Chapter 8 Signing the Termination Agreement
After crossing the long ridge, Lin Chuntao and her group found Lin Cunzheng and Sun Shi and explained why they had come.
Looking at her with concern, Mrs. Sun asked, "Where will you be staying tonight?"
Lin Chuntao smiled and said, "I don't know yet. Anyway, it's summer now and we won't freeze to death. We can live in caves or grasslands wherever we want."
The more lightly she spoke, the more unbearable it was for the listeners.
Lin Cunzheng looked at Lin Chuntao, then at the two children behind him, his brows furrowed, and said in a deep voice, "How could you do such a thing? Go back, I'll talk to your grandfather."
Lin Chuntao bit her lip and lowered her head, her toes gently rubbing the soil on the ground. After a long silence, she said, "Grandpa, I don't want to take my sister back."
"Before my mother passed away, she held my hand and told me that I must take good care of my younger sisters. It was alright before, just a little hard and tiring, with little food and not enough warm clothes. I could endure it, and so could my younger sisters."
“But things are different now. I don’t want my sisters to be sold.”
As she spoke, large tears streamed down her face, like beans falling from a broken string.
Muramasa felt a pang of unease seeing her like this.
After all, they had watched the children grow up since they were little, and they knew all too well what a miserable life the children had lived.
Sun patted Lin Chuntao's arm: "Don't cry, don't cry. We'll stand up for ourselves from now on. It's okay, it's okay. We'll go back with you and draw up a written agreement."
At this moment, in the Lin family courtyard, although Zhang had spoken, everyone was secretly plotting how to get the twenty-eight taels of betrothal gifts.
Ms. Tian was so angry she was almost going crazy.
Lin Xian'er was so angry that she stomped her feet. "Mother, I won't marry him! That old widower should take a good look at himself. He's a toad trying to eat swan meat."
Looking at her daughter, Tian said that she had never let her daughter bask in the sun since she was a child. She had raised such a good daughter, how could such a filthy person even dare to dream of her!
"I wasn't going to marry him anyway, don't be angry. How could your mother let you marry someone like that!"
Lin Xian'er breathed a sigh of relief, took Tian Shi's arm, and said coquettishly, "I knew it, Mother is the best to me."
Looking at everyone in the courtyard, especially Qian, Tian said sternly, "Anyone who dares to send Xian'er's birthday message to that matchmaker behind my back will be kicked out of this house!"
The Qian sisters-in-law hurriedly replied perfunctorily, "Mother, don't worry, we sisters all treat Xian'er like our own sister. How could we let her marry someone like that?"
Madam Tian scoffed, about to continue her lecture,
Lin Cunzheng and Sun Shi arrived, carrying writing brushes, ink, paper, and inkstones. Behind them followed Lin Chuntao and her sisters, as well as some villagers.
Lin Cunzheng looked at the old man sitting under the eaves smoking his pipe and shouted, "Fifth Brother, Chun Tao and the other girls came to me saying that you kicked them out and that you want to sever ties with them?"
The old man blushed deeply upon hearing Muramasa's words.
Thinking about what Zhang had said earlier, and seeing that Lin Chuntao had actually called the village head over, was she here to support them and mediate?
That wretched woman, just like her mother, keeps her mischief quiet.
She was furious and retorted sharply, "Yes, I was the one who kicked them out. Brother, are you here to seek justice for them?"
Lin Cunzheng frowned slightly: "It's not really about upholding justice, it's just that the child came to my door and asked me to be a witness and help you draw up a written agreement to sever ties."
Lin Changhe originally thought Lin Chuntao was just saying it, but he didn't expect that this black-hearted girl actually wanted to sever ties!
"Lin Chuntao, are you crazy? You really want to sever ties!"
Lin Chuntao looked at Lin Changhe and felt truly disappointed for the original owner of this body, having such a father.
Lin Chuntao was very familiar with their tactics: make threats to scare the young man, who was too young to support himself, and then apologize, only to be completely manipulated by them.
Lin Chuntao hates being manipulated.
"You're the ones who wanted to kick us out, but now you're acting like we're the ones making a scene and wanting to leave. You're just being hypocritical."
Lin Changhe was so angry that he pointed at her and cursed her as an unfilial daughter, but Lin Chuntao didn't care at all.
Tian found Lin Chuntao's defiant demeanor irritating. She wanted to see how long these black-hearted girls could keep up their act.
"Establish them! Establish them now? I've raised them all these years, and I'm trying to find them husbands with all my heart, but they're just pretending to be crazy and acting like idiots. I advise some well-meaning people to stay away. You have children too, don't corrupt your children too!"
"Some people are born evil!"
The villagers standing at the door couldn't help but chime in: "Fifth Aunt, marriage depends on fate. It's all because your Xian'er is so beautiful that the betrothal party took a liking to her as soon as they arrived. Such a good family, why don't you just marry Xian'er off to them? Why get so worked up?"
Lin Chuntao was about to applaud this string of sarcastic remarks, but she glanced at the woman who had spoken up for her without showing any emotion.
Tian glared at her fiercely; if looks could kill, she would have torn that woman to pieces.
"What right do you have to spout nonsense about my family's affairs?"
"Close the door! Let any Tom, Dick, or Dog in!"
Upon hearing Tian's words, Lin Xian'er rushed over and glared fiercely at Lin Chuntao as she passed by, calling her an "ungrateful wretch!"
With a bang, the courtyard gate was slammed shut.
The woman outside the door laughed loudly: "Some people, they tried to sell their granddaughters but failed and got angry! What do you mean by finding a good husband for them, or that someone would find a widower more than ten years older than their child?"
"What people do is seen by Heaven; even a fig leaf can't cover up that shamelessness!"
Seeing that the people in the courtyard were all red-faced, Lin Cun was afraid that they would start fighting if they continued arguing, so he raised his voice and said, "Isn't there any work in the fields? Why aren't you going to work in the fields?"
After Muramasa spoke, there was silence outside.
After the village chief finished writing the document, Chun Tao and her sisters were the first to put their fingerprints on it. Only then did the village chief take it to Lin Changhe to put his fingerprints on. Lin Changhe hesitated for a long time before putting his fingerprints on it. Tian Shi snatched it away and put her fingerprints on it first. She then took it over herself and put her fingerprints on the old man's fingerprints before taking it back.
She looked coldly at Lin Changhe: "Do you also want to get out?"
Lin Changhe frowned as he pressed his fingerprint on the document, muttering, "Father and son, even if the bones are broken, they're still connected by tendons. Can a written agreement really sever that connection?"
Lin Cunzheng's expression was serious. He looked at Lin Changhe and said, "Minor quarrels can still break bones, and even if you separate the family, you can still separate your hearts. But you are different. You directly kicked people out of the house. I will take this document to the government to re-issue the household registration. After the household registration is issued, you will be two completely separate families!"
Tian replied irritably, "It has to be thorough! I'm afraid that we won't be able to survive and will have to beg to come back like beggars!"
"Of course not. Even if I starve to death, I will not come to you to beg for food."
After the agreement was written and the fingerprints were pressed, Lin Chuntao said to the village head and Sun, "Grandpa and Grandma, we're leaving now."
Sun said, "Let's go together; we still need to go to the fields."
As Lin Changhe watched Lin Chuntao leave the courtyard without looking back, he suddenly felt a jumble of emotions churning in his chest.
When did Lin Chuntao change? Why did she become so unfamiliar?
It seems that on that day she came to him timidly and said, "Father, I don't want to marry that person."
He looked at her with annoyance and replied irritably, "You have to marry him whether you want to or not. He's the good family your mother found for you."
Blushing, she questioned him, "He's more than ten years older than me? Older than you! From now on, will you call him 'brother' or will he call you 'dad'?"
Enraged, he slapped her, and she ran off and jumped into the lake.
After being rescued, Lin Chuntao seemed to stop treating him like a father. She never talked to him about not wanting to get married again, and she even brought a man back without informing him beforehand.
Feeling annoyed, Lin Changhe ran over as the courtyard gate was closing, only to find that the group of people had already gone far away.
The severance agreement had been signed, and Lin Chuntao's mood improved somewhat. Sun looked at them with some worry: "Chuntao, where are you two planning to sleep tonight?"
Lin Chuntao smiled and said, "Let's go and see if there's a cave that's relatively sheltered from the wind."
Sun couldn't bear it any longer. "There is an old house at the foot of the mountain near my home. If you don't mind, I can tidy it up. You can stay there for the time being. It's a bit damp since no one has lived there for a long time, and one of the walls is cracked. You can only stay in the two inner rooms."
Lin Chuntao quickly thanked her, "Not at all, how could we mind? Thank you, Grandma! We are so grateful to have a place to shelter us from the wind and rain."
Mrs. Sun quickly grabbed her, "Oh dear, child, you don't need to be so polite. I'll take you to see him."
The elderly couple then led them to their old house.
The old house is at the foot of the mountain. It is indeed an abandoned old house. The door and windows are broken, and the roof is blocked from sunlight by the branches of the trees behind it. The house is cold and damp and overgrown with weeds.
Sun thought the house was probably uninhabitable, but Lin Chuntao said it was.
She thanked them with a smile and said that they could move in after a quick cleaning. Pei Ying chimed in, "I can make bamboo doors and windows. I can get them done in two or three days. Then we can trim the branches on top so that the sunlight can shine through."
After deciding to stay here, Lin Chuntao asked the village head, "Grandpa, do we still have that twelve mu of land?"
"Yes, I was planning to take your measurements tomorrow, but given your situation, I'll take you and your families to take them this afternoon. After that, I'll go to the city tomorrow to get your household registration stickers ready, and the land information will be added to the stickers as well."
Lin Chuntao nodded: "Thank you, Grandpa, for your trouble."
"I also want to ask Grandpa if he can designate a plot of land for us to build a house in the future. We want to save money to build a house in the future."
Lin Cunzheng was stunned for a moment. It was extremely difficult for the villagers to save money. After paying taxes, they were lucky if they could eat the grain they had left at the end of the year. There was nothing left to sell. The only things they could exchange for money were a few eggs or some firewood to take to the city to sell. But now eggs were only two for one coin, and firewood was also hard to sell, so the price was not high. Saving money was not easy, let alone saving it to build a house.
If there are no skilled craftsmen in the family, hiring craftsmen requires paying wages, and the food also needs to be oily and juicy, which adds up to a considerable expense.
Adding in the cost of doors, windows, tables, chairs, and other furnishings, building these houses was very expensive and required the whole family to work together.
Lin Chuntao has just gotten married, and she doesn't yet know Pei Ying's character. Chunxing and Chunhe can help with the chores, but they might still have difficulty with farming.
Furthermore, the Lin family didn't give the sisters any land. Spring planting had already passed, and it was too late for them to plant crops on these twelve acres of land.
When the autumn harvest came, they had no grain left and still had to pay taxes.
Lincun Zhengguang felt a chill for them.
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