Perfumery

1-10

Chapter 1 Bai Family

In midsummer, the morning sun was just rising. The sky was hazy like a cloud that could not be torn apart. A family in the west of the village had already started cooking. The pungent smell of smoke was pouring out of the kitchen. An old woman was standing at the door of the kitchen. She was stung by the smoke and coughed a few times. Then she couldn't help cursing, "Lazy bone, you got up so late and delayed my Erlang's breakfast. I can't forgive you."

Busy at the stove was a middle-aged woman in a patched dress. Her face was sallow, her brows were tightly locked, there were deep wrinkles between her eyebrows, and her cheekbones were high. She scooped water into the pot skillfully. She went to the water bowl, then walked to the other side and picked up some dumplings with her bony fingers. It was unknown what kind of dough was in the bowl, but it was the same color as her clothes, gray, as if mixed with ash. She explained a little aggrievedly, "Mom, Sanlang had a fever again last night." She paused, glanced at the door quickly, and spoke in a lower voice unconsciously, "Mom, can you cook an egg for Sanlang?"

The old woman screamed like a cat with its tail stepped on, pointing at the woman and scolding, "You still have the nerve to say that, that unlucky person, he spent three dollars just to get medicine, and he wants to eat my eggs ? I tell you, all the eggs in the house are reserved for Erlang. If Sanlang wants to eat, you can give them to him yourself. "

The woman couldn't help but shudder, and lowered her head very low. She would have stopped talking when she was about to lie down, but she was worried about her son. She gritted her teeth, blushed, and cried, "Mom, Sanlang is also your grandson, you can't be partial to him. He just recovered from his illness..."

Before she finished her words, she was interrupted by the sharp voice of the old woman. She spat, and her cloudy eyes glared at the hunched woman in the kitchen, "Bah, can you blame me for being partial? Sanlang is "What kind of a thing is this? Can it be compared with Erlang? Our Erlang is a scholar and will take the imperial examination in the future. Your Sanlang is sickly and it's a problem if he doesn't grow up after being raised!"

The woman started crying. Her surname was Cao. She married into the Bai family when she was fifteen. For twenty years, she served her parents-in-law and managed the housework with all her heart and effort, without any slackness. However, she was never liked by her mother-in-law. She thought of her late husband and her tears became more and more abundant, but she dared not make a sound. She pursed her lips and tried her best to endure it. The tears dripped down her cheeks into the basin and dissolved into the dough. She could hardly see, and her hands were still mechanically wrapping the dumplings.

Although she did not cry out loud, the old woman still noticed it with her sharp eyes. When she saw the eldest daughter-in-law being bullied, she became furious. "You are crying so early in the morning. You are a jinx. Your whole house is full of jinxes."

Before the old woman finished scolding, a young woman hurried out from the west room. The woman looked a little flustered. When she passed by the old woman, she called out, "Grandma."

Grandma Bai pinched her and pointed to the kitchen. "Why don't you help your mother cook? You are a family of lazy people. Why did Dalang marry a lazy woman like you?"

The young woman walked into the kitchen and washed her hands in a hurry. , also started making dumplings. The middle-aged woman lowered her head and asked in a low voice: "Manniang, how did Gouzi sleep last night?"

The woman called Manniang nodded almost imperceptibly, showing a relieved expression on her face, and whispered, "Gouzi slept well these days."

She said it in a low voice, but it was too quiet in the early morning, and was still heard by Grandma Bai outside the door. In an instant, her face was pulled long, and she gritted her teeth and said: "That kid can't die. The whole family is killed by him, and he can't die either."