The harem spirit did not know what to say. "Did you still speak up for your mom then?"
The foolish ghost looked nothing but regretful. "No, this time I told my mom off. I told her that she wasn't doing anything at home, and the kid didn't need taking care of anymore now that he was in school. How busy could she get?"
That was true, wasn't it? She'd said exactly that when her daughter-in-law stayed at home as well.
The foolish ghost thought— his wife had even looked after the baby when she was at home. Now, his mother hardly needed to do anything at all. The clothes were washed by the washing machine, she only had to cook lunch for herself— even dinner was settled by his wife.
Still, his mother complained that she was tired.
When her daughter-in-law stayed at home, she would complain that she was not earning any money and only spending it.
Now that her daughter-in-law had gone back to work, she was complaining that she wasn't doing any chores and leaving them all to a poor old woman to do.
Which resulted in his mother exploding, hurling dishes and bowls around.
"My mother kicked up a fuss, threatening to jump off our balcony saying that no one cared about her after my dad died. Her son was abandoning his mother after getting a wife, accusing his poor mother of not doing anything when she was breaking her back."
She would do this over and over again, causing the house to know no peace.
The harem spirit said, "Your mother really is making a fuss out of nothing!"
The foolish ghost sighed. "Yes, but she's old. What was I supposed to tell her? So I told my wife to apologize to my mother."
The harem spirit: …
The weakling spirit: …
The unlucky ghost: You really are foolish, handling things so terribly!
The foolish ghost said, "Well, what was I supposed to do? One was my mother and another was my wife, I was going to explode from the stress! I really don't even know why they fought all day, had they ever considered how I felt?"
"Hadn't I just done everything for our family? Was I supposed to just abandon my mother? It would have been fine if everyone just sucked it up."
Every family had their own mother and daughter-in-law shenanigans.
Some families were so chaotic that the mother in law would even chase the daughter in law around the house with a knife, but the daughter in law would still suck it up at the end of the day.
"I'd comfort my mother, then I'd have to comfort my wife. I'd comfort my wife, then I'd have to comfort my mother. I was so bloody tired. Then my son finally went to school, but wasn't a good student. He learned to climb over his school walls to play truant at internet cafes, and all his results were terrible. I was practically about to explode."
His mother sat on a stool at the main door of the family house yelling at her daughter-in-law that she made for a terrible mother and daughter-in-law, leaving the house early and coming back late, prioritizing her work over her son.
The county back then was not what it was now, with commodity housing everywhere.
Instead, the people lived in self-built buildings where all the neighbors saw and chatted with each other everyday.
His wife thus received a barrage of complaints from their neighbors, all of them telling her to just quit her job and look after her son.
"My mother obviously grew more and more self-righteous, demanding that my wife quit her job or she would block the door everyday."
"Of course my wife didn't want that…"
"I told her to just not go to work since she would come home everyday complaining that she was tired, and just stay at home to make sure our son studied well! What was wrong with that?"
His wife, however, felt very wronged and said that he did not understand her side of things. The foolish ghost felt as if he was going crazy. How was he not caring enough? Didn't he do whatever she wanted at home?
His mother then grew all the more smug after this, going from cursing at the front door to yanking at her daughter-in-law's hair every time she left for work.
"My mother said that she wasn't even making that much at work but still going out, so she must be having an affair with someone."
"So the two of them finally fought one day…"
The harem spirit hurried to ask, "Well, whose side were you on?"
The foolish ghost said, "Who else? My mom's old, and my wife's young. Even if my mother was in the wrong, it wasn't fair for her to be hit by someone stronger than her. Of course I pulled my wife away."
"Then my wife got really mad and asked for a divorce. I couldn't take it anymore, and fought with her too."
"I just don't get it. I never yelled at her, and even told my mother in her face that it was wrong to attack her!"
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