novelraw Chapter 277 Stingy
Chapter 277 Stingy
Chapter 277 Stingy
Li Shunzi felt his face swell; he hadn't expected Gu Lianshan to be so ruthless.
"It's getting late, and the roads are difficult to travel in this heavy snow, so I won't keep you any longer. We can talk again when we have some free time."
Gu Lianshan had been holding back his anger, and it was already a great favor that he hadn't turned on him and started cursing on the spot. At this moment, he just wanted to see his guest out.
When Li Shunzi heard these words, it meant that he looked down on him and that Li Shunzi had torn off his face and trampled on him!
He stood up stiffly, his face unconsciously darkening.
Gu Lianshan ignored him and got up to return to the west room.
The host family has already left; staying here would be shameless.
Li Shunzi's face was so dark it could drip water, and he lifted his foot to walk outside.
After everyone left the house, Gu Tang suddenly said, "I'll see them off; I still need to close the courtyard gate later."
Third Uncle waved to her, indicating that she should just go.
Lifting the curtain, Gu Tang hurriedly followed.
Li Shunzi walked extremely fast, clearly very angry. In order to catch up with him, Gu Tang started running.
When the courtyard gate was pulled open, they finally caught up with the person.
"Uncle, don't be angry. You know my dad has this temper. If you argue with him, you'll never have an end to your anger."
Hearing Gu Tang's words, Li Shunzi stopped in her tracks. "Your father used to seem alright, but ever since he was adopted, he's like a completely different person!"
Not only have they completely forgotten about your grandparents, but they've even turned against your older brother who's studying for the imperial examinations!
Gu Tang secretly rolled her eyes. "You're getting cocky just because I said you're fat?"
"Uncle, let's put my father's matter aside for now. I want to ask you something else..."
At this point, her voice suddenly dropped: "You just said... you could take me to find my mother, was that true?"
Li Shunzi paused, a thought flashing through her mind. Her eyes flickered as she shifted to the side. "If you want to go, I'll have to talk to your mother beforehand. Your mother was heartbroken by you. Although she misses you terribly, she's still angry with you. She wants to see you, but she also doesn't want to see you..."
Gu Tang nodded obediently: "I understand. Then I'll trouble you to ask for me when you have time."
"When I go to pick up the bride tomorrow, I'll find an opportunity to go to Beian City and ask around for you."
"Oh! Well then, thank you in advance, Uncle! By the way, where does my mother live now? Is she doing well?"
Gu Tang's words were misunderstood by Li Shunzi again. He thought that Gu Tang was worried about Zhang Shi, and he was secretly delighted.
He said, "Your mother now lives in Mao'er Hutong on the west side of Bei'an City. The old lady from the Lin family died of illness, and the Lin family village has been trying to seize your mother's house."
Your mother was driven to desperation, so she took your eldest brother and sister and fled to Bei'an City, planning to return to the village after your eldest brother became a scholar.
A high-ranking scholar?
Another person trying to turn their life around through the imperial examination.
Gu Tang laughed: "The Lin family has produced a scholar before, so producing another one is no problem."
"That makes sense, it's just that the mother and her two children are living a very hard life!"
Li Shunzi sighed repeatedly, outwardly appearing distressed, but secretly glancing at Gu Tang to see her reaction.
"Your mother has had a hard time, and I'm sure you feel sorry for her..."
distressed?
Gu Tang blinked. Yes, she felt sorry for Zhang Shi, worried that she was still alive!
"Uncle knows you are capable and can earn money. Now is the time when your mother needs money. Give me the money you have saved, and I will give it to your mother after I take it."
Gu Tang fell silent for a moment. Did this person think she was stupid?
Can you really get someone to spend money just by saying a few nice words?
“Uncle, didn’t my mother tell you the truth? All the money I saved was stolen by my mother and aunt! I can’t go up the mountain in winter, so I’ve long since lost my source of income. Now I’m spending all the money my grandfather saved.”
"It doesn't matter if you don't have money, you can send food and clothes. Take all the decent clothes in your house, as well as the grain, oil and salt in your house, and the chickens and ducks you raise in the backyard and send them to your mother."
Gu Tang: ... She seriously suspected that what Li Shunzi said was not what Zhang wanted, but what he himself wanted!
Is this an attempt to exploit the situation and make a quick buck?
Gu Tang calmly refused again: "Uncle, the chickens and ducks at home are all counted, I dare not take them. Clothes are out of the question too, I don't have more than two new clothes, and they were both shown to my father, I can't just give them away!"
She knew exactly where Zhang lived, so Li Shunzi was no longer useful and was trying to get something out of her.
Pshaw! Not even in your wildest dreams!
I said so much, but that brat didn't agree to a single one of them!
Li Shunzi was so angry her liver hurt!
Ignoring all that, Gu Tang directly abandoned his accomplice: "Look at me, I was so focused on talking to you that I didn't even notice it's getting dark. Uncle, I won't see you off, take care."
Before she could finish speaking, Gu Tang slammed the courtyard gate shut with a loud bang.
Li Shunzi's face darkened instantly, and he almost burst into a tirade!
After a while, he finally calmed down and walked unsteadily towards the end of the village.
The Gu family at the end of the village was unusually lively at this time. A dozen or so women and men were eating around the stove under the eaves. The pot on the stove was bubbling and steaming, and it contained pickled vegetables and stewed pork.
It was supposed to be a stew of pickled vegetables and pork, but in reality, there were only five or six slices of pork in the pot; the rest was all pickled vegetables that were fishy, bitter, and extremely salty.
These pickled vegetables were stewed in water for a long time, and they became so soft and mushy that they tasted like rotten persimmons, making them even harder to swallow.
As for the five or six slices of pork, they were snatched away by quick hands as soon as they were cooked.
There were ten people in total, including women and men. Only half of them got to taste the meat. The others could only satisfy their cravings by boiling pickled vegetables, which at least had been cooked with the meat for a while.
When Li Shunzi came over, everyone was startled. Another person trying to steal their food had arrived!
The Gu family is so stingy. Each of the ten of them only gets one coarse grain pancake, and there's only one pot of stewed pickled vegetables, which they have to share.
With so little food, it's not even enough to fill you up halfway.
Li Shunzi's arrival at this moment indicates he hasn't eaten yet; without a doubt, he's here to take some of the food from their bowls.
Sure enough, upon hearing the commotion, Old Master Gu came out from the east wing and exchanged a few polite words with Li Shunzi.
"Shunzi! Have you eaten yet? If not, hurry up and go to the kitchen to get your own bowl and chopsticks. There's pickled vegetables and stewed pork on the stove! It smells amazing!"
Those who heard this secretly rolled their eyes!
Everyone turned their attention to Li Shunzi, and their chopsticks scooped up the food faster than the last.
Li Shunzi was completely unaware, thinking that the pickled vegetable stewed pork was actually a pot of stewed pork, and his mouth immediately watered.
He smiled and replied, "Okay! I'll get the bowls and chopsticks right away!"
I squeezed through the crowd to the kitchen, grabbed a set of bowls and chopsticks, and then squeezed out again.
He wanted to squeeze his way to the stove to eat, expecting it would be difficult, but to his surprise, the women and men gathered around immediately made way for him. Li Shunzi, puzzled, asked, "Are you all full?"
"I'm full, I'm full..." Everyone's faces were blank, and they were all regretting it in their hearts.
During the day, they shouldn't have agreed to help out at the Gu family's house just to get a few free meals.
The women were there to help prepare the food for tomorrow's banquet, while the men were there to fetch the bride.
The journey is long, and it's snowing here. Tomorrow there will be the betrothal ceremony, the welcoming of the new bride, and finally, the betrothal gifts and the bride's dowry will be brought back. These people, plus Li Shunzi, will be just enough.
Before they came, they knew that the Gu family elders were not generous and were rather stingy. They thought that since this was a marriage for a young master, they couldn't be as stingy as before.
Unexpectedly, the Gu family was as stingy as ever!
Li Shunzi blew away the steam rising from the pot, and with a smile on his face, he was about to reach for the meat with his chopsticks when he discovered that there were only a few pieces of pickled vegetables left in the pot that hadn't been cooked through!
The smile froze on her face; she held out her chopsticks halfway, unsure whether to stop or not.
He stared blankly at the few pickled vegetables in the pot, completely bewildered.
Where's the meat?!
Just now, Master Gu said that it was pickled vegetables stewed with pork, but right now he has neither seen pork nor much pickled vegetables.
Did these people in front of us eat it all?
Li Shunzi was very dissatisfied and glared at them.
Before he could even question her, one of the women stepped forward and whispered, "We didn't eat much! There were only five slices of meat in this pot! The rest was all pickled vegetables. Even with that, we weren't full. There were about ten of us, and each of us had a palm-sized flatbread with this pot of pickled vegetables, and we weren't even half full..."
Li Shunzi: "...Since you're all not getting enough to eat, why don't you talk to Old Master Gu about it?"
“I told them, but it was no use. They just acted as if they hadn’t heard me and continued doing what they always did.”
Li Shunzi: ...? ? ?
The woman continued, "We were just discussing what dishes to serve at tomorrow's banquet since the Gu family has nothing to offer. Guess what they said?"
"……How to say?"
"People say that whatever dishes are available tomorrow, we'll serve them. It's snowing heavily outside, so we won't invite relatives from other villages; we'll just invite our own relatives and friends."
Everyone in the village knows his family is struggling, that supporting two scholars makes life much harder, and they can't compare to outsiders… In short, they're shameless!
Another woman spat on the ground: "If I had known it would turn out like this, I would never have come today! I'm not home tomorrow! If you care about saving face, you can come yourselves, I'm not coming!"
After saying this, the woman picked up a straw hat hanging on the wall, put it on, and went home without looking back.
The crowd had various expressions, but none of them spoke up to stop her, letting the woman leave.
Li Shunzi was already seething with anger, and now seeing how Old Master Gu and Gu Liansheng were behaving, he threw down his chopsticks and urged everyone to go home first.
"Go back, and we'll see what they have to say tomorrow."
With a leader in place, the group quickly dispersed.
Li Shunzi also went home, hungry.
Master Gu and Gu Liansheng, who were in the east wing, were unaware that all the people they had invited to help had run away.
The father and son locked the door, and a large plate of braised meat was placed on the table inside.
These were bought from Beian City before, and now these are all that's left.
Gu Liansheng had been craving food lately, so he asked his father to cut it all up. Then they brought it all to their room, along with a jar of wine. The father and son locked the door and sat down to drink together.
Perhaps because they were happy, the father and son finished the entire jar of wine.
Neither the father nor the son could hold their liquor; after finishing a jar of wine, they both passed out drunk on the bed.
Fortunately, Gu Liansheng's bed was spacious enough for both father and son to sleep.
The Feng family went hungry all night.
No matter how much she shouted, the father and son in the east wing remained motionless, like dead pigs, neither of them waking up.
……
The father and son, Gu Lianshan and Gu Ping'an, who are obsessed with incense making, woke Gu Tang up early in the morning again and asked her to continue teaching them how to make incense.
Gu Tang, worn down by their nagging, had no choice but to continue teaching them while still yawning.
After teaching for about an hour, Gu Tang let them practice on their own while she went back to her room to clean up the ashes in the stove.
The stove hadn't been cleaned for several days, so when she got up in the morning, she deliberately turned it off and waited for the temperature inside to drop before cleaning it.
There was a small broom at home specifically for cleaning stove ash. Gu Tang put on an apron, then took out homemade sleeves and put them on her arms before starting to clean the stove ash.
All the swept-out ashes were placed in a basket, and after the furnace was cleaned, the ashes were taken outside to be dumped.
The snow was much lighter today, so there was no need to wear a straw hat. Gu Tang carried a basket and went straight out of the courtyard.
Presumably because the snow was light, many households opened their doors, and everyone was emptying ashes from their stoves outside. A few households were even clearing a narrow path through their own fenced yards.
After emptying the ashes from the stove, Gu Tang did not go back. She was dressed warmly and wore a rabbit fur hat. She stood at the gate of the courtyard, watching her neighbors busy themselves with great interest, and noticed that several families were clearing snow from their roofs.
She glanced back at her roof, which her father had cleaned that morning.
"Tang girl."
A familiar woman's voice came from the east.
Gu Tang turned his head and saw that it was Yang, the clan leader's wife.
She hurried to greet her: "Grandma, where are you going on such a cold day?"
Yang pointed to the end of the village: "Your grandparents in front of you had an accident. Your uncles and aunts have all gone there. I was worried, so I went to check on them."
"Something happened?" Gu Tang asked in astonishment. "What happened? Didn't my uncle say he was going to pick up his new bride today? How could something like this happen?"
"I don't know anything about this either. This morning, a member of the clan came to say that something had happened to the Gu family at the end of the village. Your great-uncle didn't ask any questions, and hurriedly led people to the end of the village..."
"Since that's the case, I won't keep you for tea. I'll invite you to have a few more cups of tea when you come back from the other end of the village."
"Alright, alright! When I get back from the other end of the village, I'll definitely come find you for tea!"
Yang laughed and continued walking towards the end of the village.
Gu Tang stared at her back for a while, then returned to the courtyard and went to the main room to tell the old man and his third uncle what Yang had said.
Upon hearing this, Gu Lianshan didn't take it to heart at all: "What could possibly happen to a family full of old, weak, sick, and disabled people?"
“The clan chief and the others have gone. Logically speaking, we are truly related to them. If we didn’t know, it would be fine. But now that we know, if we don’t go and show our faces, won’t people gossip?”
Gu Tang wanted to join in the fun. She was too bored at home and it was rare to have something interesting to watch, so she wanted to go and see.
Gu Lianshan shook his head: "Dad's busy, he doesn't have time. Let whoever wants to talk, talk!"