Niu Da had just returned home with forty strings of cash and two hundred taels of silver notes in the money box that Shen Yu had given as part of her dowry when she heard an argument going on inside:
"Uncle Niu Li, Aunt Tan, what's wrong with you two?"
"They even said that if it weren't for your Cuihua and Meihua pushing my seventh son into the river, my husband and I wouldn't have fallen into the ditch and ended up with a mouthful of mud. "Your daughter beat my eighth son like this, so tell me, how are you going to compensate me?"
“Dad, Mom, he started it,” Niu Cuihua said.
"You worthless little brat, how dare you interrupt when adults are talking? I'll tear your mouth apart!" Madam Tan, with her stinky body, stepped forward to enter.
Niu Da stopped them.
“I hope my three thatched huts won’t be too much of a waste for you, lest this penniless, childless man defile your ancestral graves,” Niu Da mocked.
Da Tanshi thought that she was still counting on her eldest daughter-in-law to give her family a big, fat grandson, and she was also afraid that if she entered this house where no one had been born, she would be tainted by the bad luck of only being able to give birth to daughters. Thinking of this, Da Tanshi stopped in her tracks.
“Your daughter beat my youngest son like this and pushed my seventh son into the water. I won’t ask you for compensation. Just give us your four acres of land as compensation,” Niu Li said.
The neighbors who had gathered around immediately started gossiping: "This is shameless! The kids are fighting, and he's already talking about four mu of land. Two mu of that land belongs to Niu Er. Even though Niu Er works in the next county, he can't just steal someone else's land."
Da Tan felt somewhat embarrassed upon hearing this.
"What's going on?" the old clan chief shouted sternly.
Madam Tan quickly replied, "Niu Da's daughter got into a fight with Niu Li's two sons and lost. Niu Li and his wife are demanding four mu of land from the Niu family as compensation."
The women made way for the old clan chief. Da Tan was always a shrewd woman in the village; who in any of the teams hadn't argued with her?
When he was young, he bullied his parents-in-law so much that they drowned themselves. When he got old, he bullied his eldest daughter-in-law. He would point at his eldest daughter-in-law and in-laws and curse them every day, cursing them so much that even the eagles flying in the sky fell down.
Who in Niushan Village doesn't know her reputation as a wicked woman?
The old patriarch was also very displeased, and said in a deep voice:
"Niu Li, Niu Da, tell me, what exactly happened?"
Niu Li hurriedly said, "His eldest daughter and his maid injured my eighth son and pushed my seventh son into the river. In the dead of winter, my seventh son is freezing and still has a fever."
“Grandpa Clan Chief, we didn’t push Niu Zhu’er. He fell down on his own. They can all testify to that. Besides, Niu Gou’er started it first,” Niu Cuihua argued.
“Cuihua’s head isn’t clear, what could she know?” Madam Tan quickly said, “My son is covered in bruises, that’s proof! Everyone knows that his eldest daughter has always been mentally unstable.”
“It was Niu Gou’er who pounced on me and tried to gouge out my sister’s eyes,” Niu Meihua replied.
Niu Li hurriedly said, "Clan leader, you can't just listen to one side of the story. How old is Mei Hua? How can her words be taken seriously? My nephews and nieces can all testify that it's Niu Daya who has gone mad."
Suddenly, "it was the younger brother who provoked the Niu family girl first, saying that the Niu family had no descendants, and the two started arguing. He even hit Niu Meihua first."
The speaker was Niu Zhaodi, Niu Li's niece.
Twenty-five or twenty-six-year-old Niu Xiaocao and her mother, Xia, recalled how the Tan family had bullied them in the past, mocking them for being childless. A surge of anger rose within them again, and they said:
“We were watering the vegetable garden when we heard Niu Zhu’er say that he was going to call his six older brothers to beat Niu Da’ya to death. We just saw him fall into the river right after he finished speaking. It was Sanwa and your niece who went to find someone to rescue her.”
Seeing that his family was at a disadvantage, Niu Li kicked his niece Niu Zhaodi in the stomach: "You bitch, you're siding with outsiders!"
Niu Zhaodi was in so much pain that she couldn't straighten up. She didn't know what happened, nor did she know what she had said, when suddenly Niu Li kicked her.
The old clan chief pondered for a moment and said, "I understand. It's because the children are fighting, and they keep demanding four acres of land. This kind of extortion is unacceptable and sets a precedent."
Da Tan immediately plopped down on the ground and rolled around, saying, "Clan leader, you're being biased! My eighth son didn't say anything wrong. Niu Da is a childless family, that's a fact, can't I even say it? Why did that eldest daughter of the Niu family curse my son to fail the imperial examination?" "Girls are as cheap as cats and dogs, my son is just the eyes of a cat or dog, worthless, why are they fighting back?"
The old clan chief found the Great Tan clan extremely noisy:
"You, and all of you, throw her out! You're a disgrace!"
Being publicly humiliated at the village gate, making a laughingstock of himself, Niu Li was too ashamed to let Da Tanshi leave the house.
The family couldn't afford a doctor, and because of their bad character, they couldn't even borrow money. Niu Zhu'er's brain was damaged by the fever, and he eventually died.
People secretly thought it was retribution for Niu Li and Da Tan's actions, but no one talked about it. Even Niu Xiaocao and Zhang, who had a grudge against each other, didn't mention it to Da Tan.
After all, his son died, so there's nothing to laugh about.
Thirteen-year-old Niu Zhaodi was married off by Niu Li's older brother, Niu Fu, to the older brother of the Da Tan family, a man in his fifties who had not yet married. He was sold for ten taels of silver.
Although Niu Zhaodi was the daughter of Niu Fu and Luo Taohong, few people in the village disliked her. Every time Shen talked about this with Niu Da, she felt a little regretful.
Not only was the Tan family extremely poor, but Niu Zhaodi was sold to an old man in his fifties as his wife before she even reached marriageable age, and her fate afterward was predictable.
In the evening, Niu Da held Niu Baolan, Chen Yu held Xiao Fubao, Niu Cuihua held Niu Baozhu, and Niu Meihua sat alone. The whole family sat around a table.
Madam Shen asked, "Husband, did you get into a fight today?"
Niu Dadao: "No!"
Shen asked, "What's wrong with your forehead?"
Niu Da then took out 290 strings of cash and said, "Doctor Xue from town gave us an estimate; that Blood Spirit Mushroom is worth at least 200 strings of cash." He continued, "I fell on my forehead in front of someone's shop on my way back today; it's nothing serious."
Upon hearing that nothing serious had happened, Madam Shen was relieved, but then so shocked that she stammered, "This...so much money? How...how are we going to use it?"
Niu Dadao: "Two Ganoderma lucidum mushrooms sold for 290 strings of cash." An ordinary family could not save even a fraction of that amount in a lifetime.
Niu Dadao: "Tomorrow, I'll go to Xiaocao's house and buy you two pork hocks to make soup!"
Niu Da earned about six strings of cash from the fish he caught these past few days, another string from hauling goods for others, and the money from selling the Ganoderma lucidum, bringing his total to approximately three hundred and six strings of cash.
Niu Dadao: "The Ganoderma lucidum on the mountain is a once-in-a-century find, and it will definitely be gone in the future. Tomorrow we'll buy dozens of chickens to lay eggs and sell."
I think so!
The next day, Niu Da fried all the eggs laid by the old hen at home and gave them to the three girls who had grown teeth. Niu Cuihua drank the egg soup and her mouth was full of egg soup flavor.
"Mom, I love egg drop soup the most! It's so delicious!"
Niu Da laughed and patted Niu Cuihua's head, saying:
"There's also some pig's trotter soup, with some pig's trotter meat in it. You and your three younger sisters can have some."
“Father, we won’t drink it, Mother will drink it, so that the younger sisters will have milk to drink,” Niu Cuihua said.
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