Clutching the massive sum of money, Jiang Jianguo ran and sprinted all the way back home.
Inside the small Jiang family hut, Lin Wanting couldn’t sleep out of worry for Jiang Jianguo. Jiang Tangtang was also awake; she hadn’t completed her “gold coin tasks” in the mountains during the day, so she had been lying in bed with her eyes closed, working on them. From 8:00 PM until after midnight, she had earned over 2,000 gold coins. After midnight, she started on the next day’s tasks, earning another 2,000+ before finally stopping to rest. She waited for her father, browsing the [DY Mall] in the meantime.
Around 3:30 AM, Jiang Jianguo finally dashed home. He quietly climbed over the courtyard wall and tiptoed back to their room. Hearing the movement, Lin Wanting quickly opened the door from the inside to let him in.
Once inside, Jiang Jianguo ensured no one else was awake before relaxing onto the bed. He pulled the 2,100 yuan he had earned that day from his chest and placed it into Lin Wanting’s arms. Although it was dark, she could feel by the thickness of the stack that it was a significant amount of money.
“Husband, how much is this?” she asked, her voice trembling with extreme excitement.
At this moment, Jiang Tangtang opened her eyes, wiggled over to Lin Wanting’s side, and looked at her father. She whispered, “Daddy, you’re finally back! I was so worried about you!”
Seeing his wife and daughter waiting for him filled Jiang Jianguo with immense satisfaction. He whispered back, “The wild ginseng sold for 2,100 yuan.” He waited to see the look of pleasant surprise on their faces.
Indeed, Lin Wanting’s hands couldn’t stop trembling as she touched the money. “It actually sold for that much!”
Jiang Tangtang also touched the money and smiled secretly. Then, she said to her father, “Daddy, we must hide the money well.” Jiang Jianguo patted her head and said, “Daddy knows.”
Actually, what Jiang Tangtang wanted to say was, “Daddy, let me hide it for you.” But she didn’t want to expose her little secret yet, so until she thought of a better excuse, she chose to trust that Jiang Jianguo could hide it properly.
As it turned out, Jiang Jianguo opened the family’s old cabinet, took out all the miscellaneous items, tapped on the bottom board, and pried out a hidden panel. Jiang Tangtang was surprised—it was actually a secret compartment.
Lin Wanting was equally stunned, looking at Jiang Jianguo in confusion. “This is…?”
Jiang Jianguo calmly replied, “When we first got married, I thought we might have some private savings, so I made this simple compartment secretly. Since it’s an old cabinet, they would never think I’d hidden a compartment here. It’s been prepared for years and never used, but it’s finally come in handy today.”
Jiang Tangtang agreed it was a viable plan. The money was divided and tucked into the compartment. Being an old cabinet, the people in the main house would likely look down on it as junk, so they wouldn’t touch it. She was satisfied. Lin Wanting was also pleased, looking at Jiang Jianguo with eyes full of adoration, as if saying, “Husband, you’re amazing!”
Jiang Jianguo felt wonderful basking in the admiration of his wife and daughter. Lin Wanting suddenly remembered the argument with Grandma Jiang earlier that evening. She gave him a brief rundown, warning him that she had lied about his whereabouts—telling everyone he had gone for a walk to avoid hearing the old lady’s nagging—so he shouldn’t slip up.
Jiang Jianguo nodded and instructed them, “If they ask when I returned, just say I waited until everyone was asleep and slipped back in quietly.”
The three of them nodded and prepared to sleep. They were exhausted, and they only had less than two hours before they had to get up again.
Sure enough, just as the sky began to brighten, heavy pounding erupted at their door, accompanied by Grandma Jiang’s vile tongue: “You expletives! Lin Wanting, Jiang the Third! You lazy bums, get out here now! Jiang Jianguo, throw that wife of yours back to her maiden home! What kind of daughter-in-law is she? Lazy, greedy, shameless, and she even talks back to her mother-in-law. Heartless, shameless! You are all leeches, sucking the life out of this family!”
Hearing Grandma Jiang’s escalating and increasingly outrageous insults, Jiang Jianguo climbed out of bed, impatient and dragging his shoes. He stomped to the door, yanked open the door that was shaking from the old lady’s pounding, and countered:
“Why are we unfilial? How are we leeches? How are we sucking your blood? Since you’re saying that, let’s hash out exactly who the real blood-sucking leeches are.”
“Let’s start with the first branch. Even though Big Brother and Sister-in-law earn full work points, their family of three eats more than our family of three combined. And look at Jiang Yaozu! He’s not going to school, he wanders around like a vagrant all day, he doesn’t work, yet he never misses a meal. He eats half the eggs in this house—even a leech is better than him!”
Seeing the first branch’s darkening expressions, he continued, “From today on, if Jiang Yaozu doesn’t go to work, I won’t either. Why should he eat for free? He’s not my son!”
Upon hearing this, Old Madam Jiang was so angry she began to twitch. She pointed a finger at Jiang Jianguo and sputtered, “You… you… you heartless wretch! How can a biological uncle be so petty with his own nephew! It’s not like you even have a son of your own…”
Jiang Jianguo cut her off: “Enough with the ‘you, you, you.’ So what if I don’t want to? And so what if I don’t have a son? Someone like Jiang Yaozu—I wouldn’t take him even if he were given to me for free. He’s idle and good-for-nothing every single day. I’m certain our Tangtang being abducted had something to do with him. A vicious tumor like that belongs in a labor camp sooner or later.”
He stared directly at Jiang Yaozu as he said this. Jiang Yaozu, feeling guilty, darted his eyes away. Fearing that his third uncle might actually have evidence, he panicked and dared not retort.
Seeing her precious eldest grandson being cursed with forced labor, Old Madam Jiang let out a piercing shriek and cursed at her third son: “You bastard, you’re creating bad karma! A biological uncle hoping for his own nephew to be sent to a labor camp—you’re worse than a beast…”
Jiang Jianguo didn’t care for her hysterics. Since he had already started speaking his mind, he was going to say it all.
He continued his barrage: “As for the second brother’s family, I have nothing to say, but I haven’t taken advantage of you either. You know perfectly well who is actually taking advantage of whom. Even though Lin Wanting and I earn fewer work points, we eat less, too. Not to mention Tangtang—she eats even less than a cat. The points we earn are more than enough to feed the three of us. We support ourselves, fair and square. If you want to let others take advantage of you, that’s your business, but I’m not having it. So, stop eyeing me; go look at someone else instead.”
He then looked at Old Madam Jiang and continued, “If we’re talking about parasites in this house, there’s a big one: the youngest brother. When I got into high school, there was no money for me to attend, but when he got in, he could go. Don’t think I don’t know that you secretly give him two yuan of pocket money every month. Where does that money come from?”
Ignoring the colorful expressions on everyone’s faces, he pressed on: “And I also heard you’re planning to use money to buy him a job in town, right? And that you’re going to pay a high bride price for him to marry a girl from the city to improve the family’s standing? Once he’s a city person, do you think he’ll care about his brothers in the countryside?” After saying this, he raised an eyebrow and swept his gaze pointedly toward the members of the eldest branch of the family.
Before his voice had even faded, Old Madam Jiang reacted as if someone had stepped on her tail: “Shut up, Jiang the Third! You troublemaker, are you trying to tear this family apart?” She then glanced at her other sons and daughters-in-law.
The eldest daughter-in-law, Liu Xiujuan, looked sullen and deep in thought. The second daughter-in-law, Wang Guifen, kept her head bowed timidly, deep in her own reflections. The eldest grandson, Jiang Yaozu, looked at the old couple with a grievance-stricken face, as if asking, “Grandma, aren’t I your favorite? How could you do this to me?”
Old Madam Jiang no longer cared what the others were thinking.
After dropping such a bombshell first thing in the morning, Jiang Jianguo calmly returned to his room, paying no mind to the house full of people, each preoccupied with their own hidden agendas.