Su Shanshan was fuming with anger. She stamped her foot at Su's Mother, "Mom, look at her! What kind of words were those? Is she only satisfied when she ruins this marriage?"
Su's Mother wanted to help her daughter, but she knew very well in her heart.
She was getting old, and her husband and younger daughter were still stuck on the farm.
When it came to being cared for in old age and having funeral arrangements seen to, she would ultimately have to rely on her son and daughter-in-law.
Besides, today's incident was indeed the fault of her three grandsons.
"Xiaolan, whatever the matter is, let's go home and discuss it behind closed doors, alright?"
Wei Xiaolan also knew that family ugliness shouldn't be aired in public, but Little Baby's life was almost lost. What use did she have for saving face now?
"No, it's better to get this clear right here." Wei Xiaolan was determined this time. "For every day they don't move out, I won't set foot back in that house for a day!"
Su Shanshan was now furious too. "That's also my home! My mom, my grandparents haven't said a word, so what right do you have to make me move out?"
Pah, she really thinks she's something special.
Wei Xiaolan didn't bother arguing with her anymore. She directly pulled five mao from her pocket and handed it to an Auntie nearby. "Auntie, could you please go to the police station up ahead for me? Tell them someone here tried to murder my son! We have both witnesses and evidence right here!"
Hearing she wanted to call the police, Su Shanshan felt her pride take a hit. "Sister-in-law, is it really necessary to make such a big fuss over a small matter? It's perfectly normal for kids to roughhouse a bit..."
Su's Mother, worried she would stir up more trouble, quickly cut her off. "Enough, you've said enough."
Then, she turned to her daughter-in-law, speaking in a pleading tone, "Xiaolan, they were wrong in this matter, and it's also my fault for not teaching them properly. I promise I will discipline them properly when we get back, and I guarantee it will never happen again!"
Only then did Su Shanshan come to her senses. She turned to look at the children. "What on earth happened?"
The children's eyes darted around, unable to utter a single word for a long while. An Elder Sister nearby was very eager to help.
She vividly recounted what had just happened, even repeating verbatim everything Wei Xiaolan had said earlier.
She had a good memory, especially for this kind of neighborhood gossip, she remembered it all firmly.
Su Shanshan's first reaction was disbelief.
But when she met the gaze of her eldest son—his eyes, identical to his father's, held a chilling indifference—Su Shanshan completely panicked.
She knew it was all true.
In her panic, Su Shanshan raised her hand and slapped her eldest son. "Are you stupid? Your brother is still little! No matter how much you dote on him, you can't feed him something that big! He could choke, don't you know that?"
Even at this point, she could still say such things without batting an eye. Jiang Si was truly impressed.
Wei Xiaolan just snorted coldly.
Fortunately, that Auntie was a clever one. She had already slipped away with the money to report to the police while Su Shanshan was questioning her son.
Su Shanshan remained completely unaware of this.
Pushing the children's heads down, she ordered, "Hurry up and apologize to your aunt!"
The third child was stubborn. Being forced down like this by Su Shanshan, he immediately started yelling.
"I'm not wrong! I won't apologize! It's all because of this bad woman who gave birth to a little debtor!"
"It's him! He stole our things!"
"And Grandma! She's biased too! Before, all the good treats were saved for us, now they all go to Little Baby!"
With that, he pointed at Su's Mother, then at Wei Xiaolan and her son, "I hate you all!"
These words were like the last straw that broke the camel's back. Su Shanshan stared at her son in disbelief.
Su's Mother was also furious and deeply hurt.
She felt she had never treated them poorly, yet this child could say such heartless things.
It was at this moment the police officers arrived. Normally, for such a minor issue, they might just give a verbal warning.
But with National Day approaching, the square was crowded with people.
This group blocking the way and arguing had drawn a huge crowd, several layers deep.
The officers had no choice but to take them all to the police station.
"Those kids are pretty much ruined," Xu Mingjuan remarked after the crowd dispersed.
Jiang Si neither agreed nor disagreed. "The Yang family's roots started rotting from their grandfather's generation. There's simply no saving them."
Catching the implied meaning in Jiang Si's words, both Hu Meili and Xu Mingjuan looked at her curiously. "Sister Si, you know them?"
Jiang Si didn't hide it.
It was just a long story, so she summarized it in a few sentences.
After hearing it, the two women were nothing short of shocked.
They had only known before that the cuckoo bird was inherently bad—occupying another bird's nest, getting other birds to raise its young, and then the first thing the hatchlings do upon breaking their shells is to push all the other eggs out of the nest with their backs.
They never imagined there could be people in the world just like the cuckoo bird.
Aren't they simply born bad seeds?
"Bad seeds aren't the scariest thing; those are extremely rare," Hu Meili said with lingering fear. "I had thought maybe they were being fed some ideas at school."
She said this very quietly, but Jiang Si still heard it.
The square was crowded and full of prying eyes, so she didn't ask more at the time.
Later that night, after all the children were asleep, she brewed a pot of jasmine tea. As they sat under the corridor enjoying the moonlight, Jiang Si voiced the question on her mind.
Earlier, when she heard Hu Meili was bringing her two children, Weidong and Weimin, to the capital, she had found it a bit strange.
Jiang Si knew very well how seriously Teacher Hu took her children's studies.
And there was no such thing as a "National Day holiday" back then. Logically, given Teacher Hu's nature, she wouldn't have asked for such a long leave for the kids. Connecting this to what she heard in the square that evening, Jiang Si asked, "Did something happen at school?"
They rarely got together, so the sisters-in-law hadn't planned to bring up these unpleasant matters.
But since Jiang Si asked, they opened up.
"To be honest, things on the island have been quite chaotic this year," Hu Meili sighed.
This matter actually started at the beginning of the year.
Back then, the provincial military district assigned a group of teachers who had just graduated from university last year to the Fourth Division.
This was originally a good thing, but after these teachers arrived, they applied the methods from their university days directly to the primary and secondary school students.
Basically, they cancelled as many academic classes as possible, and started focusing on things like learning industrial work, agricultural work, and military training.
They also established "Little Red Teams" in every grade.
As a result, the children spent their days at school engaged in struggles against revisionism and such.
The few remaining subjects weren't taught properly by the teachers either.
Not teaching properly was one thing, but they even interfered with students who tried to study on their own.
"Before, Weidong's grades were always far ahead in his grade. He had almost finished self-studying the entire primary school curriculum."
"But when the new teachers found out, they didn't offer a single word of praise. Instead, they publicly criticized him in front of all the teachers and students, saying his thinking was problematic!"
"Old Xiao was so angry he went to the school to confront the teachers."
