Make a Fortune and Become Well-off [90] - Chapter 25

The best way to describe stinky tofu was that it smelled bad, well, stinky. Jiang Ning couldn’t appreciate it anyway.

None of her family members could cook what she loved to eat, so she had to make her own food and clothing.

Thinking about it, she, her father, and her two brothers were all so good at cooking, maybe because they were inspired by Grandpa Jiang and Mother Jiang’s cooking skills.

Although Mother Jiang wasn’t particularly skilled at cooking and had almost no free time all year round, she could always find something to make. Pickled radish, pickled vegetables, pickled beans—others might make them, but she wasn’t left behind. Their kitchen was filled with jars arranged in rows.

She was reluctant to throw anything away. She washed all the cans and bottles they had finished, as well as the hanging bottles for water, and placed them on the counter on the kitchen wall. They could be used as hot water bottles in winter.

Jiang Ning found two empty jars, washed them, and scalded them with boiling water, then placed them in a hot pot and rolled them around. She added the washed long cowpeas, ginger slices, garlic, millet, etc., marinating them in one of the jars. Pressing them tightly with two washed pebbles, she poured in the white wine that Father Jiang occasionally drank.

When Mother Jiang left, she carried up two buckets. Upon her return, she carried up two more buckets, filled with eggs, dried bamboo shoots, rice noodles, and other items given to her by her siblings. Observing the fish being pickled upon her return, she was in a good mood after returning to her parents’ home. After setting down the things in her hands, she walked up to Jiang Ning and reached out to touch her hair, but Jiang Ning avoided her touch.

Mother Jiang sighed and said, “Hey, don’t blame me for hitting you. I was very angry with you. You are the flesh that fell off my body. How could I be willing to really hit you?”

She said, “You blame me for not caring for you, but look at the whole village and see which girl is like you. You studied and graduated from junior high school. I did not ask you to do any heavy work except cooking and sweeping. It’s your brother and the others who do the work of carrying water and carrying heavy things. Look at the other girls in the village, they cut hay, herd cattle, harvest rice, plant rice, and carry heavy things since they were young.”

Jiang Ning raised her face to look at Mother Jiang, hoisted the pickled fish and hung it under the eaves, “Just tell me what you want.”

Mother Jiang sighed again, saying, “Now your eldest brother is going to repeat the year, your second brother is going to be a senior in high school soon, and two of our family members will go to college next year.”

Jiang Ning sighed inwardly, thinking, “Sorry, there will be only one. “

“Your father and I really can’t afford to support the three of you in education. Even if you drain our flesh and blood, I can’t afford to support the three of you.”

As she spoke, Mother Jiang sobbed and cried.

Jiang Ning watched Mother Jiang cry for a while, then smiled and said, “Grandpa said that he will provide for me.”

In Mother Jiang’s eyes, they provide for Grandpa Jiang, so his money was her money. What was the difference between using Grandpa Jiang’s money and using her money?

She cried and said, “Can’t you be more sensible? I don’t expect you to feel sorry for me. But your eldest brother is already nineteen. He will be twenty after repeating his studies for one year. People in rural areas get married early and start a family at the age of twenty. If he delays any more, then it will delay his whole life.” She said to Jiang Ning with red eyes and angrily, “I beg you, go out to work for a year, and come back to finish your studies after a year, you will be only sixteen years old then, it’s all in time.”

Seeing that Jiang Ning didn’t speak, Mother Jiang cried more sadly, “Why are you so disobedient now? How well-behaved and obedient you were before.”

Jiang Ning said, “If I was so good and obedient, then why have I been beaten by you since childhood?”

Mother Jiang angrily stretched out her finger and poked Jiang Ning’s forehead hard. “You just remember that I beat you. Didn’t you see me hitting your two brothers when they made me angry?”

She poked with anger, and Jiang Ning’s head fell to the side like a rubber ball, then bounced back.

Jiang Ning touched her painful forehead and smiled again, saying, “Really? I really don’t remember that you have ever hit my eldest brother.”

Her second brother had been beaten and howled for a whole day. Anyone who dared to hit him later would have to consider whether they could bear his continuous crying. He would cry wherever he went. He was the kind of person who usually looked silent, but whoever dared to bully him would be secretly killed by him.

Mother Jiang’s eyes turned red and she cried, “You are still blaming me, blame me for being useless, blame me for being poor, for bringing you into a family like ours, but Ning Ning, this is life.”

“What can I do if my fate is bad? I have suffered like this. Who made you not born as a boy? If you were a boy, I would have asked you to study and take the college entrance examination. I would have boiled my bones dry. I have given you all these books for you to read, but you are a girl. What is the use of girls reading so many books?”

What was she saying?

Was she aware of her words?

Jiang Ning’s face crumbled.. “You mean, if I were a boy, you would have let me study, but because I am a girl, you won’t let me? The reason why you let me study is not because you can’t afford it, but because of my gender. Because I’m not a boy?!”

How ridiculous the words were to her ears.

“Is being born as a girl wrong?” Jiang Ning couldn’t help but ask Mother Jiang, “Mom, you are also a woman. Do you mean to say that because you have suffered, I must endure the same hardships you experienced? You say it’s useless for girls to study. If studying is truly useless, then why not let my eldest and second brothers drop out of school and stay home? Why push so hard for them to study and have my eldest brother repeat a grade? Have you ever considered these contradictions?”

Mother Jiang was stunned for a moment. She had never pondered this issue before.

She had been raised with a certain set of beliefs since childhood, following the example of the women around her. It was simply the way things were done. She never questioned whether it was right or wrong; it was just how life was. And with the daily struggles she faced, she had little energy left for philosophical reflection.

After a brief pause, Mother Jiang responded, “Isn’t this how women have always lived? To suffer in this world, isn’t it?” She glared angrily at Jiang Ning, saying,”Who told you that life is supposed to be easy? You were born a girl.”

Life had been tough for Mother Jiang. She recalled her own childhood spent cutting firewood in the mountains, tending to cattle, raising children, and enduring endless toil.

But times were different for Jiang Ning’s generation. Life had become somewhat easier, at least they weren’t going hungry anymore.

Id-nim note:

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