Chapter 340 A single document dividing the family property exposes a heartless relative in public!
"What kind of bullshit public order case is this! This is my nephew's house!" Wang Cuihua clutched her dislocated wrist, her face contorted in pain, yet she still yelled at the door, "Neighbors! Come quick! Officials have become rich and now they don't care about their poor relatives! They're trying to drive their elders to their deaths! Is there no law anymore?!"
The shout was incredibly penetrating, and several heads instantly popped up on the walls of the neighboring courtyards. The commotion was already quite loud, and now half the residents of the compound had come out with their rice bowls to watch the spectacle.
Su Yue didn't stop her. She even had the leisure to pull out a chair, sit down, and straighten the wrinkled hem of her clothes.
“Mom,” she turned to look at Zhang Huilan, who was standing to the side wiping away tears, “go to your room and take out that red lacquered wooden box from the bottom of the wardrobe.”
Zhang Huilan was startled, her hand holding the apron trembled slightly. "Yueyue, um..."
"Take it out." Su Yue's tone was calm, but carried an undeniable force. "Since Second Aunt wants to talk about family ties with us, then let's settle this old score in front of everyone."
Zhang Huilan gritted her teeth, turned around, and went into the inner room.
Grandma Gu watched Zhang Huilan's retreating figure, her eyelids twitching violently. A chill ran from her heels to the top of her head. That box… she remembered it.
A few minutes later, a worn-out wooden box with peeling paint landed on the octagonal table with a clatter.
Without further ado, Su Yue unfastened the brass clasp. Inside lay a yellowed, brittle piece of paper, its edges chipped and torn by insects.
She picked up the paper and unfolded it.
"The 31st year of the Republic of China. Winter." Su Yue read out the first line. Her voice was clear and bright, and her pronunciation was perfect.
Grandma Gu, like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, jumped up and was about to pounce: "Don't read it! Give it to me! That's mine!"
Gu Beichen took a step forward.
That green military uniform was like an iron tower, completely blocking the table. Old Mrs. Gu bumped headfirst into his hard chest muscles, bounced back and slumped back into her chair, groaning in pain.
"Let her read it." Gu Beichen lowered his eyes, looking at this so-called second mistress as if she were a dead object.
Su Yue shook the paper and deliberately raised her voice to make sure that every neighbor outside the courtyard wall could hear her clearly.
"Gu family division document. Guarantor: Wang Ergou."
"Due to the famine and disaster years, the two branches of the Gu family are dividing their property and separating today."
"Gu Aiguo, the eldest son (with sons Gu Zhengfeng and Gu Zhengjun, and wife Gu Li), received: a tattered cotton quilt and two catties of sorghum flour. He had no house and no land. He was to move out of the ancestral home immediately and find his own way to make a living."
"The second son, Gu Aimin (son Gu Zhenghai, wife Gu Wangshi), received: three tiled houses in the east courtyard, twelve mu of fertile land on the riverbank, one ox, three hundred jin of stored grain, and a certain amount of silver in the cellar."
After Su Yue finished reading, she slapped the thin piece of paper on the table.
“Note,” she pointed to the bottom line of scrawled words, “From this day forward, life and death are preordained. If the eldest son starves or freezes to death, it has nothing to do with the second son. They shall have no further contact after death.”
quiet.
A deathly silence.
Inside and outside the house, even the sound of the wind seemed to have stopped.
Wang Cuihua forgot to howl, and Gu Zhenghai tucked his neck into his collar. The half-eaten sugarcane in Gu Baozu's hand fell to the ground and rolled to Su Yue's feet.
A sharp "crack" came from outside the window. Someone had broken their enamel bowl.
"I want to curse!" Zhu Cuihua from the next courtyard, who usually loved to gossip, spat on the ground. "Is this something a human being would do? What kind of year was 1942? It was a year when people starved to death! Taking away all the family property and then kicking their own nephew out of the house with only two pounds of flour? This is murder without shedding blood!"
“I’d heard long ago that Old Gu had to beg his way into the army,” another military wife chimed in, her voice full of disdain. “So that’s where it all started. That’s so heartless.”
"You still have the nerve to ask for retirement benefits? If it were me, I would have thrown you out with a broom by now!"
The whispers outside flew in like knives.
Old Mrs. Gu's face turned a deep purplish-blue, then flushed. She slapped her thigh and protested, "That was...that was the old man's idea! I'm just a woman, I can't make that decision!"
“Your fingerprint is on the document.” Su Yue pointed to the red fingerprint. “And the guarantor clearly wrote, ‘Gu Wangshi forcibly divided the property.’ Second Aunt, do you still want me to find the guarantor from back then to confront him?”
"You..." Old Mrs. Gu couldn't catch her breath.
"Two jin of sorghum flour." Su Yue picked up her teacup and blew away the foam. "Back then, Dad survived by eating tree bark and grass roots. Where were you then? Oh, you were eating white rice while tending those twelve mu of fertile land."
"Now that you see Gu Beichen has become successful, serving as chief of staff, and that we live in a big house, do you suddenly remember we're family?"
"Bang!"
Su Yue slammed her teacup heavily on the table.
“I’m telling you. From the day this document was signed, this family ties were severed. Legally and morally, we owe you not a single grain of rice.”
Gu Zhenghai couldn't sit still any longer. He jumped up, his face flushed and his neck thick with anger: "Brother... that was when we were kids. Now that Mother is old, you can't..."
"Shut up." Gu Zhengfeng finally spoke. He tucked his pipe into his waistband and stood up. His leg, which had been injured in his early years, was slightly lame, but his back was ramrod straight.
“Back then, I went to your doorstep to ask for a drink of water, and my second aunt set her dog on me. The scar on my leg is from that time.” Gu Zhengfeng looked at the group of relatives huddled together, his cloudy eyes devoid of any warmth.
"roll."
Just one word.
Seeing that she was in the wrong, Old Lady Gu simply ripped off her headscarf and, with her hair disheveled, prepared to bang her head against a pillar.
"Help! My nephew drove his own aunt to her death! I'm not leaving! I'll die right here! I'll hang myself at your doorstep! I'll bring you bad luck for the rest of your lives!"
She aimed at the pillar in the middle of the main room, making a move to charge.
"Want to die?"
Gu Beichen moved.
He slowly and deliberately unhooked the holster.
“哢哒”.
A shiny black Type 54 pistol was slammed on the table, pressing down on the family division document.
"If you want to die, I'll help you." His voice was as flat as a straight line, without any inflection, yet it sent chills down your spine. "Killing yourself by crashing is too unsightly, and you'll have to clean up the mess. A bullet is faster; it'll be over in an instant."
Grandma Gu abruptly stopped halfway through her run. Her calves cramped up, feeling as limp as noodles.
She looked at Gu Beichen in horror. The man wasn't joking. That murderous aura was the kind you only get from crawling out of a pile of corpses.
"I...I..." Her teeth chattered, making a clicking sound.
"Three minutes." Gu Beichen raised his hand to check his watch. "Pack your things. Get in the car. Go to the guesthouse."
"Or, I can have the guard company come and drag him away. But then we won't be going to the guesthouse, we'll be going to the interrogation room."
Wang Cuihua stopped crying out in pain and scrambled to her feet. She grabbed Gu Baozu, who was still in a daze, with one hand and held onto the old man Gu Aimin tightly with the other.
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