Chapter 98: Avenging My Older Sister

At mealtime, Li Xihua said she would stay until after the Lantern Festival before going back.

Of course the family was delighted. Even the unruly children were deeply attached to their eldest sister and all urged her to stay a few more days.

Since it was still the New Year season and the eldest daughter had come home again, Fang Shi was naturally overjoyed and eager to show her skills.

Before the New Year, everyone in the household had been bustling about, mainly because the one in charge now was the daughter-in-law.

In fact, over the past few years, because Li Sheng had a wage and Li Kai earned plenty of work points, the Li family had already been living far better than before.

But Fang Shi was used to thrift. Even when she had some money and ration coupons in hand, she would rather hoard them and save them for a rainy day.

So in earlier years, when New Year’s came around, they would only buy a little more meat than usual, and life was still tight.

This time was different. With the daughter-in-law in charge, they were far more generous and spent much more freely.

Most of all, Tang Xin had also taken out a great deal, and the whole family was deeply grateful, so they bought quite a lot of meat.

Before the New Year, Fang Shi made cured pork, and also cured several strips of salted meat, hanging them at the back of the kitchen to smoke slowly, ready to be eaten gradually after the holiday.

Today Fang Shi was preparing dumplings again, and yesterday’s leftovers were still abundant.

But there were many people at home, and the eldest daughter had come back, so Fang Shi was in high spirits.

With Li Xihua there, Tang Xin did not even need to lift a finger.

While kneading the dough, Fang Shi asked Tang Xin what she wanted: “Daughter-in-law, what filling do you like?”

Tang Xin’s eyes lit up. “Mother, can I choose anything?”

It was New Year’s, after all, and they had been eating fish and meat all along; she was getting a little tired of it.

She had just been thinking of changing the flavor a bit, and to her surprise her mother-in-law was so thoughtful.

At times Tang Xin even wondered whether the reason she had so quickly grown close to Li Sheng and so quickly blended into the Li family, coming to think of them all as her own people, was that her mother-in-law was actually the greatest contributor.

Fang Shi had complete confidence in her cooking and said proudly, “As long as there are ingredients, I can make more than ten kinds of dumplings without repeating a single filling. Tang Xin, just say what you want to eat.”

So Tang Xin, excited, began counting on her fingers what fillings there could be, while the sisters-in-law beside her all curled their lips.

They exchanged a glance, silently saying with their eyes:

Look at that, look at that—Mother has been completely bewitched by that vixen!

When the plump, white dumplings were cooked, there were four fillings in all, and of course they were all the ones Tang Xin had specifically requested.

Li Xihua used the family’s best porcelain bowls to serve out two portions, both set aside to cool for Tang Xin, with a small dish of dipping sauce mixed by Fang Shi beside them.

As for Fang Shi’s skill with the dipping sauce, that had been taught to her by her daughter-in-law.

Tang Xin herself could not cook, but she was a picky eater and knew good food when she tasted it.

So she described the flavor she remembered, and Fang Shi tried several times, adjusting different amounts of soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, salt, and sesame oil.

Only after much effort did she finally mix the taste her daughter-in-law liked. She also prepared chili oil separately, so anyone who liked heat could add some.

That sweet-and-sour, bright, refreshing flavor was exactly what Tang Xin loved most.

To say it plainly, the biggest reason the sauce tasted so good was the soy sauce.

That soy sauce had come from the processing workshop in Tang Xin’s spatial farm. It was much like the light soy sauce of later generations, but even more savory.

Fang Shi even used that soy sauce to make a jar of country-style paste, which was a fine thing to have all year round.

Whether used in stir-fries or eaten with plain rice, it was delicious.

Even Li Xihua found the aroma irresistible, though she had the sense to know it was a good thing her younger sister-in-law had brought from elsewhere.

From the very beginning, she had never asked her own mother for any of it.

On the other hand, Fang Shi looked at her eldest daughter and could not bear it, and was already planning to pack some for her when she went back.

So that noon, Tang Xin ate far too much. She not only finished the eight dumplings that her elder sister-in-law had served her, but even had another half bowl.

Afterward, she sat there sighing with satisfaction. “Mother, the dumplings you made are so delicious. I’ve eaten myself to bursting.”

Ah, in the art of flattering people, no one could match the daughter-in-law.

Li Xiyue simply said nothing.

But the Li family still had one idiot.

Li Xihua glanced at Tang Xin and said, “Your appetite is far too small. If you don’t build up your body, it will be difficult to have children in the future.”

Hearing her mention the difficulty of having children, Tang Xin suddenly had a flash of insight and realized why, this New Year, only Li Xihua had come back without her husband.

In the original book, Li Xihua was only a minor, inconsequential supporting character who appeared a few times.

At first it was fine; she had merely joined forces with her mother-in-law and sister-in-law to bully the original Tang Xin and drive her into a corner.

Later, when Li Kai had achieved success and fame, he had once recalled the two people to whom he owed the most and felt the deepest regret. One was his eldest brother, who had died in an accident; the other was his eldest sister, who had starved to death in her husband’s home.

It was then that the author devoted a little ink to describing Li Xihua’s life after marriage.

In the story, after Li Xihua married, she suffered endless abuse in her husband’s family, mainly because she had never managed to become pregnant.

In those days, a woman who failed to bear children carried a great stigma, and that burden made Li Xihua unable to lift her head in her in-laws’ home.

Under pressure from her mother-in-law and husband, after that New Year Li Xihua adopted a child from another woman in the production brigade.

Because the child was not her own, Li Xihua always felt guilty toward her husband.

Her mother-in-law also used this to crush her again and again, making her even more humiliated in that household.

At one point Li Xihua had even thought of divorcing and returning to her maiden home, but by then the Li family had already been through disaster, her younger brothers were still small, and if she went back there would be no one to take her in.

So Li Xihua could only continue suffering abuse in her husband’s home. Of course, on the surface, her husband still treated her tenderly.

He kept saying, “I have no children of my own now, so I must hold onto my wife.”

Because of that, Li Xihua even believed her husband was good to her, and though her mother-in-law kept tormenting her, she only endured it in silence.

She treated the adopted child like a treasure, raising him carefully and even sending him to school.

In truth, though, he was an ungrateful wolf who thought only of his real parents, and that was the final straw that broke the camel’s back.

It was only later, after Li Kai had become successful, that he gained the ability to reopen the old case and avenge his sister.

It turned out that the real problem was Li Xihua’s husband. He had been fooling around outside and ruined his health, which had caused the infertility.

And the child he brought back had actually been his mistress’s. Bringing him home for Li Xihua to raise was simply a way to conceal the fact that it was his own fault that they had no children.

That man had slept with someone else’s wife and got himself badly injured in that part of his body, which was why he could not father children. He knew very well, because of his own wrongdoing, why there had been no child after so many years of marriage.

And yet he treated his wife that way.