novelraw Chapter 197 Now He Looks Like a Human Being
Chapter 197 Now He Looks Like a Human Being
Chapter 197 Now He Looks Like a Human Being
Inside a half-collapsed mud-brick house, a thin young man lay on a tattered and dirty straw mat.
The man's eyes were closed, and he was unconscious. His clothes were tattered, and his hair was unkempt, making it impossible to see his face.
However, upon closer inspection, one can still vaguely discern a certain handsomeness.
He was surrounded by a circle of little beggars, the same little beggars who had just rejected Gu Tang.
To wake him up, the little beggars chattered "Boss" in the man's ear while constantly rubbing his hair.
His already disheveled hair was quickly ruffled into a messy, tangled mess, but the man still didn't wake up.
"What do we do? We can't wake the boss up?"
Several beggar children, around seven or eight years old, looked anxious and were completely at a loss.
The oldest beggar gestured for everyone to be quiet: "This can't be rushed. We need the boss's approval first. Since we can't wake him up, let's go to sleep. Maybe he'll wake up in the middle of the night."
"Right, right! The boss likes to make moves in the middle of the night! We'll call for reinforcements then."
"I can't get up in the middle of the night!"
"If you can't get up, then don't sleep. Sit next to the boss and keep watch!"
……
Several young beggars were making a lot of noise, each chiming in with their own words.
Several older men stepped forward and separated them, each leading a group to gather hay. They then spread half of it on the ground and covered themselves with the other half, and soon they all fell asleep.
The man on the tattered mat remained oblivious; if one listened to his breathing, he appeared to be breathing steadily, as if he were asleep.
That's not actually the case.
These little beggars had been with the man for two or three months, and they all knew that their leader wasn't sleeping, but was unconscious, caused by injuries to his body.
The oldest beggar took half a fried dough stick from his pocket and placed it aside. He then covered it with a basket and weighed it down with adobe bricks to prevent rats or wild cats from knocking the basket over and stealing the fried dough stick inside.
……
Back in Shanghe Village, Third Uncle had already received the message that Yao Mi had sent back through someone. At this moment, he was trying to calm down Gu Lianshan, who had a dark expression on his face.
"Tang girl has always been very opinionated. Once she makes up her mind, even you, as her father, can't stop her, let alone those two father and sons over there?"
"This girl must have wanted to go to the city from the beginning. Knowing that you wouldn't let her go alone, she took this opportunity to play those two father and son for a fool."
Hearing this, Gu Ping'an, who was outside the door, secretly peeked into the house, only to be met with his father's dark face. He was so frightened that he immediately shrank back and quickly left quietly.
He sighed when he returned to the west wing, feeling that his second sister was unlucky.
His father had said he wouldn't be back for another two days, but he came back today.
And as soon as he returned, he ran into the messenger knocking on the door. You can imagine how angry his father must have been.
His father will be going to the city early tomorrow morning. Gu Lianshan, who had scared his son away, was in a better mood, and his expression softened considerably.
Third Uncle also breathed a sigh of relief, skipped over Gu Tang, and started talking about Feng's return, wanting him to go and take a look.
"You were the one who sent him away. Now that he's back, you should at least go and see him, so that no one can say anything bad about him."
“Okay, I’ll go take a look tomorrow. I remember Tang’er bought a lot of pastries last time. I’ll take a bag and let everyone in the village see them. Even though we’ve been adopted, we’re not estranged. We can treat each other like relatives, and no one can make up any stories about it.”
"That's exactly the point. Putting everything else aside, just considering the future marriage prospects of our daughters and sons, we can't be careless about our reputation."
Gu Lianshan nodded in agreement.
The next morning, Gu Ping'an woke up to find that his guess was wrong. His father did not go to see his second sister. Instead, he carried a bag of pastries and said he was going to visit the Gu family.
Carrying the pastries, Gu Lianshan walked like a peacock spreading its tail feathers. No matter who he met on the way, he would deliberately stop to talk and steer the conversation to the pastries.
He said he knew his second aunt (Feng) had returned, and this was to buy food for her, and also to visit her.
These words drew praise all the way, and everyone felt that Gu Lianshan was a man of integrity, loyalty, and filial piety.
Grandpa Gu and Madam Feng will definitely regret it in the future; their eldest son is truly inferior to their second son.
Gu Lianshan was in a great mood after receiving the praise. He hummed a little tune and soon arrived at the gate of the Gu family compound.
It was already late morning, and for some reason, all the rooms and doors in the Gu family courtyard were closed, and even the chimney in the kitchen was not smoking.
It was breakfast time, and half the kitchens in the village were steaming. When he arrived, his son was busy in the kitchen, but the Gu family's place was eerily quiet.
He called out twice into the courtyard, and Gu Lian and Gu Tianbao, the siblings, appeared.
Gu Lian was about to open the door, but Gu Tianbao didn't let her go. He ran over himself to open the door for Gu Lianshan.
Seeing this scene, Gu Lianshan suddenly felt a sense of relief. When the courtyard gate opened, he saw Gu Tianbao obediently calling him Second Uncle and handed him the pastries.
“Take it back and share it with your second sister. Now you finally look like a decent person! Your second uncle isn’t one to condemn everyone outright. Your father is your father, your mother is your mother, and you are yourself. As long as you are a good person and act and speak with dignity, your second uncle will still acknowledge you as his nephew.”
Upon hearing this, Gu Tianbao suddenly felt a lump in his throat for some reason.
These days, he has experienced the bitterness and hardship at home. His father and grandfather, who said they loved and cared for him, have all changed their tune.
Both their actions and their methods chilled him to the bone, and made him realize that he was no different from his two older sisters—both of them could be abandoned at any time.
Just as he figured it out, he suddenly remembered his mother, who had been missing for a long time.
In this family, only my mother and second sister are truly kind to me.
His mother and second sister never forced him to study, nor did they ever scold him for being stupid. They both told him that if he wanted to study, he could study, and if he didn't want to study, they wouldn't look down on him or make him suffer.
Whenever Gu Tianbao thought about these things, he wanted to slap himself in the face. Why didn't he think of asking someone to look for his mother back then?
These days, he has tried to ask someone to look for his mother again, both openly and secretly. But whenever he mentions it, the old man lectures him, saying that since he has spent so much of the family's money, he must make something of himself in the future, otherwise he will have no face to face his ancestors after he dies.
He also said that the family had no money, as all the money had been spent on him, and there was no money left for anything else, let alone to pay someone to look for his mother.
His father couldn't even mention this matter, as it would make him extremely irritable. He would point at his own nose and curse, saying that his mother had died long ago and that he was definitely not his child, because his child couldn't possibly be a piece of rotten wood!
I'm a good-for-nothing myself; I didn't dare utter a single word when I was lectured and scolded like this.