"As you wish," said Madam Wang, her voice remarkably calm.
Had they not known the Old Mistress was ill, no one would have found her words credible.
Upon hearing them from his own mother, Meng Shaokang's neck veins bulged with fury. "Mother, have you gone completely mad? If we're dividing, we're dividing the grain too." He figured his mother no longer wanted him, her eldest son.
A Jiu looked at his paternal uncle and aunt, and his pitiful aunt, in surprise. Didn't his elder uncle grasp the current situation?
Before she could ponder further, she saw her father angrily lift a sack from the cart, tie its opening, and pull out a snakeskin bag. He dumped half of its contents onto the ground. "Take it. Half each. I won't take a sliver more grain for supporting Mother. Fair enough?"
Cai Lihua also realized her husband had been prioritizing the bigger picture these past few days. Now, he felt his eldest son was being too troublesome, and he was clearly upset. Cai Lihua also hopped down, rolled up her sleeves, and unloaded a basket from the cart containing bowls, chopsticks, a ladle, and water skins. "To be fair, Brother should get a share of these too."
"Let's go..." Meng Shaode's eyes were red. He never expected his consideration for the entire family would be met with suspicion from his elder brother over a single sentence. What was this difference from that thief's son, Zheng Sangou? Truly, a person's heart is unpredictable.
A Jiu could tell her father was acting out of anger, and her uncle's actions had wounded him. The ox cart had just started moving. He didn't whip the ox; it was as if he was waiting for his uncle to change his mind.
But what greeted him 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 that brat a single bite. If the second son liked supporting idlers, let him. But how could it be on his ox cart?
At that moment, A Jiu, Madam Wang, Cai Lihua, and Meng Shaode all turned their heads in unison, their eyes wide. Even Tuoba Yan, who had been lying on the ox cart, sat up, looking at A Jiu's uncle in disbelief.
Meng Shaode stomped his foot and gritted his teeth, "Fine! Yours is yours, everything that's yours is yours." Had their brotherhood ended like this? He felt unwilling, heartbroken, and regretful.
Meng Shaode gnashed his teeth and unloaded the items from the cart. He carried a bamboo basket containing only three to four jin of wheat grains and a bundle slung across his chest. He looked particularly bloated and burdened in the setting sun. How did it turn out like this? A Jiu was about to speak, but her father seemed to have made up his mind in anger. He flicked his chin towards Tuoba Yan. "Young man, can you walk or not? If you can't walk, go with him over there. At worst, your rations will be on me."
"I won't! I'm staying with my Elder Brother." Tuoba Yan paused slightly, a glint in his eyes, and moved closer to A Jiu. Elder Brother?
Alright, the couple only stared for a moment. At this time, they had no energy to focus on such things. Their gaze fell upon Madam Wang. She grunted and walked away with her hands behind her back, as if proving her legs were nimble and she didn't care about the ox cart. But A Jiu noticed that the fierce-looking face of her father had eyes reddened with anger.
These past two days, Meng Shaode had felt uneasy, especially when the matter of the ox was brought up, piercing his heart like a knife. If he hadn't been so blindly filial and impulsive in the past, and if he had been more mindful of his family with the small coins earned from running errands, he wouldn't have traded one of his own oxen for wine money. By now, they should have had horses.
There was silence all the way. Seeing Tuoba Yan limping, A Jiu instinctively helped him up. She looked back to see her uncle and aunt tidying the ox cart. Not long after, that ox cart overtook them. Pitiably, her uncle didn't even glance back, as if he had never known them.