"Shengjun, you are the son I carried for ten months. When you are in pain, it breaks my heart. How can you blame me for asking? I am only looking out for you."
Mother Chen tried to follow him inside, but the door of the thatched hut slammed shut with a bang, narrowly missing her face.
Mother Chen’s expression turned black instantly. She planted her hands on her hips and began to curse, "Chen Shengjun, you unfilial wretch! I'm concerned about you, and you dare to slam the door in my face? You get out here right now..."
*Bang, bang, bang...*
She kicked the door hard several times.
"Mother, can you stop making such a racket?" Chen Shengjun said, sounding agitated. "Let me get some rest."
"Rest? You want to rest?" Mother Chen continued kicking the door relentlessly. "Get up this instant and take me and your three brothers to settle the score with those people!"
Chen Shengjun buried his face in his quilt and ignored her.
He could not let his mother go to the Feng family and cause trouble. He couldn't let things blow up. Before he and Feng Yuanchun had a "cooked rice" situation—a done deal—the Feng family must not know about their affair. If they found out, they would never agree to the marriage and would certainly stop him from seeing her.
That was the truth.
Chen Shengjun’s meeting with Feng Yuanchun today was not to break up; his true goal was to make things official between them once and for all. As long as he ruined Feng Yuanchun’s reputation, it would no longer be him begging her to marry him, but the Feng family begging him to take her as his wife.
In his previous life, Chen Shengjun’s scheme had succeeded.
But in this life, Yuanchun had arrived, and she would naturally ensure that his plans came to nothing.
After cursing outside the door for a while, Mother Chen saw that her youngest son wouldn't open up. Burning with rage, she stormed into the main room and scolded her three other sons who were lying on wooden beds. "It's almost dark! Why aren't you up yet? Are you just going to rot in bed?"
"Mother, it's dark now. Did you cook anything? We're starving," the eldest, Chen Shengjin, said as he sat up with a frown. "The village chief himself said that since the autumn harvest is coming and there isn't much work in the fields, we should rest for a couple of days to build up our strength. How is it wrong for us to listen to the village chief?"
The second brother, Chen Shengfu, nodded in agreement. "Mother, the men do the heavy lifting. If we don't recover our strength, we won't be able to put in the work during the harvest. We'll earn fewer work points, and we won't have enough grain to last us through the winter."
"Mother, make some extra wild vegetable buns tonight. Let your sons get full before the harvest starts," the third brother, Chen Shengcai, said, thinking only of filling his belly.
Mother Chen looked at her useless sons, her face puffed up with fury. "Eat, eat, eat! That’s all you ever think about! Shengjun was beaten, and you three brothers don't even know enough to stand up for him. You just care about eating? Why don't you eat me instead? Hack me to pieces and boil me in a pot so you can have a full meal of meat!"
"Mother, don't talk about meat. Just hearing the word makes me crave it," Chen Shengcai said, his eyes darting toward the chicken coop as he swallowed his saliva, his face full of anticipation. "Mother, working the harvest is so exhausting. Why don't we slaughter a chicken to build up our strength?"
Chen Shengfu’s eyes lit up. "Mother, how about we kill a chicken tonight? The sooner we eat, the sooner we recover. I’ll go boil the water."
"Mother, I’ll go catch the chicken!" Chen Shengjin quickly put on his shoes and started to scramble toward the coop.
Livid, Mother Chen grabbed a broom and lashed out at her three sons. "You want meat? I'll give you dung to eat! I’m warning you, if any of you dares to touch my chickens, I’ll take a knife and kill you myself! I’ll chop you into bits and stew you in a pot!"
She swung the broom with fierce intensity, driving the three Chen brothers to howl and scramble toward the yard in terror. The commotion startled the three old hens that had just settled into the coop, causing them to fly out in a frenzy.
With chickens flapping and men scurrying, the scene was utter chaos.