“Stop it right now!” Old Captain was so angry his mustache bristled. Yuan the Second’s actions left him no room to mediate.
“Captain Uncle, why are you here? I’m just teaching my own girls a lesson—they don’t know any better. Hey, hey, don’t hold me back!”
Gu Qianbu rushed forward and pinned Yuan the Second’s arms behind his back, then pointed at Yuan Ni’s mother lying on the ground. “Did you do this?”
“Yes, it was me. Hey, why are you tying me up? What’s wrong with me hitting someone? She’s my sister-in-law—she didn’t take good care of my mother and caused her to fall. What’s the big deal if I hit her once? This is family business; outsiders have no say in it.”
Yuan the Second felt wronged, but Gu Qianbu showed no mercy. The Gongshe was currently promoting “Five Good Families” and setting up model examples.
A brother-in-law beating his sister-in-law until she was covered in blood—Yuan the Second’s violent behavior was a stain on their propaganda efforts.
Yuan the Eldest stood there dumbfounded. “Captain Uncle, you have to say something. My wife is fine—just let my brother go.”
“She’s not fine at all. Her shoulder blade is fractured—that’s a tricky spot to heal, and it might leave her disabled. I can only bandage the wound; you’ll need to go to the Gongshe hospital to have the bone set.” The barefoot doctor shook his head as he treated Yuan Ni’s mother’s injuries.
“Did you hear that? You injured someone. This is domestic violence—you’re going to the study class. Come with us now.”
Gu Qianbu was impartial and stern. He forced Yuan the Second down, tied him up, and then tossed a final remark at Yuan the Eldest:
“Don’t forget to deliver food. Even though the study class is run by the Gongshe, they only handle labor reform—they don’t provide meals.”
The reformed individuals’ meals had to be supplied by their families.
“Don’t take me away! I know I was wrong—I won’t hit anyone anymore.”
“Too late.”
Seeing his brother about to suffer, Yuan the Eldest grabbed Yuan Ni. “You jinx! Did you call people to arrest your Second Uncle?”
Yuan Ni nodded stubbornly. “You always side with outsiders instead of me and my mother. I had to call someone to teach him a lesson.”
“What? It really was you? You little girl, how dare you be so bold? You’d harm your own Second Uncle?”
Just as Yuan the Eldest’s fan-like palm was about to come down on Yuan Ni’s head, Old Captain quickly pulled him away. “You want to go to the study class too?”
“No… Yuan Ni is my daughter. What’s wrong with me hitting her? Even if I wanted her life, she’d have to give it to me.”
Yuan Ni seized the opportunity. “Captain Grandpa, you heard that too. Nobody treats us girls like human beings. Please help us split the family.”
“What? You damned girl, think you’ve got wings now?”
Yuan the Eldest never expected that his usually timid and obedient eldest daughter would dare defy him, let alone ask for a family split. He flew into a rage.
Old Captain kicked Yuan the Eldest, then said to Yuan Ni, “Nonsense! You’re only sixteen, and a girl at that. Splitting you off would be cutting off your lifeline.”
“Captain Grandpa, please split us off. It’s not just Second Uncle who beats us—Grandma beats us too.”
Zhaodie stepped forward and rolled up her sleeve to show Old Captain her arm.
On her thin arm were bruises of every shade, not a single patch of healthy skin—all from Old Mrs. Yuan’s beatings. Besides hitting the children, the old woman also pinched and twisted them.
Seeing these wounds, Old Captain and the two cadres were red-eyed with fury. Though girls weren’t worth much, this was still no way to treat people—it was sheer cruelty.
“Look at you lot, thinking you’re so capable. Get out, all of you! Once you leave, don’t ever come back. You’re all nothing but money-losing goods.”
Yuan the Eldest had long been disgusted with his three daughters. Without sons to carry on the family line, what use were they at home?
Fortunately for them, he was simple-minded. Had Old Mrs. Yuan still been in her right mind, she would never have agreed to split the family.
The three girls were about to grow into adulthood—they could be married off for bride prices. Splitting the family now would be a loss.
Unfortunately, Old Mrs. Yuan was still unconscious and couldn’t voice her opinion.
Yuan Ni’s Mother struggled to her feet. “No need for you to drive us out—we’ll leave on our own. All these years, if not for us mother and daughters working like beasts of burden to serve your whole family, would you have lived such a good life?”
They were all Yuans, yet their fates were not the same. Yuan Ni’s Mother and her three daughters were the lower class of the Yuan family, their standing only slightly above that of livestock—doing the most work while eating the least.
Yuan the Second’s family, by contrast, lived like people of privilege. His wife was an educated youth who taught at the Gongshe middle school, and both his son and daughter got to attend school.
Whenever she thought of how Yuan Ni had to raise her two younger sisters, gathering sheep dung, cutting pig fodder, and reaping wheat from a young age, Yuan Ni’s Mother’s heart ached with pain.
Today, her brother-in-law had beaten the children and then the adults. She couldn’t endure it any longer.
Words had escalated to the point of no return. If anyone tried to forcibly prevent the family split…
“I think this family can be divided. These people lack moral character. Women and children are a vulnerable group—if they stay in this household, their very lives may be in danger.”
At this critical moment, Gu Qianbu stepped forward to speak.
Old Captain’s lips trembled. “This… one should encourage reconciliation, not division.”
“If that brute raises his hand again, can you guarantee no one will lose their life?” Another cadre spoke up as well.
Old Captain certainly couldn’t guarantee that.
It was Yuan Ni and her mother’s good fortune that the Gongshe cadres happened to be visiting the village. Without these two to back them up, the family couldn’t have been split.
Yuan the Eldest was no father, and even less a man. He didn’t even want to give the mother and daughters a single iron wok or bowl, actually trying to drive them out with nothing but the clothes on their backs.
The deeper reason, of course, was that he didn’t want to part with Yuan Ni’s Mother. The three girls could go to hell for all he cared, but his wife still needed to stay and serve him.
“Men and women are equal—our women comrades also earn work points. Yuan Ni’s Mother has been married to you all these years, bringing in several hundred catties of grain each year, hasn’t she?
I’ll decide: this iron wok, and these… all go to them.” In the end, it was the Gongshe cadre who stepped up to uphold justice.
Yuan the Eldest squatted on the ground with a cold sneer. “Fine, split it up. Women can’t survive without a man anyway. Within two days, they’ll come crying back.”
“And money—what money will you use to treat Mother’s illness?”
“Giving you the iron wok is already generous. Where would the family get money?”
Yuan the Eldest refused to give any money no matter what. It was a difficult matter to settle, and even the Gongshe cadres could do nothing about it.
Right there in front of everyone, Yuan Ni took the blue-and-white porcelain teapot.
The villagers all said Yuan Ni did the right thing—who told Yuan the Eldest to be so tight-fisted? Take whatever you can get.
That very night, the mother and daughters moved into the storage shed at the edge of the village.
The barefoot doctor applied medicine to Yuan Ni’s mother. “The bone inside is broken. If she can make it through tonight, she can recover slowly. If not, she’ll need to go to the county hospital.”
Yuan Ni nodded. She had taken over the original owner’s body, and with it, the burden on the original owner’s shoulders. She couldn’t just stand by and watch her mother die.
Though Zhaodie and Pandi were young, they were used to doing chores at home. Since the storage room held farm tools that couldn’t be near fire, the two little girls built a makeshift earthen stove outside and boiled up some mashed potato porridge.
“Sis, eat.”
The girls managed a few bites, but their mother couldn’t swallow a thing.
Yuan Ni reached out and touched her mother’s forehead. It was burning hot—she had already started running a fever. Having returned from the apocalypse, Yuan Ni knew this was a sign the injury was worsening. If they delayed any longer, it would be fatal.
At dawn the next day, Yuan Ni prepared to head out.
“Zhaodie, Pandi, you two take care of Mother. I’m going to Grandmother’s house to borrow some money for her treatment.”
The two little girls nodded obediently.
In truth, Yuan Ni knew Grandmother’s family didn’t have much money either. Going there now would most likely be a wasted trip, and waiting for Grandmother to scrape together funds would certainly delay her mother’s treatment.
The reason she said this was to keep her two younger sisters calm. What she actually wanted to do was go to the Gongshe.
In Yuan Ni’s pocket was a feather shuttlecock—the item she had taken from the Yuan family’s main hall.
As soon as she left the village entrance, Yuan Ni tore the shuttlecock apart.
Sure enough, the base of the shuttlecock was a silver dollar.
The Yuan family was a typical farming household with nothing precious to their name. The silver dollar had been obtained when the landlords were overthrown and their wealth distributed, and it had been passed down as a family heirloom through the generations.
Later, during the movement to eliminate the Four Olds, silver dollars, satin, and cheongsams all fell into that category.
Old Mrs. Yuan couldn’t bear to hand it over, but she was also afraid of being reported. So she sewed the silver dollar into the shuttlecock as its base. Little did she know, the original owner had witnessed this secret.
Filled with confidence, Yuan Ni reached out and touched the silver dollar. However, the moment she made contact, her right hand felt absolutely nothing.
Yuan Ni’s heart skipped a beat. Was this silver dollar a fake?
Or had her Special Ability failed?