Everyone in the neighborhood knew that Mrs. Hoa—Linh’s mother-in-law—was so fastidious that she was described as someone who would “scold you just for breathing too hard.” Yet, for 10 years, no one understood why Linh persisted in waking up at 4 AM, before the roosters even had time to crow, to stew a pot of red apple chicken for her to drink regularly every day.
Mrs. Hoa would sit on the veranda, sipping spoonfuls of the broth and constantly boasting: — “My daughter-in-law is the most filial in the village.”
Even Uncle Tam, the chicken vendor, couldn’t help but comment: — “How many dozens of chickens do you have to buy a month for this house? It must be incredibly expensive.”
But Linh never said a word. Until one morning, everything exploded…
On that day, her sister-in-law—Hanh—woke up at 3:30 AM with a stomachache and planned to go to the kitchen to get some warm water. As she reached the foot of the stairs, Hanh heard the rapid sound of a knife chopping… “Thud… Thud… Thud…”
She was startled: — “Is Sister Linh awake this early today?”
When she reached the kitchen, Hanh was horrified. Linh was hunched over the cutting board. The dim yellow light shone on her emotionless face. On the cutting board sat not a chicken, but a dark, tough black object, with reddish water oozing onto the table.
The strong, fishy stench made Hanh stop in her tracks. On the other table, there wasn’t a pile of chicken feathers… but an old bag filled with items that looked like herbs, wormwood rings, and black paper charms written with red ink.
Hanh gasped: — “Sister… what are you doing? This… what kind of meat is this?”
Linh raised her head; her eyes were dark yet bright and cold: — “Don’t scream. Let me tell you the truth that this entire family has denied for 10 years.”
Linh revealed that on the day she became a bride, Mrs. Hoa once forced her to sign a paper: “Whoever enters this house and fails to build a prosperous family shall die.”
She mentioned the secret disappearance of Mr. Van—her husband who was addicted to gambling—who had sold something that the “ancestors strictly forbade.” That object was a piece of the root of an ancient wormwood—a treasure passed down through generations; whoever lost it would encounter calamity and sickness.
Three years after his death, Mrs. Hoa began to fall chronically ill with back pain, heart attacks, and digestive disorders… ailments everywhere. A local wormwood master said: “If you want to break the curse, you must cook it every day using the STOLEN PRECIOUS OBJECT.”
But that precious object… was secretly hidden somewhere in Mr. Van’s house. No one in the family could find it. Only Linh—who was forced into the marriage—had been quietly following the trail.
Hanh trembled: — “So… for the past 10 years… it wasn’t chicken?”
Linh looked directly at her sister-in-law: — “This is the wormwood root that my husband stole. He found it 10 years ago under the floor of the chicken coop. But today, I am no longer cooking it. Because the thing inside that talisman bag… is what’s important.”
Hanh turned pale: — “Whose name is it?”
Linh answered softly, almost as if she wasn’t there: — “My mother-in-law’s. She kept this to keep the curse alive, because she didn’t want to have grandchildren.”
Hanh froze, instinctively stepping back. Linh slowly opened the cloth bag. Inside… was not a charm. Instead, it was a notebook outlining a plan to “push out her daughter-in-law,” featuring the name of the very master Mrs. Hoa had hired for years.
Hanh shook, her lips turning purple.
That morning, before the family had time to react, Linh packed her belongings, carrying the notebook and the bag of talismans out of the house.
Mrs. Hoa saw the cold pot of “chicken” and screamed: “I’ll kill you, Linh!”
But Linh only turned back with a faint, pale smile: — “Your illness, Mother, was never related to the wormwood. It was only about you—having no trust. Now, it is all on my own.”
The entire family stood in stunned silence. Only Hanh understood the whole truth: the only person who had kept this family from falling apart for 10 years… was Linh.
And Mrs. Hoa—who drank the “cursed wormwood” every morning—was only drinking… what she chose to believe.