After saying so much in one breath, Qin Yuan lay on the pillow, panting heavily. Even so, her burning gaze remained fixed on her younger brother.
Qin Wang looked at his sister’s determination, then at his mother’s hesitation. Suddenly, he straightened his small frame, a stubborn resilience shining through him.
“All right. I’ll go!”
Ming Shuangfeng reached out to stop him, but when she turned and glanced out the window, she saw the front gate of their home shaking.
In the end, she lowered her hand and whispered, “Be careful. Don’t let anyone from the Xia family see you!”
Qin Wang immediately climbed out through the back window.
Crash!
The wooden gate outside was forced open.
A jumble of hurried footsteps quickly rushed toward Qin Yuan’s room.
“Where is she? Which room is Qin Yuan in?”
“You worthless Qin family trash! Come out and pay with your life! Qin Yuan, stop pretending to be dead!”
Hearing the commotion outside, Ming Shuangfeng hurriedly tucked Qin Yuan’s hand beneath the quilt.
“Don’t be afraid. Stay here and don’t come out. Mother will stop them!”
Her voice trembled, but she had already rushed outside. Before leaving, she gently closed Qin Yuan’s bedroom door behind her.
Naturally, Qin Yuan had no intention of obediently lying there.
But her entire body was weak. She could only slowly sit up and put on her clothes. Then she reached into a drawer, took out a pair of scissors, and gripped them firmly in her hand.
Outside, after a burst of commotion, Hu Yinglian’s haughty voice rang out again, full of accusation.
“Ming Shuangfeng, you know very well that my son saved your daughter! But now he’s nowhere to be found, dead or alive! In weather this cold, no one is even willing to search the river. He must have sunk to the bottom long ago. He’s already dead! Yet look at you! You’re hiding inside your house and refusing to come out! Do you people have any conscience at all? Ming Shuangfeng, I want your family to pay for my son’s life!”
“Drag Ming Shuangfeng over here and make her kneel! Someone else go and drag Qin Yuan out! Make her kowtow a hundred times!”
The person chiming in was Aunt Mao, Hu Yinglian’s sister-in-law.
Ming Shuangfeng hurriedly pleaded with them.
“Don’t! Junsheng’s mother, Aunt Mao, sisters, please listen to me! We weren’t hiding. Ah Yuan has been unconscious with a high fever ever since she was rescued. I didn’t dare leave her side. Please, spare her for now. You can do whatever you want to me!”
Aunt Mao immediately jumped in, sounding so agitated that one would think it was her own son who had died.
“Ming Shuangfeng, we knocked for so long and you refused to open the door, yet you still have the nerve to say you weren’t hiding? Your daughter is merely unconscious, but Junsheng is gone! That’s a human life! What gives you the right to hide in your house? Why didn’t you come out on your own to pay for his life?”
Ming Shuangfeng desperately tried to explain.
“No, no! I wasn’t hiding! After I carried Ah Yuan home last night, I went everywhere begging people to search the river… to search for Junsheng. I spoke to every male commune member in our village. I told them that as long as someone was willing to go into the water, I’d give them all the grain rations our family had. But no one was willing!
“Aunt Mao, I even begged your Jun Kang. He refused too. If you don’t believe me, go ask him yourself. None of us in the Qin family knows how to swim. There really was nothing I could do! Tell me, if Jun Kang knows how to swim, why wasn’t he willing to go into the river?”
Ming Shuangfeng might have been timid, but she wasn’t completely foolish.
That single question immediately silenced Aunt Mao.
After all, her own son knew how to swim, yet hadn’t he also refused to enter the river to search for Xia Junsheng?
How could she criticize others when her own family had done the same?
But Hu Yinglian once again screamed at the top of her lungs.
“Shut up! Stop talking about useless things! I’m only asking you one thing right now—what is your Qin family going to use to repay my son’s life? Huh? Your daughter survived! Shouldn’t she repay my son for that?”
For a moment, silence fell both inside and outside the house.
Everyone waited for Ming Shuangfeng’s answer.
Qin Yuan slowly opened the door and made her way outside.
She saw her mother kneeling in the main room, with two women twisting her arms behind her back and holding her down.
The pale golden morning sunlight fell upon Ming Shuangfeng’s hair, making it appear almost completely white. She struggled to raise her head, but her back was repeatedly forced downward.
She looked like a chicken or duck being held down, awaiting slaughter.
Hu Yinglian sat on a long wooden bench in the main room, her chin raised high.
She looked so arrogant that she hardly resembled a mother who had come seeking justice for her son’s death. Instead, she looked more like a creditor who had come to flaunt her authority over her debtors.
A cold sneer hung on her lips.
It was exactly the same expression she had worn whenever she bullied Qin Yuan in her previous life.
“What? You don’t dare answer?”
Hu Yinglian sneered.
“Ming Shuangfeng, if you won’t say it, then I will. My son sank into the river and can’t be found. Your daughter must repay his life. She’ll immediately put on mourning clothes and marry into our family as a widow before marriage. It’s simply one life repaying another. Tell me yourself—is my demand unreasonable?”
Ming Shuangfeng lowered her head deeply.
Her heart was filled with guilt and unease.
But when Qin Yuan had just awakened, despite how weak she was, she had gone to great lengths to warn her mother not to make any promises, no matter what happened.
Ming Shuangfeng didn’t understand why her daughter, who had always been gentle and kindhearted, refused to acknowledge such a tremendous life-saving debt.
But compared with these people who had barged into her home, she naturally trusted her own daughter more.
Her Ah Yuan had always been a good child.
She would never make her mother into an ungrateful person.
Since Ah Yuan had told her not to promise anything, then she wouldn’t promise anything for now.
But Aunt Mao seemed to find new inspiration for bullying them from Hu Yinglian’s words.
“Hmph! How could a skinny little girl possibly be worth as much as a strong young man like Junsheng? Once work starts again in spring, Junsheng can earn ten work points a day. Qin Yuan is worth seven at most, isn’t she? That’s hardly fair!”
Everyone immediately agreed.
“Exactly! How could a young girl compare with a strong young man?”
“Junsheng’s family would be suffering too great a loss!”
The twitching smile at the corner of Hu Yinglian’s mouth became even more unpleasant.
“You aunties really are thoughtful! I’m just too honest. I didn’t even think of that at first. Fine, then we’ll do it this way. Qin Yuan must marry into my family and work for us. From now on, half of Ming Shuangfeng’s work points must also go to our family. Only then will it be enough to repay my son’s life!”
“Yes, yes! That’s exactly how it should be!”
“Someone go call the production team leader. Bring the old clan chief here too. Something this important needs to be put into writing. We need a formal agreement!”
“Exactly! Hurry and bring people here to act as witnesses while we draw up the agreement. Xia Li, Xia Min, hurry up and go!”
Some echoed their agreement while others hurried off to fetch people.
Before long, only four or five women remained in the main room.
Qin Yuan finally managed to steady herself. Supporting her weak body, she stepped over the threshold and entered the main room.
She suddenly surged forward and shoved away the woman holding her mother’s left arm. At the same time, she swung the scissors toward the woman on the right.
“Let go of my mother!”
Caught completely off guard, the two women actually released Ming Shuangfeng.
Ignoring the aching pain in both her arms, Ming Shuangfeng hurriedly stood and immediately reached out to support Qin Yuan.
“Didn’t I tell you not to come out?” she muttered quietly. “I could have held them off.”
Hu Yinglian’s gaze instantly locked onto Qin Yuan.
She had expected to see a face filled with guilt and overwhelming grief—a girl ready to drop to her knees and beg for forgiveness at any moment.
But the instant their eyes met, Hu Yinglian was startled by the intense hatred and fury burning in Qin Yuan’s gaze.
This…
Something wasn’t right!
A trace of guilt flashed through Hu Yinglian’s heart.
But she quickly suppressed it and began making her demands with righteous confidence.
“Qin Yuan, you came out at just the right time! My son never would’ve taken an interest in outsiders like your family in the first place. But he died because of you, so you have to repay his life! You’ll marry into my family immediately and work for us. Both your work points and your mother’s will be used to compensate for my son—for the rest of your lives! It doesn’t matter whether you agree or not. You have no choice!”
Qin Yuan took a deep breath and gently pushed away her mother, who was holding onto her.
She weighed the black iron scissors in her hand, her voice eerily calm.
“Oh? Have you thought it through? Is that all you want?”
Hu Yinglian stared at the dark, pointed scissors and instinctively stood up, retreating a step.
Her words, however, remained forceful.
“What do you mean, ‘is that all’? This is what your family owes us! My son lost his life! No matter what we demand from you, it wouldn’t be too much!”
Qin Yuan stepped forward and casually sat down on the bench Hu Yinglian had just vacated.
A cold smile curled across her lips.
“Mm. You’re right. It isn’t too much. The three members of the Qin family have long been nothing more than meat on your chopping block. Even if you joined forces with your clansmen to scheme us all to death, skinned us alive, ripped out our tendons, chopped us into pieces, and devoured us whole, you’d probably still complain that we weren’t tasty enough.
“So how could anything you demand possibly be too much?”