Chapter 19: Fine, Then Let’s Settle the Accounts!

If they were going to settle the accounts, there was certainly plenty to calculate!

Wang Jinhua stopped crying immediately. With her hands on her hips, she began listing them one by one.

“When your Er Xiaozi came back last year, everything he used had to be brand new! Meanwhile, in my own room, if something broke, we fixed it; if something tore, we patched it. We saved every penny we could by sewing and mending, but look at your family! You really don’t treat money like money!”

Wang Jinhua turned her head toward the crowd outside the courtyard wall, looking utterly heartbroken.

“And let’s talk about giving birth. We’re all women here. As long as you’re a woman, who doesn’t give birth? But Second brother’s daughter-in-law is just so precious that she had to go all the way to the county seat to do it!”

“She even took thirty yuan from the communal family fund! And thirty eggs from the house! That was what my husband earned with his own life! He’s a cripple, do you know how hard it is for him to make money? This is trying to kill us!”

As she spoke, she began to cry again. Outside the courtyard wall, the onlookers listened and couldn’t help but nod in agreement.

“What the eldest daughter-in-law says is true. In this day and age, who doesn’t give birth? Yet she just had to go to the county seat! Does she think her husband is a city dweller?”

“It would be one thing if they used their own money, but they took it from the communal family fund! Anyone would be upset about that!”

“Sigh! If you ask me, Second Brother Xie has really lost his mind! That son of his isn’t a son at all, he’s an ancestor^[1]! A young master! He’s dragging the whole family down!”

…

The crowd buzzed with noise.

Meanwhile, Xie Zhao, the one being called an “ancestor” and a “young master,” was standing outside the crowd, pulling a handcart. He rubbed the bridge of his nose in exasperation.

“Excuse me, everyone.”

He cleared his throat and added, “I’m here for the household division.”

Household division?

Those two words instantly caught the villagers’ attention.

Someone turned to look, staring at Xie Zhao for a few seconds before finally recognizing him.

“It’s Second Brother Xie’s Er Xiaozi! He’s back!”

A youth squatting by the roadside cracking melon seeds chuckled.

The crowd froze.

Feeling a subtle sense of guilt at being caught talking behind someone’s back, they nudged one another and muttered as they shuffled aside to clear a path.

Xie Zhao pulled the handcart inside.

Entering the courtyard, his eyes immediately fell upon the shattered bowl on the ground.

Xie Youzhen looked at him in surprise. It took him a moment to recover before he managed to squeeze out a smile.

“Why are you back? Where are your mother and your wife?”

Xie Zhao waved his hand and said, “They’re being discharged tomorrow. I’m just bringing our things back today.”

He pointed to the handcart behind him. “I bought these at the Supply and Marketing Cooperative. I’ll put them in the room later so they don’t get damp.”

Bought at the Supply and Marketing Cooperative?

Those words immediately made everyone crane their necks to peer inside with curiosity.

Oh my!

At first glance, their eyes widened. Someone sharp-eyed immediately spotted the bulging oilpaper packages, as well as the two bags of Red Star milk powder sitting right on top!

This was a luxury item!

They had only ever heard of it; who had actually seen it?

If not for the picture of a little foreign baby drinking milk and a cow on the packaging, they might not have even recognized it!

“That milk powder is incredibly expensive! The other day I went to the Supply and Marketing Cooperative to buy kerosene, and a small bag like that cost five yuan! What a rare luxury! Five yuan is more than enough to cover our household expenses for a whole month!”

“Look! That grease! It must be fatty pork! The New Year has already passed, yet Second Brother Xie’s family is still buying fatty meat! What a waste!”

“Sigh, he really is a young master raised in the city after all. He has no idea how hard life is! If you ask me, it’s about time for a household division. Otherwise, he’s going to ruin the entire Xie Family!”

…

The crowd buzzed with noise once again.

Over the past year since Xie Zhao returned, they had seen everything and kept track of it all!

Everything he ate, drank, and used was of the finest quality.

In Old Man Xie’s entire household, he was the only one without a single patch on his clothes!

This was the capitalist way of doing things^[2]!

Wasteful!

Outrageous!

Xie Youzhen’s expression shifted, but he remained silent. Xie Tian, however, was so angry her eyes turned red. She glared at Xie Zhao and cried, “Why did you have to come back?! This is all your fault!”

With that, she ran crying into the house and slammed the door shut.

As a young girl, she was thin-skinned. With so many people surrounding the yard, her face burned with embarrassment.

Xie Cheng glanced at Xie Zhao and muttered, “Don’t make things worse. Go inside first.”

But Xie Zhao shook his head.

He walked over, parked the handcart, and turned to look at Wang Jinhua. His voice was calm and composed, even carrying a trace of a smile.

“Household division? Aunt, you don’t get the final say in this, do you? Where are Grandfather and Grandmother? Have they agreed?”

Wang Jinhua tore her eyes away from the cartload of goods with great difficulty.

She sneered and turned to yell toward the main hall, “Father, Mother, why aren’t you coming out yet?”

Before long, Old Man Xie and Zheng Guie slowly made their way out, leaning on their walking sticks.

Without saying a word, the two of them stood behind Wang Jinhua, clearly showing where they stood.

Xie Youzhen’s eyes darkened. He squatted down, pulled out his pipe, packed it with some homegrown tobacco, walked over to the stove to light it, and began to puff slowly.

He didn’t know how things had come to this.

Household division?

Then let there be a household division.

He let out a long sigh.

Meanwhile, Xie Zhao walked up to them. Though a smile played on his lips, his eyes were cold as knives as he stared at Wang Jinhua.

“It’s just as well that Grandfather and Grandmother are here. If we’re going to have a household division, let’s settle everything clearly. I don’t want the things I bought to suddenly belong to my aunt’s family once we’re done.”

Xie Zhao said, “Just now, outside the courtyard, I heard my aunt talking about the communal family fund, complaining about the thirty yuan my dad borrowed from it. What, is not even half of that money from my family?”

“To be more precise, ever since Third Uncle moved out and Aunt got married, only our two families have been contributing to the communal family fund. But why don’t you do the math, Aunt? How many able-bodied workers does my family have? And how many does yours have? In the end, who contributed more to the communal family fund? And who was the one taking the bigger loss?”

Once Xie Zhao pointed this out, the villagers outside the courtyard immediately remembered.

That’s right!

Old Man Xie’s third son had felt he lost face after having two daughters, so he had moved out years ago.

The youngest daughter had also married and moved to another village.

That left only the eldest and second sons’ families to contribute to the communal family fund.

But the eldest brother’s family had only one able-bodied worker, namely Xie Youshun’s eldest son, Xie Qinglong.

Although that fellow also went down into the mines with Xie Cheng to earn money, he was a slacker who preferred fooling around. The men who worked in the mines with him all said upon their return that he was incredibly lazy, and that as a worker, he couldn’t even match half of Xie Cheng.

The money he brought back was barely enough for his own food and drink, let alone handing any over to the family.

Needless to say, Xie Youshun was even worse.

With his crippled leg, even working in the fields was difficult on regular days, let alone earning money.

In contrast, look at the second brother’s family!

Xie Youzhen knew some carpentry and would take his wares to the market town to sell and bring back some money. Meanwhile, Xie Cheng was a skilled hand in the mines; he had plenty of stamina and was the last person to slack off or play tricks, reporting exactly how much he earned without hiding a single copper.

Naturally, they contributed much more to the communal family fund.

Then there was Tian Xiufen.

Whenever she had free time, she would stitch shoe soles and make cloth shoes, repeatedly applying starch paste to build up sturdy, multi-layered soles. She would then have the second brother take them to the market to sell, which helped supplement their income a bit.