Chapter 48.3

Translated by Aviana

Without waiting for the eldest branch’s couple to react, Yang laoyezi waved his hand to disperse all of them.

One after the other, everyone left the main room. Over there, the doors of the east room were also quietly shut, and the lamps were also blown out.

Glancing at his youngest son, who was dazedly sitting on the kang, Yang layezi, with a hunched back, covered his face, resulting in the tobacco pipe in his hands to fall down.

“Laosi, don’t blame your father. You are not the only son in the family. I have supported you all these years, but now there is really no other way…. “

老四 (lǎosì): appellation used to address the fourth child in the family

Yang Xuezhang silently stood up and walked back to the west room dazedly.

With a shriek, He-shi broke into tears; her sharp voice cut through the tranquil night.

Day by day, the weather was getting colder and colder. Although there was no snowfall, the gushing cold winds outside were enough to chill one to the bone.

People began wearing thick cotton-padded garments to keep themselves warm and started burning the kang in their respective houses, unwilling to even step out from the house. However, no matter how reluctant they were, they had to earn a living. Several hard-working male villagers set off to the town to look for odd jobs. Those few who couldn’t find jobs in the town made their way to the county.

Owing to the huge loss of silver this year in Yang jia, He-shi drove out Yang Tiegen and Yang Tieshuan to the town to look for odd jobs. Yang Tiegen, anyhow, had intended to go to town to look for work, but Yang Tieshuan was endlessly pestered by He-shi and was driven away to the town.

After all, this year was not the same as the past. Everyone in the family was aware that all the silver in He-shi’s pocket was hollowed by the matter pertaining to Yang Xuezhang. Yang Tieshuan also understood that he could not leisurely hang out as he did in the past and honestly went to look for work.

As such, Yang laoyezi, Yang Xuezhang, injured Yang Tiezhu, and several other women were only left behind in the Yang jia. Lin Qingwan paid no heed to the matters outside and solely expended her energy on nursing Yang Tiezhu back to health.

Under Lin Qingwan’s meticulous care, Yang Tiezhu’s health started restoring to normalcy. Apart from his left shoulder wound, which rendered him from moving the arm even to the slightest extent, the entire person seemed to be good as he could walk and move around normally and even help Lin Qingwan from time to time in lifting slightly heavy things.

Nevertheless, Lin Qingwan, dreading that him exerting more pressure on his right hand might accidentally cause his left shoulder to tug, refrained him from doing any heavy work usually. So long as he showed any desire of wanting to help her, Lin Qingwan would at once give him an angry stare.

Seeing his wife’s angry face, Yang Tiezhu promptly became well-behaved and obediently recuperated in the room without doing any strenuous work.

In this fashion, time flew by dully. And soon the moment that Lin Qingwan had been expectantly waiting for a while unfolded——

Ever since Yang Tieshuan had left, Wang-shi grew lazier and lazier. Normally, there was nothing to do much apart from doing house chores, cooking for family, and tending livestock.

Usually, when there is no work at home, Wang-shi is fond of sauntering to her friends to gossip about the trifles in other households. But with the past few days being quite eventful at home, she didn’t have time to go out.

This time, when she had nothing to do, she ran out just like always.

But when she went out this time, she happened to hear earth-shattering news.

Upon hearing such alarming news, Wang-shi’s head nearly exploded. However, in the presence of outsiders, she couldn’t act like she didn’t know it. Thus, she haphazardly skimped the matter and changed to another topic.

After that, she dropped by 4-5 houses of gossipy women. And each and every one of them, for the most part, said the same thing. Only then Wang-shi put her heart back and carefully pondered over it.

Lao’er’s arm was crippled, yet there was no wind of it in the house. She, his eldest sao, had no inkling of it, but everyone outside knew.

嫂 (sǎo): older brother’s wife / sister-in-law

Furthermore, rumor has it that, Yang-shi and lao’er’s wife had slipped up and slightly revealed traces of anomaly, which happened to fall into several villagers’ eyes. Presuming that troubling wounded patient would be improper, everyone, with no other choice, scurried over to Yang-shi’s place to worm out bits and pieces of information from her.

Wang-shi was acutely aware of the competence of these married women in worming out the pieces of information from the opposite party and blowing the matter out of proportions. Sometimes, the said person doesn’t even have a clue that she is inadvertently slipping up few pieces of matter, but the other person could easily decipher the secret they want to know.

The arm was crippled, yet he didn’t disclose it to the family members; for what reason did he hide from everyone in the family?

For a moment, Wang-shi’s mind was buzzing with various thoughts——

They say a knave would only think of others in terms of his desires.

When a narrow-minded person, like Wang-shi, contemplates the actions of others, she can only come to the conclusion that the other person is engaging in wiles and schemes.

After contemplating for about half a day, Wang-shi could only come up with one motive——

The second branch kept everyone in the dark and concealed it from the family to not let anyone get wind of it, dreading that if the family became aware of it, they might shun them. They were afraid that they would be subjected to contempt from everyone around them.

After all, disability is not a trivial matter, particularly in rural areas where people could only rely on their strength and labor to feed themselves.

At that instant, a feeling of having a second branch’s weakness in her hands arose in Wang-shi’s heart. Her first thought was to go and threaten Lin Qingwan to give her a share of meat that the second branch cooks regularly. However, on second thoughts, she felt there was something amiss in here.

But for a while, she couldn’t find what was amiss. Wang-shi mulled over it for a long time. Even while having dinner, her thoughts were wandering all over.

When she was helping the children go to bed at night, a hunch struck her brain.

After tucking several children into the quilt, she also laid on the kang. The more she thought, the more she felt her hunch was correct…..

No sooner than she felt so, she spurned herself in her heart. No wonder her man said that all her brain was occupied with only thoughts of eating. And true to his words, she only thought about food, ignoring the main point.

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