Chapter 102:

"Axiang, stay with me for one night. I can't rest assured when you go back at this hour." Dahua said affectionately, holding Yuan Xianger's arm all the way.
Dahua is the eldest sister of the family. Her parents are busy with business and have no time to control. Since childhood, she brought her younger siblings and Yuan Xianger and the children to play in the mountains and rivers. Energetic, with a healthy glow.
She was originally a lively and sharp temper, but she had to be restrained when she married into a family with such a large population and became a new wife.
"Is it convenient?" Yuan Xianger asked. She had planned to stay in the inn for a day or two.
"It's very convenient. There is an empty room next door to me. My mother had just cleaned it up when she came a few days ago and let her live. Besides, my husband lives in the study and hardly comes to me. Don't worry."
She soon discovered that she had missed her mouth, showing a shyness in front of her friends, a little embarrassed, and shaking Yuan Xianger’s arm with her hand.
"Okay? Okay? Since I got married here, I really want you to be tight."
Yuan Xianger accepted her warm invitation.
Since he stayed as a guest, he should pay a visit to the mistress of the family. Yuan Xianger followed Da Hua through the front hall to the wing where her mother-in-law lived.
This house was originally a courtyard with three entrances. The vermilion paint on the beams and eave pillars had already peeled off, but from the auspicious patterns on the cloud piers, it can still be seen that the ancestors of the owner of this house had it before. A period of glory and wealth.
Nowadays, the house is crowded with too many children and grandchildren who can't live in, and the large and small courtyards are separated by separate covers. Even the downside house that was supposed to be the servants now lives in a family.
There were a lot of people living there, each cooking by burning fires, draining the dirt, making the pavement on the corridors thick with mud, and the painted walls were smoked black and yellow. The shabby housewife and naked children walked in and out of the doorsteps of each house, revealing a depression of a large population but unable to maintain the ancestral foundation.
The patio in the backyard is very small, and only a small piece of sky can be seen. The house in the east is divided into three rooms, which are the residences of Granny Dahua and Sister-in-law.
In a dim corner of the house, sitting a thin and serious middle-aged woman, she looked at Yuan Xiang'er's clothes, jewelry, and the gift of pork in her hand several times with a scrutinizing gaze. ,
"Since the guests are here, please treat them well. You don't have to come and wait for dinner."
There is no servant in this house, and all the trivial matters are handled by two daughters-in-law. But because the youngest son was admitted to the scholarship, the mother-in-law felt that she could put her official wife in advance. The girl from the butcher’s family who was married because of economic constraints, now looks unpleasant in every way.
After Yuan Xiang'er stepped out, he just heard the voice of Dahua's unmarried sister-in-law from the house, "My mother is really true, my second brother is so capable, and sooner or later I will be a master, even if I get older, there is no need Marry him a daughter of a butcher's family. You see, the relatives who come here to fight the autumn wind are coming one after another now."
Dahua flushed her face and awkwardly pulled Yuan Xianger away.
"Although the mother-in-law and sister-in-law are a little serious, they are still okay with me. They never... never beat and scold me." She added something to herself.
The house where Da Hua lived was isolated from the ear door. Da Hua pulled Yuan Xiang'er into the house and closed the door, only to breathe a sigh of relief. She invited Yuan Xiang'er to sit at the tea table by the window, opened the cabinet and took out all kinds of peach blossoms, almond cookies, and made a pot of fragrant jasmine tea.
"Hurry up and try it. My mother came to see me and secretly stuffed it to me last time. I have been hiding it all the time, and I didn't want to take it out."
"Your little treasury is well hidden, and the treats for guests are much better than your mother-in-law's." Yuan Xianger sat face to face with her, "How is it, how is your husband treating you well?"
There was a bit of silence on Dahua’s round face, "The husband is naturally good, but now the whole family points to him to get the fame, and the mother-in-law asks him to study hard every day and stay in the study at night. I don’t want to relax. I don’t like him. Come into my house. We can't say a word for many days."
"What's more, my husband is a scholar, and it is impossible to like a lady like me." Dahua sighed, "Axiang, if I can read and read like you, it would be nice. This way, maybe I can talk to my husband. Sentence."
Yuan Xianger looked at her young playmate, who was as old as her teens, but she had already picked up the woman’s hair, faded from her innocence, and began to live in such a small world with care and care for her whole life. .
This is really an era that is very unfriendly to women. Yuan Xianger depressedly picked up the peach blossom cake on the table.
Suddenly she found two little people who were not finger-height standing on the table, working together to lift a piece of peach blossom pastry, and tiptoe to the window.
Halfway through, the villain's eyes met Yuan Xiang'er's surprised eyes.
The villain hesitated for a moment, as if they didn't expect to be seen, they hurriedly threw the piece of cake, and fluttered their sleeves and slipped out of the window sill. But soon he grabbed the edge of the window, exposing two small heads, and looked at Yuan Xianger curiously.
"Axiang, what do you think?" Dahua's voice came.
"What? What did you just say?" Yuan Xiang'er came back to her senses and didn't hear what Dahua had just said.
"I'm talking about Chen Xiong, that is, Tie Niu. Don't you know what Tie Niu thinks about you? After so many years, you can give me a word."
Yuan Xiang'er was stunned. She has been running around this year. She hasn't received much of the shy affection of a boy from her childhood childhood, and she will probably be disappointed immediately.
"You're not young anymore, you should consider it. Tie Niu is handsome, he is also practical, and he is still working in the yamen. There is nothing more suitable than him."
Dahua spoke vigorously. The little white milk dog squatting on Yuan Xiang'er's knee suddenly turned his head and barked at her. The voice was low and heavy, not like a dog barking, but a bit like a wild animal in the wilderness. , Da Hua shivered with fright.
Yuan Xianger smiled and lifted the dog back, stretched out his hand to pinch his tail, until he pinched him softly, and lay down on his lap again.
"I don't like Chen Xiong, I have a sweetheart." Yuan Xianger said as she touched Nan He's hair. After this sentence, she felt that Xiao Nan under her hand had been smoothed, and she hit her leg comfortably. .
"Auntie, can I come in?" A childish voice sounded outside the door.
Da Hua opened the door and led in a five or six-year-old girl.
"This is my niece, the girl from the uncle's house, and her name is Dong'er." Dahua lifted her niece to the chair and shared her food without hesitation. "Dong'er came just right, auntie has delicious food here."
The little girl wanted to come because she came a lot on weekdays, she was very familiar with the big flower, and took the pancake handed to her with both hands.
She has a pair of dark round eyes, looking at Yuan Xiang'er, and inadvertently said: "Sister, your dog is so big and beautiful."
Yuan Xiang'er was very surprised. This was the first time she met an ordinary person who could see the monster itself. She couldn't help but remind her of her childhood when she could see demons. At that time, Yuanjia Village seemed to be very similar to this place. There were little fairies living in the crowd everywhere.
Fortunately, Dahua, who was very nervous, did not find any holes in the little girl's tone.
Yuan Xiang'er was sipping tea and saw the little girl Dong'er, breaking a piece of peach blossom cake in half before anyone else, and quietly handed it to the little fairy who was pulling on the window sill.
The two little fairies happily held half of the pie above their heads and ran away quickly. After a while, two small hands on the windowsill were raised again, and two wild flowers that are common in summer were placed on the window edge.
When Dahua went to prepare dinner, Yuan Xianger asked Dong'er, "Dong'er, can you see it, right?"
The little girl watched her on guard while she was eating snacks, without speaking.
"My sister is the same as you. I can see them since I was a child." She raised one of Nan He's paw, "This is Nan He, my sister and my good friend."
The little girl lowered her eyebrows and gave a soft humble.
"Then tell my sister, is there anything strange happening in Lianghe Town recently?"
"Yes, demons... more. The river is gone."
"The river is gone? What does the river mean?"
"It's gone, no more, I can't see it anymore." The five-year-old said as best he could.
Before dinner, Dahua's sister-in-law came to pick up Donger. Although this sister-in-law dresses plainly, she observes etiquette in her words and deeds, and her actions reveal the gentleness and grace of a woman.
"Trouble my younger siblings again, Dong'er likes you the most. I heard that there are guests coming, but I never thought it was such a beautiful younger sister."
She took out a small purse with delicate hand embroidery from her arms and handed it to Yuan Xiang'er. "Dahua often mentions her sister. When meeting for the first time, she can't give it a little gift, so let's not wonder."
Yuan Xianger repeatedly claimed that thanks for taking it over, the purse was embroidered very well, embroidered with a koi, the tail fin is swaying and vivid, strangely looking at the light, the fish seems to have a pair of wings on the back, rubbing the eyes but unable to see clearly .
At night, Yuan Xianger slept in the guest room. Dahua waited for her mother-in-law to go to bed with the footwashing water, and sent supper to her husband's study room. After busying with various housework, she got into Yuan Xianger's bed.
"It's great, Axiang, thank you for coming to see me. I don't know how long I haven't slept with my sisters like this." She held Yuan Xiang'er's neck with her hands and coquettishly.
This was obviously a child who had never grown up. Yuan Xianger screamed at her, and the two laughed in the bed for a while.
"Where's your dog, do you want to bring it into the house? Seeing you are rare, hold it all the way." Dahua asked.
"No, no, he is probably on the roof."
Da Hua looked at the roof in the dark night,
"Axiang, when I got married, my mother cried and turned into tears. I didn't understand at that time. I didn't know why my mother was crying until I got married. My mother was reluctant to go to someone else's house to endure hardship."
Even her marriage is a rare good marriage in the eyes of many girls. After marrying someone, who doesn’t need to take care of in-laws and do housework, from morning till night.
"It's not easy to be someone else's daughter-in-law," Dahua sighed in the dark night: "I really want to go back to getting married and stay with my parents forever to be a daughter."
Yuan Xianger: "All the girls in this world are living too hard."
"Axiang, I really envy you, do you know that all of our girls envy you. I can read, read, and look around. Even...you can choose the person you like." Dahua hid in the quilt, A pair of eyes are shining, with the memories of her dreams, "You said that in a long time, will there be a day when all the girls can be like you."
"Yes, I promise you that girls will always be treated fairly like men. This will not be too long, maybe one or two thousand years will be enough."
"One or two thousand years is not long, Axiang, you are so bad."
There is a small skylight on the roof, covered with a bright tile, and a faint starlight penetrates into the dark world of the house.
In the dead of night,
There were a few rude curses from men, and the crackling sound of broken dishes.
Yuan Xiang'er opened his eyes,
"It's uncle, my husband's elder brother is back." Dahua said softly in the darkness, "He likes to drink some wine, and he is always like this when he comes back. Pity my sister-in-law, such a gentle person."
In the dark night, fists and insults kept ringing, but no words from the victim were heard, as if it were just a ridiculous one-man show in the night.
This is why Dahua feels that she is still happy, because her husband never beat her. In this world, men are given excessive powers, so that as long as they do not exercise such atrocities, they will be considered a good husband and good marriage.
There was a soft and inaudible sound of walking on the roof tiles.
Then there was a loud bang.
"Oh, the falling iron from the sky smashed Ah Da's roof."