On New Year’s Eve, a commotion broke out in the Chiang Family, leaving everyone in a foul mood during this grand holiday. Chiang Qing didn’t dare mention Qi Taiguo’s name for a while. Lu Shufen, seeing that everyone in the family was on edge and couldn’t relax even during the New Year, hated Qi Taiguo, the instigator of it all, and that despicable Jiang Dafang as well.
In contrast to the Chiang’s low spirits, Cheng Su and her family were very cheerful.
On New Year’s Eve, every household slaughtered chickens and ducks, pasted red couplets, fried ’four-happiness’ meatballs, and wrapped ’grandchildren’ buns.
This was Cheng Su’s first New Year as a wife, so she also got up early from the warm bed to help with the chores.
The rituals for worshipping the gods were handled by the mother-in-law, the pasting of new couplets by Qi Taiguo and his brothers, and Cheng Su went to help Father Qi slaughter ducks and pluck their feathers.
"You don’t need to do this, I’ll have the duck ready in a moment. Why don’t you see if your mother-in-law needs any help?" Father Qi smiled and stopped her hands.
Cheng Su really didn’t want to crowd around her mother-in-law, so seeing that everyone had not yet had breakfast, she went to the kitchen to prepare it.
In winter, there weren’t many fruits or vegetables in the house, mostly just cabbage, radish, and potatoes. Cheng Su decided to knead some dough and chopped up cabbage and pork filling to make dumplings.
She worked swiftly and had half a pot of dumplings wrapped before her sister-in-law Qi Fengping got out of bed and came to the kitchen, yawning, looking for something to eat.
Seeing Cheng Su busy, Fengping felt a bit embarrassed and called out "sister-in-law" before retreating.
Cheng Su didn’t mind, but she still felt a pang of envy when she heard Mother Qi outside telling Fengping to put on a few more layers.
They say that a woman’s most carefree time is when she’s unmarried. After getting married, she has to deal with daily necessities and various social interactions.
And that was no lie. The contrast between her and her sister-in-law made it clear. If she were only now getting out of bed and waiting for breakfast to be served, her mother-in-law would likely have had an opinion by now, right?
After being busy for half the morning, the family gathered around the table for breakfast.


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