Gu Changxing finally snapped back to his senses. He hurriedly shoved Old Madam Gu away, ducking and covering his head as he begged for mercy.
“Mother, Mother, stop hitting me! Please, Mother…”
“Pfft… Hahahaha!”
Gu Qingqing couldn’t hold it in anymore and burst out laughing.
Her bright laughter sounded especially out of place in the middle of the chaos. Everyone froze, even Old Madam Gu stopping mid-swing.
Covering her mouth, Gu Qingqing laughed so hard that tears sprang to her eyes.
“It’s nothing, nothing. You can carry on. I just never imagined my father had such a luxurious diet when he was little! Hahaha…”
Raised on a diet of shit and piss, apparently!
Chunqi and Xia’an finally understood what she meant and began snickering behind their hands.
Ping’an scratched his big head and asked with complete seriousness, “Father, is shit and piss tasty? Isn’t it dirty?”
“Hahahaha…”
This time, even Madam Liu and Wang Tiezhu couldn’t hold back. They burst out laughing too.
Gu Changxing and Old Madam Gu both looked as dark as the bottom of a cooking pot, one from embarrassment, the other from fury.
After things had escalated this far, there was no chance of settling the matter calmly anymore.
Old Madam Gu grabbed Gu Changxing by the front of his clothes and demanded, “Where’s the money? Where are the house deeds and land deeds? Hand them over! All of them!”
Gu Qingqing had laughed enough by then. She wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes and said, “Grandma, don’t bother pressuring my father. It won’t do any good. Everything is with me.”
Old Madam Gu was no fool. How could she fail to see that Gu Qingqing, this useless girl everyone had always considered a burden, was now the one calling the shots in this household?
But she also knew better than anyone that this hardheaded girl would not be easy to deal with.
If she wanted to achieve her goal quickly, she naturally had to start with her weak and easily manipulated eldest son.
So she pretended not to hear Gu Qingqing at all and continued shaking Gu Changxing violently.
“Where’s the money? Where is it? Where’s my money?!”
Gu Changxing had never seen his mother so wild and terrifying. Frightened, he hunched over and desperately called for help.
“Qingqing! Qingqing…”
Gu Qingqing remained completely unhurried. She simply stood there with a smile, watching the scene as though she were enjoying a particularly entertaining performance.
It wasn’t until Old Madam Gu had nearly torn Gu Changxing’s clothes apart and scratched several bloody marks across his face and neck that Madam Liu finally couldn’t stand it anymore.
“Qingqing.”
Chunqi and Xia’an cautiously tugged at their elder sister’s sleeve as well.
Gu Qingqing gave them a reassuring look before straightening her slender back.
“All right, Grandma. The money you wanted to lend Uncle is right here.”
She pulled out a coarse cloth money pouch and shook it lightly.
The clinking of silver coins came from inside.
Old Madam Gu’s narrow eyes immediately lit up.
She reached out eagerly to snatch it, but Gu Qingqing suddenly let go.
The money pouch dropped to the ground with a loud plop.
“Oops. Sorry, my hand slipped.”
Although Gu Qingqing said the words apologetically, there wasn’t the slightest trace of guilt in her eyes.
It was an obvious insult.
Old Madam Gu’s eyes nearly spat fire.
“You little demon! You, you, you… How dare you!”
Gu Qingqing simply ignored her. She deliberately raised her voice as though she couldn’t hear a thing.
“What? You said you don’t want it? In that case, I’ll take it back.”
She bent down as if she were about to pick up the pouch.
Old Madam Gu immediately bent down with astonishing speed, snatched it up, and scurried several steps away.
Her thin frame and nimble movements were nothing like those of a woman in her sixties. She looked more like one of those notorious monkeys on a famous mountain that snatched food and bags from unsuspecting tourists.
Gu Qingqing burst out laughing.
Seeing the old woman’s ridiculous appearance, Xia’an and the others couldn’t help laughing too.
Their eldest sister had changed!
And they liked this new version of her.
Old Madam Gu clutched the money pouch tightly as the laughter behind her rang out. She felt as though she had lost every last shred of dignity.
You ungrateful wretch! You vile little wretch!
If only she had known this rebellious girl would grow up to be such a menace, she should have drowned her in the chamber pot back then!
Gu Changfang, however, couldn’t care less about any of that. Her entire attention was fixed on the bulging money pouch.
“Ma, hurry and open it. Let’s see how much is inside.”
Old Madam Gu opened the pouch and immediately cried out in shock.
“How can there be so much?”
Inside were two ten-tael silver ingots and several pieces of smaller silver, totaling thirty taels.
“It’s not that much,” Gu Qingqing said. “It’s always better to have enough money when traveling. Uncle is going away to take the imperial examination, which is a major event. Naturally, he should carry a little extra silver with him.”
Old Madam Gu turned around and eyed her suspiciously.
“You’d be this kind?”
Gu Qingqing smiled calmly.
“Grandma, listen to yourself. We’re all family, aren’t we? We’re naturally willing to help. It’s just that we don’t have much to spare.”
“Then where did this silver…”
Something suddenly occurred to Old Madam Gu.
“The land deed! The family’s land deed!”
Her pupils contracted sharply as she stared at Gu Changxing in disbelief.
“You pawned my land deed and borrowed these thirty taels?!”
“No, no! I didn’t!” Gu Changxing hurriedly waved his hands. “I never went into the moneylender.”
He couldn’t read, so going inside would have been pointless. He had simply stayed outside.
What he hadn’t expected was for Qingqing to take matters into her own hands and use the land deed for the old Gu household to borrow money.
The Gu family had originally owned two houses, each represented by a separate deed. When Old Madam Gu had handed them over, she had only given them the deed for the thatched cottage.
As for the farmland, since it had to be measured and verified every year, all of it had been recorded on a single deed for convenience.
Today, when Gu Qingqing took it to the county office, the land was divided according to the family separation agreement, and the single deed was replaced with two separate land deeds.
“Gu! Qing! Qing!”
Old Madam Gu ground out her name through clenched teeth.
Gu Qingqing smiled sweetly.
“I’m right here!”
“My ten mu of prime irrigated farmland, and you only borrowed thirty taels against it?!”
“How could that be possible?”
Gu Qingqing nodded toward the money pouch.
“Take another careful look.”
Old Madam Gu hurriedly opened the pouch again and moved closer to the fire.
Only then did she discover a seventy-tael banknote and a loan agreement written in black and white.
“Grandma, look. Ten mu of irrigated farmland could only get you ninety-six taels, but I managed to bring you back a full hundred taels. That should be enough for Uncle to squander for quite a while, don’t you think?”
Old Madam Gu’s hand trembled violently around the banknote.
In her entire life, she had never once seen so much silver in one place.
But those fields represented the entire fortune the old Gu family had painstakingly accumulated over generations!
Furious beyond words, she snatched up the firewood stick beside her and swung it toward Gu Qingqing.
“You wastrel! You family-wrecker! I’ll beat you to death, you good-for-nothing burden!”
Gu Ping’an stepped forward and grabbed the firewood stick with one hand.
“Grandma, you can’t hit my sister!”
He paused, then added seriously,
“And you can’t hit me either! We’ve already separated from the family!”
Gu Ping’an was tall and strong. With one end of the firewood stick in his hand, he nearly lifted the short, frail Old Madam Gu off the ground.
Forget swinging the stick again, she couldn’t even yank it back out of his grasp!
She couldn’t win an argument, and she couldn’t win a fight.
With no other choice, Old Madam Gu had to bring out her ultimate weapon.
Pretending that she had been shoved during the struggle, she suddenly collapsed onto the ground and landed heavily on her backside.
“Ow! My leg! My poor leg!”
Gu Changxing was startled and immediately rushed over.
“Ma! What’s wrong, Ma?”
Old Madam Gu cursed him inwardly.
Are you blind? Can’t you see?
But on the outside, she forced out two tears and softened her voice, losing the harsh edge it usually carried.
“It hurts! My son, my leg hurts so badly!”
Seeing her like this, Gu Changxing was both distressed and guilt-ridden.
“Th-then what do we do? Should I go get a doctor for you?”
Old Madam Gu grabbed his arm and motioned for him to help her up.
“How can I let a doctor see me like this? Take me home first, then go get the doctor.”
As long as she could get Gu Changxing away from that little wretch, everything would be much easier to handle.
“All right, all right.”
Gu Changxing readily agreed. He quickly picked up his mother and carried her toward the door.
Xia’an grew anxious, but he had no idea what to do. He hurriedly tugged at Gu Qingqing’s sleeve.