allonlinenovel Chapter 4 Brainwashing Parents
Chapter 4 Brainwashing Parents
"Shh... Xiaoyu, don't make a sound, eat quickly," Shen Xiaotang whispered to her younger sister.
She was afraid that her two aunts and her cousin, who was a year older than her, would hear her and cause trouble.
Shen Qingchuan paused and said, "Tang'er, what if your grandparents find out..."
"Dad, my sister is four years old, but she's always been pale and thin. Let's be careful and secretly give her some supplements so that Grandpa and Grandma won't find out."
Looking at the warm, tender, and jade-white egg in her hand, Xiaoyu's eyes reddened.
Her older sister had always doted on her since she was little. Knowing that she was timid and had a stutter, she took her by her side every day, afraid that she would be bullied by her older cousins. When there wasn't enough food, her older sister would always give her her share. Just like when the three of them only had two steamed buns, her older sister and mother gave one to her, but she gave her the whole one.
She carefully broke the egg in half and put it in her sister's hand.
“Sister, you do a lot of work and you’re so thin. Let’s… let’s eat well together.”
Shen Xiaotang was deeply moved. Ever since she was reborn into this world, although her father always obeyed her grandparents and her mother was weak-willed, they never mistreated her and her sister because they were girls.
Although life was tough, it was the kind of life she had always longed for as an orphan in her previous life.
In her previous life, she worked diligently for several years and finally managed to carve out a path in this "talented but infertile" workplace. Unexpectedly, on her first day of promotion and salary increase, she died suddenly from overtime and was reborn as a baby!
There's an even crueler truth: the company still owes her more than half a year's salary!
Her only regret was that she hadn't received her owed wages and could have enjoyed life properly. Now that she had transmigrated here, she couldn't even get enough to eat every day.
Looking at the half egg in her hand, Shen Xiaotang broke it in half again and gave it to her mother.
"Mom, you try it too."
Liu was reluctant to eat it herself, and immediately stuffed it into her eldest daughter's mouth, saying, "Eat quickly, don't let your two aunts see, otherwise the house will be in chaos again today."
Shen Qingchuan glanced at the thin soup in his wife and daughter's bowls, sighed, and silently poured a little of his own brown rice porridge for each of them. He then gave one black cornbread to his eldest daughter and one to his wife.
Shen Xiaotang took the cornbread and immediately ran back to the small kitchen to bring out a large bowl of brown rice porridge, adding some for everyone.
She wouldn't normally dare to do this, but today her father came home late, and her stepmother unusually instructed her to make him a separate breakfast. She had finally caught an opportunity, so she had to make the most of it.
Shen Qingchuan was always taciturn and straightforward, but today, seeing his wife and daughter drinking thin soup and not enough cornbread, he finally said nothing more.
After they finished eating and tidied themselves up, they went out together to head to the fields.
On the way, seeing that no one was around, Shen Xiaotang began to brainwash her father about the matter of dividing the family property.
“Dad, you run to town every day, delivering eggs and tofu to the restaurant. Your legs are so thin from all the running around. Grandpa and Grandma haven’t even given you a penny for your hard work. And it’s Mom who made the tofu. It’s just too unreasonable.”
Shen Qingchuan shook his head. "We're all family, why be so particular? Father is the eldest son, so naturally he has a heavier responsibility."
"Dad, you need to understand, raising a whole family is a responsibility, but it's not your responsibility. They're all sons, so why is it the responsibility of the eldest son? Grandpa and Grandma had so many children and grandchildren, so the main responsibility is naturally theirs. Besides, children are the responsibility of their parents, and the cousins naturally have their own parents to take care of them. How can you manage such a large family with just two hands?" You freeloader!
"Tang'er, don't talk nonsense. We're all family. It's too formal to be so formal. Be careful not to let your grandparents hear these words, or they'll get angry again."
Stubborn, too straightforward, his brain is practically shut down!
“Dad, why are you always afraid of Grandpa and Grandma? At worst, we can separate the family and live on our own.”
"Tang'er, you know perfectly well that in our Guihua Village, we've always followed the rule that we can't separate the family until the elders are gone. If we separate the family while your grandparents are still alive, people will gossip about us!"
Life is tough, Xiaotang sighed!
Since her straightforward father was afraid of being gossiped about, she decided to devise a plan to get her grandfather and stepmother to propose separating the family first, so that her parents wouldn't have to worry about being gossiped about.
"Dad, don't worry about this. As long as you agree to separate from Grandpa and Grandma, I'll find a way and make sure you and Mom don't get the reputation of being unfilial."
Shen Qingchuan smiled and said, "What can a little girl like you do?"
He took it as a joke from his daughter and didn't take it to heart.
Liu was somewhat tempted. Her eldest daughter had been clever and quick-witted since childhood, even more precocious than her niece Yinxiu, who was born a year earlier than her second daughter. Perhaps she could really come up with a solution.
"Tang'er, if you think of anything, you must discuss it with your parents first. You must not be rash and set off your grandmother's firecrackers."
"Mother, I know."
The group walked to the edge of the field outside the manor at the east end of the village. Shen Xiaotang looked up and saw sixteen acres of neatly arranged fields, six acres of high-quality fields and ten acres of medium-quality fields, all of which were the inheritance left by her father's maternal grandfather.
Old Shen's four mu of low-grade land is located outside the village at the west end. Now, all the work is done by his father, and the harvest is all controlled by Sun.
The Lin family, his father's maternal grandfather's family, was wiped out by his grandfather, leaving no descendants, but he never understood this. He was truly foolish!
"Father, you and Mother are always busy with all the housework, and you've made them all look so healthy and delicate, like the young masters and ladies of a wealthy family. Why don't you go to school too?"
If Dad goes to school, Grandpa and Grandma won't be able to let their eldest son farm anymore. Everyone will have to work in the fields together. She'll also try to find something for Mom to do and get rid of the pig-feeding job.
They'll relentlessly suppress their stepmother, and they certainly won't allow their family to live off them. They might even quickly separate their branch of the family.
The more Shen Xiaotang thought about it, the better she felt this method was!
“I know you feel sorry for your father, but I’m not smart enough to study. Your uncles are smart and good at studying, so let them do the things that bring honor to the family. I’ll just do more farm work.”
"How can they be the same?"
“When your second and third uncles and cousins become successful, they won’t let us benefit from it. But you and Mom are farming, making tofu, and working in town to supplement the family income. You’re really supporting the whole family!”
I can't figure it out, I really can't figure it out!
Shen Qingchuan sighed, “Tang’er, your uncles aren’t like that. They have to study every day to prepare for the imperial examinations and don’t have any other business to do. They can’t help us now, but they will come to the fields to help their father during the busy farming season. If they can pass the imperial examinations and get an official position in the future, our Shen family will have hope.”
How many times have they helped?
Helping others only caused more trouble. It was just that Mrs. Sun led her son to the fields to put on a show, in order to cultivate a good image as a virtuous wife and loving mother.
"Father, no matter what I say, why can't you understand?"
"Since we've come this far, I might as well make it even clearer."