Very quickly, news that Gu Shiye could turn waste into treasure reached Mother Gu’s ears.
Of course, most people came just to watch the joke, laughing that Mother Gu had pushed away such a capable and valuable son.
Old Gu was even more regretful. He beat his chest and stomped his feet, insisting that Third Brother had always been a promising child since he was young.
He immediately warned Mother Gu, “Don’t go provoking that young couple anymore. We should slowly try to repair our relationship with them. Hopefully we can still get Third Brother to come back.”
But Mother Gu secretly became defiant in her heart. As evening fell and the sky dimmed, she sneaked her way to the small courtyard at the east end of the village.
She raised her hand, originally intending to knock, but halfway through she suddenly changed her mind and started banging loudly on the door instead.
To her surprise, the courtyard gate was not locked, and there was no one inside. The bicycle was just parked openly in the yard, and it immediately made her eyes burn with greed. She even thought about taking it back for her precious youngest son.
But just as her hands touched the bicycle seat, two fat white geese suddenly appeared from nowhere. Flapping their strong wings, they charged at her aggressively.
“Quack, quack, quack!”
The two majestic geese moved with surprising intelligence, attacking from left and right in coordinated pincer movements. Their hard beaks snapped open and shut, each bite painfully sharp.
Mother Gu had nowhere to run. In the end, she could only flee in a miserable, crawling scramble.
Inside the house, Li Wenxiu and Gu Shiye were hiding by the window, watching the scene outside, laughing so hard they nearly doubled over.
After being brought back, these two geese had been fed spiritual spring water by Li Wenxiu every day. Not only did they lay two eggs daily without fail, but they had also grown extremely intelligent, listening only to Li Wenxiu and Gu Shiye’s instructions.
Tonight’s ambush on Mother Gu had been deliberately arranged by the couple.
For their situation, raising two guard geese was far better than raising dogs. If it had been dogs instead, the village would have accused them of being unfilial for bullying their elders. But with geese, it was different. Who would believe two geese could be so aggressive?
At most, people would only laugh and say Mother Gu was useless for being beaten up by birds.
“Help! Someone help!” Mother Gu screamed, feeling her flesh being painfully twisted and pecked from both sides. She was in so much pain she could no longer think straight.
But this was the remote east end of the village. Everyone had already finished work and was busy cooking dinner, so no one noticed her at all.
In the end, driven to desperation, Mother Gu shamefully tore off her own clothes and pants just to escape.
She returned home in that state, and that very night she got into a huge fight with Old Gu, because he accused her of shamelessly going out to steal men, which she denied completely.
The next day was her nightmare.
Scandalous rumors spread across the entire village.
“Did you hear? They say Li Zhaodi got pecked by two big geese last night and even had her clothes torn off.”
Li Zhaodi was Mother Gu’s real name.
“Tch, and you really believe that? I think that shameless old woman probably went to sneak into some man’s bed and got beaten out by his wife.”
“Hahaha!”
Any rumor involving sexual scandal spread faster and became more exaggerated with every retelling.
Mother Gu was so ashamed she did not dare leave her house.
The Gu family had truly fallen on hard times recently. First their precious Fourth Brother and Fourth Sister-in-law had their reputation ruined in the village, and now it was her turn.
Wang Lihua, seeing that both her annoying mother-in-law and Fourth Brother’s family were suffering misfortune, felt secretly delighted.
That day it was Fourth Brother’s household again assigned to do chores. Early in the morning, she stood in the courtyard with her hands on her hips and shouted toward their room in mockery.
“Fourth Brother’s wife, didn’t I tell you to control yourself at night? You wear your husband out so much you can’t even get up. Now it’s your turn to do housework again. Get up and make breakfast! Everyone is waiting to eat before going to work!”
Lin Baozhu was once again pushed to the edge of collapse. This eldest sister-in-law had a sharp tongue and was extremely difficult to deal with. Yet she still could not fully break down and become a complete shrew in front of Mother Gu, because she still needed to maintain her image as a well-behaved daughter-in-law in order to get some pocket money and support their small household.
Especially since they still wanted Mother Gu to help them buy a bicycle so they could appear more respectable when going to work.
If they refused to let her live well, then she would not blame them for being ruthless.
After breakfast, Lin Baozhu and Gu Shicheng walked to the commune school, but today she did not go to work. Instead, she took leave.
Leaving the school, she went to the street and boarded a public bus to the county seat.
Once she arrived in the county city, she followed the original novel’s plot. Eldest Brother was working as a temporary worker in a mechanical factory. Because commuting every day was inconvenient, he rented a very small room in a shared dormitory compound in the city.
But three months ago, he met a widowed temporary female worker at the factory. That woman wanted him to help support her child, while he wanted her body in return. In the novel, when this incident was exposed, the woman was already pregnant and claimed the child was Eldest Brother’s, demanding money from the Gu family. This caused Eldest Sister-in-law in the original story to be driven into near madness.
Whether the child in the woman’s belly was really Eldest Brother’s, Lin Baozhu, who knew the full plot, was very clear about it.
She arrived at the entrance of the dormitory compound and asked an old lady at the gate, “Auntie, hello, is Ma Sufen living here?”
She was lucky. The old lady pointed directly behind her. “That’s Ma Sufen right there.”
Lin Baozhu turned around and met the gaze of a tall woman with a long ponytail, standing beside a four or five-year-old boy.
It was her.
At a glance, Lin Baozhu was certain this was the widow Ma Sufen she was looking for.
Ma Sufen was going to work the night shift that day. She carried a vegetable basket and looked at Lin Baozhu cautiously. “I don’t know you. What do you want with me?”
Since she was living here with Gu Shizhu in an illegal arrangement, she had no choice but to be careful.
Lin Baozhu smiled at her. “Don’t worry. Let’s find a suitable place to talk.”
Ma Sufen asked her son to take the basket back home, then followed Lin Baozhu into an empty alley.
“Who are you? What do you want?”
“I’m from the Gu family.”
The moment Lin Baozhu said this, Ma Sufen’s eyes widened in shock.
When she finally reacted, she turned to run.
But Lin Baozhu’s voice came from behind her in a threatening tone. “Let’s be honest. The child in your belly is not Gu Shizhu’s, is it?”
Ma Sufen stopped in her tracks.
In the evening, the entire Qingshan Production Brigade had finished work and was heading home. When the Gu family returned, they saw a woman standing at their courtyard gate.
It was Ma Sufen.