Chapter 97: Return to the City
Wanyan could easily picture the looks of absolute shock and excitement on her parents’ faces when they returned from their grueling trip to finally see the hundred-year-old ginseng.
With that in mind, she refrained from stowing the precious root back into her spatial warehouse, simply securing it in her canvas bag so she could proudly present the treasure to Mother Sheng the moment she walked through the door.
For lunch, Wanyan whipped up a warm, comforting pot of tomato and egg noodles for herself and the two grandparents. The rich, savory broth was the perfect remedy against the winter chill.
After eating, both elders retreated to their respective rooms for their habitual afternoon nap. Wanyan loved the quiet hours of winter; she burrowed happily under a thick quilt in her own room. Honestly, give her a warm bed and a quiet house, and she could happily stay indoors all day without a single complaint.
Father and Mother Sheng finally returned to the village compound right around dinnertime. The moment they stepped through the gate, it was obvious Mother Sheng was in a foul mood; her face was dark and tense.
Wanyan had prepared a spectacular New Year’s dinner. The braised pig trotters were tender and sticky, the stir-fried pig intestines—a dish Mother Sheng had been craving for days—were spicy and perfectly textured, and the sauerkraut and pig lung soup filled the kitchen with a vibrant, appetizing aroma. Paired with a refreshing side of cucumber salad, the spread was incredibly hearty and filling.
The savory smell of the feast hit Father and Mother Sheng before they had even crossed the threshold. Seeing the magnificent, steaming spread waiting for them instantly softened the harsh edges of their mood.
“Mom, Dad, dinner’s ready. Go wash your hands,” Wanyan called out with a bright smile.
Her parents dropped their bundles, scrubbed the cold from their hands, and took their seats around the wooden table. As the family dug into the meal, Mother Sheng savored a mouthful of the spicy intestines she had been dreaming of, the rich flavor finally giving her the energy to vent the bitter resentment she had been bottling up all afternoon.
“So, how did the visit to your parents’ home go today?” Grandma Sheng asked gently, looking between her son and daughter-in-law.
Father Sheng simply lowered his head, focusing entirely on his bowl, refusing to speak. The mere mention of the visit made Mother Sheng’s temper flare all over again.
She recounted the miserable afternoon. She had carried the heavy, expensive cuts of meat and premium pastries all the way up the mountain, only for her mother to snatch the offerings away the moment she walked through the door. While her mother had initially been overly enthusiastic upon seeing the luxury goods, when lunchtime rolled around, the old woman had callously served Mother and Father Sheng a single, miserable steamed vegetable bun each, reserving the good food for the sons of the house.
Mother Sheng had long since grown accustomed to her parents’ blatant, lifelong favoritism. In their traditional, backward minds, daughters were worthless commodities meant to be exploited, while sons were the ultimate treasures. She had only made the grueling trek to fulfill her basic filial duty and protect her reputation from the village gossips; she hadn’t expected warmth.
But the true insult had come as she sat chewing on her dry vegetable bun. Without a shred of shame, her mother and brothers had aggressively demanded that she—as the wealthy city aunt—leverage her factory connections to secure a lucrative urban job for her nephew.
When Mother Sheng flatly refused the extortion, her mother simply pivoted, demanding she arrange a marriage for her niece with a wealthy city family.
And as the argument escalated, her mother had the absolute audacity to demand that Wanyan surrender her prestigious position in the Propaganda Department and hand the post over to a nephew from the maternal line! The old woman had even tried to spin it as a blessing, claiming that installing a male relative as an urban worker would somehow allow Mother Sheng to “hold her head higher” within the Sheng family.
Mother Sheng had been completely revolted by the suggestion. When she fiercely rejected every demand, her mother had launched into a vicious tirade, screaming that she was a selfish, ungrateful wretch who lived a life of luxury in the city while maliciously refusing to lift her struggling rural family out of poverty.
Her brothers and sisters had merely sat around the table, staring at her with cold, reproachful eyes, silently agreeing with their mother’s condemnation. The old woman had weaponized the same exhausted argument she had used for years: that as a daughter, Mother Sheng had completely failed her filial duties. According to them, aside from dropping off a few cuts of meat during the major festivals, she treated her blood relatives like strangers.
Facing the sheer entitlement of her family, Mother Sheng’s temper had exploded, leading to a massive, screaming quarrel right there in the courtyard.
Was it her fault her brother’s family was lazy and impoverished? As an aunt, was she somehow legally and morally responsible for financing the futures of her adult nephews and nieces? Were their own parents dead? Those “children” were full-grown adults—did they truly lack the basic dignity to understand how absurd their demands were?
She was merely a married daughter, not their biological mother. She had absolutely no moral obligation to support a household of grown adults who refused to work for themselves! It was as if they genuinely believed she owed them her entire existence.
By the end of the disastrous visit, having exhausted her curses and realizing aggression wouldn’t work, her mother had actually swallowed her pride and attempted to grovel to Father Sheng, begging her son-in-law to intervene. But Father and Mother Sheng had presented a united, impenetrable front. The remainder of the visit was suffocatingly tense.
When it was finally time to leave, her mother had shoved a pathetic, one-pound sack of raw sweet potatoes into her hands as a “return gift.” And honestly, Mother Sheng knew that if her father hadn’t sternly ordered his wife to provide something for the sake of appearances, she wouldn’t even have received the sweet potatoes.
Listening to the ordeal, Grandma Sheng let out a heavy sigh. She had dealt with her daughter-in-law’s maternal family for decades; they were deeply entrenched in their toxic patterns and incapable of seeing beyond their own greed.
The brothers and sisters from Mother Sheng’s side were completely hopeless. The other sisters were entirely subjugated by their mother’s iron will, lacking the courage to utter a single word of resistance. Mother Sheng was considered the “rebellious” daughter solely because she had fought back against her family’s demands—a strength she possessed only because she had married into the supportive, relatively progressive Sheng clan in the city!
Her other sisters had all been married off to men within their own village or the neighboring valleys. They broke their backs in the fields every day, suffering relentless abuse from their mothers-in-law, only to return to their maiden home and suffer further exploitation from their own mother. They simply lacked the financial or emotional leverage to stand up for themselves.
It wasn’t as though Mother Sheng hadn’t tried to help her siblings when she was younger and more naive. But every single time she had pulled strings to secure a decent job for her brothers, they had quit within days, whining that the labor was too exhausting. Every favor she had ever called in for them had been completely squandered.
Grandma Sheng shook her head in pity. Her in-laws were advanced in age, yet they remained totally blinded by their own patriarchal entitlement. They were still desperately hoping Aunt Sheng would magically solve their grandsons’ futures.
The family was an irredeemable swamp. Thank heaven Mother Sheng possessed a fierce spine and hadn’t been infected by her clan’s toxic entitlement; otherwise, how could the Sheng household have ever achieved peace?
“At the end of the day, they are still your parents,” Grandma Sheng counseled gently, her voice full of empathy. “You must continue to show up during the major festivals to fulfill the basic cultural rites. When they make their demands, simply refuse them in a firm, roundabout manner. Do not give the village gossips any ammunition to label you as unfilial.”
Grandma Sheng did her best to comfort her daughter-in-law, acknowledging how incredibly difficult her position had been all these years. Dealing with a family of emotional vampires was exhausting. If Mother Sheng hadn’t developed the capacity to stand on her own two feet, her life would mirror the miserable existence of her rural sisters, forever trapped and controlled by her parents’ endless demands.
Mother Sheng nodded slowly, taking her mother-in-law’s advice to heart. She knew Grandma Sheng was right. She had absolutely no intention of returning to that house outside of the mandatory holiday visits anyway; there was no reason to invite unnecessary chaos into her daily life.
Every single time she crossed that mountain pass, she returned consumed by rage. Why subject herself to that torture more than strictly necessary?
Sheng Wanyan and her family remained in the village until the sixth day of the Lunar New Year. With the factories and administrative offices scheduled to resume standard operations on the eighth, it was time to make the long trek back to Chengdu.
Before their departure, Grandpa and Grandma Sheng carefully packaged two kilograms of premium pastries and a heavy slab of cured bacon, carrying the gifts directly to the village chief’s compound.
The chief’s wife had faithfully scrubbed and aired out their empty house year after year, which was no small task. In this harsh agrarian era, no one possessed the surplus energy to perform grueling manual labor for free. Any energy spent cleaning a neighbor’s house was energy stolen from the fields, which directly impacted a family’s work points and grain rations. Recognizing this sacrifice, the elders made sure to reward the chief’s family generously every spring.
“Take these back immediately!” the village chief barked, his face darkening the moment he saw the expensive goods.
He and Grandpa Sheng had fought shoulder-to-shoulder against the Japanese during their youth; they were blood brothers who had survived the fires of war together. Sweeping a house was a trivial favor between comrades. Did Grandpa Sheng truly feel it was necessary to drag luxury gifts to his door every single year like they were strangers settling a transaction? Who exactly did Grandpa Sheng think he was?
“These aren’t for you, you stubborn old mule,” Grandpa Sheng chuckled, smoothly handing the bundles directly to the chief’s wife. “It’s for your wife. There’s no reason my sister-in-law should be forced to manage our heavy labor for free.”
The chief’s wife immediately moved to accept the package; the items were incredibly valuable, and she had invested significant physical effort into thoroughly scrubbing the Sheng property.
Hearing Grandpa Sheng frame the gesture as a direct payment for his wife’s labor, the village chief’s rigid expression softened. Seeing her husband’s posture relax, the wife knew she had the green light to accept the goods.
“Come, come, sit down and warm yourselves,” the chief’s wife urged enthusiastically, quickly preparing two steaming cups of sweet soup to entertain the elders.
“Are you preparing to head out soon?” the chief asked.
“Yes,” Grandpa Sheng nodded. “The children all have to report back to their shifts the day after tomorrow, and we need a day to settle back into the apartment.”
The village chief nodded understandingly. State workers in the city were strictly bound to resume work on the eighth day of the New Year; it was a rare luxury that they had managed to secure enough leave to stay in the village this long.
“The ox carts will gather at the village entrance to ferry people to the commune terminal,” the chief advised. “From there, you can catch the main bus back to the city. The carts roll out at exactly 2:00 PM.”
With the logistics confirmed, Grandpa and Grandma Sheng hurried back to the house to finalize their packing.
Despite the bitter, unresolved friction that had tainted their holiday dinner, Uncle Sheng and his family were still waiting at the gate when the time came to leave. Blood was blood, and they couldn’t simply let their only brother depart the village without a formal send-off.
