Volume One, Chapter Ten: A Family Meal Met with Resistance

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Tang Wanwan: “------”
Twelve years old now, not exactly a child anymore!
In ancient times, she could already be discussing marriage!
But the little girl was undernourished—tall and lanky but with barely an ounce of flesh on her bones, dry and sallow-skinned.
Her entire body was thin and frail, except for a pair of large, bright eyes that were exceptionally lively and beautiful.
Hmm—
Those eyes resembled hers quite a bit.
Tang Wanwan thought to herself with a touch of vanity.
“Never mind,” Tang Wanwan mumbled, retracting the bamboo dragonfly.
“Who said never mind!”
The little girl pouted, snatched the bamboo dragonfly from Tang Wanwan’s hand, carefully put it away, and smiled faintly at the corner of her mouth.
Clearly, she liked it very much.
Tang Wanwan noticed this and exclaimed that her own little sister was clearly someone who said one thing but meant another.
Over the course of an hour, Tang Wanwan wove five fish traps—some oval-shaped, others elongated.
She planned to put the elongated ones in shallow water to catch small fish and shrimp; then she’d stir-fry them with oil, scallions, shrimp paste, and fish sauce, and eat them with cornmeal porridge—a perfect complement to the meal.
She still had plenty of soaked bamboo splints left, so she decided to weave some vegetable baskets and small backpacks.
The family’s backpacks were too large; when fully loaded, they became too heavy for her small frame to carry.
The remaining splints were short and thin.
Following the principle of not wasting, Tang Wanwan recalled small items she had seen at handicraft markets in her previous life and wove some flip-top backpacks, various small animal figures, and little decorative trinkets like stars, moons, and flowers to hang around the room.
The flip-top backpacks only needed some thick twine to bind and assemble later, and they would be ready to use.
They could serve as small shoulder bags for carrying trinkets when going out, quite novel in appearance.
If she could find some floral fabric to make linings, they would be even more practical!
Tang Jing returned the bamboo dragonfly to the house and came back to find an assortment of these new, curious creations at Tang Wanwan’s feet.
Her eyes lit up instantly.
She called out excitedly, “Father, mother! Come quickly and see! Sister’s woven things are really beautiful!”
Tang’s father and mother had just finished their afternoon nap. Hearing the little girl’s loud call, they were startled, rushing out of the house without even putting on their shoes.
He hadn’t caught what the little girl was shouting but thought the second daughter might have run off again!
Stepping outside, he saw the second daughter was still safely in the yard, hadn’t run away.
He breathed a sigh of relief.
Then, seeing half the small yard filled with woven items, he gaped in astonishment.
“What’s going on here??”

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“Wanwan, second daughter? Did you weave all these??”
Tang’s father stared incredulously at the half-finished bamboo rabbit in her hands.
Good heavens!
Hadn’t his second daughter been a pampered young lady for twenty years?
How could she suddenly know such rough village crafts?
Tang Wanwan smiled but said nothing, finishing the last little rabbit and putting it aside before standing up.
“Father, after dinner, shall we go out for a bit?”
“Ah! Good, good, good!”
Tang’s father repeated “good” several times, eyes moist with emotion.
That his second daughter was willing to do these things, regardless of how she had learned, showed she was truly settling down and ready to live a steady life.
With this thought, he bent over to examine each of Tang Wanwan’s woven creations.
The more he looked, the more amazed he became.
Her craftsmanship was even finer than his own, despite decades of basket weaving experience.
If these little items were sold outside, they could fetch a good price.
He had never known bamboo splints could be woven into little animals—it was quite an eye-opener!
For dinner, Tang Wanwan’s family gathered in the east courtyard.
Her eldest uncle’s family did not get along with Tang Wanwan, and she was too lazy to go help them.
So dinner was prepared only by eldest uncle’s wife and her mother, Wang Xiuying.
Tang Wanwan’s grandfather, Tang Tiezhu, and grandmother, Sun Guijuan, had three sons and one daughter.
The eldest aunt, Tang Daya, had long since married into a neighboring village, returning only during festivals or family ceremonies.
Since Tang Wanwan came back, she had only seen that eldest aunt once and barely remembered her appearance—only vaguely recalling that her features resembled the old lady Tang but unsure if her temperament was as unpleasant.
The younger uncle had been apprenticed early in life but had a crippled leg and couldn’t work the fields. He lived alone in a back room of the east courtyard and rarely appeared.
His wife gave birth to a daughter who was unloved. Unable to endure the hardships, she divorced the younger uncle a few years ago and remarried into the Liu butcher family at the west end of the village.
Since then, they had no contact with the Tang family.
Now, within Tang Tiezhu’s branch, only eldest uncle Tang Dali and Tang’s own family in the west courtyard remained.
There was also the solitary younger uncle Tang Laosan.
However, since his leg injury, the younger uncle no longer ate with the family.
Wang Xiuying would bring his meals to the back room.
At dinner, the families of the eldest and second uncles, along with Tang Wanwan’s grandparents, gathered around two low tables—more than a dozen people in total.
Among these families, eldest uncle’s had the most children. His wife was sharp-tongued and bitter but fertile.
They had three sons and one daughter altogether.

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Today, everyone was present except eldest uncle’s eldest cousin and the younger uncle in the back courtyard.
The room was crowded.
The men sat cross-legged on the kang stove, eating, while the women sat on small stools around the low tables.
The two tables had different dishes; the men’s table had larger portions and each person received a boiled egg.
As soon as Tang Wanwan entered, she was shot a sideways glance.
“Oh, the precious young lady has arrived—”
Eldest uncle’s wife spoke sourly, her tone mocking.
Eldest uncle’s second cousin and eldest cousin snorted coldly at Tang Wanwan and turned their faces away.
Even the ten-year-old little cousin let out a mocking shout, “Oh-ho, the kicked-out fake heiress is here—”
Eldest uncle Tang Dali played dumb and didn’t restrain his wife or children.
Wang Xiuying, setting the bowls and chopsticks, paused, glancing anxiously at her daughter’s darkening face.
The old Tang matriarch was a staunch male chauvinist.
Before Zhao Youcheng was taken away, Wang Xiuying had some say in the household—at least she had a son.
But ever since the scandal of the children being switched at birth came to light, the old lady had never shown Wang Xiuying a kind face.
Wang Xiuying felt sorry watching her daughter being insulted, but if she spoke up, the situation would escalate, making things worse for her daughter under Xu Lanzhi’s relentless torment.
She cautiously signaled her husband with her eyes: “You should say something, stand up for your own daughter!”
Tang’s father frowned at the mocking tone but hesitated—he was a man and didn’t want to argue with women in front of others; it wouldn’t sound good if word got out.
Before he could decide whether to speak, his second daughter laughed and said, “So eldest aunt thinks I’m precious too! Then why didn’t she stand up to greet me properly?”
“Smack!”
As soon as Tang Wanwan’s words fell, a sharp slap sounded.
Her biological grandmother, Sun Guijuan, scowled and slammed down her chopsticks heavily, scolding, “No respect for elders!!”
“That’s your eldest aunt! Does she know any manners?!”
Sun Guijuan came from a landowning family, steeped in old traditions.
At times she spoke with a lofty tone, projecting elegance and upholding rules, but in reality, she was cruel and unruly herself.
They had narrowly escaped persecution during the struggles, thanks to a wasteful father who had ruined the family fortune early on—leaving only the name of landlords while living worse than poor peasants.
“Second daughter, if you dare talk back to your eldest aunt again, don’t expect to have any more meals!”