Chapter 34 One ran away, but another one remains…

Chapter 34 One ran away, but another one remains…

Du Ming and Li Hongguo, disguised as guards escorting prisoners, led Du Li away without looking back, completely ignoring Meng Qing and Du Min.

"Third brother, I'll bring you dinner tonight," Meng Qing said.

Du Min let out a sigh of relief and said, "Second sister-in-law, you still have to take care of the children and work at the paper horse shop, so don't waste any more time traveling. You don't need to bring me food anymore; I'll eat at the academy. The food there is quite good, but it's a bit expensive."

Meng Qing agreed without hesitation. She didn't want to make three trips a day to the prefectural school. "When your second brother comes back, he will continue to bring you meals."

Du Min looked at the river and asked with a smile, "Can my second brother come back? Let's make a bet. Even if he uses my injury as an excuse, my parents won't agree to let him come to the city. Did you see my eldest brother and sister-in-law's attitude? Their attitude is the same as my parents' attitude."

"What are we betting on?" Meng Qing asked.

This stumped Du Min. "What do you want to bet on?"

“If your second brother comes back, give him some advice on what to do with the fifty acres of land that are idle after the autumn harvest. If he can’t come back, I’ll buy you a set of linen clothes,” Meng Qing said.

"Deal," Du Min agreed.

"Alright, we'll wait and see." Meng Qing picked up the food box and left with a flourish.

On the way back, Meng Qing asked, "Why did you bring them here?"

"They came to our house, angrily saying they wanted to take my brother-in-law back. They implied that we had left him at home as a laborer, and that my mother was unhappy that they were staying with us, so she asked me to bring them to the prefectural school," Meng Chun recounted. He leaned against the gunwale, closed his eyes, and muttered, "Why did these two only come now? Did they walk here to save on boat fare? Did they only take a boat when there was no road left?"

“They must have arrived a while ago, and probably wandered around the city.” Meng Qing noticed that Li Hongguo was carrying a bundle.

When the siblings returned home, their father was already asleep, and their mother was still comforting the children. Wangzhou woke up, but Meng Qing wasn't home, and he cried loudly from hunger.

"Your mother's back." Meng's mother tossed the child aside like a hot potato. "Feed him quickly, he's been hungry for a while. Has your son-in-law gone home?"

Meng Qing nodded, "Mother, go to sleep. I'll go to the paper horse shop later."

"I'll go too." Meng Chun grabbed two bayberries and stuffed them into her mouth. "The bayberries are really sweet this year."

Mencius' mother stared at her daughter as she walked away for a while.

"Mother, aren't you going to rest for the afternoon?" Meng Chun asked.

Mencius' mother turned her head to look at him, and said as if she had made up her mind, "Son, when you marry a wife in the future, you should marry someone capable and reasonable. I only have these two requirements. As for whether she can tolerate others and whether she has a strong temper, let fate decide."

"Mother, are you still thinking about this?" Meng Chun laughed. "It's nothing, go to sleep. I think you're drunk too."

"You little rascal, remember this!" Meng's mother patted him on the shoulder.

"Okay, okay, I've got you in mind. You're capable and reasonable."

Only then did Meng's mother go back to her room to sleep.

Half an incense stick later, Meng Qing came out carrying the child. "Let's carry the bayberry basin and go to the paper horse shop."

The Meng family's life returned to normal, but the dark clouds over the Du family grew thicker and thicker.

Du Li returned in the evening. By then, the weather had cooled down, and the villagers were planting rice seedlings in the paddy fields. He walked back without encountering a single person.

He breathed a sigh of relief, no longer having to answer the villagers' questions.

The cows in the cowshed were mooing from hunger, the yard was filled with the bitter smell of medicine, and coughs and throat clearing echoed from the open door of the west wing. Du Li realized that his parents' love and favoritism towards Du Min was 99% genuine, otherwise they wouldn't have suffered such a heavy blow.

"Your parents fell ill as soon as they came back, and they've been sick for about ten days. You've been enjoying yourself in the city, neglecting the work in the fields and your parents too?" Du Ming, who had been silent the whole way, finally spoke up.

Du Li didn't explain to him. He walked into the west wing, dodging the medicine bowl that was thrown at him, and said preemptively, "The third brother tried to commit suicide in the prefecture and almost died. I took care of him in the city. It's not that I didn't come back on purpose."

"The third son attempted suicide?" Father Du was so frightened that he sat up abruptly.

“Impossible, Amin is not the kind of person who would seek death,” Du’s mother shouted.

“I don’t believe it either,” said Mr. Du.

“Ask my elder brother and sister-in-law. They saw him at the prefectural school today. The scab on his head, the size of the bottom of a bowl, hasn’t fallen off yet. If you still don’t believe me, you two can go see him tomorrow, but you have to look secretly. He doesn’t want you to know and has been asking me to keep it from you, which is why I didn’t send you any messages.” Du Li stated this in advance to avoid being accused of deliberately concealing the truth.

"Where's the eldest son?" Du's father called out.

“The second brother wasn’t lying, it’s true,” Du Ming said.

Mr. Du still refused to believe it, saying, "Why would he try to kill himself? It's impossible."

Du Li stared at him without saying a word.

Mr. Du understood and asked, "For what happened that day?"

“Yes, he doesn’t acknowledge you. The students at the prefectural school all curse him for being unfilial. They’re using this to blackmail him into dropping out of school, or they’ll spread the word and ruin his reputation, making him ineligible to even participate in the provincial examination. Not only that, some people have even poured swill on his bedding and his books, making it impossible for him to sleep,” Du Li told him one by one.

"This is bullying! Is there no one who can do anything about it? Cough cough cough... Don't the teachers at the prefectural school care?" Mother Du coughed again in anger.

"The teachers all knew what happened that day and wanted him to drop out. Du Min refused to leave the prefectural academy no matter what. In a moment of despair, he ran into the school one morning and banged his head against the wall, getting two bloody holes in his head. The people at the prefectural academy were worried that he would really die in the academy, so they stopped mentioning dropping him out." Du Li concealed his and Meng Qing's involvement in the incident and even lied, saying, "Du Min did manage to stay at the prefectural academy, but his situation was still bad. Nobody paid attention to him and even targeted him. Whenever he left the dormitory and came back, the door lock was smashed and his bedding was splashed with water."

Mr. Du was so angry that he pounded the bed.

"So I had to stay there and bring him three meals a day. He went to class in the morning, and I sat in the house to guard the door for him." Du Li embellished the story. "His head injury has gotten a little better these past two days, and I was planning to come back for a visit, but I didn't expect my older brother to come looking for me first. Du Min said that I should stay in the city to keep him company for a few months and hire someone to plant the late rice. I came back to let you know that I will be going back to the city to take care of him in a couple of days."

"No way." Du Ming exploded as soon as he heard that. "Does he need the two of you to take care of him? Come back and have your wife bring him food and keep watch at the gate."

"Sister-in-law guarding the gate for her brother-in-law? How can you even say that? Why don't you let my sister-in-law go instead?" Du Li asked in a high-pitched voice.

Du Ming snorted, "I don't care, you just have to come back."

“It’s fine if Meng Qing comes back,” Li Hongguo said. “You stay in the city and let Meng Qing come back. It’s okay if she doesn’t know how to plant rice. She can stay at home to cook and take care of our parents.”

Du Li didn't speak; he looked at his parents.

Du's parents knew that everyone else could come back except Meng Qing. Du Min hadn't asked his family for his tuition, room and board, and medical expenses while studying at the prefectural school, so it was obvious where the money came from.

"Go out," said Mr. Du.

Li Hongguo was shocked that her words were ignored by everyone. She said angrily, "If Meng Qing doesn't come back, I won't do any work either. Why should she live at her parents' house and enjoy herself while I have to work like a slave at home, doing laundry, cooking, planting rice, and weaving silk? We're all daughters-in-law, you can't treat us so unfairly."

Mr. Du closed his eyes helplessly.

Du's mother started coughing again.

"Father, Mother, what illness do you have? Which doctor did you see?" Du Li asked.

Mr. Du waved his hand, indicating that he did not want to say more.

"Then I'm going out." Du Li pushed past Du Ming and walked out under Li Hongguo's resentful gaze.

"Dad, you said we can't count on the third son, and we can't count on the second son either, so we'll have to rely on me from now on, but you're favoring me. The third son doesn't come home from school, and the second son lives with his in-laws and doesn't come home either. My wife and I are treated like slaves at home?" Du Ming questioned.

Upon hearing this, Du Li glanced back, but didn't linger. He went to the cowshed to lead the cow out to graze.

Du Ming howled wildly at home, but his parents were at their wits' end. Their only solution was to drop Du Min out of school and let him open his own private school to earn his tuition fees, hoping to resolve the family conflict completely. But he had earned his place in the prefectural academy through his own merit—a truly glorious achievement. Most families would sell everything they owned to support his education. If they were to drop him, they would be the laughingstock of the surrounding villages for centuries. Aside from the ridicule, Du Min would hate them to death, and might even contemplate suicide.

Father Du sighed sadly, “Everyone wants to take advantage and suffer losses. There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Ah Ming, you’re the eldest, your mother’s and my first child. We’ve never mistreated you, which is why you’ve developed this stubborn nature. Consider this a debt I owe you. In two years at most, your third brother will be twenty and will have to leave the prefectural school. Then your second brother and his wife will have to come back. After your third brother leaves the prefectural school, I’ll have him take the provincial examination. If he doesn’t pass, he can stop studying, get married, open a private school, and live a proper life.”

Du Ming knew immediately that his father had already made up his mind, and there was no point in saying anything more.

“We’ll hire someone to help with the late rice planting. It’s up to you whether you go to the fields or not. Your eldest daughter-in-law doesn’t need to work in the fields either. She just needs to take care of things at home.” Mr. Du continued to concede. “We have no savings this year, so consider it a year of disaster.”

"Who will pay for the third brother's tuition this year? Will the second brother's wife pay?" Li Hongguo probed.

"Who told you she paid tuition?" Father Du was very wary. He cursed and said, "I raise my own son. Even if the family's harvest is bad this year, I can still afford to raise him."

Seeing his strong reaction, Li Hongguo dismissed her suspicions and asked unhappily, "What did your second brother's wife find out about you? Why are you letting her stay at her parents' house so long? Before, she said she was bringing food to your third brother, which was a proper thing, so I won't go into details. Now that your second brother has taken over the food delivery, she still won't come back."

"If your family lived in the city, and I let the eldest son live there alone, using their food and supplies to support the youngest, would your family have any objections?" Father Du retorted, finding a reasonable excuse for Meng Qing: "What kind of kind people are the Meng family? They're willing to provide food, vegetables, and oil to feed the youngest son, just so they can keep their daughter living with her family. They look down on us because we're poor, that we don't eat well, dress well, or live well, and that they'll mistreat their daughter."

"She's a merchant's daughter, and she's being treated like a pampered young lady." Li Hongguo was jealous.

Father Du responded twice, then said softly, "This matter is something we two old folks owe you two. I've seen and remembered all your efforts. Don't compare yourselves to the second son's family. If he wants to be a son of the Meng family, let him be. He'll regret it later. Although the third son is heartless, as long as your mother and I are alive, he can't get rid of us. When he becomes successful, we'll take your family with us when we go to Chang'an with him, leaving the second son's family to manage the farm in our hometown."

Du Ming and Li Hongguo seemed to see the second son and his wife crying with regret, and a smile appeared on their lips, finally calming down the anger they had been holding in.

"Dad, Mom, you didn't eat lunch, did you? I'll go cook, and we'll eat dinner early," Li Hongguo said dutifully.

Mr. Du nodded, "Go ahead."

As soon as the eldest son and his wife left, Mr. Du's face immediately fell. He said in a sinister tone, "Old woman, we have such a hard life. We raised three unfilial sons. We're not even too old to move yet, and they're all already trying to turn their backs on us."

Mother Du sighed in dejection.

After cursing through gritted teeth for a while, Du's father also fell silent. He couldn't control the situation and could only sulk.

*

That evening, Du Li led the ox home and found that his family had already started eating; no one was waiting for him.

"Dad, I'm going back to the city tomorrow. My third brother can't leave me." Du Li didn't plan to stay at home any longer. He thought to himself that no one in the Meng family would treat him like this.

“Let him go,” Mr. Du said calmly. “Please pass on a message for me: he doesn’t need to be wary of us. His poor, stingy parents won’t visit him; it won’t embarrass him. Tell him to study hard, not to be vain or competitive, and certainly not to contemplate suicide. I despise such weak and hypocritical people.”

Du Li was shocked. Was this all over? It was much easier than he had thought; he had imagined it would drag on for two or three days. He had even considered that if his parents refused to give in, he would run away whenever he had a chance to go out, as long as they didn't lock him up, and he would fight back again.

“I won’t say anything. I can’t afford to offend someone like him.” Du Li refused. He tested his parents’ attitude: “How about I take advantage of your illness to have him come back and we can make up?”

Mr. Du glared at him and said, "Who asked you to meddle in other people's business?"

"Fine, I won't meddle. If you don't back down first, you'll be waiting a long time. He's stubborn, and he probably won't come back until after the New Year." Du Li also stabbed him in the heart.

Mr. Du choked, pounded his chest, and said with a heavy breath, "If he has the guts to never come back, I'll pretend I never had this son."

Du Li scoffed, thinking to herself, "You've gotten used to this trick. When he was little, you ignored him and waited for him to give in. Now you're using it on the third son, but unfortunately, he's not falling for it."