Spoiled by Eight Uncles (Lily)

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 | told my mom off. | 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 | supposed to tell her? So | 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 | supposed to do? One was my mother and another was my wife, | was going to explode from the stress! | really don’t even know why they fought all day, had they ever considered how | felt?” “Hadn't | just done everything for our family? Was | 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. | 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. | 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 with was tired, and just stay at home to make sure our son studied well! What was wrong 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 | pulled my wife away.” “Then my wife got really mad and asked for a divorce. | couldn't take it anymore, and fought. with her too.” “I just don’t get it. | never yelled at her, and even told my mother in her face that it was. wrong to attack her!” “Did she understand me? Fighting with my mother all the time, what even was there to fight. about anyway? I'd hide every single time they fought about that dumb stuff, not wanting to care at all. Didn't they realize they're the problem?” In the end, his mother threw a huge tantrum after he told her that she had been wrong. She sat by the front door crying for days, not relenting even after he comforted and apologized to her.

His wife refused to come home, not picking up the phone for days and neglecting her son. He went looking for her, and only got a scolding.

His son had an internet addiction, and he got so angry that he gave his son a beating at the internet cafe. This drove a wedge between the both of them as well, and his son disowned him.

“I was going to explode from the stress. My mom refused to relent for days, crying at the front door while the neighbors watched on. She'd slap her thighs for hours, yelling things. like, “I might as well be dead!”, or, “You've all abandoned me!”, or, “My daughter-in-law’s said that this wouldn’t happen to their family if | wasn’t around to screw things over”, and sobbing that she wanted to die.” Not only did she threaten to off herself- she even went out to get some pesticide, pretending to drink it the second the foolish got home.

Amidst his annoyance, the foolish ghost made the rash decision of pouring a bit of the pesticide into a small bottle of soda.

“My mother’s an old lady with no hobbies or interests, but she loved drinking soda. My wife was hell bent on getting a divorce then. | was sick of my mother. My company was laying off staff too. My life was falling apart.” The harem spirit could hardly believe it. “So you just tried to kill your mother?” The unlucky ghost nodded reluctantly. “I was just angry then, but yeah.” He had no way of solving his wife and mother’s relationship, his son was not listening to him, his job was laying off their staff.

For a second, the foolish ghost truly believed that everything would be solved if his mother died.

The harem spirit did not know what to say.

Marriages were never truly equal. Women wanted to get married at a young age before they got old, but did not know that what truly mattered was finding a good, sensible family.

It was obvious that the foolish ghost and his mother were not sensible at all.

His wife had been wronged and humiliated, but he did not stop it enough until his mother. drove his wife to wanting a divorce.

With a mess that had no way out, now he was thinking that it would be better if his mother died.

What a fool, indeed.

“Because my company was laying people off and | didn’t want to be fired, | worked overtime. to finish a proposal. | came back hungry and thirsty in the middle of the night, and just picked up the bottle of soda and drank it.” He drained the contents of the bottle, before he remembered that there was pesticide in the bottle.

The unlucky ghost was confused. “Couldn’t you tell?” The foolish ghost shook his head. “It was too damn hot, the soda just felt refreshing when | drank it. | was so tired and stressed too, and couldn't tell the difference from soda when | downed the bottle.” It was too late when he realized it! The foolish ghost’s expression was nothing but remorseful. “Guys, never drink pesticides! Those who take pesticides off themselves are the world’s biggest fools!” Many people felt that pesticides were the best way out, and that they wouldn't feel a thing. after taking it.

But pesticides were very, very poisonous. Five to fifteen milliliters- which was about what a soda bottle cap could hold, was enough to be fatal.

He had drank more than half a bottle! “There’s no antidote to that! It'll give you time to regret it, but it won’t give you a chance to do anything about it.” Pesticides were a natural poison that the human body was obviously not made to digest, and taking it would obviously cause one’s organs to fail.

“The worst part is the respiratory fibrosis,” the foolish ghost said. “You'll feel like you're suffocating, witnessing your own death as your breathing slowly stops.” “Your stomach feels like it’s on fire, your skin starts turning black, your mouth starts decaying too...” The dying process was long and painful. The foolish ghost yanked off his breathing tube for a release, but even then it was not granted to him.

“I was in so much pain | started bleeding from my ears, eyes, nose, mouth, every pore you could think of. | died in agony, my expression bewildered... and when | was suffering the most, my mother and wife were still blaming each other by my bedside,” the foolish ghost smiled bitterly. “So | died just like that, painfully repeating the process of dying for ten years, feeling the sensation of suffocating and hurting to death with the sound of my mother and. my wife arguing next to my ears.” Until he became the foolish ghost.

After becoming a ghost, he did not end up seeking revenge from his mother or wife. It had, after all, been his own foolishness that caused all this. If he hadn't been a fool and mended. his wife's relationship with his mother, none of this would have happened.” “I came here after leaving the county, and found Claire and her foolish family. My air of hostility grew the longer | possessed them, and | wanted nothing more for their family to be destroyed. The more foolish they were, the better!”