After the matter was resolved, Liu Guiying brought Sun Xiumei and her daughter back as well.
The three of them entered the courtyard.
Liu Guiying went to get two White Rabbit candies from her little grandson’s stash and handed them to Xiaofang.
“R-rabbit… rabbit candy. Brother has eaten it before.” Xiaofang happily took the candy from her grandmother.
Hearing her granddaughter’s childish words, she glanced up and shot Sun Xiumei a look.
Sun Xiumei lowered her head in shame under her mother’s glare.
“Speak up properly. Don’t try to make up nice-sounding excuses to fool me. Your mother isn’t senile yet.”
With reddened eyes, Sun Xiumei tearfully began explaining:
“My mother-in-law said my younger brother-in-law is bringing his girlfriend home, and there’s no place for us to stay. Since I’m heavily pregnant and just staying at home anyway, I’d be in the way. She said our maternal home is close to the hospital, so she told me to come here and wait for delivery.”
Liu Guiying trembled with rage—not because of what Sun Xiumei said, but because she thought of her previous life, when her daughter had died over such a ridiculous reason.
She felt like grabbing a knife and going straight to their house to “settle accounts.”
“You stay here in peace. Don’t think about anything. I’ll handle this. But you’d better tell Xiaoxin the truth and prepare to move out of the Zhang family.”
Liu Guiying was already making plans in her mind. Strike the snake at its vital point—if she acted, she would go straight for the throat.
“This isn’t urgent. We’ll deal with it after you give birth. Are you hungry? I’ll cook you and the child a bowl of noodles.”
“Don’t… Mom, I’ll do it. You’ve already been busy all day. Sister-in-law is coming home for lunch, right?”
Liu Guiying: …
Sounds nice, but isn’t that just implying her cooking is bad?
They had grown up eating plain noodles in boiling water with a pinch of salt—just slurping it down.
Forget it. If there’s better food, who would want the bad one? She wasn’t trying to suffer.
“Your sister-in-law brings lunch home and doesn’t eat here. There are eggs in the kitchen. I like mine fried.”
“Okay, I’ll fry two for you.”
Liu Guiying followed behind to help. After all, her belly was big now—some tasks were no longer suitable for her.
“Mom, did you really just kick Third Brother and his family out like that? You’re really not going to care about them anymore?”
Sun Xiumei still felt that her mother was only acting out of anger and couldn’t truly abandon her son.
“I’m done caring. His heart is completely with Wang Xiaofeng now—he no longer has his mother in his eyes. If he ever comes asking you for money, just kick him out. Don’t think about sibling feelings. You treat him as a brother, but he won’t treat you as a sister.”
Liu Guiying used this opportunity to “re-educate” her daughter so she wouldn’t get entangled with them again.
Sun Xiumei thought of how she had been turned away in the morning and what her younger brother had said. Her heart also turned cold.
They were close in age, and she had always taken her younger brother everywhere since childhood. Their relationship used to be good—when had things changed?
She simply responded with a soft “mm.”
The noodles were served. Sun Xiumei called her daughter over and began feeding her.
At the Zhang family, when Zhang Xin was not home, Sun Xiumei and her daughter were not even allowed to eat eggs. Even Zhang Yaozu, a child, would say, “Girls don’t deserve eggs.”
It was obvious how badly Xiaofang had been treated.
Seeing her granddaughter eating fried egg so happily, as if she had never had it before, Liu Guiying felt heartache.
She blamed herself too—she had only taught her daughter to be sensible and to yield to the younger ones, to always prioritize harmony.
But she had never told her that the world wasn’t made only of good people, and not everyone would recognize your kindness.
“Xiumei, you’re about to be a mother of two. In the future, when you encounter injustice, don’t always endure it. Endurance has no end—one compromise can last a lifetime.”
“For your own family, you must learn to resist and protect your own interests. Today they may just be withholding food from Xiaofang—what about when she grows up?”
“They might even sell her off to get bride price money for that so-called ‘Yaozu.’ That kind of thing is possible. If a mother cannot stand firm, the child will suffer for life.”
Liu Guiying patiently advised her daughter, hoping it wasn’t too late to teach her these things now.
Sun Xiumei recalled everything after marrying into the Zhang family and knew her mother was not exaggerating. She made up her mind to change.
“Mm, Mom. I’ll listen to you.”
The grandmother and granddaughter spent a peaceful afternoon together, but soon, when the two children returned from school, they brought news that shattered the calm.
“Mom! Mom! Everyone at school is saying that Fourth Brother has gone to be a live-in son-in-law!”
“Ah—Mom, why is your head wrapped like a dumpling?”
Sun Xiumei, returning home eagerly after school, rushed in with news.
“Mom, mom, what’s with all the shouting? Are you still not weaned? Can’t you say anything else besides ‘Mom’?”
“Wait—why are you wrapped up like a dumpling? And why is Second Sister here?”
Sun Xiumei was completely confused, feeling like she was the only one out of sync with the world.
“Just wrapping for fun. I divided the family this afternoon. Later you’ll all sign the separation agreement. Your Third Brother already left with his copy. Whether you stay or leave is up to you. From now on, I’ll live with your eldest brother. As for your Second Sister—none of your business.”
“And I’ve already cut ties with Sun Jianguo. Whether you still consider him your brother is up to you.”
“As for Sun Jiandang, if he wants to come back, let him sign the agreement too. If not, cut him off as well. One more or less doesn’t matter.”
Liu Guiying dropped bombshell after bombshell without caring how they reacted.
Sun Xiumei…Sun Jiancheng…
They had just gone to school—how had everything turned upside down at home?
Division of the family? Cutting ties? None of it made sense.
Sun Jiancheng’s usually calm face cracked slightly. Compared to this, chores like washing dishes or feeding chickens suddenly seemed insignificant.
The two stood frozen for a long time.
Only when Liu Guiying placed the agreement in front of them did they finally react.
Sun Jiancheng looked at his portion of the agreement—he had been assigned the storage shed.
A complicated expression appeared on his face. Was it the shed he was thinking of?
“Mom, I don’t agree to splitting the family. Me and Fourth Sister are still in school. Where will we live? How will we survive? Dad in heaven would never agree.”
He tried his best to persuade her.
Liu Guiying sighed inwardly—she knew these two wouldn’t be easy to deal with.
“Your father’s opinion doesn’t concern me. If he disagrees, let him come down and tell me himself. Stop scheming.”
“If you want to stay, you can continue living here. The rooms remain the same. I will still support your education through high school.”
“If you get into university and need money, you can borrow it—with IOUs. As for marriage in the future, I will give you the same amount I gave your elder brother, not a cent more, not a cent less.”
“Same for Sun Jiuxiu. Whatever dowry your Second Sister gets, you’ll get the same. But you don’t get a free ride here—do your own laundry, help with housework, and when the holidays come, go work in the fields and earn work points.”
With that, she turned and left without waiting for their reaction.
Liu Guiying had come to terms with it—each child is different, like dragons born from the same mother.
She no longer wanted to figure out how they would turn out. Maybe it was just their nature.
Or maybe it was that dead man’s faulty “seeds.”
When Ma Lijuan returned from work with her son, she heard from her husband about everything that had happened that afternoon and was shocked at how much had changed in just a few hours.
She couldn’t help but sigh that her mother-in-law was becoming more and more formidable.
Just as she was about to say something, she heard her mother-in-law calling her husband.
“Go on, Mom is calling you.”
“Coming,” Sun Jianjun responded and went out.
“Jianjun, take a bag of the fruits we brought back earlier to your Aunt Ma. The rest split between Xiaobao and Xiaofang.”
Sun Jianjun nodded.