Chapter 48 - 48

Chapter 48 One Melon After AnotherThat day, Aunt Meihua took Yun Ting to visit Aunt Liu's house.When Aunt Liu's son saw Yun Ting at Aunt Liu's house, he blushed and stammered, unable to utter a complete sentence."Yun… Educated Youth Yun, you… hello." His face flushed red, and he dared not look Yun Ting in the eye.He had never seen such a fair-skinned and beautiful girl."Heh~ Li comrade, hello."Aunt Liu's real name is Liu Jianmei. Her husband's surname is Li, which is a common surname in Xiangyang Brigade. That's why she isn't called Aunt Li by her husband's family. Otherwise, most people in the village would becalled Aunt Li, making it difficult to distinguish them. So they all call her by her own surname.Aunt Liu has two daughters and a son, and she dotes on her rare youngest son. Fortunately, her son was not raised like Second Scoundrel.Her son, Li Quan, is honest and simple, and doesn't like to talk much. But when he talks to a girl, his face turns so red that he looks like he's about to spit it out."Alright, Quanzi, is your mother home?" Aunt Meihua said, trying to smooth things over."He's...he's inside!""Who is it?" Aunt Liu was sewing shoe soles with her second daughter, Li Xiu, inside the house. She heard the voice but wasn't sure who it was.Aunt Meihua pulled Yun Ting inside, saying, "Oh, Jianmei, I've brought little Educated Youth Yun to chat with you.""Hey...come and sit down.""Xiuer, go pour water for your Auntie and littleEducated Youth Yun.""No need to bother, Aunt Liu, we're not thirsty.""That's right, why be so polite?" Aunt Meihuaagreed with a smile.Aunt Liu's eldest daughter, Li Ying, married into the neighboring Rongshutun brigade. Her second daughter, seventeen years old, is still unmarried." Aunt Liu, your Xiuer is so pretty and charming! And she's so efficient at her work.""Little Educated Youth Yun, you have such a sweet tongue!" Aunt Liu couldn't stop smiling as she listened to her daughter being praised.Yun Ting wasn't just praising her; she was telling the truth. Li Xiu is indeed pretty, and in the village, that's considered quite good-looking."Xiuer, have you started looking for a partner yet?" Aunt Meihua asked.Li Xiu blushed and was too shy to speak.Yun Ting was amazed. In this day and age, both men and women are very easily embarrassed!"To be honest, I've been looking at people lately, but I haven't found anyone suitable yet!""Xiuer, do you have someone you like?" Yun Tingasked directly.Li Xiu paused, then shook her head. "No.""Oh, young educated youth Yun, we're not like you city people. You can't just talk about likes and dislikes. You can't put food on the table. We look at a person's abilities and their family background. Many of us haven't even met each other before getting married," Aunt Liu said with a smile.Yun Ting smiled and said, "Well, we have to find each other pleasing to the eye first, right? Otherwise, how can we live together?""How do we live? We have food and enough to eat, so we just live like this. Isn't that how life is? It doesn't matter who you live with."" Auntie, life isn't just about who you live with. If you find someone who cares about you, you'll be happy. But if you find someone who doesn't care about you, life will be miserable!" Yun Tinglaughed. She knew that her words alone wouldn't be enough to change their deeply ingrained old ideas.Little did she know that her words had taken deep root in Li Xiu's heart.As the group was chatting animatedly, an older woman shouted from the doorway, "Jianmei, come on! There's something exciting at Li Big Mouth's house..." You could tell how excited she was just by her voice."Let's go…we'll go too." Aunt Meihua quickly got off the kang (heated brick bed) and put on her shoes, with Aunt Liu following closely behind.Yun Ting... had already put on her shoes, and was extremely impatient.Li Xiu, however, showed no intention of going.The group quickly jogged towards Li Big Mouth's house, where they found a crowd gathered inside.Aunt Meihua pulled Yun Ting through the crowd, where they saw Li Big Mouth's eldest son, Wang Youjin, straddling his younger son, Wang Youyin, and throwing punches wildly. Li Big Mouth kept shouting from the side, "Stop hitting him! Stop hitting him! Eldest son, are you trying to kill your brother?"Wang Gensheng, the man from Li Big Mouth'sfamily, squatted to one side, smoking his pipe, seemingly oblivious to the farce unfolding.Li Cuier was hitting her sister-in-law, repeatedly cursing, "Bitch, slut... I'll beat you to death..."Li Big Mouth's eldest daughter-in-law, Liang Xiaolan, kept her face covered with her hand, her clothes casually draped over her shoulders.Aunt Meihua whispered to the auntie next to her, "Chunhong, what's going on?"Yun Ting also pricked up her ears, waiting for theAuntie's explanation."What else could have happened? Li Big Mouth's eldest daughter-in-law was in bed with her brother-in-law, and the two of them were really getting intimate when Li Cuier caught them. And sure enough, this clueless guy started yelling, and Li Big Mouth's eldest son rushed out, and a fight broke out...tsk tsk...""I must say, Wang Youjin's wife is quite fair-skinned..."Tsk tsk... The truth has come out. Yun Ting says that she's no longer the only one who knows this shocking scoop."This Li Cuier doesn't act like a proper young lady at all. What family would want a daughter-in-law like her?""Stop! What are you all doing?" The Brigade Leader squeezed in with the Accountant.Wang Youyin was no longer being beaten unilaterally; the two brothers were fiercely exchanging punches, showing no sign of stopping." Wang Youjin, you're the one who's incompetent, and you're blaming me?"Wang Youyin's words were like a firecracker being lit, and Wang Youjin went wild again.The focus of attention in the crowd was thatWang Youjin was surprisingly not good enough; he didn't look it! He's tall and strong.This is just one bombshell after another!"Stop, shut up… what nonsense are you spouting?" Li Big Mouth shouted as he stepped forward."Wang Yougen, are you just going to stand there and watch?" Brigade Leader yelled at Wang Yougen, who was squatting there. Only then did Wang Yougen stand up and go to his two sons."Stop..." he shouted, and the two men who were fighting did stop, mainly because they had never seen their father shout so loudly before."Alright, everyone disperse, go back... don't watch anymore," the Brigade Leader shouted to the crowd.The excitement ended there, and Yun Ting, Aunt Meihua, and Aunt Liu all went home together.On the way, we encountered some people who had come to watch the commotion late at night. They were quite disappointed to hear that the crowd had dispersed.A few days later, Yun Ting heard from Aunt Meihua that Li Big Mouth, in order to prevent his youngest son from being accused of having an affair and being criticized, insisted on making it a misunderstanding, saying that the eldest son was unable to have children and was just borrowing sperm from the second son, completely disregarding the feelings of his eldest son, Wang Youjin.Wang Youjin didn't cause any trouble; he just asked to separate the family business.Since the parties involved had already said so, the village didn't pursue the matter any further.The Brigade Leader didn't want to damage the village's reputation over such a trivial matter. After all, the village's reputation was very important, as it would affect the marriage prospects of the young people in the village. Moreover, they had just been recognized as an advanced brigade for the autumn harvest not long ago!Everyone thought that was the end of it...But then, another huge bombshell dropped…The village widow Wang actually said that she was pregnant with Wang Youyin's child, which... made things lively again.During these boring winter days, everyone is enjoying gossip and juicy stories, one after another.Yun Ting always manages to pull out a handful of sunflower seeds to share with her aunties.