The crowd dissipated after Liu Ergouzi left. As she passed by the house, Liu Duo glanced at Liu Lanshi and shook her head.
Seeing her do so, Ye Liu asked, “What are you shaking your head for?”
“Nothing. Let’s go home.”
If you didn’t care about yourself, how would you expect someone else to? If you didn’t fight back, no one would fight for you! Blindly compromising would only suck the life out of you!
“Right.” They held hands as they slowly walked home.
They reached home and, after making their return known, Liu Duo rushed to the outhouse to change her cloth. Another two days and her period would be gone.
As usual, she washed and hung her cloth to dry on the rope.
Ye Ling sat under the roof with a needle and thread, patching some clothes. Liu Duo walked over and sat beside him. “Ling, you know how to mend clothes? How handy!”
“Yes, I do. This is Mo’s. It got ripped when he was chopping wood. With a bit of sewing, he can wear it again.” He was the one who sewed them back together whenever his brothers’ clothes needed mending.
The clothes they wore had been patched again and again. As long as they were still wearable, the brothers would not throw them away.
She stared at his proficiency and could not help asking, “Ling, about your parents, when did they pass away?”
Having no women in the house, having to learn feminine chores, and being good at them, Liu Duo felt pity towards Ye Ling.
Ye Ling paused. It had been a while since his parents were mentioned. He had almost forgotten. He was very young then, but he had a vivid memory.
He mended the final stitch, cut off the thread, and stared up at the ceiling as he slowly spoke. “About ten years ago, I guess. Time passed so quickly.”
Ten years? If so, Yang was fifteen, Liu was thirteen, Mo was eleven, and Ling would have been only nine. They must have had a miserable childhood. With no parents, she could not imagine what kind of life they lived.
“Once, dad brought Yang hunting in the hills. There was an accident. Dad fell into a trap to save Yang. The trap was used to capture large animals. That was when Yang’s face got terribly scratched. He came home with blood on his face, asking our uncles to help rescue dad, but they didn’t care. Grandmother didn’t care either.”
So that was how Yang got the scar on his face.
“The hill had many traps, and many beasts too. If they went and couldn’t rescue him, sacrificing others was not worth the loss! Call it strange, but dad’s life should have ended then.”
Liu Duo furrowed her brows. She was very angry.
“After that, our third uncle went looking for dad anyway. He managed to bring him home, but dad’s chest had been pierced by the wooden stakes in the trap.”
He paused, his voice whimpering, and continued. “It had been only three days after his death, but my uncles were already egging on my grandmother to distribute the inheritance. Mom was short-tempered from the start and could not handle anger well. After dad died, mom suffered a great blow, yet my grandmother added insult to injury. She got so cranked up that she died soon after.”
That must have been a heart attack! Liu Duo scowled. What kind of family was this? Their eldest son had just died, and then they wanted to separate their inheritance, snuffing out their daughter-in-law too?
“Why did you grandmother and your uncles suddenly want to split the inheritance? Are they still human?” Liu Duo asked.
Hmm… Right, why though? They were most definitely not human! Ye Ling could only smile.
While they were not paying attention, Ye Liu walked by and leaned on the woodpile next to them, with his arms folded in front of his chest, and answered on Ye Ling’s behalf. “Dad died, and Yang was barely grown up, so how much could he hunt? So much for income.”
Listening to him talk, one would think he was talking about some other family. Liu Duo sighed.
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