Wen Shishan had never taken him seriously, and hearing him speak only made him angrier. "You heartless little bastard! Now that you're married off, you've forgotten your place. When did you ever get a say in this family?"
Wen Xi's hatred for his father bled from his heart. He knew that no matter what happened today, there would be no place for him in the Wen family ever again. If he stayed foolishly silent now, he might miss his only chance to fight back.
"I'm not a mute—why can't I speak?" Thinking of all the grievances and suffering he'd endured at home over the years, Wen Xi stood up. "A gift is a gift, a loan is a loan. Even an uneducated person like me knows that. Why do you insist on mixing the two together?"
Hatred nearly overflowed from Wen Liu's eyes. Wen Xi shrank back behind Yan Feng'an and pointed at him. "The jade hairpin on your head, the silver bracelet on your wrist, the fragrant salve you use on your face—none of those were given back. Did he ever ask for them?"
"Exactly," Yan Feng'an added. "The things I gave you before already belong to you. I won't take back a single one. But this money was a loan, and you must repay it."
Wen Shishan looked defiant, craning his neck and prepared to squirm out of it to the very end. "What kind of son-in-law demands money from his father-in-law? And you call yourself a scholar—are you not afraid of being laughed at?"
Yan Feng'an's expression remained calm. "Scholars need money to eat and live too. If you refuse to acknowledge the debt, then in a few days I'll file a lawsuit at the county yamen. You can tell all this to the county magistrate and let him decide whether this money should be repaid."
A signed name, a pressed thumbprint—not to mention the magistrate, even the King of Heaven himself would have to acknowledge it.
According to the laws of this dynasty, unpaid debts were punished with a caning at best and imprisonment at worst. Wen Liu, an unmarried ge'er, would never withstand that.
This scholar was not so easily manipulated. Though Wen Shishan lorded it over his household, he was no fool without a brain. Yan Feng'an had clearly come prepared today—there was no way to squirm out of repaying this money.
He had intended to claim the family had no money and ask Yan Feng'an for a few days' grace, but that treacherous turncoat Wen Xi dared to expose him. "The Yan family gave thirty taels as betrothal gift—how long ago was that? How could the family have no money? And the ten coins you snatched from me when you forced me into this marriage…"
Wen Shishan looked at him as if he wanted to devour him, and Wen Xi was too frightened to say more.
So there was that too. Yan Feng'an shook his head. "Xiao Xi grew up in your household without enough to eat or wear, and yet the ten coins he managed to scrape together were snatched away by you as well. With hearts like yours, you'd be despised even among pigs and dogs. I won't hide it from you—I came here today precisely to get justice for him. If you don't return those ten coins along with the rest, I'll never let this go. Just wait and see if you don't believe me."
Wen Liu nearly ground his teeth to pieces. "You humiliate me like this all for him?" Without waiting for Yan Feng'an's reply, he smiled viciously. "You think you're some kind of prize? Have you forgotten how you joined me in tormenting him back then? Now you play the devoted protector standing up for him—do you even deserve to?"
"And Wen Xi, don't get too pleased with yourself. However he treats me today, that's how he'll treat you one day. I'll be watching with wide eyes to see what becomes of you."
Wen Xi's grip had wrinkled Yan Feng'an's clothes out of shape. Then he slowly let go, stepped out from behind Yan Feng'an, and said, word by word, "Then you just watch carefully and see how I make a good life for myself."
He wasn't the least bit worried about what would become of him, because no matter how bad his future turned out, it would surely be a hundred times better than living in the Wen family.
His life was a cheap one to begin with. Having enjoyed so much time in the Yan family, every day from here on was a bonus. Even if Yan Feng'an really did divorce him one day, he would never weep and cling and refuse to let go the way Wen Liu did.
Yan Feng'an sighed inwardly and said to Wen Liu, "If I truly meant to humiliate you, I would have shouted about it in public yesterday and made a big scene."
Wen Liu was, after all, an unmarried ge'er who would still need to marry someday. In the end, these matters were strictly between their two families, and Yan Feng'an had no intention of pushing things to the extreme. When he came today, he had deliberately chosen the time when everyone was eating lunch—at that hour the village roads were empty, so there was no risk of drawing onlookers.
He had come here with only one purpose: to make Wen Liu give up hope and to put Wen Xi's mind at ease—not to humiliate anyone.
"I remember every single thing you mentioned, crystal clear. A wrong is a wrong, and I won't deny it. There's nothing frightening about a person making mistakes—what's frightening is being stubborn and refusing to repent. When I'm wrong, I correct it and make amends. As for whether you change or not, that's your business. The money has been repaid, and from now on, whether it's me or Xiao Xi, we have nothing whatsoever to do with your family. If the three of you still want to make trouble, feel free to come and test my methods."
A leopard can't change its spots. Aside from Wen Xi, none of this family was any good. Yan Feng'an knew that no one would take kind words to heart; only with this half-intimidating, half-threatening approach would the Wen family show any restraint.
His words had been merciless, and Wen Shishan, afraid he really would take the matter to the county yamen, finally and reluctantly handed over the silver.
Once he had the silver, Yan Feng'an and Wen Xi didn't stay in that place a moment longer.
The couple dusted off their hands and left. Wen Shishan, with a belly full of rage and nowhere to vent it, looked at the sobbing Wen Liu and snapped, "Cry, cry, cry—all you know is crying. You've cried away all this family's good fortune."
Li Qiaozhen, aching for her child, opened her mouth to speak, but Wen Shishan turned on her too: "Look at the fine ge'er you've borne—one useless, the other siding with outsiders. Marrying into meeting a father like you—what did I do to deserve eight lifetimes of bad luck?"
Hearing this, Li Qiaozhen's temper flared as well: "Aren't you ashamed to say that? I wasn't the only one who bore these children. I could say marrying you was eight lifetimes of bad luck too!"
"You've turned the heavens upside down!" Furious, Wen Shishan raised his hand and slapped her. But Li Qiaozhen was not one to swallow her anger. Seeing that he actually dared to hit her, she immediately started brawling with him.
The two of them fought fiercely in the courtyard. Wen Liu glanced at them only once before returning to his room, indifferent.
Yan Feng'an and Wen Xi had actually dared to humiliate him like this. Sooner or later, when the chance came, he would make the two of them repay his suffering a hundredfold.
On the way home, Yan Feng'an returned the ten coins that belonged to Wen Xi. Wen Xi's heart surged with emotion; after tucking the copper coins into his shirt, sparkling tears streamed down his face like a broken string of pearls.
Yan Feng'an wiped his face with his sleeve, but Wen Xi's tears kept welling up.
"Why are you crying all of a sudden? Was I too fierce at the Wen family and scared you?"
"No." Wen Xi hastily denied it. He was crying because the stone that had been pressing down on him had finally been lifted—now he could finally hold his head high and live a proper life.
Afraid that Yan Feng'an wouldn't understand how he felt, he added, "I'm happy."
Yan Feng'an flicked the bridge of his nose and said teasingly, "You've cried yourself into a regular tear-factory, and you still say you're happy? Fine, I'll just assume you express happiness differently from other people."
After being tormented in that household for so many years, he had finally stood up for himself today. Anyone would cry over that—how could Yan Feng'an not understand his feelings?
He took Wen Xi's hand and walked slowly toward the Yan residence, saying amid Wen Xi's quiet sniffles, "Actually, I was very happy today too. Do you know why?"
Wen Xi didn't answer. He turned his head and glanced at Yan Feng'an's chest, where the ten taels of silver they had just reclaimed from the Wen family were tucked away.
Yan Feng'an smiled and shook his head. "It has nothing to do with the silver. I'm happy because when your family was bullying you, I finally had the standing to speak up for you."
Wen Xi froze for a moment, and at those words, an old memory suddenly surfaced in his mind.