The tractor chugged along, and just as it turned onto the road back to the village, Xiao Mandong suddenly thought of something and quickly patted Shunzi on the shoulder.
"Shunzi, stop for a moment."
Shunzi quickly released the accelerator and pressed down the brake. The tractor let out a sharp screech and came to a halt right in the middle of the road.
"What's the matter, Educated Youth Xiao?" Shunzi rubbed his face, which had gone numb from the blowing wind.
"Could you please detour to the police station first?" Xiao Mandong knew there was no reasoning with that family, and she really did not want to get tangled up with them any longer.
"Sure thing!" Shunzi immediately turned the tractor around and headed for the police station.
A dozen minutes later, Xiao Mandong walked out of the police station, hopped back onto the tractor, and said, "Let's head back to the village now. Thank you so much, I really appreciate the trouble you went through."
Shunzi scratched his head sheepishly. "There's no need to be so polite."
He got on the vehicle, stepped on the gas pedal, and the tractor lurched forward sharply. The cold October wind immediately rushed into their mouths, making it hard to breathe. Neither of them spoke along the way, and soon they arrived at the village entrance.
Once the tractor was stable, Xiao Mandong just hopped off when Shunzi quickly called out to her.
"Educated Youth Xiao, I have to go to the train station to pick up several new educated youths. You go on ahead by yourself, and don't act rashly. They outnumber you, so don't get hurt. My dad and I will be back very soon." With that, he stepped on the gas, steered the tractor in a different direction, and hurried off, waving his hand without looking back.
Xiao Mandong smiled and headed straight for her stone house.
"Educated Youth Xiao, you're back! Oh dear, hurry home and take a look. Those people are just like bandits, prying open your door and smashing the locks."
When the villagers saw Xiao Mandong return, they quickly came up to greet her. People who were working in the fields dropped their hoes, those who were feeding pigs set down their pig slop buckets, and even women holding their babies all followed along to watch the commotion.
As they walked, the villagers gossiped quietly among themselves.
"I never thought that family would have the nerve to come back, and they even pried open the door. That's really outrageous."
"I've never seen such a mother before. She brought her second husband along to move into her daughter's house, and she even has a son of her own. How shameless can you get?"
"Did you hear that Zheng Chao's mother also came along?"
"Tsk tsk, poor Educated Youth Xiao. If she drives them away, people will say she's being unfilial. If she doesn't, she'll have to live in such suffocating grievance."
Listening to the chattering discussions, Xiao Mandong got a general idea of what had happened. She didn't expect that Zheng Chao's mother had also come. Sometimes she even suspected that Wang Meixia must have been under some kind of spell cast by Zheng Chao.
She quickened her pace, turned past the old locust tree at the bend of the path, and saw a crowd gathered in front of her house from a distance. When she walked up to the gate, the villagers automatically made a path for her.
The lock on the main door had been pried open, the iron lock hanging crookedly on the ground, and there were clear marks of smashing on the door panels.
Inside the yard, Wang Meixia and Huang Chunxing were yelling at each other, their voices sharp and piercing.
"What right do you people have to interfere? This is my daughter's house, so it's my house too! What's wrong with me coming to live here? Mind your own business!" Wang Meixia held a baby in one arm and pointed at the surrounding villagers with the other. "You're all such busybodies. Get out of my way right now! If my little son catches a cold out in this cold weather, I'll never let any of you off the hook."
The house they had in the capital was assigned by the work unit. After Zheng Chao was fired from the factory, the house was taken back. With their bad reputation, they couldn't even rent a place anywhere. What else was she supposed to do?
On top of that, they kept running into acquaintances out on the streets in the capital. The pointing fingers and disdainful looks from others were more than she could bear. She thought Zheng Chao was right—all of this was Xiao Mandong's fault, so it was only natural that Xiao Mandong should step up and take responsibility for their troubles.
Wang Meixia was seething with anger. She never expected her own daughter to be so ruthless, reporting their whole family to the authorities and not even sparing Zheng Chao. Didn't she think about what consequences her actions would bring? Her little son was still so small, with a weak body that needed medicine every day, and now they had no source of income. How was her family supposed to survive like this?
Aunt Huang, who was standing in front of the door blocking the way, made no attempt to hide her contempt. "Pah! Your daughter? Everyone here knows you two severed your mother-daughter ties long ago. Don't put on that sanctimonious act in front of me." Huang Chunxing spat, almost spitting right on Wang Meixia's face.
"You've already remarried, and now you want to bring your new man to live in your own daughter's house. You're so shameless! Aren't you embarrassed to do your business with that man on your own daughter's kang? Educated Youth Xiao's father must have done something terribly bad in his past life to end up marrying into a family of weasels like yours, a whole bunch of shameless hussies." Huang Chunxing showed no mercy, cursing her out with every harsh word she could think of.
She knew that Xiao Mandong had to care about her reputation and couldn't speak so bluntly, so she would say all those harsh words on her behalf. Xiao Mandong was a great benefactor to her family, and she would never let Xiao Mandong get the short end of the stick.
"Not only did you bring that new man of yours, you even dragged his mother along. You're not just openly indecent, you're downright cheap too." Dazhuang's wife, who also had a sharp tongue, chimed in with cutting remarks every now and then.
Wang Meixia's face turned bright red then pale from all the scolding.
"You... don't make it sound so awful. I just want her, as the elder sister, to take care of her little sick brother. She's a doctor herself, so if we all live together, it'll be much more convenient for her to look after him."
"And the reason we came here is because Xiao Mandong was unhappy about my remarriage, so she used underhanded means to get my husband fired from his job. Now, we don't even hold that against her, we don't want to hurt our mother-daughter bond over this. We have nowhere else to stay right now, we just want to stay here for a little while to get through this hard time. I'm her own mother, isn't there the least little favor she can do for me?"
The more Wang Meixia spoke, the more aggrieved she looked. She wanted everyone to know that it was Xiao Mandong who had ruined their family's place to live, and that she, as the mother, was the magnanimous one who had forgiven her, a reasonable and understanding parent.
"Then why don't you tell everyone here exactly how I got your husband's job taken away?" Xiao Mandong, who was standing in the crowd, cut in calmly and unhurriedly.
Only then did the people who had been guarding the house inside the yard notice Xiao Mandong, and they all let out a sigh of relief.
If she had come any later, they really wouldn't have been able to hold on any longer. Those two unreasonable old women had scratched two bloody gashes on Zhao Laosi's face, and even Song Xiangjun had gotten slapped several times. As men, they couldn't bring themselves to fight with a few women, so they had suffered quite a few losses at first. It wasn't until Huang Chunxing showed up that they finally gained the upper hand.
The moment Wang Meixia saw Xiao Mandong, her eyes instantly turned red, and the finger she pointed at Xiao Mandong was trembling.
"You ungrateful little girl! How cruel you are! Did you ever stop to think about the consequences of what you did when you reported us? How is our whole family supposed to live now? Your little brother is still so young, his body is weak, and he needs to take medicine all the time."
"What kind of sin did I commit to end up with a daughter like you? Hurry up and make all these people leave. Your little brother has been out in the cold for over two hours already. If he gets sick again, it could cost him his life."
