Chapter 21: The Division of the Family

This situation was quite common in Nine Families Village. On the surface, a woman might have only one husband, but in private... In that closed environment of the time, there was no concept of preferring sons over daughters.

However, this status quo lasted only until the founding of the nation. The influx of refugees brought new life to Nine Families Village, but these newcomers also brought in some undesirable ideas from the outside, including the preference for sons over daughters.

Thus, a contradictory situation arose in Nine Families Village: most people were tolerant toward married women, but harsh toward unmarried women and widows.

Moreover, this attitude was reserved only for their own people.

Take, for example, the residence for educated youth where Xu Bin and his companions stayed. Nine Families Village was poor, and the youth point they prepared was shabby—a house not even twenty square meters, housing all five of them. They had no choice but to sleep together, at most hanging a curtain in the middle of the communal bed for separation.

The villagers never uttered a word about this arrangement.

It was from this day that Gu Zhuo began to "learn" Mandarin with Dong Zhen and her two friends. At first, the villagers were curious and came to watch, but soon lost interest.

Once her health was fully restored, Gu Zhuo summoned the old village chief, Captain Gu, and her parents from her natal family.

In truth, for the past few days, even though they hadn’t formally separated, it was as if they had. At Gu Zhuo’s signal, Xie Ning cooked only for three people, treating Xie Chong as if he didn’t exist. Chen Xinwan was furious but dared not make a scene, fearing Gu Zhuo would immediately throw them out, so she secretly cooked for Xie Chong herself. She was never skilled in cooking, and in these days, wasted no small amount of grain. Gu Zhuo made no comment—not because she had no opinion, but because she never intended to endure it any longer.

Only after separating households could she start arranging things.

Here, the production team was divided into small groups. Nine Families Village was large, with six subteams: Team Nine, Team Ten, Team Eleven, Team Twelve, Team Thirteen, and Team Fourteen. Gu Zhuo’s natal family belonged to Team Eleven, Xie’s family to Team Nine. But the captains of Teams Nine, Ten, and Eleven were all Captain Gu Yaosheng. He was the only one who managed three teams, while the other three teams each had their own captain, which spoke volumes about his prestige.

Sharing the surname Gu, Gu Yaosheng and Gu Zhuo were related by blood; he was Gu Zhuo’s grandfather’s cousin. The two families weren’t especially close, but Gu Zhuo and Captain Gu had a good relationship—after all, she had been specially promoted to the team’s scorekeeper at the age of thirteen.

And the old village chief was none other than Captain Gu’s father.

In fact, the village chief of Nine Families Village had always been a member of the Gu family, said to be because their ancestors led the way during the original migration.

Just seeing the two men, Chen Xinwan felt the world spinning.

Would the Gu family not help Gu Qixiu against them?

Wasn’t this depriving her and her son of any way to survive?

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Xie Chong’s expression was grim as he turned to Gu Zhuo. “Elder sister-in-law, do you really have to be so heartless?”

Gu Zhuo raised her eyes to him. “It was your elder brother who divided the family.” The implication: whoever separates the family is the heartless one.

Xie Chong felt stifled—his elder brother was dead, could he blame the dead?

In his heart, he had always considered his elder brother heartless.

The old village chief remained silent, while Captain Gu cleared his throat and spoke. “When Linzi was alive, the family had already been divided. Back then, neither Linzi nor Qixiu claimed the old house or its contents, so there’s no dispute there. What remains to be settled is the household’s grain, the chickens in the courtyard, and the family’s private land.”

“What do you think, Qixiu?” He looked at Gu Zhuo.

Gu Zhuo had already made her plans. “I don’t want the original private land; it all goes to Mother and Xie Chong. But the three chickens in the household were raised by me; Xie Chong already ate one last time, so the remaining two won’t go to them. As for the grain, aside from the fine grain that Xie Lin sent home for Yinyin, the rest will be split equally between the two families.”

“That’s more than fair,” the old village chief said.

The Xie family’s original private land was about half an acre, and it was all planted with grain. The current three-tenths of an acre in the courtyard was planted with vegetables.

—In the countryside, vegetables were the least valuable.

Gu Zhuo only took two chickens, which she herself raised. They couldn’t compare to half an acre of grain.

The words Xie Chong was about to say were swallowed by the old village chief’s remark. He hesitated, then said, “I have no objection to the division plan, but the old house has been empty for three years. The roof leaks, the door is broken, and it’s become a nest for mice and spiders. The tables, chairs, and benches inside may not even be usable. We can’t move right away—could you let us stay here for a while, so we have time to repair the house and get things ready?”

He knew moving couldn’t be avoided, but he could retreat to advance. The old house was in such disrepair that it couldn’t be fixed in less than a year or two. Mother wasn’t capable of managing things; dragging it out for two or three years, the move would naturally be forgotten.

Xie Chong looked troubled, but his scheme was plain to everyone present.

“I disagree,” Gu Zhuo replied calmly but firmly. “If you have nowhere to stay, you can live in the production team’s grain warehouse, and keep an eye on the grain so it isn’t stolen. The weather is hot now; you can simply lay a mat on the ground to sleep, it won’t be any trouble. When the cold comes, the old house will likely be ready and you can move in then.”

Her words surprised everyone present.

---

The old village chief and Captain Gu exchanged a glance—it was clear that Qixiu was determined to drive out her mother-in-law and Xie Chong.

Given the precedent of Yinyin nearly being killed by Xie Chong, they felt she was not being unreasonable.

A lazy mother-in-law, and a similarly idle uncle who almost killed her own daughter—who would be willing to keep them around?

“But… but we have no money to fix the house,” Chen Xinwan stammered.

No money?

Gu Zhuo raised an eyebrow. “Xie Lin joined the army at nineteen. Except for the first two years, he sent five yuan a month to you, Mother, starting in the third year. In the fifth year, it became eight yuan, and in the seventh year, ten yuan. This continued up to last month. Are you telling me you have no money?”

Everyone did the math and gasped. Even at five yuan a month, over all those years, it added up to more than four hundred yuan.

That was a fortune in the countryside.

Take the house the Xie family currently lived in—building it had cost seven or eight hundred yuan, and that was with blue bricks and black tiles. If it had been a mud-brick house, three hundred would have sufficed.

Most houses in Nine Families Village were mud-brick.

Yet, unexpectedly, Chen Xinwan grew nervous. “Don’t I need to spend money? Look at my clothes, my snow cream, those pastries, candies, and canned goods—none of them are free.”

What?

Gu Zhuo’s eyes widened. “Without ration coupons, how did you spend the money?” Xie Lin sent ration coupons every month, but as far as she knew, he sent them only to her, not to Chen Xinwan.