"Mom, Mom, don’t worry, I’m lucky. The boar was injured and it didn’t take much effort at all." Zhang Shan Ni saw that Zhou Xiuhua didn’t care about anything else and was only focused on touching her own arm and waist, circling around her twice before finally stopping when she heard she wasn’t hurt.
"It’s good that you’re not hurt!" Zhou Xiuhua patted her chest, a habitual gesture, then suddenly smacked her on the shoulder and scolded loudly: "You naughty girl, how dare you be so brave? Shouldn’t you run when you see a wild boar? Why would you go closer to it! Do I lack this little bit of meat from you?"
Zhou Xiuhua, full of vigor, lashed out at the innocent-looking Zhang Shan Ni, leaving Zhang Shan Ni a bit dazed from the scolding.
"What’s going on here?" Hearing his partner yelling, Xie Tiesheng from the front yard came over.
As he turned a corner and saw his partner and daughter-in-law with the wild boar behind them, the old man felt he needed a moment to himself, thinking, "This is a wild boar from the mountains!"
Even his three sons would be cautious when encountering a wild boar; who knew his daughter-in-law could bring such a big one down from the mountain on her first visit there!
"Daughter-in-law, are you hurt?" Xie Tiesheng stared at the wild boar on the ground, swallowed, and asked with forced calm.
"Dad, I’m fine! When I encountered this wild boar, it was already injured and trapped in a pit. I just gave it a stab and dragged it home without even a struggle! If you don’t believe me, Dad, look, there’s a wound under its belly. When it fell into the pit, it got impaled right at a weak spot by a sharp spike and bled to death!"
The positioning of the wound was so embarrassingly perfect that it was almost laughable.
Zhang Shan Ni touched her nose, while soothing her mother-in-law’s back and explaining to the elders, occasionally pointing at the boar’s body, "Look, after it fainted, I gave it another cut on the neck. This wild boar had already lost too much blood and was going to die before it met me."
In an effort to calm the elders, Zhang Shan Ni felt like she could afford to lose face. Pointing at an embarrassing part of the boar’s corpse, she bravely explained to her in-laws.
Zhou Xiuhua looked up silently: "..."
Xie Tiesheng observed the boar’s corpse stiffly, unable to snap out of it: "..."
Zhang Shan Ni’s inner thoughts: The silence from my in-laws is golden, but do they still want to examine it up close to find the truth?
Damn! She was also at a loss for words—
Zhang Shan Ni looked at the wild boar on the ground, always feeling this strange sensation as if the boar had played a prank on her just before dying!
As Zhang Shan Ni and her in-laws were silent, the silence was finally broken.
Hearing noises, other members of the Xie Family came running to check out the situation, and upon seeing the game on the ground, they exclaimed in surprised joy: "Oh, a wild boar?"
Zhang Shan Ni wasn’t surprised to see Xie Jingzi come home, the exclamation came from her little mouth.
But seeing Wang Xiaocui pretentiously holding her waist while standing at the courtyard gate and touching her flat belly, Zhang Shan Ni genuinely wanted to roll her eyes towards heaven.
Compared to Wang Xiaocui’s foolish antics, Zhang Shan Ni was thrilled to see Xiao Si and Xiaoqi, but when the two kids ran up to her excitedly calling her ’Second Aunt’, she was shocked to see both kids had become much thinner and exclaimed:
"Oh my! Xiao Si, Xiaoqi, why have you lost so much weight? Didn’t grandma feed you?"
Compared to the nieces and nephews at home who had grown taller and chubbier, suddenly seeing Xiao Si, who was no longer as tall and robust as Xiao Wu, Zhang Shan Ni felt heartbroken.
Seeing Wang Xiaocui’s indifferent expression, she genuinely wanted to slap her away!
Thus, Zhang Shan Ni, in her speech, didn’t even think about giving this senseless woman any face.
Hearing such a blunt remark, the air seemed to freeze; no one dared to respond but instead all gave disapproving looks towards Wang Xiaocui’s shiny, flushed face.
"Cough cough cough, let’s not talk nonsense, you go tidy up your clothes and clean yourself up. Boss’s family, call your husband over to help clean up this game!" Zhou Xiuhua coldly glanced at the Fifth’s family and sharply ordered the Boss’s family.
Yes, it was a sharp tone; the old lady didn’t show a good face to either her big or little daughters-in-law.
Don’t think she didn’t know what was happening, but it was indeed surprising and painful for her that the old man, for once in a blue moon, had actually shown his displeasure towards his eldest son and daughter-in-law.
While Zhou Xiuhua instructed someone to work, her gaze inadvertently slid towards her daughter-in-law, who had obviously lost a lot of weight, and she sighed inwardly.