Chapter 174: Bad Aunt! Bad Girl!
“Is that even possible? How can anyone afford to eat fine grains every single day?”
Even Xu Guihua, who came from a relatively well-off family, found the idea hard to fathom. In this day and age, what kind of household could afford to eat refined grains for every meal? Captain Wang had worked his way up from the countryside. He had to send money back to his parents every month, on top of supporting a wife and two growing sons. How could they possibly shoulder such an expense?
Seeing that Captain Wang and his wife were beginning to process the revelation, Wanyan struck while the iron was hot. “When I lived in Rongcheng, I heard about a family whose child had the exact same condition as An’an.”
“Really? What happened next?” Yang Wanshu asked, looking at her anxiously. If her youngest son truly needed to eat fine grains for every meal, she would accept it. The family could just tighten their belts in other areas, but she absolutely could not let her child suffer.
“I heard it was an issue with the spleen and stomach,” Wanyan explained smoothly. “But after eating refined grains for a year or two to properly nourish his digestive system, the child was able to eat coarse grains normally again.”
“Is that true?”
“That’s just what people said,” Wanyan answered ambiguously.
But for Yang Wanshu, that was enough. True or not, it at least gave them a tangible direction. Things couldn’t get much worse than they were now anyway. She looked at her little boy, who was spooning porridge into his mouth so happily, her eyes growing firm with a mother’s unyielding resolve.
The dinner was a resounding success. It had been far too long since anyone had enjoyed such a lavish, meticulously prepared feast. The several bottles of local wine the men brought had been thoroughly drained, and every single serving platter was wiped clean.
The tips of Gu Tingxiao’s ears were red, and his cheeks held a faint flush—it was hard to tell exactly how drunk he was.
After the meal, the men gathered in the living room to chat, while Wanyan and the military wives cleared the table, washing the dishes and tidying up the kitchen.
As the guests prepared to leave, Wanyan handed each of the children five fruit candies. But when Captain Wu’s two sons realized these weren’t the coveted White Rabbit milk candies, they immediately kicked up a fuss.
“I want the white ones! I don’t want these!”
“I want the ones Pingping got to eat!”
With a petulant shriek, the older boy threw his fruit candy onto the floor, aggressively tugging at Zhang Zhaodi’s hand and demanding she get him the better treats.
Zhang Zhaodi hastily picked up the discarded candy, trying to coax her sons. “Auntie doesn’t have any more of those. The last pieces were given to Pingping and his brother.”
Hearing his name, Pingping quickly stepped forward. “Auntie Gu really doesn’t have any more! She gave us the last two!” he declared firmly, resolutely blocking the boys from pestering Wanyan.
“Well… Sister-in-law Gu, look at how terribly the children are crying…” Zhang Zhaodi rubbed her hands together, flashing Wanyan a sycophantic smile, clearly expecting her to miraculously produce more.
Wanyan smiled right back and spread her hands helplessly. “We are completely out of White Rabbit candies. Didn’t Pingping just tell you?”
Zhang Zhaodi hadn’t expected Wanyan to reject her so bluntly in front of a crowd. For a moment, she was completely at a loss for words.
“I don’t care! Mom, you promised you’d ask Auntie for them!”
“Auntie only gives them to Pingping and An’an, but she won’t give any to us!”
Captain Wu’s two sons plopped down onto the floor, kicking their legs and wailing at the top of their lungs in a full-blown tantrum.
“Oh, my poor boys, Auntie just won’t give them to you,” Zhang Zhaodi sighed loudly, quickly squatting down to comfort them. “Don’t cry, don’t cry. Auntie is just being mean.”
Wanyan let out a sharp, incredulous laugh. She could not tolerate this kind of blatant entitlement, regardless of whether it came from adults or children. They had just eaten their fill at her table, and now this woman was subtly insulting her in her own home? She was absolutely not about to indulge them.
“Bad Auntie! Bad Auntie!” Captain Wu’s sons chanted, pointing teary fingers at Wanyan.
Wanyan raised her voice, cutting smoothly through the noise. “Why are you calling me bad? Your own mother won’t even buy you candy! Your mother is the mean one!”
The two boys froze mid-tantrum, staring at her in utter confusion.
Wanyan shook her head sympathetically. “What kind of mother acts like that? Watching her own sons cry and beg for candy, yet refusing to spend a dime to buy any for them?”
Hearing this irrefutable logic, the two boys slowly turned their tear-streaked faces toward their mother.
Seeing the shifting expressions on her sons’ faces, Zhang Zhaodi panicked. “What nonsense are you telling them?” she snapped at Wanyan.
But before she could say another word, her sons’ voices rang out loud and clear:
“Bad Mom!”
“Bad, mean Mom!”
Wanyan had to bite her lip to hold back her laughter as she watched the mother and sons squabble fiercely on the floor. Standing off to the side, Gu Tingxiao watched his wife’s barely contained amusement, his eyes brimming with absolute, doting affection.
The rest of the guests were stunned. No one had expected Wanyan to be so ruthlessly straightforward, showing zero mercy to Captain Wu’s wife. The expressions on the bystanders’ faces shifted through every color of the rainbow.
“Haven’t you embarrassed us enough?!” Captain Wu roared at his wife and sons on the floor, his chest heaving with fury. “Go home!”
Day in and day out, it was always the same petty nonsense with this woman. Why had he ever agreed to marry her? Now, she had infected his two sons with her exact brand of entitlement. They couldn’t learn a single decent trait, but they had perfectly mastered her habit of throwing tantrums and rolling on the ground to get their way.
Without another word, Captain Wu turned and stormed out into the night, his two quiet daughters hurrying after him.
Zhang Zhaodi hastily scrambled to her feet, dragging her wailing sons as she trotted anxiously after her husband.
Wanyan raised an eyebrow, watching the chaotic family depart. Witnessing this farce gave the rest of the compound a fresh understanding of Zhang Zhaodi’s sheer shamelessness. With a wife like that, Captain Wu’s future career prospects looked incredibly grim.
“Sister-in-law, Captain, we should be heading out too.”
One by one, the remaining guests offered their sincere thanks and said their goodbyes. Tingxiao and Wanyan saw them to the gate before finally retreating to their room to wash up and rest.
“Wife, I’m sorry you were wronged tonight,” Gu Tingxiao murmured as they lay on the kang. He wrapped his arms tightly around her, burying his face in the crook of her neck. He smelled strongly of the local grain liquor.
“Why would I feel wronged?” Wanyan replied breezily. “I wasn’t the one who ended up looking like a fool.”
She truly didn’t mind. Zhang Zhaodi had brought the humiliation entirely upon herself. After tonight’s display, her reputation in the family compound was likely ruined. She would be forced to keep her head down for a good while, which meant Wanyan wouldn’t have to deal with her annoying presence anytime soon.
“Wife,” Tingxiao said, his voice dropping into a solemn, earnest register. “You never have to worry about my position in the future. Don’t ever tolerate anyone trying to bully you.”
It would be a lie to say Wanyan wasn’t deeply touched. Very few men in this era would ever utter such words. Even in the future she came from, plenty of men would pressure their wives to swallow their grievances and “keep the peace” for the sake of the husband’s career or social standing. Whether rich or poor, people cared immensely about face. How could she not cherish a man of Gu Tingxiao’s generation who willingly cast aside his own pride and status just to protect her?
“You said it,” Wanyan smiled softly, her fingers lightly tracing the hard lines of his abdominal muscles. “I won’t hold back anymore.”
Though slightly drunk, Gu Tingxiao nodded with absolute certainty. “My wife… shouldn’t have to bear it. Don’t let yourself be wronged…”
Hearing the slight slur in his normally sharp voice, Wanyan sighed and tried to sit up. “Let me go make you some hangover soup.”
“No, just sleep,” he mumbled, his arms tightening like iron bands around her waist.
Unable to budge an inch, Wanyan could only accept her fate, relaxing completely into his warm embrace as they drifted off to sleep.
