Chapter 165 Casual Chat 1

The meal was quickly prepared. The guards, accompanied by Atai, ate at Jiang Yuan's residence, while the village head, Doctor Chen, and others, accompanied by Hao Yu, ate at Hao Yu's residence.

The women who had been busy together for about half an hour stayed at Xie Wanniang's house to eat with her.

People in the countryside don't follow the rules of not speaking while eating or sleeping. During the meal, everyone chatted enthusiastically.

As a result, Xie Wanniang learned a lot of the latest gossip about Mingfu Village from Wang Xiaozhi and others.

She didn't really care about the other families; she had never dealt with them. She only listened to their gossip in her spare time. But when she first arrived in Mingfu Village, she was quite interested in the gossip of the Wang family, who wanted to use the guise of "saving people" to scheme against her.

According to Chen Lizheng's two daughters-in-law, the eldest and second branches of the Wang family have now completely fallen out.

Previously, when Wang Sanhu climbed the wall, he was not only beaten by Xie Wanniang, but his family also had to pay Xie Wanniang a lot of money in compensation.

Because of this incident, Wang Sanhu's older brother, Wang Erhu, harbored great resentment towards his parents and younger brother.

His wife, holding the child, cried and made a scene, forcing her parents-in-law to also contribute an equal amount of money as their private savings.

Wang Eryou and Tan Xinghua were furious. They pointed at their daughter-in-law's nose and gave her a good scolding, even threatening to divorce her and send her back to her parents' home.

However, Wang Erhu's wife was not afraid at all. She had already gained support from Wang Erhu, so she had no scruples at all when she started making a scene.

Tan Xinghua threatened to divorce her, so she simply took her child and went back to her parents' home.

Just as he had said in private, Wang Erhu stood on the side of his wife and children without hesitation.

Wang Eryou and Tan Xinghua were still furious and ordered him to keep his wife at arm's length and not to go to her family home to pick her up. Although Wang Erhu did not explicitly state that he was in cahoots with his wife and children and that he also wanted the money, he did not obediently follow his parents' orders.

He asked Wang Eryou and Tan Xinghua, "If my wife never comes back, should I divorce her and marry someone else, or should I just stay single?"

Wang Er was taken aback. "How could she not come back at all?"

Tan Xinghua also said, "That's right, can she stay at her parents' house forever? I don't believe her brother and sister-in-law would be willing to support her and her child forever."

Wang Erhu replied, "I may not be willing to support her for the rest of my life, but I might not be unwilling to marry her again."

Ultimately, the reason his wife is making a fuss about going back to her parents' home is that they have a valid point. If the Wang family insists on going all the way, his wife's family can use this as an excuse to force the couple to divorce.

By then, his wife would be gone, and the money he spent on marrying her would have gone down the drain. He would be left with nothing, having lost both.

However, his wife's family could simply remarry her and collect another dowry.

Wang Eryou and Tan Xinghua were immediately annoyed by his words.

They were so confident before because they only thought about Wang Erhu's wife's family, who might not be willing to support his wife and children indefinitely. They forgot that in this matter, their family was in the wrong, and the other party could use this as a reason to unilaterally end their kinship.

Wang Erhu's wife is diligent, capable, and hardworking. She gave birth to a son in the second year after marrying into the family. She can be said to have the two greatest advantages that all parents-in-law value most: "capable" and "fertile".

If she really divorces Wang Erhu, there will be quite a few men who want to marry her.

Although they may not all be young men getting married for the first time, she is definitely qualified to be selective again.

In contrast, their family is a mess. The elderly couple favors their unscrupulous younger son, while the eldest son, as the husband, is weak and incompetent. Despite their parents being clearly in the wrong, they allow them to arbitrarily manipulate their wife, even disregarding their own child. This is hardly a good reputation...

With such a terrible reputation, how can their two sons possibly find wives?

Wang Eryou and Tan Xinghua didn't want to waste a lot of money only to end up with a wife who wasn't of good quality.

The couple looked at each other for a while, and finally decided to choose the path that was more in line with the overall interests of their family.

They agreed to Wang Erhu's wife's request, but then said that they didn't have the money on hand and couldn't fulfill their promise immediately; the money would have to be saved for later.

Wang Erhu had long anticipated that his parents would use this as an excuse to delay indefinitely and eventually let the matter fizzle out. Although he didn't say anything at the time, he didn't actually do as his parents asked him to take his wife and children back.

He did go to his wife's family home, but not to apologize or persuade his wife to come home with him. Instead, he went to plot with his wife how to force his parents to hand over the money immediately.

The couple worked together and managed to carve out two acres of medium-sized land from Wang Eryou and Tan Xinghua as their family's private property.

This incident not only caused a great stir in the village, sparking lively discussions among the villagers for many days, but also greatly displeased Wang Sanhu.

Like his brother and sister-in-law, he also has a set of logics that are more inclined to his own interests.

In his view, he was spending his parents' money, and as long as his parents had no objections, then his brother and sister-in-law shouldn't have any either.

Besides, their family hasn't divided the property yet, so why should his brother and sister-in-law own their own private property?

Not to mention that their so-called "private property" was taken from his parents. One of those two acres of land originally belonged to him!

The two brothers, who originally had a good relationship, were unwilling to suffer losses or make concessions when it came to matters concerning their own interests. They first had a fierce conflict, and after being forcefully suppressed by Wang Eryou and Tan Xinghua, the resentful brothers had several private quarrels over some trivial matters that they had not cared about before.

On the surface, they are still brothers and family, but in private, their resentment grows deeper every day.

Upon hearing this, Xie Wanniang couldn't help but ask curiously, "Didn't Wang Erhu always help Wang Sanhu before? In the two incidents I experienced, whether it was when they ran to A Yuan's house together to snatch people, or when Wang Sanhu secretly climbed over the wall, wasn't he one of the accomplices?"

The village head's eldest daughter-in-law scoffed, "He's willing to do odd jobs, but that doesn't mean he's willing to let the family lose a lot of money because of Wang Sanhu."

Xie Wanniang felt that Wang Erhu's thinking was very problematic. "Before he did bad things, didn't he think about the possibility of retaliation from the victims? It's impossible that everyone targeted by their family is as soft as tofu and can't cause them any harm, right?"