11
Tearing Apart the Big Brother’s False Mask of Virtue
Li Xiuran pushed open the door and was met with three pairs of eyes—one adult and two children. The woman glanced at him and stood up, saying, “You’re back. Wash your hands and have some soup. There’s no rice today—your mother hid all the grain in the house. I had to argue with her just to get some sweet potatoes.”
Unlike the original host, who would endure threats, beatings, and scoldings without daring to tell Li Xiuran, she was not one to stay silent.
“In a fit of anger, I killed the big hen. The children haven’t had meat since the last time you came home, so it’s a good chance to nourish them.”
She placed a bowl of soup in front of Li Xiuran and urged the children to eat quickly, then wash up and go to bed.
The discomfort or awkwardness of eating with a stranger for the first time was completely absent for her. Having grown up in an orphanage with a harsh director, survival had been a struggle. Later, returning to her biological parents’ home, she faced constant rivalry with siblings and cousins.
Such an upbringing had taught her to remain composed around all kinds of people.
Li Xiuran looked at the meat in his bowl, then at the large chicken legs in the children’s bowls, while Gu Wenshu had only wings and feet in hers. After a moment of silence, he picked up the chicken from his bowl and placed it in hers. “I’ve found a house. We’ll pack up and move out tomorrow.”
Gu Wenshu stared blankly at the meat in her bowl—something that had never happened in the original host’s memories.
Of course, the original host had never shared her meat with him either.
To the original host, meat was a rare treat, only available when this man returned, and Granny Li would put on a show of being kind to the mother and children. That hard-won meat was more precious than any man—how could she bear to give it away?
Hearing that he had found a house, she asked curiously, “Where is it? Is it in Cunwei?”
Sanbao and Xiao Ni’er’s eyes sparkled at the mention of Cunwei, their gazes fixed anxiously on their parents. They were afraid it wouldn’t be a house in Cunwei—they wanted to live close to Gousheng Ge.
Facing three pairs of expectant eyes, Li Xiuran glanced at them and said, “I bought Brother Jianguo’s house.”
Li Jianguo was the eldest son of Third Uncle and his cousin. A few years ago, Third Uncle had built a Qingzhuan Fang in Cunwei as a wedding home for Jianguo. However, they hadn’t lived there long before Jianguo’s job was transferred to the county town. He, his wife, and their child had been living in the county for years and rarely returned. Third Uncle had only one son, Jianguo, and the old couple stayed in their original home, leaving the house in Cunwei empty for several years.
Today, when Li Xiuran asked the Daduizhang about available houses, he learned that Jianguo intended to sell the Qingzhuan Fang. “The house, including the furniture, costs six hundred yuan in total.”
Gu Wenshu knew about Li Jianguo’s house in Cunwei—it had three rooms, a living room, a kitchen, a bathroom, and a three-fen private plot at the back, with a well in the courtyard. As an only child, Third Uncle had put great effort into the house, building it entirely with blue bricks, even the courtyard walls—a unique feature in the village.
The front and rear walls alone had used many blue bricks, and Third Uncle had called in numerous favors to complete the project, which took half a year to finish.
The siblings were already thrilled to be moving to Cunwei—whether it was a blue-brick house or a thatched hut made no difference to their excitement.
After the two of them drank a bowl of chicken soup and ate a sweet potato, Gu Wenshu wouldn’t let them continue eating.
People who had long been underfed and deprived of meat could easily upset their stomachs if they suddenly consumed too much greasy food.
Li Xiuran stood up to collect the bowls and chopsticks for washing, and she reminded him, “After washing them, bring them back to the room and keep them there. We’ll need to take them with us when we move tomorrow.”
If the bowls were left outside, they would surely be gone by morning.
Hearing this, Li Xiuran glanced at her and then nodded, “Alright.”
As he washed the dishes, he kept thinking about how different Gu Wenshu seemed. Lost in thought, he saw Li Mingshan approach. Li Mingshan crouched opposite him and whispered, “Third Brother, how can you believe your wife and agree to split the family? With Father and Mother still alive, dividing the family now would make us a laughingstock.”
“Hurry and apologize to Father and Mother, then tell them you’ve changed your mind about splitting the family. I’m sure they’ll agree.”
Li Xiuran listened, then looked at Li Mingshan and asked, “Does Elder Brother truly not want us to leave?”
Li Mingshan nodded repeatedly, “Of course, I don’t. We’re brothers—we should always stay together to care for our parents.”
Li Xiuran sneered, “Elder Brother, you should go back and say that to your son. Use it to coax him.” He finished washing the last bowl, placed it in the bamboo basket, stood up, and stared at Li Mingshan with a scornful laugh. “What Elder Brother can’t bear to part with is the fifteen hundred yuan, not my family.”
Their mother doted most on the youngest brother and valued the eldest brother the most. While he was away, his wife and children had been bullied. If the eldest or youngest brother had stood up for them even a little, the three of them wouldn’t have suffered so much over the years.
He recalled what Seventh Uncle had told him when he went to buy the house: while he was away, Gu Wenshu had worked the hardest and was often beaten and scolded. Only later did she gradually become a lazy woman who even hit the children. Seventh Uncle was right—everything has its cause and effect.
No matter how much he hated Gu Wenshu for trying to sell the children, he couldn’t ignore the fact that she had been driven to it by the Li Family.
If anything had really happened to the children, everyone would be to blame—Gu Wenshu, the entire Li Family, and even him, the father who failed to protect his children.
Thankfully, he had returned in time. Thankfully, the children were safe. Otherwise, he might have gone mad enough to want to destroy this family.
“Elder Brother, I’ve rarely been home, so I was willing to send money to support all of you. I thought you would treat my wife and children well out of gratitude for that money, but reality has slapped me hard in the face. Not only did you fail to treat them kindly, you went out of your way to bully them.”
“To me, this isn’t a home—it’s a den of wolves.”
With that, he ignored whatever Li Mingshan might be thinking, returned to his room, and closed the door.
Gu Wenshu had bathed the two children and put them to bed. After asking Li Xiuran to watch them, she went to take a bath herself.
When she returned, she saw that the man had already fallen asleep with the children.
She quietly began packing the family’s clothes. The sooner they packed, the sooner they could move out tomorrow. She truly didn’t want to stay here a day longer.
The original host had also been terrified of living here. Whenever she heard any noise outside while sleeping, she would startle awake, always worried that the fourth brother, Li Mingjiang, would barge in.
Apart from selling or beating the children, she felt that the original owner of this body had every right to do anything to this family, for all they had given her was insults, beatings, or emotional neglect. The things the original owner had wanted to do but lacked the courage for, she would reclaim bit by bit on her behalf.
After tidying up her things, she was about to rest by leaning on the table when the man on the bed suddenly opened his eyes. He looked at Gu Wenshu and said, “Come sleep on the bed.”
After speaking, he stood up.
Gu Wenshu glanced at him. “Then where will you sleep?”
Li Xiuran raised an eyebrow. “Naturally, I’ll sleep on the bed too. Or do you want me to sleep on the floor?”
Their eyes met, and Gu Wenshu realized that this man had no intention of sleeping on the floor himself, nor would he let her rest slumped over the table.
She wasn’t one to be overly delicate about it, so she settled on the innermost side of the bed, with the two children sleeping between them.
The 1.8-meter-wide bed had been just right for the mother and her two children, but the moment Li Xiuran lay down, it instantly felt cramped.
After Li Xiuran blew out the oil lamp, his low voice drifted into Gu Wenshu’s ears: “Gu Wenshu, I’ll ask you one more time—are you truly willing to stay and live properly? To take good care of the two children?”