Chapter 44: Character Profile of Sister-in-Law Liu (Bonus Chapter!)
My name is Liu Cuihua, and everyone in Clear Water Village calls me Mistress Liu.
My family lived in the back mountain just adjacent to Clear Water Village. My parents were hunters, and our home was as poor as could be.
There were four children in our family. I was the eldest, with two younger brothers and a younger sister below me.
Since we were little, my parents' affection was reserved entirely for their sons.
Me and my little sister? Heh, we were nothing more than burdens.
Why? Just because we were born as girls? I refused to accept this!
So, at the age of eight, I finally staged a rebellion.
That day, my father's iron rod used for mountain hunting came crashing down.
I will never forget that sound for the rest of my life. My leg was broken right then and there.
No doctor was called for me. There was no medicine, and no one felt any pity.
In that drafty shack, dragging a broken leg, I crawled like a dog for three full months!
Screaming in pain? Crying? Did that do any good?
Only my little sister secretly stuffed half a bowl of leftover rice into my hands every day. The rice was mixed with her tears, salty and bitter, just like the days we lived through.
Before I knew it, I was sixteen. I looked like my father—broad-boned, tall, and possessed of immense strength, yet my body was as thin as a hemp stalk.
Consequently, all the household chores fell onto me, simply because I was a girl?
The way my parents looked at me grew increasingly like they were eyeing a pile of trash meant for the dump.
That day, I overheard them whispering outside, plotting to sell me to a man in his forties who had lost his wife!
That old bastard was even older than my beast of a father. I ran outside like I had lost my mind. The mountains were so vast, and I wanted to escape!
Before I had run even a few miles, I was caught by my father as easily as if I were a little chick.
Sticks and fists rained down upon me like a storm.
I bit my lip, blood flowing down the corner of my mouth, without uttering a single sound.
When that old widower came to take a look at me, seeing my bruised face, disheveled hair, and a gaze fierce enough to devour people, he waved his hands in terror:
"I don't want her anymore! This isn't taking a wife; this is inviting an ancestral ghost into the house!"
Thus, my parents vented all their fury entirely upon me.
I was locked in the darkest corner of the dog kennel for three whole days without a single meal!
Hunger! I was so hungry that my vision turned green, and my stomach felt as if a hand were reaching inside, trying to hollow out my internal organs!
I licked the mud on the ground, gnawed at the grass roots in the corner of the wall, and chewed on hard, dry tree bark that had fallen in. My throat was filled with the taste of blood.
Every day, the only thing pushed through the crack of the door was half a bowl of murky water—it was my little sister!
However, she was still discovered by those beastly parents of mine. I heard my beast of a mother shrieking curses outside, followed by my little sister's cries and the muffled thuds of fists striking flesh—thud! thud! thud! Every single blow felt like it was hammering against my heart!
Why take out their anger toward me on my little sister?
I dug my fingers desperately into the threshold, my nails piercing the wood, my whole body trembling like a leaf in the wind.
My little sister's cries grew fainter and fainter... weaker and weaker... and then, they stopped entirely.
My little sister, who was barely past ten years old, vanished as quietly as a leaf blown off by the wind.
All because of me, a useless elder sister, and because of that half bowl of water she stole for me!
Her young life was beaten out of her, right then and there, by those two heartless, beastly parents!
My little sister was dead.
The last remaining spark of warmth in my heart died along with her.
Crying? I couldn't cry. Having starved for three days, my voice was as raspy as a broken gong, and I could only make strange, rattling noises like a beaten hound with its neck squeezed, utterly repulsive.
My beastly parents found me inauspicious and subjected me to another beating.
The winter of that year was bone-chillingly cold. Hunger and hatred slithered into the marrow of my bones like two venomous serpents, coiling and gnawing away.
I ate like a madman!
When the family refused to give me food, I went outside to forage—wild vegetables, grass roots, insects... I grabbed whatever I could find and ate it!
My stomach was like a bottomless pit that could never be filled.
I grew fatter and my strength greater day by day, but my reputation was utterly ruined.
Who in Clear Water Village didn't know that the Liu family in the mountains had an unwanted, "gluttonous," and "insane" old maid?
At eighteen, even the heavens turned blind—a great drought struck.
There were no living creatures on the mountain, no sprouts grew in the fields, and even the mice in our house starved and fled.
The way my beastly parents looked at me shifted back to calculation—it was time to sell this "money-losing commodity" for a good price at last.
This time, the buyer was Butcher Wang from the foot of the mountain.
Butcher Wang? He was bound to be some old geezer, perhaps even older and uglier than the last one.
I clenched my fists, my nails digging into my palms, ready to fight to the bitter death. At worst, I'd be beaten half to death, or simply beaten to death once and for all!
That day, people from the Wang family arrived.
I hid behind the bedroom door, peering out through a cracked seam.
A tall, dark shadow stood there like half a towering iron pillar.
That was Wang Daniu, the man dictated by my fate.
He wore a set of coarse, dark fabric clothes washed faded white, and his face was covered in stubble, making his exact features unclear. But that pair of eyes...
They weren't as ferocious as I had imagined; instead, they looked somewhat... uneasy?
He rubbed his hands together, staring fixedly at the ground like a child who had done something wrong, not daring to glance in my direction.
His father, Wang Jinbao, the renowned Butcher Wang, was currently haggling with my father.
"Two taels of silver! Not a single copper less! Sure, this girl can eat, but she has immense strength and can work!"
Wang Jinbao frowned, looking at the dilapidated house, then at my beastly parents' wolf-like expressions, before finally sweeping his gaze across the door crack where I was hiding.
He sighed heavily: "Fine, two taels it is. Eldest, what... what do you think?"
Wang Daniu let out a muffled grunt of assent, burying his head even lower until it almost seemed to shrink into his collar.
At that moment, my mind felt stuffed with a tangled mess of hemp.
Hatred for the ruthlessness of my beastly parents burned like fire; grief over the tragic death of my little sister pierced like ice; fear of this iron-pillar-like stranger and an uncertain future...
Yet, looking at Wang Daniu's honest, almost foolish appearance, and seeing that although his father was a butcher, his gaze seemed relatively upright...
As long as I could leave this place, escape this place that cannibalized people, and have enough to eat, that would be enough!
Just like that, bearing a body covered in visible and invisible scars, carrying a stomach that could never be filled, and harboring a heart wrapped tightly in shards of ice, I was "married" into the Wang family for two taels of silver.
Later on, I learned that the moment my feet left, my beastly parents took my two younger brothers and fled from the famine, casting me aside into Clear Water Village just like throwing away trash.
Good riddance. That "home" should have been cut off long ago.
The Wang family's courtyard featured adobe walls and a thatched roof. It looked poor too, but at least it was clean and sturdy.
As soon as I stepped through the courtyard gate, I saw a tiny figure dart behind a woman (whom I later learned was my mother-in-law, Mistress Zhao) like a startled rabbit, revealing only a pair of dark, glossy eyes, timid and shy, with a voice as thin as a mosquito's hum: "Si... sister-in-law."
Was this Wang Saniu? This was what he looked like the first time I ever saw him.
He was as thin as a bean sprout, his little face deathly pale, and a gust of wind could have blown him right over.
My heart skipped a beat. Could such a frail child even be raised to adulthood?
Yet that thought flashed and vanished instantly.
What did it have to do with me? I was here to eat, not to act as a wet nurse!
I was hungry; I only wanted to fill my stomach!
Sure enough, the Wang family had enough to eat!
Coarse grain gruel and mixed flour pancakes—all you could eat!
Like a wolf starved for three generations, I let go and ate for the first time, never lifting my head, scraping the bottom of the bowl completely clean.
Mistress Zhao watched my whirlwind style of eating, her brows furrowed tightly enough to crush a fly, but she endured it and said nothing.
Father-in-law Wang Jinbao smoked his dry tobacco in silence, puffing away rhythmically.
Wang Daniu... did he seem a bit afraid of me? He always sat far away from me.
Only that little bean sprout would sometimes steal glances at me, his gaze filled with curiosity and a tiny bit of... timid affection?
I turned my head away, pretending not to see.
My heart had hardened long ago; such tiny creatures couldn't be warmed.
Since they could feed me, I had to prove I wasn't eating for free!
I had strength in abundance!
Drawing water until the skin on my shoulders rubbed raw; chopping firewood until the webs of my hands went numb; farming under the scorching sun until a layer of skin peeled off; feeding pigs until I reeked of filth...
I worked harder and more fiercely than anyone else!
I wanted the Wang family to know that those two taels of silver were well spent!
Wang Daniu and I, two strong laborers, toiled away like blindfolded donkeys turning a millstone in the fields and the courtyard, our sweat pounding into the soil, just to exchange it for a few more copper coins.
Yet the family money pouch always leaked like a bottomless ladle.
Why? It was all swallowed up by that medicine jar—Wang Saniu!
Every few days, a doctor had to be summoned!
Bowl after bowl of pitch-black, bitter medicinal broth was forced down, and money flowed away like rushing water.
Watching my mother-in-law trembling as she counted out copper coins one by one, my heart ached with sharp pangs; watching my father-in-law smoke in silence with his brows locked in a knot; watching Wang Daniu collapse into sleep like a pile of mud from exhaustion...
The flames of anger in my heart shot straight up!
It wasn't fair! Completely unfair!
Why should Daniu and I work ourselves to the bone, only for our blood-and-sweat money to be poured down the throat of that sickly weakling who would topple in the wind? Why?!
Just because he knew how to act spoiled? Because his skin was fair? Because he was a boy?!
That suppressed resentment from the mountains, that abhorrence of unfairness, churned like boiling oil mixed with aged vinegar in my stomach, burning my throat tight!
I couldn't control my mouth!
Those caustic words sprouted like thorny vines growing wildly, leaping out of my mouth on their own, impossible to stop!
"Hmph, sick again? What a precious constitution!" I deliberately slammed the bowls and chopsticks together noisily.
"All the money goes on him, are we supposed to drink the northwest wind? Gouwa doesn't even have a new set of clothes!" I looked at my son's frayed cuffs, and my heart ached like it was being pricked by needles.
"What's the use of raising such a medicine jar? Might as well..." The harsher words that followed stuck in my throat and were ultimately never fully vomited out, but everyone understood the meaning.
My mother-in-law would immediately snap back: "Shut your crow's mouth! Third Son is your brother-in-law!"
My father-in-law would raise his eyelids and glare at me coldly, his gaze resembling icicles.
Wang Daniu would hurriedly tug at my sleeve, lowering his voice: "Cuihua, say less, don't make Mom and Dad angry..."
Yet I simply couldn't help myself!
Seeing Saniu's pale, paper-thin little face, watching him knit his little brows as he forced down that bitter medicine.
I would recall how my little sister had withered to skin and bones before her death, and the searing, fiery hunger in my stomach that made me want to gnaw on my own arms!
Why should he be doted on and protected by the whole family?
Why should I labor like a beast of burden while watching money slip away in vain?
That sense of grievance, of being ignored, sacrificed, and forever relegated to last place, burned away the last shred of reason in my mind like a wildfire!
I knew my words were harsh; I knew I acted like a shrew, but I couldn't restrain myself!
Those words were poisonous vines growing from the thorn in my heart; if I didn't spit them out, they would strangle me first!
I wanted to make a fuss, to fight for myself! I wanted them to see me! To see my suffering! To see my exhaustion! To see my grievances!
Every time after making a scene, watching Saniu lower his head silently with his small shoulders trembling slightly, my heart would feel as if it had been swiftly pierced by a needle, sour and astringent.
He was so young, so frail...
Yet the moment that thought surfaced, it was ruthlessly suppressed by an even more surging wave of hatred and grievance.
Did being weak make someone right?
Did being weak mean you could suck the blood of the entire family?
Wasn't I weak when I was little?
Wasn't my little sister weak?
Who had ever pitied us?
Who had ever cared whether we lived or died?
I clenched my fists, fiercely extinguishing that trace of inappropriate softness.
Life dragged on day by day amidst this twisted friction.
Saniu's health changed like June weather, shifting unpredictably, and the atmosphere in the household tightened and relaxed in tandem.
I was like a firecracker ready to go off at the slightest touch, and Saniu had become the fuse that was easiest for me to detonate.
Until that day... that basin of pig's blood.
The family slaughtered a pig that day to prepare for the market.
For some reason, Father called Saniu to help catch the pig's blood.
Just as I was lowering my head to tidy things up, I heard a startled gasp of "Ah!" outside, followed by a muffled thud.
My heart dropped heavily, and I rushed out to look—all the blood in my body ran cold!
Saniu's tiny body lay limply on the ground, his head and face covered entirely in thick, dark-red pig's blood!
He looked like a broken little rag doll, motionless!
His face was as white as wallpaper, and even the faint rise and fall of his chest was barely visible!
"My child—!"
Mistress Zhao shrieked and lunged forward, her voice cracking entirely.
Father-in-law panicked as well, completely at a loss.
Wang Daniu stood rooted to the spot like a pillar.
My mind buzzed with a loud *boom*, turning completely blank.
It was over... it was truly over this time... if he couldn't be saved... wouldn't the Wang family loathe me to death?
Even though I hadn't done it, I had said so many cursed things about him before...
They would definitely think my crow's mouth had brought this curse upon him!
Having finally found a nest where I could eat my fill, was I going to be swept out the door again? Was I going to be sent back to those mountains where people starved to death?
What made my heart grow even colder and my whole body tremble was that I subconsciously clasped my chest tightly—stitched inside was a small pocket containing two hundred copper coins I had saved in secret!
Coin by coin, squeezed out through strict frugality!
I wanted to make a new set of clothes for Gouwa. He was growing fast, and his old clothes were already half a foot too short, leaving his arms and legs exposed.
Every time I saw my son enviously watching other children wear new clothes, my heart as a mother felt as though it were being twisted by a knife!
Those two hundred coppers were my entire hope!
Yet right now... could this money even be kept? Calling a doctor, fetching medicine... which one didn't cost money? Those two hundred coppers would likely be swallowed up without even making a ripple! I gripped that small, hard cloth pouch so tightly that my nails nearly pierced the fabric, my knuckles turning white with strain.
Grievance, fear, despair... washed over me like a freezing tide in an instant.
This little shred of hope I had managed to save... was it going to be ruined by this sickly weakling again?
I hated this endless burden! I hated this impoverished life with no end in sight!
I opened my mouth, but my throat felt stuffed with a wad of cotton, unable to produce a single sound.
I only felt a wave of chill surge from the soles of my feet straight up to the crown of my head, freezing my teeth so hard they chattered.
Yet looking at that tiny, blood-smeared, lifeless body on the ground, looking at his tightly closed eyes...
Deepest within my heart, that thick crust of ice seemed to crack open a seam.
After all... he was still so young... after all... he had truly, genuinely called me "sister-in-law"...
Fortunately, Saniu had a stubborn life, and the King of Hell refused to claim him.
After lying in bed for a day and a night, he opened his eyes.
Yet upon waking this time, Saniu seemed somewhat different.
His gaze wasn't as timid, and his speech had grown clearer.
What surprised me even more was that this Saniu, who had almost been carried away by a basin of pig's blood, seemed like a changed person, bringing earth-shaking changes to this household.
He recognized herbs!
Dandelions and plantains among the pig feed... things we regarded as rotten weed leaves to feed the pigs, he claimed could be sold for money once dried!
Watching his tiny figure squatting in the corner of the wall, meticulously sorting those wild herbs with a ridiculously serious little face, though my mouth habitually muttered, "Fussing over nothing, won't amount to a hill of beans," deep down for the first time, I looked at this sickly brother-in-law with a somewhat... new perspective?
When Wang Eryu actually returned clutching seven qian of silver from selling medicinal herbs, my eyes nearly popped out of my head!
Seven qian of silver! It was almost enough to rival the money from selling half a small pig! This little bean sprout really had some tricks up his sleeve!
Later on, he conjured up that mouth-watering-delicious braised delicacy!
That aroma was enough to strip people of their souls!
The family set up a stall to sell it and delivered goods to the Drunken Immortal Pavilion in town, and bright, shiny silver flowed into the house like water.
Life at home turned a corner right before our eyes!
We built a bright, new brick-and-tile house, meat appeared on the dining table at every meal, and the little faces of the two children, Gouwa and Xiuniang, visibly rounded out and glowed with a healthy flush.
Along with it, looking at Saniu made him seem much more pleasing to the eye.
Though his frame remained slender, color had returned to his cheeks, his stride grew strong, and his speech and actions were orderly. Even Scholar Zhao, the most learned man in the village, praised his cleverness and agreed to let him attend preparatory school to study!
Studying... that was an earth-shattering matter!
Though I didn't understand those profound classical texts, looking at the solemn expressions of my parents-in-law and watching the family grit their teeth to scrape together the tuition, I knew the Wang family was going to produce someone of consequence.
And Saniu lived up to expectations, truly passing the county examination—and taking first place at that!
He became a registered scholar! Smoke was rising from the ancestral tombs of the Wang family!
Watching the family prosper day by day, watching Gouwa finally wear the new clothes I had made him with my own hands as he ran around the courtyard like an excited puppy with a wide grin...
That twisted knot inside me that had lasted half a lifetime seemed gradually softened and loosened by this warm, cozy life.
Those caustic words grew fewer and fewer before I even realized it.
Watching Saniu carry his clean book satchel and puff out his little chest as he walked off to study in the prefecture city, I even... felt a bit happy for him?
This brother-in-law of mine truly had a sharp mind.
If not for him, the Wang family would still be wallowing in the mud.
As the eldest sister-in-law, I had previously... been a bit of a scoundrel.
That night, lying on the warm brick bed, listening to Daniu's deep snoring beside me and watching the moonlight filter through the lattice window, my heart felt secure for the very first time.
Perhaps... the hatred, the resentment, and the venomous words I had blurted out recklessly in my heart really were because I had been terrified of hunger? Terrified of poverty? Terrified of illness? Like falling into some madness I hadn't even recognized.
Now that I could eat my fill and dress warmly, with surplus money in hand and a harmonious family around me, the thorn that had pierced my heart for over twenty years seemed to have been pulled out bit by bit by this stable life. Though the scar remained, at long last... it didn't hurt anymore.
Thank you, Saniu!