"Get up right now! Shen Lang egged you on to steal money, and you actually knelt down to him—have you no backbone at all?"
The scene before her eyes nearly drove Lin Xiue mad with fury.
Retribution had come far too quickly.
Shen Lang had just declared that even if Li Xiangqian knelt down and called him grandpa, he would never play with him again.
And turning around,
Li Xiangqian had actually knelt down to Shen Lang.
"A real man's knees are worth gold; he kneels only to the Goddess and his parents and elders, never to anyone else. You've thrown away even your face—you truly are a chip off the old block," Huang Qionghua said, every word striking like a dagger at the heart.
Whether Li Xiangqian turned out this way
because he was led astray by Shen Lang or because of a lack of proper family discipline—
anyone with half a brain could see the truth.
"Huang Qionghua, what do you mean by that?"
Biting the bullet, Lin Xiue snapped at her to speak her mind plainly if she had something to say.
"You're covered in filth yourself, so you assume everyone else is just as dirty as you! As it happens, I'm going to offer thanks to the Goddess in a couple of years. Do you dare come with me to the temple and swear before the Goddess? Whoever's son did this shameful deed, let him have sores on the top of his head and pus at the soles of his feet!"
This ringing, forceful rebuke left Lin Xiue utterly speechless.
Shen Lang thought to himself that his mother's fighting spirit was as sharp as ever.
"Lin Xiue, you should ask yourself why your son stole money. Get the hell out of my house right now, and if you dare curse and swear again, don't blame me for being polite!"
Regarding Li Xiangqian stealing money, Shen Lang knew the truth better than anyone.
If the upper beam is crooked, the lower beams will follow.
In her youth, Lin Xiue had not kept to the ways of a virtuous woman, preferring to flirt and play around with all sorts of men.
The son she bore, Li Xiangqian, inherited his mother's flirtatious nature.
The stolen money
was all used to lavish on women of that sort.
In his previous life,
Shen Lang had urged Li Xiangqian more than once:
*Actresses are heartless, and courtesans are faithless.*
No matter how much money you pour into them,
in the end, if they don't curse you out as a complete moron, you can consider that money well spent.
You can't pull back a ghost determined to die with kindness.
After this incident,
whenever that ungrateful wretch Li Xiangqian stole money or did something bad, he always used Shen Lang's name as a cover.
"We'll leave, we'll leave! You think I want to stay in this godforsaken place? Shen Lang, if you ever dare lead my son astray again, I'll risk my old life and fight you to the bitter end."
Terrified that Huang Qionghua and Shen Lang would beat the living daylights out of her, Lin Xiue panicked.
She forcibly yanked Li Xiangqian, who was still kneeling on the ground, and tried to drag him away.
"Old hen, are you deaf or what? I've said it so many times—why won't you listen to a single word?!"
Seeing the situation descending into utter chaos, Li Xiangqian flew into a rage, chewing his mother out for living all these years to no purpose.
"I took the money to pull strings and get myself an iron rice bowl of a job—it has nothing to do with my big brother!
The good food and drinks at my big brother's house all come from them going out to harvest the sea and earning it themselves! Plenty of people saw my big brother and Lin Xiaoyu return with a full load! Do you understand now? Apologize to my big brother right now!"
Li Xiangqian showed his mother no mercy, angrily rebuking her for lacking elderly dignity and being thick-headed,
and demanded that she immediately apologize to Shen Lang and his family.
Otherwise,
he would disown her as his mother.
"Son, please don't disown me! Mom is still counting on you to support her in her old age. Mom was wrong, Mom is apologizing to them right now."
Then, an absurd scene unfolded before the eyes of the three members of the Shen family.
The son didn't act like a son; he acted more like a stern father.
The sharp-tongued, mean-spirited Lin Xiue was thoroughly cowed by Li Xiangqian's lecture, and she reluctantly apologized to Huang Qionghua and Shen Lang.
"Big Brother, are you happy now?"
Li Xiangqian asked Shen Lang cautiously, adding that if he still wasn't pleased, he could make Lin Xiue kneel down and apologize again.
"Let's drop today's business. Get out of here, and don't ever set foot in my yard again."
With a cold face, Shen Lang issued the eviction order.
"Big Brother, can I still hang out with you in the future?"
"What do you think?"
Having been dragged down and ruined by this ungrateful wretch in his past life, how could Shen Lang possibly invite more trouble upon himself in this one?
"Then Big Brother, when are you taking me out to harvest the sea?"
Missing the sarcasm in Shen Lang's words entirely, Li Xiangqian assumed he had been forgiven. He brazenly asked when Shen Lang planned to teach him the skills of gathering seafood from the ocean.
"The sea isn't family-owned property; you can go whenever you want. Don't ask me."
"B-But... I don't know how to harvest the sea."
Looking pitiful, Li Xiangqian begged Shen Lang to pass on some of his ocean-harvesting skills.
The sea was far more dangerous than the land.
A seemingly calm surface could churn with huge waves in the very next second, fraught with crisis on all sides.
And those women in the town and the county were all bottomless pits.
Li Xiangqian wasn't rich either.
Relying solely on stealing from home, he could only afford to visit the pleasure houses once every ten days or half a month.
Only by learning to harvest the sea and catching seafood in large quantities
could he fill his pockets
and make those alluring, soul-stirring women throw themselves into his arms.
"Can't you understand human speech? Get lost!"
Shen Lang's last shred of patience was about to wear thin.
"Big Brother, don't be angry. I'm going, I'm getting out of here right now. I'll come see you in a couple of days."
Sensing that Shen Lang was currently in a rage, Li Xiangqian took off tail between his legs.
Seeing her son run away, Lin Xiue hurried after him, leaving the Shen household.
"Mom, I'll go heat up the spare ribs."
With all the freaks and monsters gone, the food on the table had already grown cold.
Shen Lang picked up the plate of ribs and headed to the kitchen.
Huang Qionghua nodded with a look of relief.
When Shen Lang finished heating the dishes and returned to the room, Huang Qionghua picked up a few pieces of meat and put them into his bowl. With a deep and earnest tone, she said, "You little rascal, Mom knows you're bold and can swim well, but all the more reason to be careful.
Your swimming skills were all taught by your father, but look how that turned out—didn't your father end up buried in the sea?"
Seeing her son becoming more sensible by the day brought Huang Qionghua relief,
but it also inevitably stirred up a wellspring of worry.
As the old saying goes, the water pitcher usually breaks at the well,
and generals mostly die before the battle lines.
"Mom, I know what I'm doing. Next time I go harvest the sea, I'll bring someone along to help. Many hands make light work—you can rest easy now, right?"
Shen Lang fought hard to keep his tears from falling.
You never truly understand a parent's grace until you raise children of your own.
In his previous life,
Shen Lang was already well into middle age when he realized what a bastard he had been back then,
and how profound his mother's love for him truly was.
After finishing his mother's funeral, Shen Lang had taken a letter left behind for him from his younger sister's hands.
The barrier that had stood between mother and son for years was finally broken.
The older generation never knew how to communicate with their children.
Huang Qionghua had so much she wanted to say to Shen Lang, but she never knew how to express it.
On her deathbed, she had Shen Ling write it down, leaving those words to Shen Lang as her final testament.
All of Huang Qionghua's scoldings and beatings were simply born of the hope that Shen Lang would grow up to be a good man,
just like his father—
someone who could look his family, his friends, and his ancestors in the eye without shame.
"Eat your food."
Huang Qionghua picked up her chopsticks.
Shen Ling stole a glance at her mother, who kept her head down, shoveling rice into her mouth.
Her mother was crying.
Shen Lang ate his food absentmindedly,
his mind racing as he considered who, besides the campus belle, he could find as a genuinely useful helper for the next ocean-harvesting trip.
"Big Brother, it's Xiaodong! I went to the county town on business this afternoon and brought back some tasty treats for you, Lingling, and Aunt Qionghua."
"I've left the things in the courtyard. Don't forget to grab them after you finish eating. I'm heading back now."
Hearing the voice from outside, Shen Lang's eyes lit up.
Just as he was getting drowsy, someone brought him a pillow!