Chapter 13: Her Biological Mother Came

Seeing that he was about to add yet another weight, Qiu Yinuo felt utterly defeated.

“You’re adding more?”

“Just a bit more. Don’t make a fuss, it’s almost done,” the scrap collector said seriously. He kept adding weights until it balanced, then glanced at the scale and clicked his tongue in mild disbelief. “Looks like there’s a lot of meat, but still not quite 150?”

As soon as she heard she wasn’t 150 jin, Qiu Yinuo let out a sigh of relief and said excitedly, “I knew it! There’s no way I’m 150 jin. And you even claimed your eyes were like a scale, that you could tell my weight just by looking!”

He Ziqing leaned over to glance at the scale: 149 jin. Not exactly a big difference from 150.

The old man shrugged. “Alright, guess my eyes fooled me this time.”

Feeling much better, Qiu Yinuo asked cheerfully, “So exactly how much do I weigh?”

“Sister Yinuo, maybe it’s better if we don’t know…”

“One hundred forty-nine jin.”

The two voices overlapped, and Qiu Yinuo’s smile collapsed instantly. Might as well have been 150.

The neighbors around them burst into laughter, trying to comfort her.

“Yinuo, you’re beautiful. A little plump looks prosperous—it makes you look like someone with good fortune.”

“That’s right! Yinuo’s got this adorable roundness, and her two sons are chubby little dumplings too. Just looking at them brings joy.”

“Other people wish they could eat well enough to get that chubby, but they don’t have the means.”

Thanks, but that didn’t comfort her at all.

Ever since weighing herself, Qiu Yinuo had been in a bit of a slump, barely eating dinner that evening.

Late at night, when she was nursing her child, the baby’s stomach rumbled with hunger, but hers growled even louder.

She wasn’t sure if it was because she was a mother now, but she couldn’t bear to see her child hungry.

She decided to temporarily forget about her own weight and deal with it after she finished weaning the baby.

Days passed by like this, and Qiu Yinuo hadn’t given up on asking about her mother-in-law’s whereabouts. After all, who didn’t want a good life? Why should she be the one to bear the brunt of raising the children alone, working herself to exhaustion?

As a young woman of the new era, she didn’t want to push herself that hard.

…

By the end of November, every household was busy pickling sauerkraut, a Northeastern specialty.

They had to buy cabbage themselves, and some people had relatives in the countryside who had already set aside some for them.

People like them, however, had to scramble every day to grab the limited supply.

It took them a whole week to get only a dozen cabbages and 20 pounds of radishes.

They had already cleaned all their jars and containers, ready for a big pickling session today.

“Qingqing, do you know how to pickle sauerkraut?”

“Of course, I’ve been helping my dad since I was little. Later, my cousin and I pickled sauerkraut together.”

Upon hearing this, Qiu Yinuo instinctively frowned. “Doesn’t your cousin’s husband help out?”

Through several conversations, she’d realized that Qingqing’s cousin’s husband was a typical “soft rice man,” completely relying on the women in the family for everything.

When Qingqing mentioned him, a clear look of disdain flashed in her eyes. “He acts like a big shot, does nothing, and just waits for my cousin and her sister to serve him.”

Every family had its troubles, and even in the world decades later, there were still disgusting men like that.

It was one of those situations where one party willingly suffers, and if the woman doesn’t stand up for herself, nothing will change.

“By the way, Sister Yinuo, I’m thinking of taking half a day off in a couple of days to help my cousin pickle sauerkraut.”

“Sure, is half a day enough? If not, a full day is fine too.”

“Half a day should be enough. I’ll finish my work and come right back.” She didn’t want to take too much time off for a couple of reasons. First, Sister Yinuo was paying her, so she didn’t feel comfortable taking too long off. Second, she didn’t want her cousin’s husband to stir up trouble because of her.

As the two of them were talking, there was a knock on the door. He Ziqing wiped her hands and called out, “Who is it?”

…

Cheng Hongying, after handling her husband’s funeral, hurriedly traveled over a hundred kilometers to her younger sister’s house, determined to bring her daughter home.

Her husband had always favored sons over daughters. From the moment their daughter was born, he had never shown either of them a kind face.

It wasn’t until the birth of their younger son that life at home finally became somewhat tolerable for her.

She admitted that she favored her youngest son over her daughter, but in the countryside, what family didn’t value sons over daughters?

Besides, she wasn’t the kind of person who would sell her daughter for her son’s sake.

Later, when her daughter ran away, it was she who secretly arranged the introduction letter. If not for that, her husband would have sold their daughter to make some money.

Qiu Yinuo, that rebellious girl, had been gone for two years, not sending a single letter, which made her anxious and unable to focus on anything, constantly worrying about whether something had happened to her daughter.

It took her a long time to find the address her sister had given her years ago. When she saw the unfamiliar woman open the door, Cheng Hongying paused in confusion.

“Who are you?”

“Who are you?”

The two women asked at the same time.

“You came to my house and you’re asking me who I am?”

Cheng Hongying’s heart skipped a beat. “This is your house? Wait, isn’t this Zhao Xuezhen’s house?”

Years ago, when the Cheng family was poor and couldn’t afford to raise both daughters, especially a pair of twins, her parents decided to give the younger sister away to be adopted by the Zhao family.

It wasn’t until Cheng Hongying was pregnant with her own daughter that she discovered she had a twin sister. She’d heard that her sister had been well cared for by her adoptive family and had even married a well-educated man.

The Cheng family had always carried guilt over what had happened but never brought up the idea of a reunion.

Then, by chance, the two sisters met in the provincial capital.

They already knew of each other’s existence, and when they met, there was no resentment or bitterness. Instead, they talked calmly, sharing stories about their lives and families.

They exchanged addresses before parting ways—but after that meeting, they never saw each other again.

Later, when her family ran into trouble and her husband tried to sell their daughter to an old man, Cheng Hongying thought of her twin sister.

She shamelessly asked her sister to help take care of her daughter for a while, but to her surprise, after that, all contact with her sister was lost.

When the woman at the door heard the unfamiliar yet strangely familiar name, she froze for a moment. “Zhao Xuezhen?” She looked more closely at Cheng Hongying, and the weathered face before her overlapped with the wife of the former tenant in her memory. “Wait… aren’t you Zhao Xuezhen? Oh my, what happened to you? You’ve aged so much!”

Cheng Hongying’s face turned a little red with discomfort. “I’m not Zhao Xuezhen. I’m her… distant older sister. My name is Cheng Hongying.”

“No wonder. You two look way too similar.” If her skin were just a bit fairer, they’d probably be identical. “But Zhao Xuezhen moved out a long time ago. I heard her husband was publicly denounced, and the whole family was sent to a labor farm for re-education.”

Cheng Hongying was completely stunned by what she heard.

It took her a long while to recover her composure and ask about what happened to the family.

“Well, things like that… we don’t really ask too much. But you could try asking the daughter-in-law of the Shao family.”

Cheng Hongying looked utterly confused. “The daughter-in-law of the Shao family? And what does she have to do with my sister’s family?”

“Of course she has something to do with them. She’s your sister’s niece. She came to join them a couple of years ago. By then, your sister’s whole family had already been sent to the farm. It was Madam Shao who saw she was just a poor little girl and took her in out of kindness.”

Cheng Hongying anxiously followed up, “What’s her name?”