The second shift, asking for a pink vote, legitimate subscription.

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Old Master Lian kept giving Lady Zhou looks, but Lady Zhou turned a blind eye to it all. Lady Zhou wasn’t someone who could endure grievances.

With Lady Zhou behaving this way, Lian Shouxin couldn’t ignore it.

"Mother, what’s the matter?" Lian Shouxin asked.

With that question from Lian Shouxin, Lady Zhou felt even more wronged. Originally, her eyes were dry, but now tears actually started to flow.

"I’ve never been treated so unfairly in my life, and now, in my old age, two outsiders and a bunch of half-grown brats don’t see me as human... "

It was through Lady Zhou’s tearful complaint that Lian Manman finally understood the whole story.

Under Lady Zhou’s leadership, the people at the old mansion finished wrapping all the buns. Since there were buns to eat, the amount of rice-flour milling to be done each day naturally decreased. This morning, after breakfast, seeing that the weather was good, Lady Zhou thought of letting the two daughters-in-law take a break from grinding and instead dig out the vegetable cellar.

Digging out the vegetable cellar was a winter activity unique to tenant farming families in Liaodong Prefecture. Cabbages were stored in pits, but over time, they’d get rotten and dry leaves on them. If left unattended, this would accelerate spoilage, so it was necessary to periodically tidy up all the cabbages in the cellar, discarding any that had gone bad or even tossing out whole heads when needed.

The Lian Family Main House had a simple vegetable cellar. People could go down, get cabbages, and come back up without issue, but there wasn’t enough space or suitable conditions for working down there.

So, for digging out the vegetable cellar, it was necessary to bring all the cabbages to the surface, tidy them up, and then put them back in.

Today, Lady Zhou assigned this task to her daughters-in-law, Lady Gu and Lady He.

"Don’t think about slacking off or playing tricks on me. If the cellar isn’t cleaned out, don’t even think about eating your meal. You two spendthrift women bringing bad luck!" Lady Zhou scolded, glancing at the silent Lady Gu and adding, "Duoduo won’t eat either."

Lady Zhou watched the two daughters-in-law dig the cellar from the courtyard. In the dead of winter, with no high walls in the courtyard, the north wind bit straight through. Feeling cold, she thought to herself that since it’s just in the courtyard, even if she left for a bit, the two daughters-in-law wouldn’t pull any stunts, so she turned to go inside, intending to warm up.

However, as soon as she entered the house, she caught the He family’s two little boys at the bowl rack, stealing buns.

These buns could be eaten in many ways: steamed, roasted, or even cold, as in just eating them frozen straight, which required good teeth and was a favorite among some children. The Lian Manman’s family never ate this way because Lady Zhang didn’t allow it, fearing the cold buns would upset the children’s stomachs.

This morning, when the buns were being steamed, Lady Zhou found the number that Lady Chiang picked from outside too much, so she took a few down from the steamer and placed them on the bowl rack. After breakfast, in her hurry to assign chores to her daughters-in-law, she forgot all about these buns.

The Lian Family’s children were very well-mannered; things placed in plain view would never be eaten unless given explicit permission by Old Master Lian or Lady Zhou, no matter how hungry they were. Even Si Lang, the least disciplined, and Liulang, the most gluttonous, wouldn’t dare eat anything in the house outside mealtime without permission from Old Master Lian or Lady Zhou.

It must be said that Old Master Lian’s moral education and Lady Zhou’s humiliating scolding "education" had been quite effective in some respects.

So when Lady Zhou saw the He family’s boys stealing buns, she nearly exploded with rage.

She went over and smacked the boys’ hands, knocking the partially eaten buns to the ground, and then unleashed a torrent of scolding.

The He family lived in the Lian Family Old Mansion, but they weren’t part of the Lian Family. Lady Zhou felt uneasy about this, but she never directly did anything to the Wife of He Laoliu and the children, resorting instead to oblique insults and doubling down on disciplining Lady He.

Today, though, Lady Zhou was furious. On top of catching them red-handed stealing to eat, her scoldings were well justified.

However, the boys from the He family weren’t like any of the Lian children. The Lian children had been taught respect for elders, but the He boys had no notion of that. They didn’t argue back with Lady Zhou because they were aware they were eating, using, and living off the Lian family.