Old Madam Liu was so furious she nearly vomited blood. She pointed at the Second Branch and stammered, “You, you, you…” for a long while without being able to say anything else.
Her triangular eyes viciously gouged into the four members of the Second Branch, filled with venom. With her hands on her hips, she shrilled, “You worthless ingrates! You’ve been hungry for five days, yet you still have the strength to smash doors and steal food? You look perfectly energetic to me! Have you done today’s work? The firewood hasn’t been chopped, pigweed hasn’t been gathered, and the chickens haven’t been fed! Hurry up and get to work! Otherwise, I’ll break your legs!”
She had it all figured out: no food for them, but they still had to work. She would work them to death! Let’s see what kind of tricks they could pull then!
Wang Ya took a deep breath and worked herself up emotionally.
Then she began wailing. Her voice rose and fell dramatically, far more professionally than Old Madam Liu’s. “Oh, heavens above! You’re not leaving us any way to live! We’ve been hungry for five days and nearly met King Yama. We just crawled back from the gates of hell, and before we’ve even had a single bite of food, you expect us to work like oxen and horses! Is this a mother-in-law? This is a living King Yama! Everyone, come and see! The Old Lin family is trying to starve their own sons, daughters-in-law, grandsons, and granddaughters to death!”
Lin Xiaowei followed close behind. She did not cry. Instead, she walked straight to the pile of firewood in the corner and began chopping it in slow motion.
She raised the ax, trembling, but it took ages for her to bring it down. While panting “weakly,” she said to the surrounding neighbors, “Uncles, aunts, please bear witness… It’s not that we don’t want to work… We truly don’t have the strength… We were hungry for five days and only had a little black-flour gruel… Our hands and feet are weak… If I work too slowly or fall down… Grandmother, please don’t blame me…”
Lin Minghao went even further. He walked directly to the chicken coop, picked up the chipped bowl used to feed the chickens, and then looked pitifully at one of the children watching nearby. “Gousheng, do you still have any porridge left over from breakfast? Could you give me a sip? I’m hungry… Grandmother won’t give us any food, but she still makes us work…”
The child was so affected by his expression that he nearly handed over the flatbread in his hand.
Lin Changsong, meanwhile, walked to Old Madam Liu with a look of “anguish” on his face. “Mother! Do you really intend to watch us work ourselves to death and starve to death? I know you dote on Eldest Brother and value Minghai, but if something truly happens to us from overwork—if we die or become crippled—who will do the work in the fields and around the house?
“Are you going to make Eldest Brother and Minghai come back to do it? Or are you going to personally go into the fields at your age? If Minghai’s studies and his pursuit of an official degree are delayed, who can bear that responsibility?”
Every sentence was inseparable from “Minghai’s future,” and every word stabbed right into Old Madam Liu’s heart!
Old Madam Liu trembled with rage. She wanted to hit someone, but more and more villagers were gathering around and pointing at her. On top of that, every word from the Second Branch was technically—albeit twistedly—reasonable, and they kept using her precious eldest grandson’s future to threaten her. She felt as though she were about to suffer internal injuries from holding in her fury!
“You… You…” Old Madam Liu pointed at them, her finger shaking, but she could not manage to curse them with a single complete sentence.
Xiao Liushi wanted to support her, but when she remembered what had just been said about “selling Daya,” she was afraid of bringing the trouble down on herself. All she could do was fret helplessly from the side.
Just then, the ax in Lin Xiaowei’s hands “accidentally” slipped free. With a clang, it fell to the ground, nearly hitting Old Madam Liu’s foot.
Old Madam Liu was startled. Lin Xiaowei also put on a terrified expression, stumbled backward, and then swayed “weakly” twice.
Before Old Madam Liu could curse her, Wang Ya immediately raised the pitch of her wailing. “My child! If anything happens to you, how is your mother supposed to go on living? This work can’t be done! If you keep going, someone’s going to die!”
Lin Changsong hurriedly supported his daughter and said to Old Madam Liu, “Mother! You saw that! It’s not that we refuse to work; we truly can’t! If we keep going and something happens to Erya, then the travel expenses you’ve saved up for Minghai by selling… Ah, no, by giving up your savings for Minghai’s sake, will truly be gone!”
Looking at the Second Branch, who were impervious to both reason and force, and who even knew how to turn the tables and deliberately use her eldest grandson’s future against her, Old Madam Liu felt a surge of sinister fury shoot straight to her head. Her vision went black in waves.
She had “ruled” over the Lin family for so many years. The second and third sons had both grown up under her suppression, and even the daughters-in-law they married had been carefully selected by her to be useless weaklings. She had never expected that she had been the one to misjudge them.
The members of the Second Branch could not be starved to death or beaten into submission. They even knew how to make a scene! Keeping them around meant they would not accomplish much work, yet they would cause trouble all day long and damage the family’s reputation. They might even truly affect her eldest grandson!
However, she was not without a way to deal with them. All the grain was locked in her room. For the next few days, she would simply stay at home. Once they had no food, she would starve them for another five days! They would behave then!
Gritting her teeth, she cursed, “Get out! All of you, get out! Seeing you makes me sick! Since you refuse to work, don’t even think about eating!”
After saying that, she was afraid she would go mad with anger if she stayed any longer. She stomped her feet, turned, and went back into the main room, slamming the door so hard that it shook the heavens.
Xiao Liushi also hurriedly dragged her daughter away.
In the courtyard, only the four “weak” members of the Second Branch and the villagers, who looked at one another in dismay, remained.
The four members of the Second Branch exchanged a glance, then “tremblingly” returned to their own room.
The farce temporarily came to an end.
The villagers outside the courtyard gradually dispersed. Lin Changsong sighed. “We still have to find a way to divide the family. Otherwise, even if we manage to build a decent life for ourselves, we’ll merely be providing blood for the entire First Branch.”
The other three nodded in agreement. Lin Xiaowei’s imagination suddenly ran wild. “Father, is it possible that you weren’t actually born to Old Madam Liu?”
Lin Changsong shook his head. “You’ve never seen what your cheap grandfather looked like when he was young. This face of mine looks eight-tenths like his when he was young, and the remaining two-tenths resemble Old Madam Liu.”
Lin Xiaowei scratched her head. So it was not a “false heir” plot after all, just plain favoritism.
“Then, Father, how do you plan to divide the family?”
Lin Changsong gave a sly chuckle. “Don’t worry. I have experience!”
Upon hearing that, Wang Ya laughed as well.
Lin Xiaowei and Lin Minghao had no idea what they were talking about.
Wang Ya explained, “Don’t let your father’s refined appearance fool you. Once he starts acting recklessly, no one can stop him. Back then, your grandmother also refused to let us divide the family and even demanded that we send our wages back every month. Your father was forced to make such a huge scene that he finally split up the household.”
All right, then. They truly had no luck with grandmothers in either of their two lifetimes. The grandmothers of their past and present lives both disliked them.
After all that commotion throughout the morning, they were all somewhat exhausted. Their bodies were still extremely weak, so the four of them barred the door and decided to sleep for a while first.
Meanwhile, after returning to her room, Lin Daya felt deeply uneasy. Although Grandmother favored the First Branch, Daya herself was not included among the objects of that favoritism.
Grandmother valued grandsons the most. Eldest Brother and Second Brother were the treasures of her heart. Daya was merely a little better off than the children of the Second and Third Branches—just a little.
“Mother…” She clung to Xiao Liushi like a lifeline.
Xiao Liushi patted her hand. “Don’t worry. Your grandmother won’t sell you. There are still the three wretched girls from the Third Branch, after all. No matter what, it won’t be your turn. Once your brother passes the xiucai examinations, you’ll be the sister of a xiucai. What fine young man could you possibly be unable to marry?”
The sister of a xiucai!
Lin Daya’s back straightened at once. That was right—she was different from those wretched girls. She was the sister of a xiucai!
Although Xiao Liushi had said those reassuring words, she was extremely displeased in her heart that Lin Erya had dragged her daughter into the matter. Once Lin Changdong returned, she would certainly complain about it to him.