Chapter 28:
“Hehe, yes, yes, grandson knows.”
The little old man of similar age looked dejected, nodding and bowing to another old man, calling him grandson one after another. Luo Zhi’er found it really quite comical…
She burst out laughing, her eyebrows and eyes curving into a flower…
“Wife, what’s wrong with you again?”
Li Sanmao thought his fat wife’s thoughts were really hard to figure out…”Hehe, husband, don’t you think it’s fun?”
“Fun?”
Li Sanmao scratched the root of his ear, feeling his head ache. His family’s trivial matters never ended…
Outside the yard, there arose whispers from the old women, voices of contempt and spitting…
“These nosy old women who love to stir up trouble, next time something happens in your family, see if I don’t run over first to watch the excitement and spit saliva!!!”
Zhou Shi’s eyes darted around, nagging…
Uncle Li gave her an impatient glance. Fortunately, his wife wasn’t like that. Too scary…
Li Depei wished he could find a brick to knock himself out. He had been focused on gaining face in the village, but this time, the eldest son’s wife pointed at his nose demanding family division…
Being poked in the back, being openly accused about his wife and children—this was all illusion, all saying he didn’t manage the family strictly…
The village chief took a sip of tea, frowned slightly, thought for a moment, and said,
“Alright, from the looks of it, you two old folks don’t agree to the family division.”
Old Li Tou and his wife nodded heavily. Zhou Shi screeched, “How could we? Unless I die, don’t even think about it!”
“Very well, it seems this family can’t be divided today. Xiao Zhou Shi, since your in-laws and husband all disagree with dividing the family, set aside this idea for now!”
Xiao Zhou Shi slumped on the ground, wiping tears, helpless. Her husband’s family was so authoritarian…
The others were juniors and had no decision-making power, so their opinions weren’t asked.
Li Gui and Li Zhenzhu’s faces relaxed, especially Li Gui, whose heart dropped halfway in relief. Li Zhenzhu looked smug…
Luo Zhi’er stayed silent. Apart from laughing earlier, she showed no big emotional reaction.
She was still a bit disappointed, but fortunately, she had some expectation of this from the start.
In this family, with Li Gui studying, it wouldn’t be that easy. But next time they raised family division, there would probably be a tough battle. For now, better to get some silver and wait for the next chance, biding time to act…
“But I really can’t stay in this family anymore. I might not be able to go back to my maternal family either. What about Yunliang and Muqing going to school?”
Xiao Zhou Shi sobbed and persisted in questioning relentlessly.
Zhao Guangyuan said,
“Sigh, Xiao Zhou Shi, since you’ve become the eldest daughter-in-law, wife, and mother, you must shoulder the heavy burden and responsibility on your shoulders. There’s no way around it.”
“You can’t go back to being a little girl. Every family is different, in-laws are different, and your own parents are different too.”
“There are families even harder than yours. How did those women persist and get through in such situations?”
“I’ve lived to this age and seen women after marriage in much worse straits than you, far worse. There will always be ways. In this process, you must think about how to live more wonderfully, how to adjust yourself.”
“We rural people are at the bottom. Survival, how easy is it? Some are even sold by their families—how do they live?”
“Be strong and hardworking. Just thinking of escaping and avoiding won’t solve the problem forever. Water to desperation is scenery, man to desperation is rebirth…”
“Your several children are your hope. Studying, that’s indeed a big problem, but where there’s sacrifice, there’s gain!”
“Also, you need to think openly right now. Even if you skinned and boned the two elders alive in your family situation, there’s no silver…”
Xiao Zhou Shi cried harder and harder, gasping for breath. In the end, still no go. Should she accept it?
Helplessness toward fate, compromise with life…
No, don’t.
That crying was particularly moving, heartbreaking, so pitiful…
Outside, some women couldn’t help wiping tears. More or less, they had all been through this stage…
Li Daqiang couldn’t bear it. “Wife, sorry, I’ve wronged you…”
Xiao Zhou Shi suddenly let out a wail, pounding him while crying and howling. “It’s all your fault, all your fault. Why did you say back then you’d be good to me, Zhou Hanjuan, for life?”
“Making my life worse than death, pity my Yunliang and Muqing! You chose the wrong mother, and mother chose the wrong father for you!”
Li Daqiang stood still, letting her hit him.
Zhou Shi and Li Zhenzhu looked contemptuous. “Serves you right. Acting for whom? Wasn’t it you who begged for it back then!”
Li Gui was indifferent, feeling no guilt. He was supposed to study first anyway; the family supporting him was only right. He had no fondness for such shrewish rolling on the ground.
He even felt Xiao Zhou Shi was deliberately making him lose face in front of the villagers.
He brought face to them.
Yet she deliberately made him unable to hold his head up, subject to blame and spitting…
Though Luo Zhi’er hadn’t said much, she took all his actions into her eyes.
Probably this was the biggest ungrateful wolf in the family.
Li Fuquan watched with a pair of teary cloudy old eyes, sighed, and said,
“How about this: see if we can borrow some silver to let the two children go to school first…”
“If we can’t borrow, I, Li Fuquan, can stand guarantee, go to the school and say hello so the children can start studying first, silver to be paid later, but it must be paid…”
Xiao Zhou Shi’s eyes were tear-blurred, a flash of hope passing through…
“Then alright, this old man will also add a guarantee, go to the school and talk…”
“Hey, hey!”
Surprise flashed in Li Daqiang’s eyes. That was great.
“Then I thank the two uncles.”
Zhou Shi was unhappy. Borrowing silver, guaranteeing—didn’t that all cost money?
Just a few days late, she was very unwilling. She had planned to drag it out if possible. The eldest family making a fuss a few times would miss the time anyway!
“Old Li Tou, what do you think?”
“Uh… well, cough… alright then, sorry to trouble you.”
Saying this with his mouth, but thinking something else in his heart. Once studying started, family expenses wouldn’t be small. Tuition had to be paid every year on time.
Heavy burden…
And this was three children, and silver would only increase. Without a way to earn money, where would it come from?
Li Daqiang probably saw his father’s thoughts and knelt down before him in one flip, like an old ox.
“Dad, Mom, Daqiang will definitely work even harder to grow crops from now on, try to reclaim that wasteland on the mountain from before, plant corn, plant beans…”
Old Li Tou was slightly moved. “Sigh, then it’ll be hard on the oldest son!”
In this matter, after Xiao Zhou Shi made a fuss for half a day, the family didn’t divide. Fortunately, what comforted her was that Yunliang and Muqing could go to school.
Old Li Tou and Zhou Shi, the couple, felt forced into it like ducks onto a rack, thoroughly uncomfortable!
Afterward, Zhou Shi looked at her unfavorably every day, giving Xiao Zhou Shi aggravation, making her wear small shoes. What surprised Luo Zhi’er was that she took it all, bowing low and acting small, accepting it…
She didn’t seek death or return to the Zhou family in Tongtian Village or anything…
After handling the eldest son’s family’s family division matter, next was Li Zhenzhu…
The village chief, Uncle Li, and Uncle Zhao looked at Li Zhenzhu. Her face paled and flushed by turns.
“Hehe, Village Chief Uncle, two ancestors, my belly hurts again. Something I ate this morning wasn’t right. You sit, I’ll go squat in the latrine…”
Uncle Li slammed his big palm on the table.
“Outrageous!”
Li Zhenzhu turned to leave but hadn’t walked yet, shrinking her neck in fright…
“A proper unmarried daughter, beating your eldest sister-in-law, lazy and gluttonous, always talking about squatting in the latrine. You… do you have any woman’s demeanor?”
“As an elder in the village, from a clan, I feel utterly ashamed, wishing I could bury my head in a crack in the ground…”
Outside, tsk-tsk sounds almost surrounded the Li family yard. Such a woman, who would dare marry her?
Old Li Tou just wanted to bury his head in a crack. He had always thought he educated his Zhenzhu well. How was she so unpopular?
Li Zhenzhu, of course, received severe punishment. For beating her sister-in-law, laziness, lack of propriety, bad influence, the ancestral hall in Zhao Li Village enshrined the ancestral tablets of Zhao Shi and Li Shi ancestors…
Women couldn’t enter, but behind was a small black room, specially for punishing morally corrupt women in the village.
She was announced in the village, locked in the small black room for three days, punished to copy women’s precepts. She couldn’t write, but could trace them.
The ancestral hall had a granny gatekeeper, very strict. She couldn’t come out, except for sending some water, nothing else was given…
