Faced with the disapproving looks from everyone around her, Liao Chunmei’s face flushed bright red.
“I-I… That chicken was raised by me. What’s wrong with giving Youyou a little more meat?”
Shen Dajun had long since reached the end of his patience.
With red-rimmed eyes, he said, “Second Sister-in-law, you may have raised the chicken, but who gathered all those wild vegetables? Does my Niannian not even deserve a piece of meat?”
Those who knew the whole story had already been feeling indignant on Shen Dajun’s behalf.
A young man named Xiaolei stepped forward.
His father had always been close to Uncle Dajun, and when Xiaolei was little, he often followed Uncle Dajun into the mountains to catch birds, collect bird eggs, and pick wild fruit.
He had long been upset about the way Dajun and his daughter had been treated.
“Aunt Chunmei, Uncle Dajun’s leg—if you hadn’t forced him to go up the back mountain in the middle of the night to gather wild vegetables for your chickens, would he have fallen into that ditch and broken his leg? And after he broke his leg, you people still dragged your feet and refused to get him treatment. Do none of you have a conscience?”
Hearing Xiaolei’s words, Liao Chunmei and Li Guihua’s expressions immediately turned ugly.
But Shen Niannian’s eyes reddened.
Large tears began rolling down her cheeks.
“Dad, is what Brother Xiaolei said true? Was it really Liao Chunmei who forced you to go up the mountain at night to gather wild vegetables?”
Shen Dajun had originally not wanted to tell her about this.
But after seeing how the Shen family was behaving today, and knowing that Niannian and Gu Yanzhi had already completely fallen out with them, he had no reason to keep hiding it.
He nodded helplessly.
“Yes.”
“Your Second Aunt said that if I didn’t go, there wouldn’t be a single dish on the table when you came home for your wedding visit. So Dad had to go. I don’t mind suffering a little myself, but Dad…” His voice trembled. “Dad didn’t want my Niannian to suffer. You’ve already had such a hard life following Dad all these years. I don’t want you to suffer anymore…”
Hearing Shen Dajun’s words, Shen Niannian’s tears flowed like pearls from a broken string.
“Dad, I’m not suffering. I’m really not suffering at all. But seeing you suffer like this hurts my heart even more!”
Seeing the father and daughter crying their hearts out, quite a few villagers who were easily moved to tears began wiping their own eyes.
Everyone in the village knew what kind of life Dajun and his daughter had lived all these years.
And precisely because they knew so much, they felt all the more sorry for them—and all the more disgusted with the Shen family.
Gu Yanzhi comforted one person and then another.
His heart ached so badly that his chest seemed to tremble with it.
Especially when he heard Niannian quietly ask Shen Dajun, “Dad, let’s separate from the family…”
He could no longer hold himself back.
Turning toward the village chief and the villagers, he said, “You probably don’t know this yet, but just now, when Niannian and I took Dad to the health clinic, the doctor said that the bone in Dad’s leg has already cracked. Because he didn’t receive proper treatment or adequate rest, the injury has already become inflamed. If we’d waited any longer, he might have lost the leg and needed an amputation…”
“What? An amputation?”
“Doesn’t that mean they’d have to cut his leg off?”
“My goodness! The Shen family really is heartless. His leg was already broken, and they still made Dajun work?”
“Exactly!”
“That’s right!”
The Shen family hadn’t expected the situation to be this serious either.
Especially Li Guihua. She assumed this young man was deliberately exaggerating things to frighten them.
“You’re just a younger generation. What nonsense are you talking about? How could it possibly come to amputation? Who in the village hasn’t injured their leg while working? Just rest for a few days and it’ll get better. Why are you acting so delicate?”
Seeing that she still refused to acknowledge the seriousness of the situation, Shen Niannian wiped the tears from her face and looked over with a cold laugh.
“Grandma doesn’t believe me? The doctor said that amputation would actually be the lesser problem. If the wound festers and becomes infected and my dad develops sepsis, he could lose his life!”
“What?!”
“My goodness! The Shen family really isn’t human!”
“Exactly! No matter what, Dajun is their own son, isn’t he? How can they be so heartless? They don’t even care whether Uncle Dajun lives or dies!”
“That’s right! They’re bullying him far too much!”
“That Shen family is just picking on the weak. They’re bullying Uncle Dajun because he’s an honest, easygoing man!”
The village chief and his wife hadn’t expected things to be this serious either.
But Dajun really had been badly injured when he fell.
Li Guihua had said that everyone in the village had fallen and hurt their legs before, but there was a difference between falling on level ground and falling from a mountain into a ditch.
If he’d landed badly, he could easily have died on the spot!
He had been injured this severely, yet they had still forced him to work and refused to get him medical treatment.
The village chief truly couldn’t understand how such a family had come to exist in their village.
Even he felt it was terribly unfair to Dajun.
“Come to think of it, when Niannian got married, the Gu family did give a bride price. I heard it was two hundred yuan, wasn’t it? Couldn’t you have used that money to get Dajun treated?”
The moment Liao Chunmei heard this, she immediately objected.
“Village Chief, what are you talking about? My parents already discussed it. That money is going to be used to buy a job for my Qingfeng. I’ve already made inquiries and spoken to the people involved. It’s that chemical factory in the county seat. As long as the money is paid, he can start working there at the end of the month! From then on, our Qingfeng will be a city resident and have a state job!”
Ma Yuhua was practically dumbfounded.
How could Liao Chunmei’s skin be so thick? She actually had the nerve to take another family’s daughter’s bride-price money and spend it on her own son?
“Liao Chunmei, don’t forget that the Gu family gave that money to Niannian. What benefit does Niannian get from you spending all of it on your son?”
Liao Chunmei raised her chin proudly.
“Of course it benefits her! Once my son becomes a permanent worker at a state-owned factory and gets a secure government job, Niannian will have something to be proud of as a married daughter too. Her in-laws won’t look down on her…”
“Bah!”
Before she could finish, Shen Niannian spat fiercely.
“You people really don’t do a single thing that involves basic human decency! You make it sound so noble now. Why don’t you listen to what your own son calls me? He keeps calling me ‘the Shen family’s dog.’ For someone as worthless as him—less than a dog or pig—I’d be better off using those two hundred yuan to buy steamed buns and feed them to an actual dog. At least a dog would know to wag its tail at me!”
Ma Yuhua was delighted to hear that and couldn’t help laughing.
“Exactly! Niannian is absolutely right. With your son’s personality, do you really think he’d ever help her? Once that money is handed over to him, it’ll probably be like throwing meat buns at a dog—gone forever!”
“You!”
Liao Chunmei glared furiously at her.
The village chief actually thought his wife had a point, but as the village chief, he felt it wasn’t appropriate for her to openly insult someone like that.
He tugged at her sleeve and deliberately coughed several times.
“All right, here’s what we’ll do. Since things have already reached this point, stop thinking about giving that two hundred yuan to the second branch. Return the money to Dajun and let him get proper medical treatment.
“After all, money can always be earned again, but a person’s life only comes once. Dajun has worked tirelessly all these years and done so much for this family. It’s time he got some proper rest.
“Besides, with an injury like this, he needs at least a hundred days to recover. For the remaining days before the New Year, nobody is to make him work. Let him rest and recuperate properly.
“As for you, Erguang and Sanzhu, the two of you brothers can take turns looking after your elder brother.
“Second daughter-in-law and Third daughter-in-law, you two can also help wash Dajun’s clothes, clean up his room, cook his meals, and take care of the household chores…”