“Pah! ‘Eventually’? When exactly? Give me a specific date! Once that money goes into someone else’s pocket, there’s no way it’s coming back out. Baole, it’s not that your Second Aunt is deliberately making things difficult for you, but I’m truly doing this for your own good. This man hasn’t even married you yet, and he’s already taking this much money from your pocket. Aren’t you afraid he’ll treat you the same way he treated that Educated Youth Tian?”
Hu Qiugui, upon being scolded by Cheng Baole for insulting her husband, sprang up like a fish flipping over. Instead of sitting on the ground, she stood up and pointed at Tan Yandong, who was hiding behind Cheng Baole, her face full of contempt.
“You’re lying! Brother Yandong would never treat me like that. Wuwuwu, Father, Second Aunt and the others are trying to drive me to death. I… I don’t want to live anymore!”
With that, Cheng Baole pretended to throw herself against the wall, but Tan Yandong quickly grabbed hold of her.
“Baole, this is all my fault. I shouldn’t have… If it weren’t for Tian Baozhu pushing me like this, you and your father wouldn’t be in such a difficult position now!” Tan Yandong said tearfully, his voice full of emotion.
“Brother Yandong, how could it be your fault? The one in the wrong is Tian Baozhu. She just wants to pressure you into giving up on me and being with her instead. Don’t worry, I will never let her succeed.”
Cheng Baole cried as she hugged Tan Yandong back, grinding her teeth in anger.
“Father, for the sake of my sister’s happiness, you can’t go back on your word,” Cheng Baolin, who had been watching his sister cry her heart out, said urgently in a rough voice, his face full of worry.
Hearing his daughter’s and Tan Yandong’s words, combined with his son’s plea, Cheng Aiwen’s expression grew even darker.
“Second Sister-in-law, has my Baole ever wronged you? Second Brother, are you just going to let your wife talk like this? Have you thought about the future?”
Hearing the veiled threat in his elder brother’s words, Cheng Airong hesitated. After all, his brother was the brigade leader. Many things had to go through him. Offending him too deeply would surely make life difficult for his branch of the family.
“If we can’t even get by now, what future is there? Cheng Airong, if you want to continue being this spineless, then there’s no point in us staying married!” Hu Qiugui saw her husband wavering and started shouting, jumping up and down.
Ruan Jinmei wanted to chime in and support her second sister-in-law, but seeing her own husband give her a slight shake of his head, she immediately lowered her head and dared not say anything more.
“Shut up!” Feng Taohua helped her mother-in-law, Zhang Xiu, out of the house, her face stern.
“If you don’t want to stay married to Airong, then get lost. The Cheng family has no place for a daughter-in-law like you,” Zhang Xiu said, then coughed a few times. She had been feeling unwell these days, and the eldest daughter-in-law had been taking care of her.
So, although she was unhappy about the eldest branch taking eighty yuan to subsidize Baole, she absolutely would not allow her daughters-in-law to use the threat of marital dissolution to manipulate her sons. If she let them get away with that, would her sons still listen to her in the future?
Unfortunately, while she could scold her daughters-in-law, she couldn’t stop her sons from having their own say.
“Mother, your favoritism is going too far.”
“The money Eldest Brother is taking, part of it belongs to our second and third branches. Why can’t we speak up just because he wants to subsidize an outsider?”
Cheng Airong, upon hearing his own mother’s words, felt she had always favored the eldest brother since they were young, and now her bias was simply unbearable to witness.
Zhang Xiu staggered, nearly fainting from the shock. She hadn’t expected that it wouldn’t be her daughter-in-law talking back, but rather her own son, attacking her like this.
Clutching her chest, her face full of sorrow, she cried out to Cheng Quanxi, “Old man, you see this? This is your fine son. I’m not even dead yet, and this is how he treats me. If anything happens to you, they’ll devour me alive!”
With that, she began to wail.
In her youth, Zhang Xiu had relied on this very same tearful, delicate demeanor to keep Cheng Quanxi wrapped around her finger. But now, with wrinkles deep enough to trap flies, her crying only made one’s hair stand on end, a truly frightening sight.
Cheng Quanxi averted his eyes and took a few puffs on his dry pipe. Though he couldn’t bear to look at his wife’s current state, what she said held some truth. He wasn’t dead yet, and already his second son was talking back like this. If he fell ill one day, could he even rely on him to wipe his bottom?
“Airong,” he said, “your mother gave birth to you and raised you. Did she do something wrong in bringing you up? Regardless, you shouldn’t speak to your mother like that. Your eldest brother discussed the details of this matter with me, so let’s hear no more about it. If you’re dissatisfied, then you can split off from the family and set up your own household.”
Cheng Quanxi made the final decision, raising his eyelids to glance at his second and third sons. Although the third son hadn’t spoken, he knew what he was thinking. Both of them were shortsighted and had no idea why their eldest brother was doing this. No wonder, besides the eldest, the two of them could only toil in the fields with their backs to the sky. Even if you dressed them in a dragon robe, they’d never have the fate to be emperor.
Cheng Airong hadn’t expected his father to say such a thing and fell silent. He thought about splitting the family, but if he were singled out and separated, wouldn’t the villagers gossip behind his back and break his spine? If word spread that he was unfilial, he still had a daughter to marry off and a son to find a wife! Yet, simply agreeing felt unbearably frustrating.
Hu Qiugui hadn’t expected her father-in-law to favor the eldest branch so blatantly either. Seeing her husband cowed by the old man’s threat made her so angry she felt her lungs might burst.
Cheng Aiwu, upon hearing his father mention splitting the family, flickered a glance but quickly lowered his head without a word. After all, who wouldn’t want to split the family and be their own master after getting married?
Ruan Jinmei glanced at her husband, but seeing he wasn’t looking at her, she suppressed the thought stirring in her heart.
“Grandpa Cheng, please rest assured, I will treat Baole well,” Tan Yandong said, his face full of gratitude as he assured the old man. “And once Baole and I go to study, I will definitely find ways to secure jobs for my brothers in the city. Then the whole family can eat state-supplied grain and won’t have to work the fields anymore.”
He said this to reassure the Cheng family and prevent any more trouble.
Cheng Quanxi nodded upon hearing this and signaled for the eldest to give the money to Tan Yandong. If it weren’t for the future prospects of his several grandsons, he would never have agreed to let the eldest give away so much money.
Upon hearing Tan Yandong’s words, Cheng Airong stirred. His son was fifteen this year. If he could go to the city and work, eating state-supplied grain, then what was a little money now? However, the eldest branch also had two sons. Even if Tan Yandong could help find jobs, his own son would surely be at the back of the line.