Old Mrs. Song is reborn; get out of here, you scumbag husband and illegitimate child!

Xiao Xiang rubbed Yao Hong's face with her little hand. "Mommy, don't cry, we won't go anymore."

"Good girl." Yao Hong stood up. "Go wash your hands, Mom will make you something delicious."

While Yao Hong was washing vegetables.

Xiao Xiang huddled by the stove. "Mom, Grandma Song came to our house. She bought us lots of food and changed the locks. She also bought us new clothes. My sister said she can wear her new clothes when she goes to school."

Xiaoyu was helping to change the coal briquettes when she asked, "Mom, is Grandma Song a relative of ours?"

Yao Hong stopped washing the vegetables.

"Yes. She's family to us." Yao Hong turned to look at her two daughters. "She's a great benefactor to her mother. When you grow up, you must be capable women like Grandma Song."

Xiao Xiang and Xiao Yu couldn't understand what a capable woman was.

Just be like Grandma Song.

They felt that their mothers today were different from those of the past.

My mother used to wear heavy makeup, smelled fragrant, and always had a worried look in her eyes. Today, she wears the most ordinary clothes, but looks more energetic than ever before.

Yao Hong quickly started the fire.

A pot of rice and vegetables was simmering on the stove.

I chopped some pork, stir-fried some celery and pork strips, and steamed three eggs to make a bowl of scallion and egg custard.

The food was served.

The two girls wolfed down their food.

Yao Hong didn't eat much herself, but kept putting meat into their bowls. Her eyes were full of maternal love; seeing her daughters eat so well was more satisfying than anything else.

We've eaten.

Yao Hong divided the peach shortbread, cake, and fruit candy she bought into several small portions.

"Xiaoyu, take your sister to give these to the neighbors. Also, give a few extra cakes to Aunt Hua," Yao Hong instructed.

"Okay!" The two children picked up the bags and ran out.

Yao Hong stayed inside to clean up the dishes.

She had just wiped the table clean when she heard footsteps outside the door.

Grandma Wu from across the hall and Grandma 88 from next door lifted the curtain and came in.

"Please sit down, both of you grandmas." Yao Hong moved two stools over.

Grandma Wu waved her hand and did not sit down.

She glanced out the door and, seeing that the two children weren't there, turned to Yao Hong. "Hong, you've been working outside and haven't come back lately. There's something I need to tell you."

"Grandma Wu, please say so." Yao Hong went to get more sponge cakes and shared them with them.

The elderly love to eat soft and fluffy sponge cake.

"That scoundrel is always loitering around your door." Grandma Wu ate a piece of sponge cake, her eyes narrowing with delight. "Luckily, a young woman surnamed Song saw him and used the excuse that the scoundrel likes old women to kick him out of your house."

We old fogies knew exactly what was going on, and we all used the excuse that the beast stole our underwear.

Our shantytown is full of laborers and hoodlums. Your family doesn't have a man to support them, so even now, let alone when Xiaoxiang and Xiaoyu grow up, it's difficult for them to be safe and undisturbed…”

Yao Hong gritted her teeth in anger, "Grandma, thank you."

Grandma 88 sat on a stool, leaning on her cane; only two of her front teeth remained.

He spoke with a slight lisp, "We two old bones have eaten more salt than you've eaten rice. There are some things I have to say, even if you don't like hearing them, for the sake of our two children."

Yao Hong sensed a hidden meaning in his words.

"Grandma, just tell me. I know you love the three of us."

Grandma 88's cloudy eyes swept across the room. "It's not easy for you to raise two girls in the shantytown. It's only natural that you want to find a man to rely on."

Hu Xiaofeng usually helps your family carry water and do other physical labor. On the surface, he seems like a kind and honest person, right?

Upon hearing this name...

Yao Hong's heart skipped a beat.

Hu Xiaofeng was a porter who carried heavy loads at the docks. His wife had been dead for several years.

He often comes to help Yao Hong's family with some heavy work.

Yao Hong had also considered it, thinking that this person was honest and reliable, and that living together might be a way out.

Before she could make a decision, Gu Qingping called her to deceive Fu Qingnian.

"What's wrong with him?" Yao Hong frowned.

"It's easy to draw a dragon or a tiger, but hard to draw their bones." Grandma Wu said angrily, "The day before yesterday evening, Xiaoyu was washing her hair in the yard. I happened to come out to get some water and saw Hu Xiaofeng standing by the wall. His eyes were staring straight at Xiaoyu."

Yao Hong's head buzzed.

My scalp exploded instantly.

"That's definitely not the look an elder gives a younger person." Grandma 88 gripped her cane tightly, the veins on the back of her hand bulging. "Just be wary of scoundrels like Er Laizi who are openly thugs."

But when Hu Xiaofeng, who usually showed kindness, actually harbored evil intentions, he closed the door, and the two girls didn't even dare to cry for help.

Yao Hong stood still.

Cold sweat poured down my back.

Grandma 88 patted Yao Hong's arm.

"Don't get involved with men of dubious character just to find someone to rely on. In the end, you'll ruin your two daughters, and it will be too late for regrets."

Grandma Wu said again:

"We're all women, and there are many things we can't say in public, let alone let those stinky men hear us. Not to mention young girls these days, even I, at my age, suffered a lot of injustice when I was young."

"When I was a teenager, there were times when the uncle next door would touch my hand and say some nonsense."

Grandma Wu still reopened old wounds from her childhood.

"We were too young to shout, let alone tell our families a single word. In those days, a girl's chastity was more precious than her life."

If someone touches you, no one will blame the old bastard; they'll just point fingers and curse you for being indecent. You have to swallow this grievance and never dare tell anyone for the rest of your life.

Grandma 88 was lost in distant memories.

The old woman's withered hands rubbed against her cane.

"I told my parents back then." The 88-year-old grandmother's eyes drooped, revealing a hint of desolation. "As a result, my parents pointed their fingers at me and scolded me."

They said I'm just a little brat who doesn't learn good things, and who taught me to talk such nonsense.

They even said that the old man next door was such a kind person, respected by everyone in the neighborhood, so why would he come and bully me, a nobody? My dad also said that my mom didn't know how to raise her daughter and had taught me to go astray.

My mom didn't dare to argue with my dad, so she bombarded me with all sorts of hurtful things.

Later, I accepted ten catties of dried sweet potatoes as payment and married off to a boat family. The man had no land and would spend his entire life on the boat. After the marriage, we fled to Haishi and settled in a shantytown. I never went back.

Grandma 88 murmured:

"I often think of the sweet fragrance of the locust blossoms at the village entrance. Occasionally, I dream of them telling me not to come back."

Yao Hong felt a lump in her throat upon hearing this.

My eyes welled up with tears.

"Grandma, thank you for protecting Xiaoxiang and Xiaoyu." Yao Hong thanked the two elderly women repeatedly. "If you hadn't reminded me, I, as their mother, would still be in the dark."

Grandma Wu waved her hand.

"You may seem frivolous on the surface, but deep down you're a protective and loving mother. If it were that Zhao family's daughter-in-law from the west end, we two old folks wouldn't listen to a word we said."

Grandma 88 looked at her with disdain.

"That woman is a clueless bastard, her mind is full of her drunken man, she doesn't treat her daughter like a human being at all."

They've all gone mad trying to evade the one-child policy.

She sent away three girls in a row, all to fulfill her husband's grand plan to have a son.

"Look at those boat people. Once they're ashore, they just give away their newborn girls; they won't be satisfied until they have a son."

Yao Hong really couldn't understand it.

Why should people look down on their own gender?

She herself is a woman, and she cherishes her two daughters especially.

Yao Hong felt that growing up in this world was more difficult and harder for girls than for boys.

She swallowed her pride and became shameless, putting on an act in public just to provide a safe haven for her daughter.

"That daughter-in-law of the Zhao family has lost her mind," Grandma 88 continued, "Isn't her eldest daughter thirteen years old?"

To this day, he doesn't even recognize his own name.

They sent their eldest daughter to work as a laborer on a construction site, where she worked herself to the bone and earned less than a third of what other laborers made.

"My father took all the money, and now I still have to do all the housework for the whole family. Whenever the men of the Zhao family drink, they curse their wives as useless good-for-nothings who can't bear sons, then turn around and beat the eldest daughter with a broom handle."

A scene flashed through Yao Hong's mind.

"I went to get some water a few days ago and saw Zhao Damei getting quite close to that bricklayer from the north." Yao Hong felt something was off. "Zhao Damei secretly slipped half a sugar bun to the bricklayer, and the two of them were chatting and laughing."

Grandma Wu pursed her lips.

"She's probably in a puppy love relationship. This girl gets no respect at home, but any man outside who says a few nice words to her will follow her wholeheartedly."

That bricklayer has a shifty look on his face; he's definitely not a peaceful person, and he'll get into trouble sooner or later.