The sky grew darker, and the Zhao family members lined up one by one to bathe. The courtyard was filled with the scent of soap, and everyone looked much cleaner.
That night, Cheng Luanluan finally had a good night's sleep.
As soon as dawn broke, Dahe Village was already awake.
Cheng Luanluan stretched. The three children beside her were still sleeping like three little piglets.
She quietly got out of bed. Wu Huiniang was already busy working in the courtyard, washing the dirty clothes everyone had changed out of yesterday.
Zhao Dashan carried a hoe, preparing to go to the fields to plant rice seedlings.
"Dashan, you come with me to town," Cheng Luanluan turned her head and instructed. "Huiniang, you clean up the house, don't go up the mountain."
Yesterday, when she went up the mountain, Wu Huiniang almost fell. She dared not let a pregnant woman risk going up the mountain again.
Wu Huiniang quickly asked, "But Mother, if we don't go up the mountain, where will we get wild vegetables?"
The wild vegetables outside the garden were almost all picked; now they had to go deep into the mountains to find them.
"Water dropwort is also very good to eat," Cheng Luanluan said. "You and Sidan go to our garden and pick some water dropwort. As for the second and third children, they can go up the mountain to pick mushrooms and ferns. Dashan and I will be back before noon."
Zhao Da's ox cart was the best in the village; one *wen* coin could pay for a trip.
Cheng Luanluan handed over two *wen* coins and sat in the cart with Zhao Dashan. There were also other villagers in the ox cart.
The mother and son had both bathed thoroughly yesterday and looked very neat. Although their clothes were still tattered as before, they still looked somewhat different from the others.
Cheng Luanluan's complexion was fair, and the wound on her forehead looked even more conspicuous.
A woman who usually disliked her opened her mouth to mock, "Where is Sister-in-law Zhao going? Why aren't you going to Cheng Family Village?"
Everyone in the village knew that Sister-in-law Zhao would take anything good back to her maiden home, and then was beaten over the head by her own family. It was truly a laughingstock.
Cheng Luanluan's lips curved into an arc. "Auntie Fugui and your man are truly alike, both like to ask where I'm going. What business is it of yours where I go?"
Auntie Fugui's eyebrows immediately shot up. "What do you mean by that?!"
Cheng Luanluan snorted coldly. "Auntie Fugui, you certainly have a lot of energy to stare at other people's affairs. Why don't you pay more attention to your own man instead?"
Just a few words made Auntie Fugui almost explode.
She wished she could jump off the cart immediately, run home, and ask her man if he was having an affair with Cheng Luanluan.
Looking at Cheng Luanluan's calm expression, it didn't seem like she was having a secret affair... So it must be her man who was entangled with this widow Cheng Luanluan!
Auntie Fugui was so angry her chest hurt, but she didn't want to lose face in front of so many people, so she could only say coldly, "We all live in the same village, I just casually asked where you were going. My good intentions are being taken as malicious..."
Cheng Luanluan closed her eyes to rest.
As the saying goes, a widow's door attracts much gossip and trouble. After the original owner became a widow and moved out to live alone, quite a few men in the village came to bother her.
Fortunately, the original owner was a strong person; those who came were all scolded away by her. But only this Zhao Fugui kept pestering her, occasionally touching her, which made the original owner extremely uncomfortable.
She said this because she hoped Madam Fu Gui could strictly control her husband; otherwise, she was afraid she wouldn't be able to control herself and smash a brick into the back of that Zhao Fu Gui's head.