Chapter 179 Not That Cruel

Song Chunxue likes to eat "lazy dumplings," which are made by mixing buckwheat flour, lentil flour, and a little wheat flour in the right proportions. The taste is no worse than that of wheat flour.

I ate some boiled dough balls in fermented vegetable broth for dinner, and my stomach felt much better.

Unlike usual, today's table not only features pickled leeks but also a dish of stir-fried pork with scallions.

The mother and her two children ate in complete silence. The third child and the fourth child didn't say a word. After Song Chunxue finished eating, she asked the fourth child to wash the dishes.

Although the fourth brother looked unwell, he did not refuse.

He was washing the dishes, while Song Chunxue was boiling water in another pot, intending to wash herself properly.

The kang (heated brick bed) isn't hot enough yet; it needs more time, so she'll stay up a little later tonight.

The kang (heated brick bed) heated by sheep dung is the hottest. She might not be able to sleep tonight because of the heat, so she can't get dirty. She'll feel very uncomfortable if she doesn't shower and sweats.

With that in mind, she quickly carried a bucket of hot water to the north room.

The fourth brother hesitated, but remained silent.

He had never seen his mother throw a tantrum and ignore him before. When the eldest son lived in the thatched hut by the door, his mother would meet him and not say a word. Now that it was his turn, he felt terrible.

After washing the dishes, he came to the west room looking dejected.

There were no lights on in the west room, and Sanwa had no intention of sleeping. He put his hands behind his head, leaned against the still-unopened quilt, and stared blankly at the ceiling.

The fourth brother knew that he was definitely blaming him for offending his mother, and that he couldn't bear to sell the sheep he had raised for more than nine years.

But the fourth brother never expected things to turn out this way.

“Sanwa, go and talk to your mother and ask her to sell later. I’ve discussed it with my classmates. Now is the coldest time of year. Even if we can find work outside, we definitely won’t be able to work for long. Let’s wait until after the New Year. I’ll put it away for another two months.”

Sanwa remained silent, leaning there motionless.

"Third Brother, did you hear me?" The fourth brother pushed him, annoyed. "Go tell your mother right now."

“I’m not going. If you want to go, go by yourself.” Sanwa turned his back to him. “It’s getting cold. It’s especially cold herding sheep in the mountains. Your mother definitely doesn’t want you to suffer, that’s why she’s selling you. She’ll have to sell you sooner or later anyway, so why worry about these two months?”

The fourth brother was furious, but he couldn't refute it.

He didn't want to let the sheep out because it was too cold. Winter is cold enough, but standing on the mountain all day with the sheep would be even colder.

Even wearing a sheepskin coat didn't help; his nose was almost swollen from the cold.

He just felt that his mother's actions made it impossible for him to stay at home for the next two months. The New Year was still a long way off, and he couldn't just keep looking at his mother's cold face and suffer in silence.

"Do you think Mother suffered some kind of shock? She said she would be back in ten days, so why is she back in only three?"

Sanwa chuckled softly in the darkness, "If you had come two days later, I was afraid you and your eldest brother would have torn the house down."

"..." The fourth brother opened his mouth, "Third brother, you're talking pretty arrogantly now."

"How dare you be so arrogant? If you had listened to a single word, Mother wouldn't be so angry. After what happened last time, Mother and Brother were already completely estranged. Now, for a few hundred copper coins, you actually gave him the grain that Mother worked so hard to bring home. How dare he take it away?"

Sanwa sat up angrily. "Is there rabbit skin smeared on his face? Doesn't he have any shame? If he were even a man, when Mother was harvesting grain in the mountains by herself, even if he only took a few days to help out, Mother would have given him the grain without the eldest brother having to ask."

He sneered, "Ha, but when Mother is busy, he acts like he's blind. The moment Mother went back to her parents' home, he suddenly becomes oblivious?"

The fourth brother clutched the mat under the bedding, unable to utter a single word.

"And you, have you forgotten why your mother suddenly wanted to go back to her parents' home?" Sanwa looked at Lao Si. "It's because you didn't want to herd sheep anymore. Your mother was too lazy to talk to you, but she was afraid you would make her angry and scold her, so she left. Don't you have any self-awareness?"

The fourth brother stood up angrily, "Third Brother, don't push your luck. You've got a taste for lecturing people, haven't you? I..."

“Sanwa is right,” Song Chunxue’s voice suddenly rang out from outside the door. “Sisi has been spoiled by me since he was a child. When something happens, he only makes excuses for himself and pushes the responsibility onto others. So, you never think about others, and the eldest is even worse.”

"It's my fault for not knowing how to teach my child before. Now that things have turned out like this, what can I do?" Song Chunxue said calmly. "Go to sleep early. Sell the sheep tomorrow, and this matter will be over."

“If you go out and make your way in the world and you can’t make it, I won’t abandon you. But if you shirk responsibility like this again, and refuse to admit your mistakes, then you can go live with the eldest brother’s family. Who cares about you? Anyway, you’ve all grown up and have your own opinions. I’m just an old widow who can’t read many words and only knows how to farm.”

"..." The fourth brother felt that his mother was deliberately talking about him, which was a slap in the face to him.

The next morning, Song Chunxue made egg drop soup and drank a bowl and a half of it with the crispy lard cakes made by Sanwa.

Sanwa got up early and fed the livestock before coming in to drink his soup.

The fourth brother was still on the kang (heated brick bed) and hadn't gotten up.

"I'll go call him."

"Don't worry about him, let him go or not if he wants to," Song Chunxue said calmly. "If he doesn't want to go, then just find a rope and tie the lead sheep up, and the others won't get lost."

Sanwa couldn't help but laugh. His mother seemed to be sulking, using phrases like "go if you want, eat if you want" quite often.

Well, it's better than yelling at someone and getting a long face in return.

"Could it be that Mother has also gone back to her parents' home to seek enlightenment?" Sanwa teased, a rare occurrence for him.

Song Chunxue was stunned for a moment, then kicked him in annoyance, "You've even learned to talk back to your mother now."

"Seeking enlightenment" is not a positive term. It's usually used by mothers-in-law to describe how their daughters-in-law change their attitude after returning from their parents' home. It's believed that their parents have taught them a lot about how to deal with their mothers-in-law.

The same analogy applies to Song Chunxue now.

Although she went back to her parents' home and saw her sisters, no one taught her how to deal with her daughter-in-law, but she has learned a lot these days.

They really learned a lot.

The only true means to save suffering people in this world, besides money, are self-deceiving lies.

If one is not desperate, who would deceive themselves and become an honest person who suffers losses and has no ambition?

Look at those rich people, how many of them aren't arrogant, conceited, proud, and complacent?

If it weren't for the excrement and urine weighing him down, he would have been flying to heaven long ago.

"Mother, did you see your aunts? Did any of them give you a hard time?"

After putting down his chopsticks, Sanwa couldn't help but ask, "Did you come back because you were unhappy?"

"No," Song Chunxue laughed, "I had a great time, I'll tell you the details when I get back tonight. If I hadn't been having too much fun these past few days, seeing the way the eldest and fourth brothers behaved, I wouldn't have felt like I'd fallen from grace."

"Let's go, let's herd the sheep."

Sanwa sat still, looking expectantly at Song Chunxue, "Mother, can you keep those mothers and lambs who just gave birth these past few days? You don't need to let them out; I'll feed them every day when I come back?"

“Go and see which two mothers and children you mentioned?” Song Chunxue sighed. “I’m a mother too, I can’t be that heartless.”