Again it was a night of falling snowflakes.
In the early morning, Pei Jing brought back rice from the canteen. As soon as he walked to the door, he was spotted by Shen Hongxing, who was sweeping snow outside. "Deputy Pei, you've already married your wife but you still come back with rice from the canteen every day?"
Hearing this, Yang Jun scolded her coldly, "It's none of your business to interfere with others' affairs. If you have time for that, hurry up and sweep the snow clean. Otherwise when the kids come out later their clothes will get wet again. It's the middle of winter and they have barely anything to wear."
"I was just envying their good life. We're all the same kind of people, but even for meals we have to be so frugal!" Shen Hongxing rolled her eyes, perfectly portraying her caustic expression.
Abiding by the principle of treating others kindly, Pei Jing said, "Sister-in-law, you've got that wrong. You have a whole big family eating together, not like it's just the two of us."
His intention was that having more people is a blessing, and his current situation with only himself and Zhi Xia was temporary. When they had children in the future, life would naturally not be as comfortable as it was now.
But unbeknownst to him, Shen Hongxing already harbored particular resentment towards Pei Jing and Zhi Xia because of the matter with Shen Hongmei. Her tone was cold and mocking as well. "Deputy Pei, you're right about that. But speaking of which, sister-in-law here has to give you a word of advice. When taking a wife, you can't just look at her appearance. Especially those fragile, delicate-looking ones who can't do any work and might not even be able to bear children - not like us..."
Before she could finish speaking, Yang Jun suddenly came over and slapped her across the face. "Are you done talking? Can you shut your mouth?"
Shen Hongxing looked at him in disbelief. In the next moment she scratched at his face, yelling, "How dare you, Yang Jun! You've got some nerve laying your hands on me. It's pitiful I married you young and all these years I've served the old and the young..."
These were words that everyone already understood clearly. Shen Hongxing had brought them up countless times before. At first Yang Jun did feel guilty and apologetic to her. But after so many repetitions he was inevitably getting sick of hearing it.
Especially when she used these words time and time again to threaten and manipulate him.
Yang Jun didn't hit back. He crouched on the ground covering his head while Shen Hongxing clawed at him several more times. But what he was thinking in his heart was unknown to others.
Seeing the married couple fighting like this, there were many people around sweeping snow, but no one stepped up to break them apart.
Pei Jing also couldn't say anything more. He felt in his heart that with a wife like this, Yang Jun probably didn't have much of a future to look forward to.
When he arrived at his own door, he saw that the snow in the yard had been shoveled into a mess. Pei Meng was hiding in the kitchen craning her neck to watch the fight next door.
Seeing him return, she hurriedly stood up straight and called him little uncle.
Zhi Xia came out of the kitchen. Seeing the food box in his hands, she said, "I already put porridge on to cook in the pot. Luckily I hadn't started frying any dishes yet. You don't need to go get food from the canteen anymore. I can cook."
Pei Jing thought she had heard Shen Hongxing's words and was trying to reassure her. "We live our own lives, and don't need to care what others say. If I want to go to the canteen then I'll go to the canteen. I'm not spending anyone else's money so no one can control me."
"That's not what I meant. Anyway I don't have anything else to do at home, and cooking three meals a day keeps me occupied. Plus now that little Meng is here, it's so cold for you to be running to the canteen. And the food wouldn't be hot anymore by the time you bring it back." Zhi Xia didn't actually care about Shen Hongxing's unreasonable criticisms. She just found the woman very strange, always doing things that offended people for no good reason, though who knew what she was thinking.
Pei Jing said, "Alright, we'll do as you say."
He brought the porridge from the kitchen into the room to eat. While they were eating, Pei Meng asked about Shen Hongxing, feeling like the woman seemed to harbor some grudge against her little uncle and aunt.
Pei Jing told her not to gossip about others behind their backs, otherwise how would she be different from Shen Hongxing?
Zhi Xia suddenly thought of Shen Hongmei, and deliberately probed, "I wouldn't say she holds a grudge, but she didn't get something she coveted, so naturally she'd feel a bit unhappy.
"What's she coveting that has anything to do with our family?" Pei Meng still didn't understand.
Zhi Xia pointed at Pei Jing with her index finger, then winked at Pei Meng.
Pei Meng was shocked. She blurted out, "That woman is already married with a bunch of kids, looks to be in her forties already. How could she shamelessly covet my little uncle?"
Pei Jing was stunned for a moment. He lightly coughed and said, "What nonsense are you talking about?"
He quickly glanced at Zhi Xia, and suddenly realized Shen Hongxing's younger sister was Shen Hongmei, who had pestered him relentlessly in the past. It seemed Zhi Xia had already heard about the matter.
"I was never in a relationship before. Someone did pester me, but I rejected them at the time. Many people know about it already." Pei Jing said.
Pei Meng's gaze shifted back and forth between Pei Jing and Zhi Xia. She had wondered before what her little uncle, who seemed indifferent to everything, would be like after getting married.
Now she knew.
She really couldn't tell that her little uncle, who had been like a little adult ever since he was small, was actually quite attentive after marrying.
"Mm, I've heard about it already." Zhi Xia said, "And I've even met Shen Hongmei before. She came back the day before it started snowing and came to our house then. She even brought me a bag of red dates, which I didn't want to accept at first, but she insisted on giving it to me, so I gave her a bag of peanuts in return. This Shen Hongmei is quite pretty and stylish, and speaks very politely. It's just that her older sister...seems to feel a lot of injustice for her and doesn't seem to like me."
"We live our own lives and don't need to care about others' unreasonable hassling." Pei Jing didn't know what Zhi Xia's intention was in bringing this up. "But Shen Hongmei does have a good reputation. She's a pillar of the cultural troupe, easygoing and generous. As for her sister, she actually wasn't like this when she first came with the army. Back then I even ate at their house before. I thought she was quite easygoing and generous too. It's only been the last couple years she's seemed to have a drastic change in personality. If I didn't know for sure she was the same person, I'd suspect she was replaced by someone else."
After finishing her meal, Pei Meng went back to the yard to shovel snow again. The winters weren't that cold in Jingcheng, and the snow was only a thin layer. Not at all like the heavy snow here that could completely bury a person and make them vanish. She wasn't in a hurry to pile all the snow up. She shoveled leisurely while playing around, having a lot of fun.
A snowball thrown by the kid from sister-in-law Feng Xia's house hit her. Pei Meng immediately dropped the iron shovel in her hands and merrily joined the snowball fight.
Taking advantage of this time, Zhi Xia looked at Pei Jing with dissatisfaction. "You seem to know Shen Hongmei pretty well. Don't tell me you had feelings for her in the past?"
"Don't randomly speculate. I know about her because I investigated her and her sister before." Although it wasn't good to loudly proclaim this matter, it also wasn't some secret that couldn't be mentioned. Pei Jing softly told Zhi Xia, "This Shen Hongmei originally came to visit her sister a couple years ago. She has a good voice and figure. With Yang Jun's connections, she stayed in the cultural troupe. She had a good reputation at first in the troupe, but after some time it was discovered that anyone close to her would inevitably run into some minor trouble, like tripping over nothing and splitting their head open, or falling out of bed while sleeping and throwing out their back. These people who had problems had more or less interacted with Shen Hongmei before. The army suspected she might have been turned by the enemy to deliberately sabotage things from within, so we secretly investigated. I was responsible for the case at the time. But the results of the investigation were also odd. The two sisters themselves didn't seem to have any issues, but the people in Shen Hongmei's village did tend to have some problems, which manifested most obviously in bad luck. But that wasn't definite proof the issue stemmed from her. Plus the policy to crack down on superstition, so no one dared to outright call her sinister. And aside from that initial period, there weren't any especially severe subsequent incidents. Our superiors felt it might just be a coincidence, so the case was shelved."
