Chapter 804 - 414: My Grandma Said She’s Had Enough

Chapter 804: Chapter 414: My Grandma Said She’s Had Enough

He laughed and said, "I boiled two large bowls. With some water and eggs added, everyone can have a bowl. The sweet wine is brewed perfectly this time; it’s very sweet. If I hadn’t added extra water, I wouldn’t have been able to eat it—it would be too cloying."

The matriarch of the Yang Family asked, "Could it be that you added too much distiller’s yeast?"

He shook her head and smiled happily. "No, you can’t add too much of that. The sticky rice was cooked perfectly this time, and the yeast was mixed in evenly. I put it in a large clay pot, covered it with a wooden board, and spread a cotton mattress over the board. When I opened it this morning, there was a layer of fluffy white fuzz. It smells and tastes so sweet."

Aunt Liu smiled and said, "It’s wonderful. When Pu Pao was scooping it out just now, the sweet fragrance filled the room. Just smelling it made my mouth water." As she spoke, she opened a gunny sack and shook out the green bamboo shoots inside, revealing another large pile.

Juhua clicked her tongue in amazement. "Aunt Liu, you and Mother gathered this many in just half an afternoon? I thought the ones on the ground were all of them."

He pushed the peeled shoot skins aside and said, "The two of us had good luck today and ran into patch after patch of them. We snapped off so many that the sacks couldn’t hold them all, so we had to come home. When we came back, Granny Hua was still searching all over the back mountain."

Li Jingwen was swinging a hollow bamboo shoot skin around. Hearing them mention his grandmother, he ran over and said to Juhua, "Ms. Juhua, my grandmother came to our house again. Someone is looking after my younger brother, so I can come out and play with Hulu." His mother was good friends with Ms. Juhua, so he liked to tell Juhua things that he wouldn’t tell others. This was what his mother had taught him—to watch who he was talking to.

Juhua asked curiously, "Why did your grandmother come back? Didn’t she say she was going to live with your youngest uncle?"

Li Jingwen described it vividly. "My grandmother said she had had enough. She gets scolded every day, so she’d rather live with my mother. She even cried, saying my youngest uncle and grandfather scolded her, telling her she shouldn’t have gone outside under the big tree to peel celtuce. My grandmother said she didn’t scold anyone, and she didn’t scold Scholar. It was all Liu’er’s mother’s doing. That woman caused trouble and dragged her down with her."

Mrs. Wang and the others couldn’t help but chuckle upon hearing this, while Juhua burst into laughter. She thought, "Granny Hua actually said she has had enough? Sun Liu’er should be the one saying that."

Seeing Li Jingwen leaning against her as if he had a lot more to say, she found it both amusing and strange. She wondered, "Why is this kid so talkative today?" Then she asked, "Where is your mother?"

She had only asked a short question, but Li Jingwen replied with a long string of words, "My mother is planting vegetables. She told my grandmother to watch my brother and mend clothes. When my grandmother saw Grandma Zhang going up the mountain to snap bamboo shoots, she told my mother that she was also going to the mountain to find a dish of vegetables. My grandmother said she knows what to do at our house, but she doesn’t know what to do at my youngest uncle’s house. She wasn’t being lazy."

Juhua suddenly understood. No wonder Granny Hua felt she had had enough. She was used to getting along with Meizi, who always arranged everything and assigned her specific tasks, so all she had to do was follow instructions. Liu’er didn’t have any experience living with her, and wouldn’t order her around to do chores as directly as Meizi did, so she didn’t know what to do. Li Changliang must have frequently mentioned that Liu’er was heavily pregnant, which made her feel especially wronged.

Just like He had said, this old woman was truly inflexible, not lazy. However, Juhua thought gloomily, "Is there a difference? She is clearly still lazy."

Everyone laughed for a long time, agreeing that this was simply fate and destiny.

He laughed and said, "Take me for example. I get along well with Juhua, but who knows what it would be like with someone else? Liu’er is already considered a hardworking, gentle, and considerate daughter-in-law. It’s really not her fault that she and Granny Hua can’t get along—Granny Hua is the kind of person who needs someone to manage her." She turned to Li Jingwen. "Jingwen, what did your mother say when your grandmother came back?"

Li Jingwen thought for a moment and said, "She didn’t say much. She just said, ’Eat, and go feed the pigs after you’re done.’ So my grandmother went to eat, and after she finished, she washed the dishes and fed the pigs."

The crowd was stunned at first, then they burst into uproarious laughter. The matriarch of the Yang Family laughed so hard that tears came to her eyes.

Juhua thought as she laughed, "Meizi’s style is as direct as ever." At this moment, Pu Pao came out and called everyone to eat sweet wine, so they all washed their hands and ate the sweet wine first.

"In a few days, when we have free time, we should soak some sticky rice, grind it into flour, and roll some glutinous rice balls to cook in this sweet wine soup," Juhua said to He, still wanting more after finishing a bowl of sweet wine with eggs.

He nodded, saying she would find time to do it. "Mrs. Liu, soak the sticky rice tomorrow morning, and we’ll have the men grind it when they are free. Soak a bit more. Let’s do fifteen catties of rice, and give some to our in-laws once it’s ground."

The matriarch of the Yang Family quickly said, "Don’t trouble yourself, we’ll grind it ourselves. I have a large family, and a small amount won’t be enough anyway, so I’ll also soak over ten catties of rice. Yunlan and Qingmu both love eating this, and my mother likes it too."