"Oh, you don’t know, but I know that young man. He’s been buying vegetables at the night market here. It’s New Year’s, probably more people are buying vegetables, so he called his wife over to help. Her sister came later, supposedly to borrow money from her brother, and she didn’t come alone, she also brought her mother-in-law. I’ve been watching from the side, and his sister and mother-in-law are something else. Borrowing money from a brother as if it’s their right, even more boldly than using their own money. The brother didn’t say anything, but the sister-in-law couldn’t take it, and that’s when the shouting started."
Anyway, there’s no way forward ahead, and Qin Juan, seeing the aunt getting so animated, also got interested.
"A little sister-in-law, once married off, belongs to another family. Even if her husband’s family is having difficulties and she wants to ask her own family for help, she should discuss it properly with her brother and sister-in-law. At the end of the day, the brother and sister-in-law are family now, and she definitely shouldn’t be bringing her mother-in-law to the street to argue with them."
"Isn’t that right?"
The aunt also has children, with a daughter married off and a son who has taken a wife. If she thought of her daughter arguing with her son and daughter-in-law in the street over money issues, she wouldn’t stand for it, even if she’s equally fond of both sides.
"You didn’t hear how nastily the sister-in-law cursed her sister-in-law, calling her a whore, trash, a worthless woman that nobody wants, each insult worse than the last."
"The sister-in-law just let her curse like that?"
Suddenly, Qin Juan felt a bit sorry for that sister-in-law.
To be cursed by the sister-in-law in front of her husband likely means she’s been mistreated at her husband’s home.
She recalled her days at the Zhang Family.
Whether a woman can stand up in her home without being wronged ultimately depends on the man’s attitude.
Just like now at the Jia Family, if anyone says a bad word to her, Jia Liang would shoot them a look, who would dare give her grief?
Jia Liang often says that she came into his family because of him, since he married her, he will support her and protect her, that’s his responsibility.
Such is a simple truth, yet how many people don’t understand it?
The aunt slapped her thigh hearing this, "I thought the same. No matter how you see it, that’s her sister-in-law, how could she let the sister-in-law curse her in the street? Later, I heard that the sister-in-law has something on her. She disliked her brother because he was poor and divorced him, then for whatever reason, she came back. People say you don’t chase business like that, isn’t it standing out to be humiliated? This path is one you walk yourself."
The two of them were talking when the crowd next to them dispersed.
The aunt was worried Qin Juan might get bumped, so she pulled her to the side.
Qin Juan also noticed an old and a young person coming through the crowd.
Her pupils suddenly shrank.
The aunt beside her whispered into her ear, "It’s these two, the young one is the vegetable seller’s sister, and the old one is her mother-in-law. No wonder they’re family, it’s the sister-in-law giving trouble, and her mother-in-law is even worse. If it were another family, how could a mother-in-law go to her daughter-in-law’s home to demand money? Not afraid to get talked about behind her back? Yet, she does such things right in the street, tsk tsk tsk..."
Qin Juan looked at the old lady in the distance, and after two years without seeing her, she almost didn’t recognize her.
This was her former mother-in-law, Mrs. Zhang.
In just two years, Mrs. Zhang aged terribly, while before only her temples were gray, now most of her hair had turned white.
Her once fair and plump skin was now full of furrows due to severe weight loss.
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