Chapter 194: Tremble, Scumbag 3
Author: 打字机
T/N: The final chapter to the promised mass release. please donate if you can~
The eldest son Jiang Hai and the second son Jiang Hu are the main labor force for the few acres of land owned by the Jiang family. They work in the fields almost all day long, especially during busy farming seasons. Even their lunch is just a simple meal that Jiang Miao Shi brings to them on the field.
Apart from Jiang Hai and Jiang Hu, the other people who contribute the most to the Jiang family are Jiang Miaoshi and Bai Lan. Since the man in the third family can’t be relied upon, in order to prevent the elder and younger sister-in-law from complaining, Bai Lan always works the hardest. She can work from early morning till late at night, and even the pickiest women in the village praise her as a capable and virtuous woman.
A few years ago, things were fairly balanced thanks to Bai Lan’s hard work. However, in recent years, with the existence of the two grandsons of the Jiang family’s first family who are able to help in the fields, as well as the daughters of the second household, Lan Hua and He Hua who contributing to the household chores, the third household who only has a two-year-old son has become a burden in the eyes of the other two households. Yet, although the other two households contribute more to the family, they are not as favored by the elders as the idle as the third son. As a result, the animosity between the three households has been growing.
“Mom is favoring the third brother again.”
When Jiang Hai returned from the field that evening, Xu Xiaocao served him while complaining.
“I saw Mom scoop a whole basket of new rice from her room. We still have our Da Niu, who is the eldest grandson of the family. Yet, when he was sick, Mom wouldn’t even give him white rice porridge.”
Despite Xu Xiaocao’s tough attitude towards her mother-in-law Jiang Miao Shi, she knew that the only person who could stand up to her was her husband, Jiang Hai. Hence, she had to bring him to her side in order to challenge Jiang Miao Shi.
“I’m not being stingy, but look at how old Third Brother is compared to our Da Niu. Da Niu is so young and already working hard on the farm, but when he gets sick, he doesn’t get his grandma’s attention. As a mother, it doesn’t feel right in my heart.”
Xu Xiaocao decisively ignored the fact that the time when her son was sick, her mother-in-law had given her an egg to make egg soup for Da Niu. She carefully observed her husband’s expression and when she saw the undisguised displeasure on Jiang Hai’s face, she knew he felt the same way about the third bother and his mother’s favoritism.
“Not to mention that thi time, it was the third brother who brought this trouble to himself. How could he offended the second steward of the Landowner Lu’s household? Look at our status compared to theirs. If he holds a grudge against us and decided to complain to our village chief over a drink, we’ll be in trouble.”
Clearly, the trouble that might come from the second steward of the Landowner Lu’s household worried Jiang Hai more than his mother’s favoritism.
“Third brother is becoming more and more unbearable.”
Jiang Hai took the water ladle from his wife and scooped a few ladles of water before drying himself off and put on clean clothes.
“Da Hai, should we split up?”
Seeing that her husband also disliked his troublesome younger brother, Xu Xiaocao seized the opportunity to propose her idea, “I’m not being unfilial, but third brother has been idle all these years because we’ve been supporting him. It’s time to let him stand on his own feet. Once we split up, he can learn to be responsible for his own family.”
Even though Xu Xiaocao wanted to split up, she still wanted to have a good reputation. So she framed her desire to get rid of Jiang Liu as a way to help him grow, making her sound noble.
“Split up?”
Jiang Hai pondered for a moment. He also wanted to split up. His two sons were eleven and nine years old and could help with farm work. His youngest daughter was four years old and would be able to help with housework in a few years. Once they split up, most of their family of five would be able to work and their lives would improve.
Besides, Jiang Hai had some savings. Although Jiang Miao favored his younger brother, when the old lady was alive, she favored Jiang Hai as her favorite grandson. She had entrusted him with the money she had saved over the years. In addition to the money he had earned from working at the docks and at the Landowner’s house, he had saved eighteen taels of silver, which was not a small sum in the countryside. Once they split up, Jiang Hai would not have to hide his savings anymore and they could live better.
Thinking about this, Jiang Hai was even more tempted.
Xu Xiaocao didn’t urge him any further. She wanted him to think it over and see the benefits of splitting up on his own.
**********
Compared to the eldest son’s position, the second son’s position in the Jiang family is truly pitiable in the truest sense of the term in the Jianghu world. The grandmother dotes on the elder brother, and the mother favors the younger brother. It is an awkward position of neither up nor down. Moreover, a few bad things happened at birth, which added a reputation for bad luck. In these years, the second son Jianghu has been an invisible person in the family, quietly doing his work and never taking the initiative to provoke disputes.
However, although he does not cause trouble, he also has his own ideas.
“It seems that my sister-in-law wants to divide the family.”
Liu Cui brought in the clothes that had been hung outside to dry and give a piece to Jiang Hu so he could change his clothes. If Xu Xiaocao were here, she would be surprised to hear this sentence coming out of Liu Cui’s mouth. Except in front of her own man, Jiang Hai, Xu Xiaocao had never mentioned the idea of splitting up the family. But Liu Cui had guessed it. Wasn’t she the family’s hidden worrywart in everyone’s eyes?
“What do you think?”
As Jiang Hu’s pillow talk partner, he knew how smart and shrewd his seemingly ordinary wife actually was, so he valued Liu Cui’s opinions even more.
“Whether we split or not, it’s okay.”
Actually, regardless of whether the family was divided or not, it would have the least impact on the second son’s position. However, from a woman’s perspective, Liu Cui still hoped for a family division. After all, which woman wouldn’t want to be the master of her own household?
Moreover, the mother-in-law was partial to the third son, and her husband was the second oldest. Whether the old lady chose to live with the eldest son or with her favorite youngest son, the burden of taking care of the elderly would not fall on their household.
Of course, this would mean that the property allocated to the second household would definitely be relatively less, but Liu Cui had already seen their position in the grandmother’s heart and had long been mentally prepared for it. Therefore, she could accept it.
“I think it’s better to split up.”
Jiang Hu didn’t know what was going on in his wife’s mind, but he also leaned more towards splitting up the family.
He and his wife Liu Cui have three children. The youngest, Jiang Sanniu, is the most beloved child in the family, and he is fully devoted in planning for his little treasure. His eldest daughter, Lan Hua, is already nine years old this year and will be of marriageable age in two or three years. He also has a seven-year-old daughter, He Hua. Marrying off these two daughters can earn him a substantial amount of dowry money. If the family doesn’t split, the dowry money for the daughters will go to the head of the family, which is something Jianghu doesn’t want to see.
He heard that someone in the neighboring village sold their daughter to a tooth dealer for three taels of silver. The girl was lucky enough to be bought by a wealthy family in the county as a maid. Although she was sold by her parents, the girl didn’t bear any grudges and sent money back home every month to support her siblings.
Jiang Hu also had this idea. He was considering whether it was more profitable to marry off his two daughters or to send them as maids to wealthy families.
Most people in this era thought that daughters were worthless and selling children was not illegal. Many people shared similar thoughts with Jiang Hu. According to the original trajectory, Jiang Zhuhua, the daughter of the third room of the Jiang family, was sold by the original owner and his concubine.
“Let’s see how the eldest room handles this.”
Jiang Hu changed into clean clothes. In his opinion, even if the eldest room wanted to split the family, it would take some time to plan. But he never expected the family to split so soon.
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On that evening, the family was divided into two tables for dinner. Jiang Miaoshi and the men of the family sat at one table, while the daughter-in-law and granddaughters sat at the other. The food on the men’s table was better, as evidenced by the thicker rice soup and the addition of a drop of rapeseed oil to the salted vegetables.
“Lan’er, take these over to my lucky star,” Jiang Miaoshi said, as she scooped a bowl of porridge for her precious son and mixed in two chopsticks of salted vegetables.
The men had work to do and couldn’t go hungry, so the porridge was taken from the women’s table. The old lady put the ladle into the bottom of a large bowl and scooped out two spoonfuls, basically removing half of the rice from the bowl. What was left was a watery soup that couldn’t possibly fill the stomachs for Xu Xiaocao and the others.
“Mother, this is too much,” Xu Xiaocao’s anger rose as she watched the old lady take away their dinner with just two spoonfuls.
“Isn’t this enough to fill your mouth?”
Jiang Miaoshi didn’t think she was doing anything excessive. Besides this pot of porridge, there were still wild vegetable rolls. Although these things couldn’t fill one’s stomach completely, they definitely wouldn’t let anyone starve to death.
“Those little girls don’t do any work, why do they ned to eat so much?” she said, scanning her three granddaughters sitting at the table. “It’s only now that our family is doing well. When the harvest isn’t good, these little girls can’t even drink rice soup, let alone have vegetable rolls.”
“Mother, I don’t like what you’re saying. Da Hai and I work hard to make money, and Da Niu and Er Niu have started working in the fields. Can’t my daughter Meihua have a full meal to eat? Why should our whole family work like oxen and horses while others can lounge around comfortably at home?”
Xu Xiaocao thought this was the perfect opportunity, not because she was concerned about her daughter, but because she wanted to use this as an excuse to cause a big commotion and achieve the goal of dividing the family.
“I think that fortune-teller was wrong. That person doesn’t have a wealthy and prosperous destiny at all. He’s just a troublemaker who will ruin this family sooner or later.” Xu Xiaocao knew that her mother-in-law didn’t like to hear others criticize the third brother but she wanted to say it anyway.
Sure enough, Jiang Miaoshi got angry and slammed the bowl on the table. She pointed at Xu Xiaocao’s nose and scolded, “You’re a troublemaker! Do you think I’m easy to bully? If you don’t want to live a good life, go back to your Xu family!”
Jiang Miaoshi didn’t feel guilty at all. If Xu Xiaocao thought she was showing favoritism, why didn’t she take out the money that her mother-in-law had secretly left for the eldest son?
When she was in charge of the family, there was no savings, and all the money she and her husband had worked hard for was in the hands of the old mother-in-law. Plus, she was a thrifty person, Jiang Miaoshi didn’t believe that they didn’t save a penny over the years. It must have been the old mother-in-law who handed over the money to the eldest son before she died.
But that was the money she and her husband had saved up, so how could the eldest son hide it?
So when Xu Xiaocao accused her of favoritism and thought that the third son had taken advantage of the big house, Jiang Miaoshi found these words ridiculous, so much that she didn’t feel guilty about it.
“Mom, Xiaocao is my wife. She has been diligent and even gave birth to three children for me. You can’t just chase her away like that. And she has a point. I work hard every day. It’s not fair for my daughter to go hungry. Now that the third brother has become a father, we can all have our own families. As the saying goes, familiarity breeds contempt. I think it’s better to split up the family sooner rather than later.”
When Jiang Miangshi first mentioned sending Xiaocao back to her parents’ home, Xiaocao felt a little guilty. But Jiang Hai’s words strengthened her determination to split the family. As long as Jiang Hai didn’t chase her away, even though Jiang Miaoshi was her mother-in-law, she had no right over her.
“Okay, I knew Xiaocao had guts to oppose me. But I didn’t expect you, the eldest brother, to feel the same way.”
Jiang Miaoshi’s gaze shifted to her eldest son. She could tolerate her daughter-in-law’s proposal to split the family, but now that her son had spoken, she couldn’t ignore it.
“Your younger brother is still lying in there. As the eldest brother, you’re going to abandon him?”
Jiang Miaoshi questioned her eldest son.
“What about you, second son? Are you thinking the same thing?”
She turned around to question her second son, Jiang Hu.
Jiang Hu didn’t say anything, his expression was innocent, pretending to be clueless. But sometimes, not saying anything was also a way of expressing an attitude.
Jiang Miaoshi felt a little disheartened. Did her two older sons really not have room in their hearts for their younger brother?
“Okay, so you all have no compassion, and you want to split up the family? This old house was built brick by brick by your father and me. I will live with the third son and this house belongs to him. You two are so capable, we will split the seven acres of land into four parts, and my part also belongs to the third son. If you don’t care about him, as his mother, I care.”
Jiang Miaoshi was furious. Since they wanted to split up the family, fine, she would make her own decisions about her belongings. If her sons were so strong, then they could go earn their own wealth.
“Mom, this distribution is so unfair!”
Xu Xiaocao shouted loudly. She had thought that the old lady might distribute the inheritance unfairly, but she didn’t expect it to be so unfair.
The Jiang family had a total of eight houses. Xu Xiaocao thought that the old lady would favor her third son and give him the most, but as her husband was the eldest son, he should at least get the house.
As for the farmland, even if the third son got the advantage during the housing distribution, the farmland should be distributed equally. In addition, the chickens, ducks, farming tools and utensils in the house should also also be divided equally.
“I’m just a biased and confused person in your hearts. If I’m biased, what can you do about it?”
Jiang Miaoshi glared at her two sons with hatred. She couldn’t even eat her food because of anger and went back to her room breathing heavily.
“Even if we are dividing the inheritance, it shouldn’t be done this way. Tomorrow, I have to invite the elders to come and discuss it thoroughly.”
Xu Xiaocao glanced at Bai Lan who hadn’t said a word the whole time. This younger sister-in-law always acted busy and hardworking, making Xu Xiaocao look like a lazy wife. She was probably happy now, but Xu Xiaocao wouldn’t let her get what she wanted.
Although the old lady in the family was confused, the Jiang family’s relatives were still clear-headed. Jiang Hai, Xu Xiaocao’s husband, was clearly more capable than Jiang Liu, who was a wastrel. The family’s fortune would be squandered if it was handed over to Jiang Liu. The elders in the family knew this, and only the eldest son’s family could continue to pass on this legacy for generations to come.
Xu Xiaocao snorted coldly and prepared to bring the bowl of porridge that was originally meant for Jiang Liu to herself.
“Big sister-in-law, I’ll go feed my husband,” she said.
Bai Lan seized the bowl of rice porridge first. She hated Jiang Liu and didn’t have a good impression of the people in the main and second branches of the family either. Xu Xiaocao was more than happy to help Meng Jiao to suppress her and her children back then.
However, Bai Lan did not want to stop the family from dividing their assets. She wanted to see who Jiang Liu could rely on after the separation. She wouldn’t foolishly let this man mistreat her for the rest of her life.
***********
In the end, the Jiang family split up.
Although Jiang Miaoshi was an elder, she was ultimately a woman and weaker in terms of authority than the senior members of the clan. However, the matter of splitting up the family was ultimately a family affair, and as an elder, Jiang Miaoshi had a lot of power.
In the end, Jiang Liu occupied four of the eight part of the house in the Jiang family, while each of the other brothers occupied two. Jiang Liu also owned three acres of the seven-acre field, while the other brothers each owned two.
This division was not too outrageous, as Jiang Miaoshi will be taken care of by Jiang Liu in her old age. In the countryside, it was a common practice for children who took care of their parents to receive a larger share of the family property. The clan elders of the Jiang family could not find fault with this.
This family division was quite different from the one in Bai Lan’s memory. Jiang Liu did not receive as much in the previous life, as he had awoken later and the family had spent more money on him. Even Jiang Miaoshi did not want to say that Jiang older brother and second brother were not loyal brothers.
However, in this life, Jiang Liu had awakened earlier and the family had not spent more money on him. In addition, with his son still lying in bed, Jiang Miaoshi was extremely distressed. At this time, Xu Xiaocao also argued with her over a bowl of porridge, challenging her authority as the head of the family. Jiang Miaoshi could not tolerate this, so in this emotional state, she strongly advocated for her precious son to receive a larger share of the family property.
“Mother, my younger brother and I are also your sons. Although the third brother is responsible for taking care of you in your old age, his personality…if you don’t want to live with him in the future, I can also take care of you.”
Jiang Hai’s words were very beautiful in front of the clan elders. He showed filial piety and pointed out Jiang Liu’s lack of responsibility. The elders looked at Jiang Hai and Jiang Hu sympathetically, while Jiang Miaoshi’s expression became somewhat unpleasant. Everyone felt that this biased old lady would eventually taste the bitter fruit of her biasness.
*************
In the blink of an eye, Jiang Liu had been in this world for about twenty days. His injuries had healed, and he had been able to walk since the day before yesterday. Today was the first time he had been allowed by his mother to wander around outside their home since coming to this world.
During these days, Jiang Liu had also been carefully observing his original body’s wife, Bai Lan, and his two-year-old son, Jiang Dahu.
Their personalities were similar to what he remembered from the original body’s memories, but their attitudes towards him were noticeably different. Although both of them were hiding it well, Jiang Liu could still feel their resistance towards him.
Why would Jiang Dahu, a two-year-old child, resist his biological father?
Thinking about his experiences from his previous life, Jiang Liu had a vague guess, which made him very worried.
If his guess was correct, what should he do to complete his mission?
With a heavy heart, Jiang Liu walked around his neighborhood for a few laps. Just as he was about to return home, he was stopped by a graceful and alluring woman with a seductive look in her eyes.
She was dressed up as a marriage woman and had makeup on, looking charming and lovely.
“Jiang’s Third Brother,” she said in a soft and shy voice that made one’s bones melt.
It was Meng Jiao-niang, the concubine of the original body from his last life! Jiang Liu immediately recognized her.
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