"Dani, why don’t you greet your third aunt when you see her?" Yang Baihui was quite tall, and she took after Yang Peili in looks, not resembling Yang Baichuan as much. At this moment, she was eyeing Yang Ruxin up and down with a stern gaze.
"Third aunt," Yang Ruxin called out indifferently.
This was her first encounter with the third aunt after her arrival in this time, but the memories left by Dani were filled with fear of this aunt. In fact, everyone in the main house was quite afraid of her, especially Xun Hui, who always made sure to avoid this younger aunt.
As for the reason... well, it was quite absurd.
Originally, when Yang Baiyue had set his sight on Xun Hui, who had been brought over by human traffickers, he wanted to buy her. But the trafficker was adamant about the price of five taels of silver, not a penny less. However, Yang Baiyue needed to continue his studies, and there was a whole family to take care of, so five taels were simply too much for the Yang family.
Originally, Yang Anshi looked down on Xun Hui. She thought her foxy appearance was not proper, and coupled with her status as a sold person, she was not a suitable match for her scholarly son. But since her son was insistent, there was no helping it. She had to discuss it with Yang Peili, and they decided to use their eldest daughter as a trade for the bride-price to buy their son a wife.
As it happened, there was a widower in the Feng family’s village who wanted to remarry and was willing to offer a dowry of ten taels of silver. Feng Caie’s mother took on the task to find a suitable girl. Having seen Yang Baichuan in town and taken a liking to him, but too shy to pursue him, she urged her mother to search in Dapu East Village, which led them to Yang Baihui.
Widower Feng Shouye had some assets, owning more than a dozen acres of land and strong enough to do manual labor during the slack farming seasons, so his life was pretty decent.
He had no children and was only eight years older than Yang Baihui, but he had a crippled mother who was known for her volatile temper and knack for tormenting her daughters-in-law. It was said that her previous daughter-in-law had been driven to death by this mother-in-law.
Yang Baihui didn’t want to marry, but Yang Anshi, for the sake of her son, forced her eldest daughter onto the bridal sedan. In fact, this was also a reason why she intensified her maltreatment of Xun Hui, projecting all her eldest daughter’s suffering onto Xun Hui.
After her marriage, Yang Baihui’s situation didn’t improve. She became pregnant within two months but was forced by her mother-in-law to wash clothes in the dead of winter, which led to a fall and a miscarriage.
Fortunately, that old woman did not live long and soon died. Yang Baihui quickly became pregnant again and gave birth to her eldest son, Feng Haibo, and three years later, gave birth to another son, Feng Haitao.
Despite a relatively smooth period afterward, the seeds of hatred had been sown.
Whenever Yang Baihui encountered something unsatisfactory, she would blame her parents’ home, but she couldn’t trouble her own parents. So, she took all her resentment out on Xun Hui. Her visits home were usually just opportunities to torment Xun Hui.
And Yang Anshi felt that she owed her eldest daughter and turned a blind eye to whatever she did.
However, Yang Baihui was quite clever. She would never act up in front of her elder brother or outsiders, showing warmth and concern for Xun Hui. But as soon as Yang Baiyue was not around, she became a demon. Even if Xun Hui told Yang Baiyue, he wouldn’t believe her. He would advise Xun Hui not to squabble with her married sister, even saying that if it weren’t for Yang Baihui’s sacrifice, Xun Hui wouldn’t have the fortune of being a Scholar’s wife...