Chapter 63: The Uncle is Here Again? You Eat What the Dogs Eat

Zhou Youqiang acted as though he had just obtained some priceless treasure.

Clutching the large burlap sack, he hurried away from Yulong Village.

Wang Xiufen trotted closely behind him.

"Slow down, will you? Slow down."

"Slow down? My dear mother, you should walk faster instead, I'm practically starving to death."

Life in Xiliu Village was far from optimistic these days.

Especially for families like theirs.

Their second son, Zhou Youzhi, was a lazy good-for-nothing.

Zhou Youqiang himself was merely a petty rogue who knew nothing of honest work, possessing only a sliver of cunning.

They had muddled through their entire lives in a daze.

In normal years, they might have managed to scrape by.

After all, they had a plot of land to till.

The imperial officials still demanded grain taxes.

So they were forced to farm.

Yet during this current era of famine and warfare, mere survival had become an arduous struggle.

Particularly for a household like the Zhous.

They frequently went without meals, hovering constantly on the brink of starvation.

Driven by desperation, Zhou Youqiang had humbled himself, going so far as to mortgage the family's farming tools just to secure something edible.

And his gamble had paid off.

Those tools had been traded for a massive sack of provisions.

Inside were grains and bones.

The bones even appeared to have scraps of meat clinging to them.

Though it seemed a bit strange that the meat bore clear marks of having been bitten into, who cared about such trifles when they were on the verge of starvation?

Upon returning home, however, they found several neighbors from Xiliu Village waiting for them.

Seeing Zhou Youqiang back, the neighbors immediately broke into mocking laughter.

"Well, well, went begging at your son-in-law's house again?"

"Did you get anything?"

"Judging by the looks of it, probably not. Look, he's still carrying the exact same old sack."

This time, however, Zhou Youqiang kept his chin held high.

Without uttering a single word, he strode right past them.

Wang Xiufen sneered, "Blind dogs, all of you! Can't you even see what my son is carrying on his back?"

The surrounding neighbors instantly fell silent.

When they had first learned that Wang Xiufen had acquired a capable and wealthy son-in-law, they had all crowded around her with flattering smiles.

Only later did they discover that the son-in-law didn't hold her family in any regard whatsoever.

Even when Zhou Youzhi, the father-in-law himself, went begging for a bit of grain, the man refused to give him so much as a single kernel.

Instead, he had them beaten and driven away.

Once word of this spread through the village, the townspeople had burst into laughter, ridiculing Wang Xiufen for being cast aside by her son-in-law's family.

That mockery had continued for a long time.

Naturally, Wang Xiufen had been consumed with rage.

Learning of this, Zhou Youqiang had devised a plan to take matters into his own hands and secure provisions alongside his mother.

Though their first attempt yielded nothing, they had at least managed to leave a somewhat favorable impression on Zhou Xiaoxiao.

Which paved the way for this second visit.

Figuring that the family's farming tools were useless for the time being anyway, he had simply handed them over in exchange for food.

As for what they would do when spring arrived and they needed tools for the fields?

That was simple.

They would just go and demand them back from Zhou Xiaoxiao.

Zhou Youqiang simply refused to believe that his own daughter would sit idly by and watch her father starve to death just because he lacked the tools to farm.

Zhou Youqiang had a wife at home.

A fiercely domineering one at that.

This was precisely why Wang Xiufen had never lived with her eldest son's family all these years, but stayed with the second son's household instead.

"My dear wife, look what I've brought back!" Zhou Youqiang announced enthusiastically.

A large, burly woman stepped out of the house.

Her arms were thicker than Zhou Youqiang's head.

At the sight of those massive arms, Zhou Youqiang felt a phantom pain ripple across his face.

Being slapped by his wife was hardly a novel experience for him.

Every single time, it felt as though he had suffered a severe concussion.

"Took you long enough! If you'd let me go in the first place, I would've given each of them a solid slap across the face, and we would've had our food ages ago. Why make things so complicated?"

"It's not as simple as that..."

"What do you mean, it's not simple? Spare me your rambling and open the bag so I can see what's inside!"

The stout woman snatched the sack and peered inside.

It contained only a collection of frozen bones and two catties of coarse millet.

The woman frowned.

She very naturally tucked the two catties of millet away before tossing the large bones onto the dirt floor.

"What is this junk? I thought you were bringing home something valuable, and all you got are these big bones?"

As she spoke, she began sorting through them to pick out the ones with the most meat.

"The big bones have marrow inside, all the best nutrients are in the bones," Zhou Youqiang defended.

By this time, Zhou Youzhi had also caught wind of the news.

After returning to the village, Wang Xiufen had not followed Zhou Youqiang straight home.

She didn't dare face that fierce sister-in-law of hers alone.

But with her second son accompanying her, she felt emboldened.

Zhou Youzhi hurried over on the double, bursting straight into his eldest brother's courtyard.

There, he spotted the bare, meatless frozen bones scattered on the ground.

"Just this?" Zhou Youzhi frowned deeply.

Zhou Youqiang clamped his mouth shut, but the stout woman strode forward and declared, "That's right, just this."

"Nonsense! Mother said there were also two catties of grain in there! Where is the grain?"

"What grain? I didn't see any grain," the woman replied instantly without a moment's hesitation.

Wang Xiufen finally caught up, breathless.

Hearing this, she grew frantic. "There was grain! There were definitely two catties of grain in there! Hand it over right now! That was given by Youzhi's son-in-law, what right do you have to keep it?"

"Youzhi's son-in-law? Does that man even acknowledge you as his father-in-law? You went begging twice and came away empty-handed until my Youqiang stepped in! Without Youqiang, would you have gotten a single thing?"

"That was given to me by my own daughter!" Zhou Youzhi roared angrily.

"Is that so? Why don't you go fetch your daughter and ask her if she even acknowledges you? You really have the thick skin to howl like a stray dog!"

"You!"

Furious, Zhou Youzhi lunged forward to throw a punch.

Yet years of heavy drinking had hollowed out his body; how could he possibly match the stout woman?

Much like how she treated Zhou Youqiang, she delivered a single, resounding slap that sent Zhou Youzhi spinning in dizziness.

Wang Xiufen immediately resorted to her old, well-practiced routine of making a scene.

"Oh, come look, villagers! A daughter-in-law is beating up her elders! Oh, you ungrateful Zhou Youqiang, standing by while your own brother gets beaten and doing nothing! I raised ungrateful wretches!"

Before long, a crowd of onlookers gathered around the Zhou household.

The stout woman was not someone to be trifled with.

Moreover, she had plenty of stamina to match Wang Xiufen's public wailing.

Physical violence against elders was out of the question, of course, as respect for seniority had to be maintained.

Instead, the stout woman dropped to the ground, rolling about and flailing her arms theatrically.

"Elderly mother-in-law is bullying the innocent! My husband went out of his way to beg for food for their family, and brought back a pile of frozen bones. We didn't take a single scrap, yet they insist there were two catties of grain! Heavens have mercy, how can such shameless hussies exist!"

Not a single neighbor stepped forward to arbitrate or uphold justice.

They simply stood on the sidelines to watch the spectacle.

After all, the Zhou family had always been this way.

Their household was like a pile of filth; whoever touched it would only end up disgusted.

Back in Yulong Village, inside Chu Feng's home.

Zhou Xiaoxiao gazed at the basin of meat soup before her and sighed. "I should have kept a couple of bones. Miaomiao has never tasted bone broth before."

"What's so great about bone broth? If you want to drink some, I'll just head back out into the mountains and bag another wild boar for you and our daughter."

Chu Feng chewed on a steamed bun, a look of utter contentment on his face.

Right at that moment, Du Dahai began striking the village gong.

The sound was urgent and sharp.
Chu Feng's brow furrowed. Something had happened in the village!