Hunting 81: Gathering Goods in the Mountains, I Spoil My Ex-Wife to the Extreme

Li Yunlan looked around at the people around her—her mother, her eldest brother, her second sister, her third brother, and several other men from the same village. She wiped away the tears that had dripped down her chin before slowly recounting the whole story.

The incident began when Wang Yuanchao called the village office from Xinghuo Commune while she was at her parents' home, asking someone there to tell her that her mother-in-law, Feng Cuilan, was sick and hospitalized, and that she should go back to take care of her as soon as possible. She did as he asked.

As a result, when she took Qianqian back to her husband's home by long-distance bus, she found that Feng Cuilan was not sick or hospitalized at all, and did not even have a headache or fever.

This made her quite angry, but considering that Feng Cuilan was her mother-in-law and an elder, she could only endure it.

She wanted to settle things peacefully, but her mother-in-law, Feng Cuilan, showed no intention of backing down.

She had just returned home with Qianqian by long-distance bus and hadn't even had a chance to catch her breath when her mother-in-law, Feng Cuilan, complained of being hungry and urged her to hurry up and cook.

Having been married into the Wang family for so many years, Li Yunlan has done countless household chores and cooked meals. Thinking that she and Qianqian had traveled a long distance and were a little hungry, she went to cook.

Unexpectedly, her mother-in-law, Feng Cuilan, took advantage of her time while she was cooking to ransack her bag, taking the malted milk powder her mother had given her and the scarf her second sister had knitted for her.

She was careful; she kept the four hundred yuan that Li Yunshan gave her hidden on her person, and only she knew about it.

She prepared the food in the kitchen and brought it to the table. She noticed that the malted milk powder her mother had given her and the scarf her second sister had knitted for her had been taken by Feng Cuilan. After putting the food down, she questioned her mother-in-law, Feng Cuilan, about why she had rummaged through her bag and taken her things.

But her mother-in-law, Feng Cuilan, shamelessly said that such good things should be used to show filial piety to her, an old woman.

Li Yunlan refused, saying that the malted milk powder was given to her by her mother and the scarf was knitted by her second sister, so why should she give it to her?

As a result, Feng Cuilan got angry as soon as she heard this, pointed at her and started cursing her, and even slapped her across the face.

When the stinging slap landed on her face, Li Yunlan was furious.

She had been married into the Wang family for several years. Although her mother-in-law, Feng Cuilan, always liked to find fault with her, sometimes saying she was lazy, sometimes saying that her cooking was not good, and she was always picking on her, and the two of them even had a few minor quarrels, they never actually hit each other.

But now...

Li Yunlan was, after all, the daughter of a hunter, and she still had some backbone.

In the past, Feng Cuilan would pick on her, saying she was lazy, criticizing her cooking, and they would even argue. But for the sake of harmony in the family, she could endure it all.

But now, she can't take it anymore.

The malted milk powder was given to her by her mother to nourish her body, and the scarf was knitted by her second sister to keep her warm. Why should Feng Cuilan take it for herself?

Just because Feng Cuilan is her mother-in-law? What a shameless person.

After being slapped by Feng Cuilan, Li Yunlan could no longer bear it and finally retaliated.

The first fight with Feng Cuilan resulted in both sides being injured, but she also managed to get back the malted milk powder her mother had given her, as well as the scarf her second sister had knitted for her.

When Wang Yuanchao came home from get off work that day, he saw the mess in the house. When Feng Cuilan saw her son come home, she immediately turned the tables and sat down on the ground, slapped her thighs with both hands, and cried and said that she had a can of malted milk powder but did not take it out to show filial piety to her mother-in-law, and did not give her a scarf to keep her warm. She even complained that Li Yunlan hit her first.

Although Wang Yuanchao is an honest man, he is a mama's boy and listens to Feng Cuilan's every word.

Upon hearing Feng Cuilan's words, Wang Yuanchao stormed into the house and questioned Li Yunlan, asking why she didn't use the malted milk powder to show filial piety to his mother, why she didn't use the scarf to keep her warm, and why she even hit her.

Wang Yuanchao's question angered Li Yunlan as well.

Li Yunlan immediately asked him why the malted milk powder was specially given to her by her mother when she returned to her parents' home, as her mother noticed how thin she was. She also said that the scarf was specially knitted for her by her second sister so that she could keep warm when she went out in winter. Why should she give it all to his mother?

Unable to reason with Li Yunlan, Wang Yuanchao became enraged and attacked her.

Li Yunlan was thin and frail, no match for Wang Yuanchao, a big man, and was quickly beaten up.

That day, Li Yunlan hid in her room and cried for most of the night.

She could endure the pain in her wounds, but the pain in her heart was like being pricked by needles, piercing her very soul.

Initially, she heard from the matchmaker that Wang Yuanchao was an honest man who worked at a state-run grocery store, so she disregarded her mother's objections and started dating him.

In fact, in order to marry Wang Yuanchao, she was so audacious as to get pregnant before marriage, just to force her mother to agree to her marriage to Wang Yuanchao.

However, after marrying into the Wang family, she didn't enjoy a good life for long before her mother-in-law, Feng Cuilan, started picking on her.

She could tolerate all of this.

What she couldn't tolerate was that not only did her mother-in-law, Feng Cuilan, hit her, but her husband, Wang Yuanchao, also hit her without distinguishing right from wrong, siding with his mother.

On the night Wang Yuanchao beat her, she thought for a long time. She thought about dying and getting a divorce.

But what will happen to Qianqian if she dies? Will she rely on Wang Yuanchao? Will she rely on Feng Cuilan?

After being married to Wang Yuanchao for several years, she has come to see him for who he really is. Although he is an honest man, he is also a mama's boy and lacks his own opinions.

In this family, whatever Feng Cuilan said went.

Because she gave birth to a girl, Feng Cuilan has scolded people quite a bit over the years.

They called her a hen that couldn't lay eggs, and Qianqian a money-losing burden.

If she were to commit suicide, given Wang Yuanchao and Feng Cuilan's feudalistic and patriarchal views, would Qianqian be able to live a good life?

Being abused by Feng Cuilan was the least of it.

Moreover, if she were to commit suicide, wouldn't that be exactly what Feng Cuilan wanted, allowing Wang Yuanchao to marry another woman?

Based on her understanding of Wang Yuanchao, although he was an honest man, he was obedient to Feng Cuilan and favored boys over girls.

If she really does take her own life, Wang Yuanchao will definitely marry another woman.

If that's the case, Qianqian won't fare much better. It's said that once a biological father has a stepmother, he'll become a stepfather.

Moreover, Wang Yuanchao was a sexist and didn't particularly like his daughter Qianqian.

But if it's a divorce... my second sister is already divorced, and my third brother has been divorced three times. If she gets divorced, I don't know what my mother and eldest brother will think.

In this day and age, although the propaganda talks about freedom of love, how many people can truly have freedom of love?

In big cities, people may have more freedom to date, but in rural areas... many marriages are still arranged by parents and matchmakers.

Most of the time, once a man and woman have met and hit it off, they get married within three to five months, or even a month, or sometimes just three to five days after meeting.

Divorce is still considered shameful in the eyes of people today.

Her third brother had been divorced, and more than once, which made him a topic of conversation for many people in the village.

Not long ago, my second sister also got divorced...

If she also gets divorced, who knows what people will say about her.

Other people's gossip and rumors might make her sound like something else.

So she cried all night and thought about it all night, but for Qianqian's sake, she gritted her teeth and endured it.

However, Li Yunlan did not expect that her forbearance would only lead to Feng Cuilan taking an even bigger inch.

After a few days of peace, Feng Cuilan somehow found out that she had hidden the money given to her by her third brother, Li Yunshan, on her person. She even managed to find the money hidden in her cotton-padded coat while she was taking a bath.

After taking a bath, she returned to her room and discovered that her cotton-padded coat, which she had placed on the kang (a heated brick bed), was missing. She hurriedly went to look for it, only to find Feng Cuilan in the room, taking out the money that her third brother, Li Yunshan, had given her from inside the coat.

Those were brand new ten-yuan notes, hard-earned by Third Brother through his own hard work, risking his life to hunt in the mountains.

Every single one of these ten-yuan notes represents the hard-earned money of the third brother.

Her third brother knew that it wasn't easy for her to marry far away, so he gave her money so that she could live with confidence in her husband's family.

However, her mother-in-law, Feng Cuilan, took away the money that Li Yunlan had hidden in her cotton-padded coat without saying a word, which made Li Yunlan furious.

Feng Cuilan, relying on her status as the mother-in-law and the fact that she had married far away, treated her with disrespect and veiled insults, which she could tolerate.

They laid hands on her, hit her, bullied her, but she endured it all for Qianqian's sake.

But now, Feng Cuilan took the money her third brother had given her without saying a word, and she was so angry that she was trembling all over.

Because she knew that once the money was in Feng Cuilan's hands, getting it back would be harder than climbing to heaven.

So she immediately rushed into Feng Cuilan's room, and while Feng Cuilan wasn't paying attention, she snatched all the money that Feng Cuilan had taken out of her cotton-padded coat, and sternly questioned Feng Cuilan why she had taken her money without her permission.

But Feng Cuilan was extremely arrogant, pointing at her and cursing, "Even you belong to the Wang family, so your money should rightfully belong to the Wang family too."

Then, she was scolded for being a barren hen, saying that after being married into the Wang family for several years, she had only given birth to a worthless girl for Wang Yuanchao, and had not given him a son.

Not content with cursing Li Yunlan, they also called Huang Zhifang a country bumpkin, her deceased father a dead ghost, her elder brother and sister-in-law poor ghosts, and even her third brother, bringing up his divorce...

In short, Feng Cuilan cursed almost all of her family members.

Feng Cuilan's scolding completely ignited Li Yunlan's anger, as well as the grievances she had accumulated over the years since marrying into the Wang family.

Immediately, she went berserk and lunged at Feng Cuilan, and the two women began to fight.

For a moment, sounds of fighting, cursing, and things being smashed came from Wang's house.

The neighbors all gathered outside the Wang family's courtyard to watch the excitement.

At this moment, Wang Yuanchao returned home from get off work and saw Feng Cuilan and Li Yunlan fighting each other. He was immediately enraged, grabbed Li Yunlan by the hair, and slapped her across the face several times.

Feng Cuilan picked up a stick and hit her on the head.

The moment the stick came down, Li Yunlan felt dizzy and collapsed to the ground unconscious.

When she woke up, she was already at the Xinghuo Commune Health Center.