Speaking of the original owner, she was truly pitiful.
Her grandparents had died, and then her parents had died as well, leaving behind three large rooms made of blue bricks.
At that point, the only person left in the family was the ten-year-old original owner.
Wasn’t that practically an open invitation for someone to seize the family’s property?
Sure enough, her great-grandfather’s younger cousin from another branch of the family moved in under the pretense of taking care of her.
From the age of ten to thirteen, the girl didn’t have a single peaceful day.
The old man and his family were mindful that there were other members of the clan watching, so they didn’t dare mistreat the girl openly.
But once they closed the door, in places where no outsiders could see, they treated her terribly.
She had to wake up early, was given very little food, and the several granddaughters in the household treated her like a servant.
Poor little Tang Yuan was young, timid, and didn’t know how to fight back.
Her great-granduncle had a reputation outside the home as a kindhearted old man. He was easygoing with everyone and always wore a smiling face, so outsiders considered him a good person.
Who would have thought that behind closed doors, he would actually allow his family to abuse and mistreat the orphaned girl?
The Tang family of Lao Bie Gouzi Village hadn’t originally been from that area.
Their ancestral home was somewhere else.
Decades ago, the region had first suffered a severe drought and then devastating floods. People could no longer survive there, so the entire clan had been forced to migrate.
There were disasters in the south as well, so they could only head north.
Farther and farther north they went until they finally reached Lao Bie Gouzi, where they settled down.
More than two hundred members of the clan had begun the journey.
By the time they finally settled, only a little over a hundred remained.
Of the six brothers who had originally been close cousins, only four made it there.
The others had died along the way.
The original owner’s grandfather had been the second among those brothers.
Before the migration, he had been a famous scholar who had passed the provincial-level civil service examination and was well-known throughout the surrounding villages.
He had married the daughter of the headmaster of an academy in the prefectural city and had two daughters and one son.
Both daughters eventually married into prosperous local families.
The son was the original owner’s father.
He had been a late-born child, born when his parents were already forty years old.
According to the original owner’s memories, her grandfather had once told her stories about those difficult years.
The year her father was born was the worst period of the disasters.
There had been droughts and floods, leaving the fields completely barren.
At that time, even having money couldn’t guarantee that one could buy food.
As a result, the original owner’s father had been weak and sickly from birth.
Because of his poor health, her grandparents had exchanged one sack of coarse black flour for an eight-year-old girl when their son was five.
That girl became his child bride.
She would later become the original owner’s mother.
Even though they took great care of him, the original owner’s father’s health continued to deteriorate.
It wasn’t until he was thirty that the little girl who would become Tang Yuan was born.
When Tang Yuan was five years old, her father could no longer hold on.
His body had completely worn out, and he passed away.
That same year, her grandparents, already seventy years old, were unable to withstand the grief of losing their son.
They passed away as well.
That left only the widowed mother and her young daughter.
Fortunately, the family still had some wealth, and the clan members kept an eye on them.
The original owner’s mother was also a tough and formidable woman, so their life wasn’t particularly difficult.
Until the original owner turned ten.
The local climate was bitterly cold, and that winter was an especially rare and brutal one.
Even with the heated brick bed and plenty of firewood, some people who contracted severe colds and other illnesses couldn’t survive.
Among them was the original owner’s mother.
And just like that, the entire family was reduced to one little girl.
That little girl was like a golden doll carrying a treasure.
The family had three large brick houses.
They also had eight mu of excellent farmland.
Who wouldn’t be tempted?
Who wouldn’t start plotting?
And so, her great-granduncle’s family from the clan moved in.
They claimed they were there to take care of the orphaned girl, but they also took control of the eight mu of fertile farmland.
Everyone in the village could see exactly what they were trying to do.
They wanted to seize the orphan’s property.
The great-granduncle was one of the four brothers who had fled the famine with the original owner’s grandfather.
He ranked eighth within the clan.
The four brothers who had made it to Lao Bie Gouzi were:
The current clan head of the Tang family in Lao Bie Gouzi was Tang Licheng, the eldest son of the eldest great-granduncle.
At this time, people placed enormous importance on clan relationships.
Members of the same clan stuck together and presented a united front against outsiders.
Lao Bie Gouzi was a large village, and when the Tang clan first arrived as refugees, they would never have been able to settle down so quickly if they hadn’t had such a large and united family.
The eldest great-granduncle had three daughters and two sons.
His eldest son, Tang Licheng, was now the clan head.
He was married to Madam Ma, and together they had three sons and one daughter.
His younger son, Tang Liren, married the daughter of an oil mill owner in the city.
They had two daughters and two sons.
Because Tang Liren had studied alongside the original owner’s grandfather when he was young and had learned quite a bit, he had managed to find work at a bookstore in the city at an early age.
More than ten years had passed, and he was now the chief manager of that bookstore.
The sixth great-granduncle had one son and one daughter.
His son died on the road during the original migration.
His only daughter later married a wealthy landowner from the neighboring county.
Several years ago, she had taken her father to live with her so that she could care for him in his old age.
The eighth great-granduncle had four sons:
The eldest, Tang Liman.
The second, Tang Lisheng.
The third, Tang Lizhu.
And the fourth, Tang Limu.
The fourth son, Tang Limu, had also studied alongside the original owner’s grandfather when he was young and knew how to read a few characters.
He later found work at a restaurant in the city and married the daughter of a general-goods shop owner there.
Tang Yuan lay with her eyes closed, slowly digesting all the information in her mind.
When she opened her eyes again, her head was still throbbing painfully.
She used her consciousness to take an anti-inflammatory painkiller from her space, then drank some water from a glass inside the motorhome and swallowed the medicine.
She lay there for quite a while longer.
Only after the pain had subsided somewhat and she felt better did she finally have the energy to listen carefully to the noisy conversation taking place outside.
“I saw it myself! At the time, it was only your Wufeng and Yuanya who went up Lao Bie Mountain together. Not long afterward, your Erfeng came rushing down the mountain.
“At first, I didn’t think anything of it. But when the sky started getting dark and Yuanya still hadn’t come down, I realized something was wrong.
“So I hurried up the mountain to take a look.
“If I hadn’t gone up there, that girl’s life would have been lost on that mountain!”
The woman’s voice was sharp and rapid.
“I never would have imagined that your family could actually do something as shameless as trying to seize an orphan’s property!”
Tang Yuan recognized the voice.
It belonged to Madam Ma, the eldest daughter-in-law of her grand-uncle’s family.
She was in her fifties and was the wife of the current clan head.
She was known for being capable, straightforward, and decisive.
Whenever there was some major or minor dispute among the women of the clan, they would usually go to her to settle it.
The original owner called her First Auntie.
Ever since the original owner’s mother had died, First Auntie had treated her relatively well.
At that moment, an elderly woman’s voice rang out.
“Daughter-in-law of the eldest family, what kind of nonsense are you talking about? What do you mean by ‘seizing an orphan’s property’?”
“This old woman has worked herself to the bone for three whole years raising this little brat. I practically cut the flesh off my own body to feed her!”
“If my family hadn’t kindly taken her in, that little girl would have followed her dead mother to the grave long ago!”
“And you have the nerve to say we’re trying to seize her property?”
“We haven’t even complained that she brought bad luck to her own family!”
It was shamelessly unreasonable.
Madam Ma was practically furious.
“Oh, my goodness, Auntie Ba, aren’t you ashamed to say such things?”
“Let’s not even talk about those three large brick houses for now.”
“Let’s talk about the eight mu of excellent farmland that my Second Uncle and Second Aunt left behind after they died.”
“Even if Yuanya ate five meals a day, she’s just a little girl barely into her teens. How much grain could she possibly consume?”
“And look at her!”
“When her mother was still alive, that little girl was healthy and plump.”
“Now look at her!”
“My goodness, she’s so thin she’s practically skin and bones!”
“Where did all that grain go? Did it all end up in the dogs’ stomachs?”
“And you’re already so old, yet you’re accusing a child of bringing death to her relatives?”
“You’ve got several granddaughters in the family who are waiting to be married. At your age, shouldn’t you at least know how to watch your mouth and accumulate some virtue?”