But as long as Father Guo was not home, Guo Xiaotao would hit and scold Guo Jinghong, and Guo Jinghong dared not fight back. If she did, when Mrs. Guo came home from work, after Guo Xiaotao tattled, Mrs. Guo would scold and beat her even more harshly.

Mrs. Guo favored sons over daughters. After marrying into the Guo Family, she wanted to give the Old Guo Family several sons. But she had a difficult labor while having a daughter, injured her body, and could no longer get pregnant.

Her daughter ended her hopes of having more sons, so Mrs. Guo didn’t like her daughter very much. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

Moreover, as Guo Xiaotao grew older, his strength increased, and his destructive power became greater. Mrs. Guo even considered sacrificing a daughter for the peace of the family.

Because, when Guo Xiaotao couldn’t unleash his inner violence, he would lose control, smashing things and hitting people. Mrs. Guo had been hit by him twice.

Those little hands were strong and hit very painfully.

Mrs. Guo didn’t want to endure a third beating.

So, she sacrificed her daughter.

But the daughter was already twenty-six years old and still unmarried. In recent years, gossip among the neighbors had increased. Coincidentally, the son had returned from the army, and Mrs. Guo wanted him to marry a wife who could take the beating instead, allowing the daughter to marry out.

As for choosing a wife for her son, Mrs. Guo wanted someone from a good family background but she also understood that a good family’s daughter wouldn’t marry her son, a remarried man.

But she also looked down on widows.

And with many brothers at home, she didn’t dare let her son marry.

For fear that the daughter-in-law, after being beaten, would go back to her family to complain, causing trouble in the future.

So, when her son married a countryside educated youth as a wife, she was quite pleased because these educated youths were from other places, had no family to rely on, and were young maidens from the city. Besides, they were educated, which was better than the illiterate local village girls.

Such a girl, marrying into the Guo Family, was the easiest to control.

But who could tell Mrs. Guo why this Shen Yuanchun was so good at fighting?

The whole family joined forces, but they couldn’t take Shen Yuanchun down.

Such a girl didn’t need family support; she alone could knock down their entire family.

Mrs. Guo had planned to deliberately act like she looked down on Yuanchun, so she could suppress and control her, but now, all she felt was anger and fear, and she didn’t dare speak up.

Yuanchun ignored the resentful glances from the Guo Family members. She sat alone at the table, happily finishing a plate of braised pork and a plate of marinated pig’s head meat. Then, after wiping her mouth, she instructed the only one not involved in the fight, Guo Jinghong, to clear the dishes. She then took the remaining three poached eggs and half a pot of rice to her room, saying she would eat them as a snack at night.

She left only a small pot of stewed pumpkin for the Guo Family.

At night, Guo Jingling did not return to the room to sleep, allowing Yuanchun to have a bed all to herself, where she slept comfortably.

The next morning, Yuanchun got up to cook.

Seeing the eggs and rice gone from the cupboard, she rushed to the door of Father Guo and Mrs. Guo’s room, and knocked loudly, "Mom, open the door, I need the grains and eggs."

"They’re all in the kitchen; I don’t have any here,"

A voice filled with gnashing teeth came from inside the room.

Yuanchun shouted loudly, "I don’t believe it, there were still twenty eggs in that basket last night and about thirty pounds of rice. How could they just disappear? Did you secretly cook and eat them last night? That can’t be, there are only a few of you, how big is your stomach to eat thirty pounds of rice all at once?"

"Mom, are you looking down on me because I’m a countryside educated youth, thinking I’m not worthy of your son, so you’re mistreating me, not letting me eat eggs or rice..."

The voice was so loud that the neighbors all around could hear it.