Chapter 8: Chapter 8 Can’t Take It Anymore Chapter 8: Chapter 8 Can’t Take It Anymore Chiang Xiao thought she could dodge, but forgot she was sick with a fever, weak and powerless, so the bag of white sugar simply struck her face, scattering the oil-paper wrapper, and the sugar spilled all over the ground.
“I’ll go home and ask Mother to call for the Fairy! Little has been possessed by the Water Ghost!” Song Xiyun screamed and fled.
Chiang Xiao swayed and fell to the ground.
“Oh dear heavens, Little!”
Chiang Songhai and Ge Liutao were so frightened that they both rushed over and narrowly caught her.
Chiang Xiao was helped back to her room and lay down on the bed once more.
Ge Liutao brought in a copper basin and used a towel to wipe the white sugar off her face. As she wiped, her eyes reddened.
“Little, how could you fight with Guiying? And your aunt… just give her the sugar if she wants it…”
Chiang Xiao felt waves of dizziness.
She could tell her grandmother was worried about and cared for her, fearing that she would be at a disadvantage in conflicts with them. She had always been used to enduring, but she just couldn’t bear it.
She definitely didn’t want to repeat the same mistakes. In her past life, she endured everything, even though they were all as kind as doormat buns, soft lotus paste buns, yet wasn’t the outcome still death and injury, with no one in the family ending well?
Being kind didn’t mean one had to be bullied.
Having the chance to start over, she would not let herself or her grandparents be bullied again.
She didn’t regret fighting with Guiying and Song Xiyun today, but Song Xiyun’s bag of sugar had awoken her to the fact that she needed to always remember she was thirteen, not thirty.
Moreover, by the age of thirty in her previous life, she had been plagued with various ailments: anemia, stomach problems, malnutrition, chronic headaches, and rheumatism. What should have been a bright age was spent like an older person nearing the end of life.
Her anemia had begun during these years.
The house should have already had a basket of eggs saved up, which would have been perfect for nourishing her. But in her previous life, because the Old Chiang Family sided with Ding Daqiang’s family in a dispute, that basket of eggs ultimately had to be compensated to Guiying, and the little money the family had saved up wasn’t enough to buy even a bolt of cloth. So in the following days, her grandfather went up the mountains every day, early until late, to gather herbs, hoping to fill a sack and sell it in town for a few extra dollars.
Due to excessive fatigue, on the way home after selling the herbs and buying cloth, he spaced out, twisted his ankle, and fell into a ditch, passing out.
No one discovered him all night long. The grandmother had to take care of her at home and couldn’t search for him alone. When they sought help from the Old Chiang Family, those people merely went around the village in a cursory search and did nothing more.
The grandfather froze in the ditch all night and was not found until the next day, when someone carried him back.
At that time, the family had completely run out of money, with only a little rice left and no eggs. With two sick members at home and the grandmother taking care of them while also handling all the household chores, she endured until she couldn’t take the shock of the news any longer and had a heart attack.
All their family’s sufferings and the biggest upheaval started from that moment.
Now she had been reborn at this most special and critical time, and she simply couldn’t rush too much, nor could she allow history to repeat itself.
No matter how angry or pained, she had to act carefully.
After all, she was only thirteen years old now.
“Grandmother, it’s not the first or second time that Song Xiyun has stolen our white sugar. If we give it to her this time, she will come to steal again,” Chiang Xiao said to her grandmother. Despite feeling weak, she spoke firmly, “From now on, we won’t give her even a grain of sugar.”
“She’s your aunt…” Ge Liutao sighed, “I don’t know what she’ll say next door.”
Her words had barely faded when they heard someone bellowing in the courtyard, “Uncle He! Has that foolish girl Little gotten herself into some dirty trouble?”