Traveling Through Those Years Of Farming (Quick Transmigration) - Volume 4 Chapter 13

“Shiyan, is it really necessary to go as far as splitting the household?”

The older sisters-in-law all looked at each other. Around here, people usually only talked about dividing the family once the youngest son married. Some strict elders only allowed sons to split off when they were on their deathbed.

The Fu family was a bit special. The eldest son was already close to thirty, but the stepmother, Ge Shiyan, had given birth late. Her son, Fu Shinian, was only seven. According to the village rumor that she planned to make her foster daughter a child bride, it would be at least another ten years before Fu Shinian married.

In other words, by common logic, the Fu family shouldn’t be splitting for at least ten more years.

They all thought Ge Shiyan had been angered senseless. She was a woman with a young son—if they split, who would she rely on? If they didn’t split, the older stepchildren couldn’t have private property, all money stayed in her hands. Wouldn’t she be the one calling the shots?

“If we don’t split…” Ge Shiyan let out a short laugh. “If we don’t, I’m afraid there’s no telling when my son and daughter will be killed.”

She stared straight at the man walking out of the main room, her tone deadly serious. “Go call the clan relatives. Just in time for us to work out exactly how this family is going to be divided.”

Her mind was made up.

“It’s just children fighting. Why make it into this? If the twins were in the wrong, can’t we just have them apologize?” Fu Dayan pleaded. He still didn’t understand how things had escalated to splitting the household.

He had seen the twins’ condition. He also saw how battered Baobao and his niece were now. But in his eyes, it was still just children’s rough play. Maybe they went too far, but the adults could discipline them properly and that would be that. The youngest was still so small, not even married. How could they split the family?

He was a rigid patriarch who always wanted peace—but this time, Ge Shiyan wouldn’t humor him.

“Let me just ask you—what did those two say to you?”

She ignored him and turned instead to the others in the courtyard, including Ma Meifang and Fu Shichun.

“Did they say Baobao and A-Yu hit them first? We can’t just listen to them, and we can’t just listen to me either. Why don’t we call all the children who were there and hear what they say?”

She trusted the children she had raised. Baobao would never lie to her. As for the twins—she had no confidence at all in their character.

But she knew others might not see it that way. If only she or the First House spoke, it would be biased.

So she suggested simply: let the other children speak. With that many of them, they could piece together the truth.

The village was small. The fuss at the Fu house was big. Before long, every child who had been at the mountainside fight arrived. 

The little chub who started it all was dragged over by his parents, who twisted his ear. Gone was the morning’s arrogance and bravado—his eyes were swollen like walnuts. He looked like an angry little frog.

His younger brother, whose fruit he had stolen, grinned smugly at the side, wishing their parents would beat him even harder.

“Lin Yu bit Fu Lianqiao. She bit really hard!”

“The twins tried to snatch Baobao’s fruit first. Baobao wouldn’t give it, then they started fighting!”

“Yeah! Baobao kicked Fu Lianqiao and she got mad and picked up a stone to smash her!”

“I saw it too! The stone was huge!”

“Lin Yu protected Baobao and wouldn’t let her hit her. Fu Lianqiao scratched her arm.”

“They kept fighting and Fu Lianqiao cried really loud. It was embarrassing.”

The children chattered all at once. Their stories were jumbled and repetitive, but the sequence of events still came through clearly.

It was nothing like the twins claimed about “just asking to share.” They had rushed in to grab. Baobao refused and fought back. Fu Lianqiao grabbed a stone to smash her, and then the fight escalated.

From that, the twins seemed much more at fault.

“It’s just some worthless wild fruit. What’s wrong with giving a little to your niece and nephew?” Ma Meifang finally spoke.

She wasn’t entirely wrong. If Baobao and Lin Yu hadn’t been so “stingy,” it wouldn’t have come to this.

“No! It’s the fruit we picked!”

“Exactly! It’s ours. Only if we want to share can they take some!”

“They were stealing! They’re the bad ones!”

Before Baobao could speak, the other kids who’d picked fruit with her exploded. The split-pants boy was especially furious. Half of the fruit he’d found that morning had been snatched by his big brother, and the rest crushed in the chaos. He barely tasted any snakefruit.

Even so, his parents barely scolded his brother and didn’t care about his grievance at all. If the Fus weren’t splitting over this, his brother wouldn’t have been punished at all.

A bunch of four-, five-, and six-year-olds puffed out their cheeks, glaring angrily at the adults defending the twins.

“I think Baobao and A-Yu did nothing wrong. When the younger generation is already grabbing things, if they still act generous and give it all away, that’s not kindness—that’s stupidity. Today it’s fruit. Tomorrow it’ll be silver.” Ge Shiyan felt her Baobao had done nothing wrong. 

These weren’t close siblings. They had almost killed her once already; why should she treat them like friends? Even Guanyin Bodhisattva didn’t have a heart that big.

“Just because Cousin wouldn’t share wild fruit, she wants to smash her with a stone. In the future, whenever something displeases her, is she going to use poison or arson?” Her voice was icy. 

This was the kind of children they raised—a pair that could be so vicious at such a young age. Who knew what they would do when they grew up?

“I really pity whoever marries her someday. Couples and in-laws always argue. I just hope by then she won’t be standing by the bed at night, stone in hand, smashing heads in. Right now she smashes people and no one scolds her, everyone says she’s pitiful and wronged. Perfect chance to teach her that this is ‘right.’”

Her words shattered half of Fu Lianqiao’s reputation on the spot.

People always said you could see the future from childhood. A child who would smash another’s head over fruit might one day murder her husband and mother-in-law over a quarrel.

If such a vicious reputation spread, who would dare marry her?

Ma Meifang’s mind exploded.

But before she could argue, Ge Shiyan kept going.

“As for the time my Baobao nearly died in the water, I don’t think everyone knows the details. It was those two plus the cousins from our married-out daughter’s family who led her to the deep pool. They tricked her, saying the lotus was pretty and told her to go pick it herself. When they saw her fall in, they all ran. If Sister Niu hadn’t passed by and pulled her out, she would have died there.” Even now, Ge Shiyan shuddered at the memory. “They said the children were timid and afraid of being scolded, so they didn’t dare tell the adults. I say they weren’t timid at all. Timid children don’t coax their little aunt all the way to the deep pool. Timid children don’t just go home like nothing happened. If some villagers hadn’t seen them going that way together, I would never have known they were there.”

Hearing her aunt’s pained tone, some of Lin Yu’s memories from her previous life surfaced.

In that life, she only much later understood the real reason her aunt divorced her uncle: Baobao’s death.

Her aunt wanted to punish the killers severely. Her uncle refused.

The twins were his own grandchildren. They insisted Baobao had wanted to go to the deep pool. They couldn’t say no to her and just went along. When she fell in, they were too scared and later felt guilty.

There had been no proof. The oldest of the four children was seven, the youngest three. Even with evidence, could children that young be sentenced to death?

The clan elders would never allow such a scandal.

To protect the clan and his grandchildren, Fu Dayan chose to believe them.

In the end, her aunt broke with him and left the Fu family with Fu Shinian.

“Does anyone still remember that three years ago, my youngest also met with an accident in that same place? If not for… he would have died too.”

Her voice faltered. The older relatives glanced at Baobao and understood why she didn’t finish the sentence.

“Shinian also had a high fever and couldn’t recall anything afterward. At the time, I only thought he was playing and wandered to the deep pool. Now that I think about it, maybe he didn’t go alone. I was too naive, thinking people were better than they really are. I never imagined such devils right beside me.”

Her jaw clenched; Fu Shichun and Ma Meifang’s faces changed.

“Nonsense! Back then the twins weren’t even five. They were Shinian’s age. How could they trick their little uncle to the deep pool?” Fu Shichun lashed back.

“True, they might not have been able to. But you two could. Maybe the kids were just copying what they’d heard and saw.”

She clenched her fists. Back then she had never suspected her stepson and his wife were that vicious. She only thought Shinian was naughty. He often ran wild with other kids, sometimes gone half a day. It seemed believable he had gone to the deep pool on his own and slipped.

But too many coincidences stopped being coincidences.

The whole courtyard was stunned. Even Fu Dayan couldn’t help staring at his eldest son and daughter-in-law.

Yes—three years ago, if not for that… Shinian would have died.

And if Baobao died, and Shinian died—who benefitted most?

Waves of shock rippled through everyone, but there was still the same problem—no evidence.

It was all conjecture on Ge Shiyan’s part.

So Fu Shichun and Ma Meifang only panicked for a moment before calming down.

“Lies! I know you’ve always disapproved of us, but you can’t slander us like this. Harm our own little brother? What kind of people would that make us!” Ma Meifang’s voice trembled with grievance—paired with her swollen face, she looked ridiculous.

“Enough. Don’t act for my benefit. I feel sick.” Ge Shiyan gave them a cold look. They had better hide their tracks well. If she ever got proof, she would make them pay.

Two lives. Just thinking about it made her sleepless.

She shut her eyes, forcing back tears. All she could do was be better to Baobao—give her everything—only then could she feel somewhat at ease.

“I don’t think I’ve treated you siblings badly these years. I don’t know who filled your heads with nonsense, making you believe I came here to harm you, treating me like a thief in this house. I’ve heard the gossip—people saying I’m biased, that I funnel everything to my own son.”

She turned to the villagers.

“So think about it. Did I ever starve those two? Beat them for no reason? Did they go without clothes? Didn’t Shichun marry at sixteen, and Yuexia at seventeen? Whose wedding feast did I scrimp on? Which of their spouses looks like trash?”

She was pointing out that as a stepmother, she had never schemed to ruin their matches. If she’d been that kind of woman, she would have married Shichun to some sickly shrew and sent Yuexia to some drunk wife-beating layabout.

But “looks like people” still felt wrong in the ear. 

Ma Meifang felt insulted, but couldn’t prove it.

“As a stepmother, my conscience is clear.”

Her words hit like a stone.

Everyone fell silent. They all remembered the rumors about her sweet face and hard heart, but looking at reality—their days were good.

Especially Fu Yuexia. With such a generous dowry, and always coming back to her parents’ house to eat, there wasn’t another daughter in the village like that.

“Since we can’t live under one roof anymore—since they act like I’m here to strip their house bare, and I’m afraid they’ll secretly kill my children—then we should split the household. They never saw me as a mother anyway. I don’t count on them to provide for my old age.”

After all she’d said, there was nothing left for those who wanted to persuade her to stay.

“Let’s split.”

After a long silence, she looked at Fu Dayan and sighed softly.

Things had reached this point. Forcing everyone to stay together would only make it worse.

He squatted on the ground, clutching his head, his whole body curled like an old man, no trace of his usual energy left—like his soul had been sucked away.

The Fu family’s property was not much.

The old house they lived in now, three mu of top-grade field, eight mu of medium field, twelve hens, two roosters, three ducks, pots and pans, farm tools…

Ge Shiyan went back into the room and brought out a wooden box. Inside was all the silver the family had saved over the years—sixty-eight taels, plus some scattered coppers.

“How can there only be this little silver?”

Ma Meifang refused to believe it. She and her husband alone had hidden away over twenty taels. Ge Shiyan held the real purse—how could there only be this much?

“This is all there is. Believe it or don’t. Both children fell in water, twice. We spent no small sum on doctors.”

Again the blame pointed toward the First House.

“Shut up, all of you!”

Fu Dayan puffed on his long pipe, his brows knotted into a 川.

Ge Shiyan had been smart. Once she realized her stepson was unreliable and started tightening control over money, she laid plenty of groundwork first—often sighing by her husband’s side about cloth getting expensive, oil and salt going up, social obligations costing more…

Over time, he came to feel money really didn’t go far, and had no clear sense of how much they had.

“Tuition for the youngest is two taels a year. Add brush, ink, paper, and inkstone, and it’s at least six taels a year. I won’t ask for much—just eight years of tuition, forty-eight taels.”

She counted forty-eight taels to her side.

“Why should his tuition come from the common pot if we’re splitting?”

There was so little silver and she was grabbing so much. The First House was furious.

“We’ll do it as your mother said. We agreed before.”

Fu Dayan drew on his pipe and spoke heavily.

“Even if we’re splitting, the eldest’s marriage and eldest girl’s marriage both used common funds. The youngest can’t be left out. Back then, the eldest’s betrothal gifts and banquet cost five taels. Prices have risen every year. Ten years ago, bride price was two taels. Now three taels isn’t enough. When the youngest marries, who knows what it’ll be? Eight taels isn’t too much.”

She pulled another eight taels aside.

Now only ten taels and some coppers remained in the common box.

“Baobao almost died falling into the water, and that had everything to do with the First House. She’s frail now and needs good food to recuperate, so I’ll take another five taels. Quite reasonable.”

She scooped another five.

At this point, the First House were clenching their fists, about to explode.

She swept them a glance, then turned to Fu Dayan.

“Who are you going to live with?”

She already guessed his answer.

After a long silence, he lifted his eyelids and looked at his eldest son and daughter-in-law.

What else could he do? Children were debts. Only now did he understand his eldest son’s whole branch had gone crooked—and that was partly his fault. As their father, he couldn’t just watch them stay that way without correcting them.

“I’ll go with the eldest.”

He lowered his head and took another drag.

The First House finally looked relieved. With Father following them, the old house naturally belonged to them. His health was good too; he could still do a lot of work.

“Good. Then we split the remaining five taels—two and a half each—and the coppers go to the First House.”

She pointed at the pile of fewer than a hundred coppers, generously “giving” them. 

The First House nearly spat blood.

But it didn’t matter. Fu Dayan didn’t object. As long as she wasn’t divorced, she was still their mother. They could only swallow their frustration.

Now it was time for the real big piece.

“We can’t live under one roof. Those rooms, I won’t take them. They’re yours.”

They hadn’t expected the stepmother not to fight for the old house. Before they could rejoice, she continued with something that made them choke.

“The three mu of upper field and eight mu of middle field—of those, seven mu are ancestral land, one mu is what you and the eldest sister earned, and three mu are what you and I earned. The Eldest House takes the half that’s yours and the eldest sister’s. The Youngest takes the half that’s yours and mine.”

In other words, the First House got half a mu so far; Shinian got one and a half.

The remaining eleven mu, by local custom, went sixty percent to the eldest son and the rest to the younger son.

“Top field is worth seventeen taels a mu, middle field twelve. The old house is worth about twenty taels, and the furniture I won’t take either—count that as two mu of middle field.”

By the original eight–two split, the eleven mu meant 6.6 mu for the First House and 4.4 mu for Shinian.

But by her calculation, the First House had to hand over two mu more—leaving them 4.6 mu, plus their earlier half mu, making a total of 5.1 mu.

Shinian got 7.9 mu—far more than the eldest.

“Let’s not fuss over tenths. First House gets five mu. Youngest gets eight. We won’t take the house. When you draw the boundaries, just give the Youngest the plot east of the village. That’s exactly eight mu, all in one piece.”

By the time she finished, the First House’s faces were liver-purple with rage.

Those eight mu included two mu of top field. This woman was shameless—she was practically emptying the family’s coffers for her son.

The old house wasn’t worth that much, and they would much rather keep the fields than the house.

“Oh, and from now on, A-Yu will live with me.” Before Fu Shichun could speak, she continued. “Don’t pretend you’re confused. A-Yu bit Lianqiao that hard to protect Baobao. How can she stay in this house?”

She sighed. She didn’t think of herself as a good person, but she truly felt soft toward Lin Yu.

The girl had offended the First House to protect Baobao. If she left her here, she’d be throwing her into the fire pit.

As for coming with her… she couldn’t promise much, but at least she wouldn’t beat or scold her, and the girl would eat her fill.

Hearing this, Fu Dayan’s back bent further. The man who’d been strong his whole life now looked no different from any hunched old man.

“Do it your way.”

He sounded dazed. In death, how could he face his sister?

This was probably the best news the First House heard all day. One less burden meant less mouths to feed. Their only resentment was that with Ge Shiyan taking the girl, they wouldn’t get to vent on her for their children.

While they were talking, the clan head and other elders arrived. The First House wanted the clan head to speak up; after all, what kind of split gave the eldest so little?

But when they arrived, Ge Shiyan said nothing. Every detail of the division was spoken by Fu Dayan himself. 

The Jiang dynasty prized filial piety. Anger a father, and none of them would come out well.

Everything was written in black and white on the deeds. The couple stamped their handprints. The split was done.

The First House’s teeth were grinding to dust.

They had guarded against her for years, schemed for years—and in the end they got only the old house and five mu. That wasn’t even as good as many ordinary families.

Ge Shiyan walked away with eight mu, all the ready silver, and even their private savings. Those were worth far more than one old house and ten mu of good land.

Outside, Baobao and the others squatted by the door. They were too young to be allowed in for the negotiations.

“Don’t worry.” Baobao squeezed her cousin’s hand, comforting her. 

Even if they split, she would never leave her cousin here to be bullied by the First House.

Lin Yu gave her a weak smile.

She wasn’t worried about herself—she worried about her uncle. Had nothing changed after her rebirth? Would he still live the rest of his life with regret? In her last life, Baobao died and he still chose the First House. Now Baobao was safe, everyone was safe. His choice this time was obvious, wasn’t it?

She already knew the answer, and the more certain she was, the sadder she felt. It was a horrible feeling—knowing something couldn’t be changed.

Especially when you knew he would regret it.

Of the three children, the most terrified was Fu Shinian. For him, one was his father, one his mother. Both were good to him. Now it felt like they were going to split apart.

He squatted outside the door, staring at the stone slabs as his tears plopped down onto them.

Baobao didn’t know when she moved over to him. She just ended up by his side, holding his hand.

“I’m not scared.” His lips trembled as he spoke in a choked voice. “I’m the older brother. I can’t be scared.”

He seemed to be talking to himself, giving himself courage.

Then he hugged Baobao back. “Don’t be scared, little sister. You’ve got your brother.”