"Whatever you say," Wang Shi replied, her voice remarkably calm.
Had they not known the old madam was ill, no one would have believed these words.
Upon hearing them from his own mother, Meng Shaokang's neck veins bulged with anger: "Mother, have you lost your mind? If we're dividing, we're dividing equally, and the grain must be split evenly." Anyway, even his mother didn't want him, her eldest son, anymore.
A Jiu looked at his uncles and aunts, and his pitiful aunt, in surprise. Didn't his eldest uncle understand the times?
Before he could think further, he saw his father, furious, lift a sack from the cart, tie it shut, take out a snakeskin bag, and pour half of its contents onto the ground: "Here, take it. Half for each of you. I won't take any extra grain for raising Mother; is that fair enough?"
Cai Lihua also realized that her husband had been prioritizing the greater good these past few days, and now he felt his eldest son was being too troublesome, and was clearly upset.
Cai Lihua also hopped down, rolled up her sleeves, and unloaded a basket of bowls, chopsticks, water dippers, and water skins from the cart: "It would only be fair to give these to eldest brother too."
"Let's go..." Meng Shaode's eyes turned red. He had intended to consider the entire family, but his eldest brother harbored ill intentions over a single sentence. What was the difference between him and that scoundrel Zheng Sangou? Truly, people's hearts were unfathomable.
A Jiu could see that his father was angry, and his eldest uncle's actions had hurt him deeply. The ox cart had just started to move, and he didn't whip the ox, as if waiting for his uncle to change his mind. But what came was his uncle's roar: "Stop, this ox cart is mine too." If the grain was divided in half, their family of four wouldn't have to give a single bit to that kid. If the second son liked to support idlers, then he could support them. But what about using his ox cart?
At this moment, A Jiu, Wang Shi, Cai Lihua, and Meng Shaode all turned their heads simultaneously, their eyes wide. Even Tuobayan, who had been lying on the ox cart, sat up, looking at A Jiu's eldest uncle in disbelief.
Meng Shaode stomped his foot and gritted his teeth, "Take it. Take all that is yours." Was the brotherhood broken just like that? He felt unwilling, heartache, and remorse.
Meng Shaode gritted his teeth and unloaded the items from the cart. He shouldered a bamboo basket containing only three to four jin of wheat grains and carried a bundle on his chest. In the setting sun, he appeared particularly bloated and burdened.
How did it turn out like this? A Jiu was about to speak, but his father seemed too angry and had made up his mind. He gestured towards Tuobayan with his chin: "Young man, can you walk or not? If you can't walk, go with him over there. At worst, your ration will be counted as mine."
"I won't! I'm staying with my boss," Tuobayan said, pausing slightly, a flash of urgency in his eyes, as he moved closer to A Jiu.
Boss?
Alright, the couple only glanced at each other, their minds not on such matters at this moment. Their gaze immediately fell on Wang Shi. She huffed a couple of times and walked away with her hands behind her back, as if to prove her legs were fine and she didn't care about the ox cart.
But A Jiu noticed the eyes of his usually fierce-looking father were red with anger. For the past two days, Meng Shaode had been uneasy, especially when the matter of the ox was brought up, it felt like a knife piercing his heart. If he hadn't been so blindly filial and reckless in the past, if he had saved the meager coins he earned from escorting goods and looked after his family, he wouldn't have traded one of his own oxen for wine money. By now, they should have horses.
There was silence all the way. A Jiu saw Tuobayan limping and instinctively supported him. He glanced back and saw his uncle and aunt tidying up the ox cart. Before long, the ox cart overtook them. Pitifully, his uncle didn't even look back, as if he didn't recognize them at all.