Chapter 456: Chapter 449: Spurring Su Ping to Stand Up for Herself
Su Ping listened in a confused haze, and asked puzzledly, "As wives, aren’t we supposed to be capable of doing things? If you’re a lazy one, people will stab you in the back for it."
Sisi sighed again. This is the sad part about being a woman; if a woman can’t work, she’s called a stupid wife, but if she’s too capable, although her reputation might be good, the one who suffers is the woman herself!
"Let’s go. We should find a restaurant and have lunch. It’s on me," said Sisi as she stood up and pulled Su Ping to leave.
"I’m not going for lunch; I have to go back and make lunch for Old Zhu and the children." Although Su Ping really wanted to eat out, she thought about her husband and children at home and shook her head to refuse.
"You really are the worrying type, isn’t Old Zhu at your home capable of cooking? And your daughter is already twelve, can’t she make meals by now? Besides, even if they can’t cook, there’s always the canteen, right?"
Sisi, disappointed like a teacher with an unqualified student, complained that it was exactly such an inability to let go that caused men to take women for granted.
Dragged along by Sisi, Su Ping went to a restaurant with her. Sisi didn’t even look at the menu and directly ordered braised pork, stir-fried black fungus with eggs, grated potato, and three other dishes.
"That’s too much, it’ll be wasteful if we can’t finish it!"
Su Ping was shocked. Isn’t this a bit too extravagant? A bowl of grated potato costs fifty cents. With fifty cents you could buy more than ten kilograms of potatoes, enough to fry so many plates of grated potato. And the braised pork, it’s at most one kilogram of meat, yet they’re selling it for two yuan and eight cents a bowl. Two yuan and eight cents could buy three to four kilograms of meat!
Regardless of Su Ping’s inner complaints, once the dishes were served, Sisi scalded the bowls and chopsticks with hot water and then urged Su Ping to eat the meat while she herself only picked out the potatoes and glass noodles to eat.
But although Su Ping was eating the meat heartily, she seemed distracted, as if she had something on her mind. Sisi slightly pondered and then put down her chopsticks and asked, "Can Old Zhu and the children not get by without you?"
Being asked took Su Ping aback. She contemplated deeply while holding a piece of meat but couldn’t confidently reply with "they just can’t get by without me." She felt even more bitter inside, the bowl of fragrant braised pork in front of her no longer appealing.
"The world wouldn’t stop spinning without anyone, don’t overestimate your importance. To put it bluntly, even if you were gone now, Old Zhu would still eat and sleep as usual, and after a year or two, he might find another younger and beautiful woman to bring home. And your two children will call another woman mother in the future, believe it or not?" Sisi said with a cold sneer.
Su Ping felt her vision darken and a layer of cold sweat broke out on her back, sticking to her inner clothing icily, yet it wasn’t as cold as her heart.
She knew that although Sisi’s words were unpleasant to hear, they were indeed the harsh truth. Remembering how she had lain in bed unable to move due to back pain a few days ago, Old Zhu acted as if nothing was wrong, waiting to have his bowl washed by her the next day, and the two children didn’t think to lend a hand either.
At this moment, Su Ping’s heart felt even colder. She had poured her heart out for her husband and children, so why did it turn out this way?
"Why? I’m so good to them, why is what I get in return less than half of what I give?" Su Ping’s voice was hoarse, filled with resentment.
"Why? It’s because you’re too capable, as if you wish you had three heads and six arms to do every chore inside and out. Are you considering yourself a nanny or a wife and mother? To speak frankly, your son is fifteen, and your daughter is twelve years old, can’t they help you with some household chores?"
Sisi disagreed, having long been dissatisfied with Su Ping’s parenting style. She doted on the kids too much, to the point that the twelve-year-old girl wouldn’t even wash a handkerchief, not to mention doing any household chores.
"Shouldn’t the child be focusing on her studies?" Su Ping weakly defended her child.
Sisi glared at her, "Does that mean she has to study 24 hours a day? Doesn’t she have time to do chores when she has time to play? Besides, there’s your husband Old Zhu. He’s a grown man, stronger and healthier than you; can’t he share some of the household work?"
Su Ping couldn’t help but defend again, "But Old Zhu has to go to work, doesn’t he?"
Sisi, with a hand to her forehead, spoke impatiently, truly finding Su Ping hopeless. She thought for a moment and said, "Alright, I won’t be the bad guy anymore, making it seem like I’m trying to disrupt your family harmony. I’ll say it one last time, if a woman doesn’t cherish herself, don’t expect others to cherish her. To put it bluntly, human relationships don’t work on the principle of equal exchange. Often, if you treat someone too well, they only return a fraction of the effort. But if you’re only moderately good to them, they might actually give back even more!"
After finishing her piece, Sisi turned her attention to her meal. Had Su Ping not been crying in front of her today, she wouldn’t have bothered with someone else’s marital issues. It was up to Su Ping to take the hint from this conversation.
In her previous life, Sisi had a friend just like Su Ping who always put her husband and children first, relegating herself to last place, without even time to catch a breath. On top of it, her friend’s job was not at all easy. In the end, she literally worked herself into lumbar muscle strain and couldn’t even walk.
Later, something clicked for her friend. After undergoing traction therapy, she stopped overworking herself like before. If the house was dirty, she made her husband and children clean it. If they refused, then it stayed dirty. If she finished work late and didn’t feel like cooking, they would all go out to eat. Even though it pained her to spend the money, at least she wasn’t tired. Eventually, it was her husband who couldn’t keep up. He took the initiative to mop the floors and buy groceries to cook dinner. Gradually, the responsibility for dinner and chores was taken over by him. It’s all about habits.
Later, her friend would express, full of emotion, that men were indeed a curious breed: previously, all the nice things she did for him never seemed to be appreciated with a few kind words. Now, since she had stepped back and become a hands-off manager, she often heard sweet nothings like "Honey, you’ve worked hard," "Rest, I’ll do it."
Sisi’s words had indeed made a big impact on Su Ping. Although the traditional notion of ’men work outside, women take care of the home’ had long dominated her thoughts, she still felt irked when she arrived home to a messy house, with morning dishes still in the sink and Zhu Xianren and the children just playing around, immediately asking her to cook because they were starving upon her arrival.
Su Ping had intended to hurry back to cook, but then she remembered Sisi’s words.
"Are you a nanny or a wife and mother? Isn’t it reasonable to have your husband and your children share some of the household chores?"
Su Ping suddenly sneered, "Were you planning to starve until I returned?"
Su Ping’s children had never heard their mother speak like this; realizing something was wrong, they shrank their necks and dared not make a sound.
Zhu Xianren frowned with displeasure, "What are you going insane about? You come back late without a word, and you’re still throwing a tantrum?"
Su Ping threw her bag down and said coldly, "Me coming back late? Am I a repeat offender that I can’t step out the door? If I don’t return, can’t you, Zhu Xianren, cook? Can’t you clean up the house a bit? Can’t the dishes we used in the morning be washed? Is there a law stating that these household chores must be done by me, Su Ping? I’m not a housewife; I’m a working woman with a career, not some nanny hired by you."
After saying the words she had heard from Sisi, Su Ping felt much relieved. She chased the kids off the heated brick bed and went to sleep on it herself. She had eaten a bowl of braised pork for lunch; she wouldn’t starve even if she skipped dinner.
The sudden outburst from his wife stunned Zhu Xianren. Since their marriage, aside from an incident two years ago when she had a fight with Li Yuzhi at the town canteen, his wife had always been gentle. What on earth had gotten into her today?
The two children tried their best to keep a low profile, as if to shrink their presence to avoid trouble – they feared that they might become collateral damage in a conflict that was none of their making.