"Stop right now! Xiulan, don't do anything foolish! Don't kill anyone—Jiayu is still so young. If you die, how is Jiayu going to survive?"
The Brigade Leader arrived, pulling the lame Feng Sixi along with Jiayu, who was crying nonstop beside them. Seeing the scene before him, he rushed forward to intervene.
Realizing the scare had gone far enough and hearing the Brigade Leader mention Jiayu, Li Xiulan deliberately acted as if all her fight had drained out of her. Her kitchen knife drooped. Catching sight of Jiayu, she placed the knife right into her father-in-law Feng Sixi's hands and burst into tears.
"Sigh, Chen Jinhua, this is all the evil you've brought upon yourself! Why can't you ever control that mouth of yours? Back then, your actions cost the Feng Family a life, and that was already life for life. Yet you still want to stir up trouble! If one day they really do hack you to pieces, I won't lift a finger to help you."
Seeing the widow and orphan, the Brigade Leader felt a pang of sympathy in his chest. Speaking of the Feng Family and the Chen Family, back in the day, their relationship had been as close as could be.
Years ago, Chen Jinhua's eldest son had gone up the mountain with Feng Sixi to hunt game. Back then, every household was dirt poor, and the brigade had a rule that villagers could hunt in the mountains. Anything over a certain quota had to be turned in, but whatever stayed under could be brought home to eat.
Chen Jinhua's eldest son was just a half-grown boy at the time, following Feng Sixi up the mountain, when they ran into a wild boar. The two of them tried to avoid it, but who could have known the boar would go berserk?
Seeing that the wild boar was about to gore Feng Sixi, Chen Jinhua's eldest son desperately shoved him out of the way. Feng Sixi tumbled down the slope and escaped with his life, though he injured his leg, but Chen Jinhua's eldest son was gored to death on the spot.
From that day on, Chen Jinhua insisted that the Feng Family owed her family a life. No matter how much compensation the Feng Family offered, she refused to accept it and constantly cursed them at home.
Later on, the original owner gave birth to her eldest daughter. The brigade was promoting the new policy of having only one child, but the Feng Family had been passing down the ancestral line through an only son for generations and desperately wanted a boy, so the original owner secretly got pregnant.
One day, Chen Jinhua caught sight of the original owner's appearance and guessed she was pregnant. After reporting her, Chen Jinhua led a group of people to catch her. Upon getting word, the original owner bolted toward the back mountain, stepped on a stone along the way, tripped, and suffered a miscarriage.
Ever since then, Chen Jinhua had quieted down a little. But last month, the original owner's husband, Feng Daquan, was caught in a mudslide on his way to the county town and perished. The entire Feng Family was plunged into profound grief.
Chen Jinhua grew cheerful again, going around telling everyone that the Feng Family's lineage was broken and that they could forget about ever hoping for a son.
Thinking of this, the Brigade Leader felt utter revulsion toward Chen Jinhua's big mouth. If she hadn't run her mouth, the Feng Family wouldn't have come to make a scene.
"Sixi, today's matter was indeed Chen Jinhua's fault. But you've already beaten them and cursed them out. The enmity between your two families for all these years shouldn't be allowed to ruin the next generation as well. How about we just let this matter rest here?"
The Brigade Leader was of the same generation as Feng Sixi. He puffed on his dry tobacco pipe and asked Feng Sixi for his opinion.
"Brigade Leader, my... my family's door was smashed in, and the winnowing fan was broken too."
Chen Jinhua's husband stepped out at that moment. He knew that everything that happened today was caused by his own wife, but he had spent his own hard-earned money to pay someone to make that winnowing fan, and his heart ached fiercely over it.
"If she hadn't failed to keep her mouth shut, my Xiulan wouldn't have gone and hacked up your things! We don't have money, but we've got our lives—anyway, didn't you curse our family long ago? If you've got the guts, come and take my life."
Grandma walked over to Li Xiulan's side. She had long since had her fill of Chen Jinhua's family. Back then, her own family had been in the wrong, but now that they still dared to bully her family members, she wouldn't let it go.
"That's right, Chen Jinhua! Aren't all these things the result of your own inability to control your mouth? Let's just drop today's business. If you people start squabbling in private again, I'm washing my hands of it. Whatever the Feng Family does after that, it'll be a matter for the Public Security Bureau to settle."Seeing that the Brigade Leader was siding with the Feng Family, Chen Jinhua and her husband knew they wouldn't get the upper hand today. Moreover, she noticed Li Xiulan staring at her with a sinister gaze, and remembering the woman's crazed behavior just moments ago, she had no choice but to back down.
With her elders now present, Li Xiulan stopped pressing the attack and focused entirely on comforting the terrified Jiayu.
Feeling the warmth of her mother's embrace, Jiayu finally stopped crying, though teardrops still hung from her long eyelashes.
"Be a good girl, Jiayu. Mommy is here. Let's go home, okay?"
Looking at Jiayu's expression, Li Xiulan was reminded of her own childhood. Back then, it had barely been two months since her mother died in a difficult labor having a second child, and her biological father had already brought another woman home.
Her father had demanded she call that woman "Mom." When she wailed in protest, her father slapped her across the face, and it was her Grandma who protected her.
Later on, her father completely ignored her and provided no living expenses. It was her grandparents who raised her. When she was little, she had longed so much for a mother to stay by her side.
As Jiayu leaned affectionately against her mother's chest, the old lady and Zhang Guifen saw that Li Xiulan had suddenly become a different person, but in their hearts, they assumed her drastic change in temperament was due to the shock and grief of her husband's departure.
"Xiulan, it's good that you let it out. Chen Jinhua was frightened today, so she certainly won't dare run her mouth like that again. Don't be too heartbroken; we are still here for the days ahead, and we won't let you and the child suffer."
Seeing Li Xiulan walk ahead with the child without saying a word, her mother-in-law Zhang Guifen spoke with cautious care. That whole outburst earlier had been driven entirely by anger; usually, Zhang Guifen was gentle with people and never got into physical fights—whenever people badmouthed her, she would just hide behind the scenes and cry secretly.
Holding Jiayu, Li Xiulan snapped back to reality upon hearing her mother-in-law's words. Just a moment ago, she had been pondering how to live a good life in this era and cherish this chance at a second life, only to find herself met with three pairs of caring eyes.
Her father-in-law Feng Sixi was walking alongside Grandma Liu Facui. One of his legs had a limp, so he couldn't walk fast. Thinking about how all of this was the result of the sins he committed back then—which caused their family to be reviled for so many years—he felt deeply apologetic toward his family.
"Sigh, it was all my fault back then. If only I had been the one rammed by that wild boar, our family wouldn't have spent all these years being reviled and unable to hold our heads up."
Seeing the sorrowful look on his face, Li Xiulan couldn't help but comfort him.
"Dad, this wasn't your fault. Although Chen Jinhua's eldest son saved you back then, all these years you've constantly looked after the Chen Family.
Because of this 'lifesaver' debt, how many times has Chen Jinhua cursed our family and harmed us on several occasions? Yet you never went to make trouble for them. We no longer owe their family anything, and besides, my unborn child was lost because of this too—that should settle the score entirely."
"Exactly! I've said it several times before: we stopped owing their family a long time ago. It's just that you two have too much of a soft heart and keep helping them, while those people never took your help seriously in private.
Back then, it was Chen Jinhua's son who insisted on following you; it's not like you dragged him along. He saved you, but you also gave his family money. I didn't even go settle accounts with her for what she did to Xiulan before—this matter is already completely even between us."
The old lady shared the exact same view as Li Xiulan on this matter, but her son and daughter-in-law had stubbornly held onto a lingering sense of indebtedness.
Now that things had reached this state at home, if Chen Jinhua dared to come again, she wouldn't care about past sentiments anymore; she would just start throwing blows directly.
Hearing the two of them talk this way, Feng Sixi let out a sigh. Thinking of what Jiayu had said earlier, his patience with the Chen Family was completely gone.
As soon as the group returned home, Li Xiulan saw her younger sister-in-law, Feng Lihua, who studied in the county town, standing there.
The very first thing the girl said upon seeing her family was: "Dad, Mom, I don't want to study anymore. I'm coming back to do farm work."