Chapter 310: Unique and Irreplaceable

Chapter 310: Chapter 310: Unique and Irreplaceable

Knowing Jiang Moli loved oranges, Ma Hongmei specially cut a plateful, even peeling them, and brought it over to her.

"Moli, have some oranges."

"Alright! The oranges Auntie cuts are the sweetest!"

Seeing her eat so happily, Ma Hongmei smiled, deeply satisfied and relieved.

Although Lu Tingting was inwardly impressed by Jiang Moli’s methods, she couldn’t stand how the whole family doted on her. She reached for a slice of orange herself and started bickering with Jiang Moli as she ate.

"Grandpa and Grandma aren’t dead yet, and you’re already eyeing their assets. Have you no shame?"

Jiang Moli replied while eating her orange, "See, that’s where you’re wrong. Eyeing it now means it’s ’family property.’ After they’re gone, it’s called an ’inheritance.’ I can’t wish for them to die sooner just for the money, can I?"

Lu Tingting was stunned.

’That’s so logical, I can’t even refute it.’

Lu Deyao and An Hui silently glanced at Jiang Moli. ’You’re surprisingly filial, aren’t you?’

...

After washing up, they returned to their room.

Jiang Moli took a one-yuan bill from her wallet and handed it to Lu Tingting.

Instead of taking it, Lu Tingting defensively put her hands behind her back as if the money were a hot potato.

"Why are you giving me money?"

"From now on, I’ll give you one yuan a day. In the morning, you push your great-grandmother to the park. If she wants to hang out with the old folks doing their morning exercises, just let her be. You can go find a place to eat breakfast, and then bring her back after you’re done."

"What if it rains?"

"There’s no rain in the forecast for the next few days."

Lu Tingting did the math. Breakfast would only cost thirty cents, which meant she could pocket the remaining seventy.

’Not a bad deal!’

Seeing her take the money, Jiang Moli pinched her soft, squishy cheek. "Good girl. Go to sleep now. Get up early tomorrow. I’ve already set the alarm for you."

Lu Tingting rubbed her cheek, tucked the money into her wallet, and gleefully stripped down to her underclothes before climbing into bed.

Just as she closed her eyes, she heard Jiang Moli say from beside her, "You go turn off the light."

She opened her eyes. "Why should I? Why don’t you turn it off?"

Jiang Moli smiled at her. "The room is darkest when you turn off the light."

Under the orange glow of the lamp, the woman’s skin was like porcelain, her features as delicate as a painting. Her smiling face was exceptionally bewitching.

Lu Tingting dazedly got out of bed and turned off the light. It was only after she had climbed back into the warm covers that it hit her.

’That damn woman, all she does is order me around!’

The room was dark, the quilt was warm, and the blanket was soft, but Lu Tingting couldn’t fall asleep.

"Hey, are you asleep?"

"If you can’t sleep, go count sheep."

"Why sheep? Can’t I count rabbits?"

"If you say another word, I’ll stuff your stinky socks in your mouth."

"My feet don’t stink, so my socks don’t stink either!"

After saying her piece, Lu Tingting waited a moment. Seeing that Jiang Moli wasn’t responding, she couldn’t help but voice the question on her mind.

"Aren’t you afraid that people will gossip behind your back and call you unfilial for treating Great-Grandma like this?"

Jiang Moli’s voice was a sleepy murmur. "I don’t mind being disliked. The craving to be liked is a weakness, and I don’t have that weakness."

"People badmouth you because they can’t get any benefit from you. And other people’s approval often comes at the cost of your own interests..."

Her voice trailed off, growing fainter. She had obviously fallen asleep.

Lu Tingting didn’t say anything else to disturb her, instead quietly pondering the words she had just heard.

Before, she never understood why her third uncle, such an excellent man, would fall for a lazy, good-for-nothing woman like Jiang Moli.

But now, she thought she was beginning to understand.

Some people were one-of-a-kind, completely irreplaceable.

...

The next day, Jiang Moli was woken by a loud BANG, BANG, BANG sound.

She opened her eyes to see it was still dark. Turning on the table lamp, she grabbed the alarm clock from the nightstand. It was only 5 a.m.

She kicked Lu Tingting, who was dead to the world.

Lu Tingting mumbled, rolled over, and continued snoring.

Jiang Moli put on a jacket and opened the door to find Zhu Huanghua standing at the entrance to An Hui and Lu Deyao’s room, banging on their door with her cane.

"You lazy hag, get up and make breakfast! Are you trying to starve me to death?!"

Fighting her morning grogginess, Jiang Moli walked over, snatched the cane from Zhu Huanghua’s hand, and tossed it aside.

"Grandma, are you in a rush to get reincarnated this early in the morning?"

Zhu Huanghua glared at her, panting with rage.

The commotion woke up Ma Hongmei, An Hui, and Lu Deyao.

Ma Hongmei offered to cook some noodles for Zhu Huanghua, but the old woman insisted on having steamed buns, so Lu Deyao had to go out and buy them.

By the time they had served Zhu Huanghua and she had finished her breakfast, it was six o’clock.

Jiang Moli yanked Lu Tingting out of bed and had her push Zhu Huanghua to the park for a stroll.

Lu Tingting was clearly unhappy about it, but for the sake of the money, she pushed Zhu Huanghua out the door.

Only then did the rest of the family understand Jiang Moli’s purpose in having the granddaughter come stay. They couldn’t help but secretly praise Jiang Moli for her foresight.

With the granddaughter helping out, everyone could relax a little.

But the granddaughter was a lazybones herself; it was a real surprise that she was willing to listen to Jiang Moli.

Jiang Moli let out a long yawn. "Mom, Dad, Auntie, it’s still early. You all go back to sleep."

"Ah, okay."

After watching Jiang Moli return to her room, An Hui, Lu Deyao, and Ma Hongmei also went back to their own rooms to rest.

...

Following Jiang Moli’s instructions, Lu Tingting pushed Zhu Huanghua to the park and left her with a group of old men and women doing their morning exercises. She then found a breakfast stall for herself, ordered soy milk, fried dough sticks, and a fried sticky rice cake, and sat down to eat with relish.

The steaming soy milk was fragrant and sweet. A bowl of it on a cold morning was pure bliss.

The soy milk was five cents, while the dough stick and fried sticky rice cake were ten cents each, for a total of twenty-five cents. She could pocket seventy-five cents.

Seventy-five cents a day meant seven-fifty in ten days, and twenty-two fifty a month!

’Isn’t this way better than having a job?’

Meanwhile, in the park.

Zhu Huanghua was passionately recounting her woes to the new acquaintances she had made, spittle flying. "My life is so bitter! I worked my fingers to the bone to raise my youngest son, and that son of a bitch forgot his own mother after getting married! He lets his wife and daughter-in-law bully an old woman like me."

"They don’t give me food, they scald me with boiling water, they even hit me! Oh, what a wretched life I lead..."

As Zhu Huanghua told her story, the faces of the old men and women filled with indignation.

These young people were too vicious, abusing an old woman like this. They were utterly heartless!

[Disdain Value +8. 80,000 yuan credited.]

After the old men and women went home, they retold Zhu Huanghua’s "pitiful story" to their families and neighbors.

In a single morning, Jiang Moli earned over thirty points of Disdain Value.

Jiang Moli thought to herself: ’This isn’t a malicious grandma; she’s my god-sent workhorse~’

...

For lunch, Ma Hongmei stewed a whole chicken and separately used a piece of skin-on chicken breast, minced, to make porridge for Zhu Huanghua.

Having learned her lesson from the day before, Zhu Huanghua didn’t find fault this time and ate the entire large bowl of chicken porridge.

Zhu Huanghua had a habit of taking an afternoon nap, so she returned to her room right after eating.

After lunch, Jiang Moli went out for a while. When she came back, she brought four or five workers with her.

The workers immediately began to dig up the vegetable garden. After clearing it, they tamped the ground solid and paved it with stone slabs.

Neighbors from both sides came over to see what was going on.

"Sister Hui, this vegetable patch was so nice! The vegetables you grew every year were so fresh and crisp. Why did you have it dug up?"

An Hui was a dab hand at gardening. She grew more vegetables than her family could eat each year and shared plenty with the neighbors.

Everyone was quite sad to see the garden being destroyed.

They wouldn’t be getting any more free vegetables.

An Hui explained to them one by one, "My third son’s wife wants to build a courtyard, put in a ping-pong table, install a basketball hoop, and plant some flowers. The kids can come over to play."

An Hui had always treasured her vegetable garden. If it had been anyone else, she definitely wouldn’t have agreed.

But since it was Jiang Moli who suggested it, she agreed without a second thought.