“What could’ve happened? Da Ya got beaten! Yesterday, for some reason, they were about to hit Er Ya, and Da Ya jumped in to shield her.
Then Er Ya’s mom went up to protect her too, and your uncle just crouched under the eaves with his head in his hands.
From what I could make out, it sounded like your uncle and aunt were on the verge of splitting up. I caught things like ‘if it’s not working, it’s not working’ and ‘if you want a divorce, then divorce.’”
Even though they lived right next door, the rural courtyards were big, and she couldn’t hear that clearly—especially since they’d kept their voices down to save face. She only caught bits and pieces.
Lin Xiaohe’s brow furrowed deeply. “Thank you, Auntie. I understand now.”
“No problem. But you’d better stay out of it. Though I didn’t catch everything, I can guess pretty well what happened.
You’re a mature kid, so I won’t hold back. I’m guessing your uncle’s got someone else. I saw a woman carrying a baby go into their place yesterday.
She wasn’t there half a day before she left, carrying something in her hands—couldn’t tell what. Then the shouting started. ‘This life can’t go on, it absolutely can’t go on’—that was your aunt saying it.”
Lin Xiaohe clenched her teeth. “How could he be such a beast? Hasn’t my aunt done everything right? She’s worked herself to the bone without complaint.
She’s exhausted from the fields all day, comes home to more chores, and never said a harsh word to him.”
“Alright, don’t get all worked up here. This is between the adults—let them sort it out.”
Wu Xiang tried to calm her down. Kids shouldn’t get involved in adult affairs—it’d only cause trouble for everyone.
Lin Xiaohe nodded vaguely and ran off toward the river. She needed to get to the bottom of this.
She didn’t like her uncle. Every time her two cousins got hit or yelled at, it was always her aunt who shielded them—her uncle never protected them.
He always wore that troubled look. What was he so troubled about? Who was troubling him? He wasn’t the one getting beaten.
What could possibly be more important than his own wife and children being hurt that he stood there looking torn?
When she got to the river, she spotted Er Ya Jie right away—digging for roots while wiping away tears.
“Er Ya Jie, tell me what happened.”
“Wah…” Er Ya burst into sobs. “Xiaohe, what am I supposed to do?”
“Yesterday, a woman came to the house. I don’t know what she said. At dinner, my dad said a brother of his had died, and now his widow and child had no way to survive.
He said he wanted to help them. Then that person said our branch only gets so much grain each day, and if he wanted to help others, he’d have to go without himself.
And my dad actually agreed! He gave some grain to that woman to take away! We only found out after it was already gone—Fourth Aunt came by to mock us and that’s how we learned.”
“You know my mom—she’s never had a temper. But yesterday at dinner, she threw her bowl.
My dad got furious all of a sudden! That old hag said if he couldn’t even control his own wife, what good was he—and then my dad started hitting her.
I rushed in to protect my mom and he slapped me.
My mom hit him back, and then he just crouched there with his head in his hands acting all troubled. I cursed him out.
Those two old bastards said I was disrespectful and started beating me. We can’t stay in that house another day!”
Lin Xiaohe’s brow was deeply furrowed. What a mess.
“Don’t panic. I’ll go home and talk it over with my parents.”
“Okay,” Er Ya said, her voice muffled.
Half of her despair was the shock of her family falling apart, and the other half was fear of what the future held.
When she got home and told them what had happened, Lin Cai frowned deeply.
“Big Brother’s not even old yet—how did he get so muddled? In times like these, one misstep and people starve to death. And he’s playing the good Samaritan now.”
“He’s not muddled at all.” Liu Yuexiu rolled her eyes. “He’s your father’s firstborn, after all—he’s got real weight in your father’s eyes. Unless the whole family is on the brink of starvation, he’ll never go hungry. As for his wife and kids? He couldn’t care less.”
Even though Da Ya and Er Ya had it rough at home every day, Lin Laoda himself wasn’t doing badly at all. He just always put on that pathetic act, pretending he couldn’t do anything about Qian Sancao mistreating his wife and children.
He made everyone think he was struggling too—but that wasn’t true. To put it plainly, when food was portioned out at home, he got the same treatment as the twin boy and girl Qian Sancao had later, only slightly less than Lin Laosi.
Lin Cai’s brow was tightly knit. He couldn’t figure out when his big brother had turned into this.
He remembered him being different before.
“If you ask me, it’d be better for Sister-in-law to just take the kids and live on her own.”
The first branch had three kids—besides Da Ya and Er Ya, there was a little boy, only a year older than Xiaoman.
“Easy to say, hard to do. They don’t even have a place to stay.
The only reason we fought tooth and nail to split off was because the old house hadn’t collapsed yet, and we could still take shelter there.”
Lin Cai sighed. “This really is a tough one. And Sister-in-law’s family isn’t reliable either.”
“They could stay at the educated youth compound. There are two male and two female educated youth there now.
They’re using two rooms, but the compound has three rooms plus two broken-down ones that haven’t been fixed and aren’t livable.”
Lin Xiaohe thought the educated youth compound would be a good spot—it was centrally located, not out of the way.
The educated youth there were also easy to get along with.
“It’s not up to us to decide. We’ll have to see what they want to do.”
Lin Cai shook his head. Easy to talk about, hard to carry out.
This was going to be a long ordeal.
“Sis, should I add more wood to the chicken soup? It already smells really good.”
Xiaogu poked her head in at the doorway.
“Add a little more. Wild chicken needs to simmer longer so it isn’t tough.”
It was a full pot of chicken soup, with two wild yams thrown in. If only they had some white flour—they could roll out noodles and drop them in the soup. She couldn’t even imagine how good that would taste.
She’d buy some tomorrow when she went over.
Around here, they mostly grew rice, so rice was the staple.
They planted two crops of rice a year—the second harvest wasn’t great. Every couple of years, they’d plant wheat instead, saying it gave the soil a break.
She grabbed two bowls, scooped out two pieces of meat, half a bowl of yam, and filled them to the brim with soup.
“Why hasn’t Er Ya Jie come yet?”
“It’s almost dark—she’s probably heading home by now. She should be on her way. I’ll go meet her.”
Xiaogu had barely stepped out when she saw Da Ya Jie and Er Ya Jie walking over.
“Hurry, hurry! We’ve been waiting for you.”
As soon as they came in, each was handed a bamboo bowl. “With things so bad at home, you must not have eaten. Nothing’s more important than food.
Have a little—don’t be scared! If it comes to it, you can move into the ancestral hall too. There’s always a place to stay.”
Lin Xiaohe didn’t know how to comfort them, so she’d let the food speak for itself.
Da Ya and Er Ya were too stunned to even dwell on their family troubles—their eyes were wide with shock. What were they seeing?
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