Chapter 29: Private Stash
Liu thought of the flock of little hens Yingzi’s family was raising and said quickly, "It must be eggs. I heard Yingzi’s hens lay quite a few eggs every day. She came over with a basket to say thank you, so she must have brought eggs."
At the mention of eggs, she couldn’t help but swallow. ’How long has it been since I’ve eaten an egg?’ Although their family also had an old hen, it rarely laid. The few eggs it did manage to lay had to be saved for Xiao Feng. After all, Xiao Feng was a scholar who worked his mind hard and naturally needed the extra nutrition.
"Mother, what are we waiting for? Let’s hurry and find Zhao Lan and demand those eggs. Otherwise, those two bitches will eat them all."
Old Mrs. Bai thought so, too. ’They still haven’t formally split the family, so everything belongs to the household. There’s no reason for anyone to hoard things for themselves. And even if there were, it certainly wouldn’t be Zhao Lan’s place to do so. It’s only right and proper for me to go and demand it from her.’
Old Mrs. Bai stood up. "Come on, let’s go find her."
The mother-in-law and daughter-in-law hurried out the door, heading straight for the wooden hut where Zhao Lan and Bai Zhi lived. The hut was by the ditch behind Hu Changlin’s yard. Almost every household had one or two such huts, used for storing clutter or raising a few animals.
The Bai family was no exception. It was just that their hut was not only filled with clutter but also held the coffin Old Mrs. Bai had commissioned for herself the year before last. So, of course, it was impossible to clear out a space for Zhao Lan and her daughter to live there.
Seeing the closed door, Liu started yelling at the top of her lungs, "The door is shut in broad daylight! They must be doing something indecent in there."
She was already loud by nature, and this particular yell was clearly intended to make a scene.
Sure enough, a few nosy villagers heard her yelling, immediately stopped their work, and started looking over from a distance.
After letting out that shout, Liu thought, ’The people inside must have heard me. They should be opening the door on their own.’
But after waiting a moment, no one opened the door from the inside. She rushed forward and started pounding on it. The thin wooden door rattled from her blows, making a considerable racket.
"Zhao Lan, what are you doing hiding in there? Open this door right now! Or what, are you hiding some man in there?"
"You only left the main house yesterday, and you’ve already managed to hook up with a man in a single night? You’ve got some real nerve, and you work fast! Open the door! I want to see for myself just who this man you’re hiding is."
The more Liu yelled, the more excited she became. ’If Zhao Lan is really hiding a man in there, this is going to be a great show! Not only will those two bitches, Zhao Lan and Bai Zhi, have their reputations completely destroyed, but our Bai Family can demand compensation from her and that man.’ At the thought, she pounded on the door with renewed vigor, as if breaking it down would reveal a room piled high with silver, all for the taking.
"Mother, she’s just not opening up. My hand is swollen from all that pounding." Liu, finally tired, stopped and turned to Old Mrs. Bai.
Old Mrs. Bai stepped forward and took a closer look at the door. Seeing a brass lock hanging on the outside, she frowned. "It’s locked, isn’t it? From the outside? Is no one in there?"
Only then did Liu see the lock. It was, indeed, locked from the outside. ’Does that mean... all that pounding I did for so long was for nothing?’
Just then, Old Li came back from the fields, carrying a hoe on his shoulder. Seeing Liu and Old Mrs. Bai standing dumbfounded outside the hut, he chuckled. "Looking for Zhao Lan? She went with Old Hu to plant peanuts. I just passed by the Hu family’s peanut patch and saw her helping him sow seeds. They just got started, so it’ll probably be a while before she’s back. Is it something urgent?"