiang wasn't a pushover either; she would start practicing her voice every morning.

The noise kept Granny Liu awake, unable to sleep even when she wanted to, and she wanted to yell at everyone because she was so sleepy.

Seeing Granny Liu crying in the yard today, how could I miss such a good show?

So he ran back inside, rummaged through the leftover melon seeds from last year's Chinese New Year, and started cracking them open.

Fearing she wouldn't get to see the whole spectacle, she simply climbed onto the wall.

At this moment, Granny Liu was still sobbing about how her family heirloom was gone. Now no one was there to comfort her; she would stop crying when she got tired.

The neighbors dared not try to persuade her, lest she get on their nerves and cause trouble. Even her daughter-in-law was scolded for trying to stop her.

Seeing her remarkable stamina, crying from noon until afternoon and evening, the crowd grew bored and dispersed to go home.

Seeing that there were no more spectators, Granny Liu lost interest and stopped wailing. She was so hungry from crying that she called for her daughter-in-law to bring her food.

Sun Zihong obediently served her food; she didn't want her mother-in-law to complain about her husband.

After dinner, Bai Yang also got off work, and Granny Liu told her son that the family heirloom had been broken.

Bai Yang didn't believe that his family would have such a treasure, but he couldn't argue with his mother.

He comforted his mother, telling her to take it easy and that losing money was a way to avoid further trouble, which finally put her at ease.

As expected, her son's words carried weight, and Granny Liu quickly stopped being upset.