Early in the morning, the family sat in the dining room and had dinner.
Wu Zhaodi was calling at the door:
"Dad, please open the door. We are here to wish you a happy new year. Why are you locking us out, Dad?"
"Grandpa, it's cold outside. Please open the door and let us in. Dad knows he's wrong." These are the voices of Meng Hao and Meng Ling.
Everyone in the room who was eating was silent, and no one wanted to open the door for her. However, the neighbors had already come to the door to watch and chat with Meng Laosan and his family.
"Dad, how about letting them in? We should solve our family's problems behind closed doors and not let the neighbors laugh at us."
Aunt Meng asked the old man cautiously. She still had some respect and fear for her father-in-law who had fought on the battlefield all his life. She had been afraid of him since she got married, and it had been decades now.
As expected, I heard the loud voice of Gao Caixia, the nosy girl next door:
"Oh, what's going on? Third brother, you guys rarely come back these past few years, so why doesn't the old man let you in? Oh, these poor kids, their noses are all red from the cold."
As she spoke, she even knocked on the door of the Meng family: "Ye Qiu, please open the door. How could you lock the third brother and his family out? Ye Qiu? Ye..."
Before she could even utter the word "Qiu", she saw the door in front of her suddenly open from the inside. She wanted to say something, but she didn't expect that it was not Ye Qiu who opened the door, but Meng Cheng, the son of Meng Laoer.
She curled her lips and was about to follow Meng Laosan's family in to watch the fun, but was blocked by Meng Cheng: "Aunt Gao, I'm sorry, there are too many people at home, so I won't invite you in to sit down today." After saying that, he slammed the door shut without waiting for Gao Caixia to say anything.
Gao Caixia rolled her eyes and spat softly, but she didn't dare to speak loudly because she couldn't afford to offend the Meng family.
Meng Jianye gently put aside the malted milk, eggs, and other things he was carrying. He tiptoed over, pulling a stool over to the old man and said,
"Dad, where's dinner? I haven't eaten either, and it's very cold. Aunt Zhang, go make some more. None of us have eaten yet."
Aunt Zhang looked at the old man and Ye Qiu, as if asking for their advice. "Aunt Zhang, after you finish eating, warm Qingli's milk with hot water. Give it to her when she wakes up."
Ye Qiu said this casually while eating.
"Oh, okay."
Aunt Zhang received the order and hurried to eat. She also understood that she didn't need to pay any attention to these people.
"Sister-in-law, what do you mean? I can't even have a hot meal when I get home, right?" Meng Jianye was already unhappy about being blown by the cold wind outside the door for so long early in the morning, so his tone was very bad, and he stared at Ye Qiu with his eyes, as if he wanted to stare a hole into her.
"Third brother, what's with your attitude and tone?" Meng Jianjun was also very angry. He hadn't settled the score with the old man yesterday, and now he even ignored his eldest sister-in-law.
"Okay, your sister-in-law just told Aunt Zhang to heat some milk. Why are you making such a fuss? What's the matter with you howling at the door for so long today?"
The old man put down his chopsticks and wiped the corner of his mouth. He didn't even look at him with his eyelids drooping.
"Dad, what are you talking about? We're going home! Jianye was so worried he couldn't sleep all night. He walked such a long way to the hospital in the middle of the night in the freezing weather. They said you'd been discharged. We didn't want to disturb your rest at night, so we came knocking on your door this morning."
Wu Zhaodi's pretentious tone made everyone present feel uncomfortable. So why was this family so shameless? Were they pretending that what happened yesterday had never happened?
"Why am I in the hospital on New Year's Eve?" The old man looked at Wu Zhaodi and Meng Jianye with a half-smile. His eyes gradually became sharper.
For a moment, the couple was afraid to meet the old man's eyes.
"Grandpa, my dad was impulsive and said something without thinking yesterday. He knows he was wrong, so please forgive him." Seeing that his parents didn't dare to say anything, Meng Hao chimed in.
The old man looked at his grandson. He thought he treated all his grandsons equally, but the child was growing up more and more crooked. He didn't look like anyone from the Meng family at all. Instead, he had learned all the cunning and petty-mindedness from Wu Zhaodi.
When he woke up in the hospital yesterday, no one from the third brother's family was there. Although he didn't say anything, he felt very cold inside.
He looked at his two granddaughters who appeared timid but whose eyes were wandering around, his grandson with slumped shoulders and shaking legs, his son who shrank his head like a quail when he asked a question, and his daughter-in-law who looked unconvinced. The old man sighed deeply.
"What happened yesterday is not important. I thought about it all night. Third brother, now that you have grown strong enough, I, an old man, will not stop you from taking off. Everyone has their own aspirations. Even if you are transferred back to the capital in the future, you don't have to come here during the holidays. Just live your own life."
The more Meng Jianye listened, the more frightened he became: "Dad, what do you mean by this? You don't want me anymore? You don't want your son anymore?"
He panicked
"Not publishing this in the newspaper and severing ties with you is my last act of kindness towards you. You know that if this is published, you won't be able to gain a foothold in the capital. You and your family should take care of yourselves. We don't need to have any further contact!
We separated long ago after you both got married. It's clearly written in black and white. I live with your eldest brother and his wife. You insisted on listening to Wu Zhaodi's claims that being transferred out would get you promoted faster, and you even sold the house you were given. It's none of my business that you have nowhere to live now. I divided the money between you back then.
You haven't given me any alimony over the years, so I won't ask you for it, and you don't have to give it to me in the future.
I'm going to make it clear today, just pretend that I never gave birth to you. From now on, I'm not your father, and you're not my son."
"Dad, how could you do this? You knew we had no place to live when we just got back, yet you still wanted to sever ties with me. I'm your son, and even if I break bones, they still connect the tendons. Can you break them?"
Meng Jianye's eyes were bloodshot.
You see, even now, he is still only thinking about his own interests.
Wu Zhaodi was speechless. She hadn't expected the old man to be so cruel as to abandon his son. Her mind was racing. What should I do... What should I do...
"I don't want to waste time talking to you, Boss. Bring me some paper and pen and write a letter of severance."
The old man was also upset, so how could his son not be upset? He was even more heartbroken!
Meng Jianjun quickly brought out a pen and paper and handed it to the old man. "Brother! No!" Wu Zhaodi shouted, but no one paid any attention to her.
"Dad, even if you write it, I won't sign it! My last name is Meng! I'm a member of the Meng family, I'm the son of General Meng Dahai, I won't sign it! Big brother, big brother, second brother, please help me, we are a family!"
When he saw the old man start to write, he was completely panicked. He couldn't sever the relationship, because if he did, he would lose everything!
The old man didn't know whether he was too emotional or what, but his hand was shaking as he wrote. Meng Cheng held his hand and took the pen from him: "Grandpa, you talk, and I'll write."
"Today, in the year of the Snake, Dingsi, on the first day of the first lunar month, nineteen seventy-seven, the relationship between me, Meng Dahai, and my third son, Meng Jianye, has broken down. It is truly irreparable. From this day forward..."
The old man looked at Meng Jianye and spoke word by word.
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