Chapter 9: Kind Stepmother
At the same time, in the Liu family's old house.
Old man Liu brought a bowl of bitter tea with a few froths floating in it, sat on the doorstep, and looked towards the east end of the village.
After a while, two figures, one big and one small, ran over from there.
"Master, all the straw in our fields has been stolen!" The boy shouted angrily before he even got close.
Old man Liu's eyes, which had been narrowed by the bitterness of the tea, suddenly opened up, "Stolen? Which wicked person stole it?"
"They were all stolen by Dalang and Erlang from the third family. Someone saw them moving them back and forth several times!" Liu Fei replied angrily.
Old man Liu narrowed his eyes again and said, "Oh, that's okay."
The uncle and nephew stopped at the door of the house, panting. They looked up at Old Man Liu, who was drinking bitter tea calmly, from two steps away.
The eight-year-old Liu Jinbao said anxiously: "Grandpa, you promised to make a new bed for me this year."
Liu Fei also said: "Dad, do you know what they said? They said that what belongs to you is their dad, and what belongs to their dad is theirs. It's only natural for us to take things from our own family. This makes me so angry. I'm going to take our straw back right now. You are also my dad, and it's only natural for me to take what belongs to my own dad!"
"Yes, take it back. I need a new bed. The old straw is damp and has been almost eaten up by mice." Liu Jinbao also agreed.
The uncle and nephew rolled up their sleeves and walked towards the village.
Old Man Liu quickly swallowed the bitter tea in his mouth and shouted, "Stop right there, both of you!"
The uncle and nephew did not stop until Old Man Liu got angry and shouted again. Then they turned around with aggrieved and unhappy faces.
"Your mother has prepared dinner, go home and eat first." Old Man Liu waved his hand, calling the two back, then got up and went back to the yard, looking as if he didn't intend to pursue the matter.
"Dad!" Liu Fei finally couldn't help asking, "Did you leave it in the field on purpose for them to steal?"
At first he was just suspicious. After the rice was harvested, it was taken home to dry in the sun, and he was afraid that it would be stolen by those cunning people in the village.
But my father insisted on keeping one acre of land, saying that he should focus on the wheat in the field first and there would be no need to worry about harvesting it later.
Now it seems that it was deliberately left for the third brother's family to steal!
Then I saw that the old man didn't refute it and felt guilty.
Liu Fei was furious, aggrieved and angry. He chased after Old Man Liu and started to criticize his father!
"We don't have enough straw to make a bed. The straw under Jinbao's bed has been eaten by mice. It's getting cold, how can we sleep on that bed? It's fine if you don't feel sorry for him, but Jinbao is the eldest grandson in our family. Don't you, as a grandfather, feel sorry for him?"
Liu Fei spoke so fast that it was like a string of cannonballs. He never got stuck and could speak in one breath, leaving you no chance to interrupt.
Old man Liu tried to hold it in, but he couldn't help it.
Suddenly, he turned around, raised the bitter tea bowl in his hand and was about to throw it at him, "You little bastard, how dare you talk to your father like that? I can do whatever I want with my land, why do I need you to bother with me?!"
Liu Fei puffed out his chest and questioned fearlessly: "Dad, why are you so biased? What's so good about Liu Laosan?"
Old Man Liu's eyes bulged instantly. "What's good about him? He's bad in every way. I wish I had never given birth to this evil son!"
At the end, he added: "And you, Liu Fei, this evil creature, if you talk back to me again, I will beat you to death for being such an unfilial son who disobeys his elders!"
After saying that, he raised the tea bowl and was about to beat Liu Fei. Fortunately, the family members came over and separated the two of them, and Liu Fei escaped.
Old man Liu sat in the main hall angrily. His step-wife Zhang winked at her youngest son, telling him to go inside and stop arguing with his father. At the same time, she leaned on Old Man Liu and sighed,
"I know you are worried about the third son. The third son is really something. He has to pick on Lin Erbao when he can pick on anyone else."
"But it's a good thing that it's Lin Erbao. I've never heard of anyone dying because of debts they couldn't pay. They were all sent to the farms or mines to work as collateral to pay off their debts. This third brother has been a bastard for so many years, it's time to let him suffer a little. Maybe his character will change."
If it were an ordinary stepmother, she would not dare to say such words, for fear that the old man would think that she was unkind and wanted to harm the children in the family.
But Zhang had been in the Liu family for sixteen years. Except for the eldest son Liu Bo, who was old enough to support himself, the rest of the children, Liu Zhong and Liu Ji, were all raised by her. The grace of raising them was there, and she was even more grateful to them than her own children.
If he didn't really want to do good for Liu Ji, he wouldn't have the heart to teach him a lesson.
Zhang had already guessed about the straw in the field, but she didn't say anything.
The weather was getting colder, and the third brother's family had only a new daughter-in-law who had just arrived and knew nothing. If they didn't leave some straw for them, how would they survive the coming winter?
But Zhang was also very angry. Dalang and Erlang were taught by their father Liu Ji to be unpleasant. They didn't know how to greet people and didn't say thank you when they were given things.
As for the straw in the field, the two brothers did not even think of telling their grandfather before taking it, and they had to do it secretly.
Could it be possible that his grandfather could just watch them freeze to death?
And Qin Yao, the mother, has a child who is ignorant, and she is an adult but still so ignorant. It's been two days since the third child got into trouble, but she hasn't even come to visit.
"Could it be that she really wants the third son to die outside and never come back?" Zhang accidentally said what she was thinking.
Old man Liu was startled and slowly looked at his wife, "Is this possible?"
Zhang was immediately frightened and got goose bumps all over her body. The day when she first met Qin Yao came to her mind again. She looked so delicate and her eyes were timid. She shouldn't be a cruel person.
But, she was fleeing here. For a girl to walk from the northwest to their Central Plains is not something that an ordinary woman can do.
Having seen so many dangers, what if my heart has become hardened?
Finished!
Old Man Liu and Zhang looked at each other and had a bad feeling.
The two daughters-in-law prepared the meal and asked their parents-in-law to come over for dinner. They had been busy planting winter wheat these days and the men in the family had been exhausted, so the two daughters-in-law made the meal a little more sumptuous.
Usually it was porridge with bran steamed bread, but today, in addition to that, there was also a big bowl of egg and loofah soup.
Jinbao, the son of Liu Bo's family, and Jinhua, the five-year-old daughter of Liu Zhong's family, held the half bowl of egg soup they were given and drank it with snorting gusto, finding it so delicious.
The other people in the family were also very happy, and the bitterness of hard work was much less.
Only Old Man Liu and Mrs. Zhang had no appetite for the fragrant egg soup. All they could think about was what Qin Yao, the new daughter-in-law of the third brother's family, was doing at the moment.
The more she thought about it, the more frightened she became. Zhang put down her bowl and sent her eldest grandson, who had already finished his egg soup, "Jinbao, go to your third aunt's house and see what they are doing. Come back and tell me."
Liu Jinbao responded with an "oh". Before leaving, he thought of the straw and looked at Liu Fei again, "Uncle, should we go to Uncle San's house to get some straw?"
Liu Fei scooped up another half bowl of egg soup and ate it with a steamed bread made of fine bran. He ate a mouthful of soup and a mouthful of steamed bread, chewing it like an enemy and ignored him.
Liu Jinbao had no choice but to run to the innermost part of the village alone.
(End of this chapter)