"I remember that Chunfen became pregnant with Xiaobei right after getting married, and she also became pregnant with Xiangnuan during the Red Army's second visit to their relatives?"

Li's father suddenly asked a completely unrelated question.

Li's mother was a little puzzled. "What do you want?"

He picked up the pipe on the kang table and lit it. A thousand yuan, a full thousand yuan in compensation. Even if he overturned Old Li's house, he couldn't afford to pay it.

Fearing his wife would ruin things, he offered a word of advice: "In the village on the back mountain, where no one has a son, half the men can't find wives."

I've heard that women who are good at bearing children are easier to marry in the village than young, unmarried women.

"She caused this trouble herself, shouldn't she pay for it herself?"

Li's mother suddenly realized, and when she mentioned selling her daughters, she showed no pity whatsoever, even revealing a hint of excitement, "What about Daya and Erya?"

"Shut up!" Li's father scolded, walked to the door and listened to make sure there was no sound from next door before returning to sit cross-legged on the kang (a heated brick bed) and remaining silent for a long time.

"The two girls are doing quite well now, so you, as their mother, should stop trying to take advantage of them. Just let their family contribute a hundred yuan."

There's a family in the county town with an elderly daughter who became mentally impaired after a high fever years ago. Recently, they've been hinting that they're looking for a son-in-law to live with them.

They need to be healthy and good-looking. Country folks are fine, but city folks are even better. City guys are too proud and arrogant for anyone to want. I think our Xiao Bei is pretty good.

We should ask for at least 200 yuan as a gift, plus the money from Da Ya and Er Ya's families, that's 400 yuan. If we add some more from our own family, we can barely scrape together 600 yuan.

Chunfen is getting married for the second time. If she can get 100 yuan to marry into the mountain village, that would be better, but 50 yuan is also acceptable.

"We can borrow some more from other families in the clan, and that should be about enough."

Li's mother rolled her eyes, leaned forward over the kang table and whispered, "I heard that in the mountains, it's hard to find a wife, and some brothers share one wife."

Those families give more money as gifts.

Mr. Li was not surprised at all by his wife's vicious remarks. His wife, whom his mother had trained, only cared about her husband in everything.

Deeply ingrained in their minds, daughters are always raised by other men, while only sons and men can be relied upon.

Mr. Li did not answer. As a father, he was not so heartless as to let his daughter become someone else's wife. If he really couldn't raise the money... he would think about it again.

...

Walking along the riverbank back to the village, Xiang Hongjun was in a daze. He had heard of similar things many times, but he never thought it would happen to him.

Do you think the divorce will go smoothly tomorrow?

"Yes, it will." Ruan Xianxian answered confidently. She put pressure on Captain Li, and Captain Li would put that pressure on the Li family.

Barring any unforeseen circumstances, Li Chunfen will likely be persuaded to happily agree to a divorce.

However… considering Xiang Hongjun's character and conduct, she still offered a word of advice:

"If Uncle Xiang has a good relationship with the two aunts of the Li family, it would be best to remind them in advance to go out and avoid trouble."

“You mean…” Xiang Hongjun clenched his fists.

The sister-in-law is even more clueless than Li Chunfen.

My second aunt is a strong-willed, modern woman who likes to disagree with her family.

There's an old saying that you should be close to the older ones, pamper the younger ones, but never close to the waist.

The Li family was disappointed when their first daughter was born, but because she was their eldest daughter, they still doted on her for many years.

The second child gave birth to a daughter, which was like a drop of water falling into a calm oil pan. Her birth was a mistake, eating was a mistake, and even breathing was a mistake.

She had a childhood filled with beatings and scoldings, and never received a kind word from her parents before getting married.

When she reached a certain age, she resolutely married an orphan whose parents had died in the war. No one knows about her married life, except that she didn't have to serve her in-laws or deal with her sisters-in-law...

She was the second oldest, but her complexion and overall condition were the best among her sisters.

Thinking of the large ten-yuan note that his second sister had left on the kang (a heated brick bed) the year he was discharged from the army due to serious injuries, he nodded to the Red Army.

"This morning, I called my second sister's brigade under someone else's name and asked her and her husband to meet so that the news wouldn't reach Old Li's ears if I showed up."

Seeing that he had made up his mind, Ruan Xianxian quickly walked a few steps across the river, stood on the other side, and raised her hand to yawn.

"We agreed on a 5-day period. If you don't get the money within 3 days of the divorce, Uncle, go and make a scene. Don't go to the Li family, it's useless. Go find their brigade leader instead."

I'm going back to sleep! I still have to eat breakfast tomorrow morning.

If you're feeling down, don't torture yourself. Getting sick means you'll have to get injections, and if all else fails, just jump into the river and drown.

Captain: ? ? ?

He took off one shoe, held it above his head, and chased Ruan Xianxian back to the educated youth settlement.

Watching her jump over the wall without knocking, the captain, standing in the southwest wind, looked lost and forlorn. Thinking of that bastard's talk of jumping into the river, his expression immediately became serious.

With such a troublemaker making such a mess that we can't even clean up the mess, who has the time to wallow in self-pity?

That's what they said, but the next day, when the team members were preparing to start work, they found that the work call hadn't gone off.

He estimated the time and rushed to the outside of the farm tool shed, but Xiang Hongjun, who was usually the first one there to wait for everyone to start work, was not there.

Some people immediately panicked.

Only the wearer knows if the shoe is big enough. Compared to the other brigades outside, where people either struggle to make ends meet or are lining their own pockets, Pingtou Village can be described as well-fed and clothed.

For at least all these years, no one has starved to death.

The villagers all believed that the newly arrived, unruly educated youth had corrupted the brigade leader over the matter of 900 yuan.

The village official then assigned two of his younger relatives who were quick on their feet to go to the house and check what had happened to the person.

A moment later, news came back that the iron-willed battalion commander had fallen ill...

At this moment, Xiang Bei stood by his father's bed with a gloomy expression. "Grandma sent someone this morning to say that you want to divorce my mother?"

Xiang Hongjun's face was flushed red from the fever, and Xiang Nuan was so anxious that she wiped herself with strong liquor.

"You're not saying anything because you feel guilty, aren't you? What did my mother ever do to you that made you abandon your wife and children in middle age? You, surnamed Xiang, do you have any humanity left?"

"Shut up!" Xiang Nuan threw down her handkerchief, raised her wrist and shoved her brother, her voice trembling with tears.

"What are you making a fuss about? Can't you see that Dad is sick? Instead of carrying him to a healthier place to see a doctor, you come here to question me. Sometimes I even suspect that you're here to collect a debt."

What was said unintentionally was taken to heart by the listener. Xiang Hongjun, who was trapped in a nightmare on the kang, opened his eyes a crack and saw Xiang Bei, who, seeing no tiger in the mountains, became emboldened and slapped Xiang Nuan...

He finally realized clearly that he was not his son.

With a snap!

The slap landed heavily on Xiang Nuan's face, and Xiang Bei revealed his ferocious side, roaring loudly at his sister.

"It's all your fault! You obediently married that idiot Hu, and now our family is all alone. You're a troublemaker, a money-losing burden, encouraging that old geezer to abandon his wife and children. Are you satisfied now?"

Given the physical differences between men and women, and the fact that Xiang Bei had been doing farm work since childhood, how could Xiang Nuan possibly be a match for him?

The captain was holding his breath and was about to force himself to get up when suddenly a small, thick leg stretched out from the side. Mu Xia kicked him away, sending him flying north and crashing heavily into the corner of the kang (a heated brick bed).

He bent down to help Xiang Nuan up, and his eyes turned completely cold when he saw her swollen cheek.

He twisted the back of Xiang Bei's collar with one hand and said, "Come on, let's go outside and talk."

Illness strikes like a landslide. The captain wanted to get up, but a relapse of his old ailment made him drift off to sleep again.

When she woke up, Ruan Xianxian's fluffy little head was touching her daughter's head, and she was muttering to herself and gesturing with her little hands.

"This packet is rat poison, this bottle is dichlorvos, and this one is really dangerous, it's arsenic. If Uncle Xiang doesn't wake up soon, we'll choose one and feed it to him."