Among the onlookers, the women hurriedly ran away and those with children hurriedly pulled the children away. Soon a path was opened by the crowd. The first of two young men, the same age as Wang Shijing, looked at Shao Yunan with the firewood axe, while the other pulled Wang Shijing aside and whispered anxiously. “Brother Shijing, you have to be tough when it comes to asking to withdraw from the marriage and not paying for it. You’ve already married this man and they don’t seem to care how much trouble they make. The aunts and uncles have been completely wronged in their hearts and the old aunt wants you to divorce your wife. I’m afraid the patriarch won’t make the decision for you. You have to make it yourself. Don’t let them hold you again.”

Wang Shijing looked at Shao Yunan with an impatient expression and said faintly, “I know what’s in my heart.” The man also looked at Shao Yunan and hesitated. “So, what do you want?” Wang Shijing said, “If he wants to stay, I want it.”

Wang Shijing wanted to say something else, but someone inside was already shouting. “Wang Shijing! Your mother is going to be pissed off. Are you a turtle? Why don’t you hurry up and come in!”

Some of the villagers were watching the fun, while others were shaking their heads and sighing for Wang Shijing. While others were unconcerned, some of them were mocking them. Shao Yunan did not wait for Wang Shijing and went over first. The firewood axe in his hand made the crowd around him wary and backed off. Wang Shijing patted the young man and followed him in stride.

As soon as Shao Yunan entered the yard, before he could see the man clearly, someone pointed at his nose and scolded. “You are a lost star! You harmed our old Wang’s house before entering the door and we won’t live in peace after you married into our family. We can’t afford a daughter-in-law like you, so get out of here!”

Immediately, another shrew’s voice interjected. “Old Wang, you old bastard. You still have no shame. Who begged my Yunan to come to marry in the first place! Now that your son has gotten a scholarship, you don’t want my Yunan. Yunan, my son, your life is so hard. Blame this mother for being blind and believing that they are a generous family!”

The old woman sat down on the ground and started another round of crying: ”At first, she begged to marry you, but when her son got admitted to the examination, she broke up the marriage. When she said that you would marry the head of the family, mother agreed to let you marry the widower. But he turns out to be a poor man who has split up from the family. Let’s everyone see how the Wang family bully and deceive people! Look at how the Wang family abandoned the wife and cheated people out of their marriage!”

“Our Wang family is also wronged!” Wang Shijing’s mother, old lady Wang was not willing to be left behind, so she also sat down on the ground and started to howl. “My son withdrew from the marriage because the Shao family cheated the eight characters. This family separation was proposed by the oldest, so as the mother, how could I not agree?!”

“Yuck! Is that why your Wang family poured dirty water on my family for the sake of withdrawing the marriage! My son’s fortune has never changed! Your splitting up the family is simply to make my son suffer with your eldest! Old man Wang, if you don’t compensate my Shao family for the loss today, I Shao Jiacun will never stop!”

Shao Yunan’s eldest brother and the villagers of Shaojia Village who accompanied him, immediately rolled up their sleeves and prepared for war. But in fact, even the wronged old lady Wang, who was actually the one who was in the wrong, relied on the fact she was on her own territory and accused the Shaos of stealing and changing the eight characters.

“One hundred taels! Or we’ll let everyone outside know that the Wang family’s son, Wang Zhisong dislikes the poor and loves the rich and abandoned the marriage!” This was said by Shao Yunan’s brother, Shao Dahu.

“One hundred taels! Even if your death star was sold to a big family as a male concubine, he would not be worth that much money!” As soon as she heard the demand for money, Old lady Wang jumped up from the ground. Old madam Wang family was a relatively wealthy farmers that could earn 20 or 30 taels of income a year without spending money on food or drink, so you couldn’t blame her for jumping up.

Wang Tianyan, the second eldest son of the Wang family, shouted at the other side. “Big Brother! What are you waiting for?! Your father-in-law’s family is going to kill our parents!”

Wang Shijing’s father, Wang Dali, squatted in the corner, oblivious to the chaos, while both groups argued. Wang Zhisong, the third son of the Wang family, left home three days ago on the grounds of meeting friends and didn’t even show up for his eldest brother’s marriage.

The Wang clan was a large family in Xiushui Village, but Xiushui Village was, frankly speaking, a medium village with mixed surnames. The big clan surnames were Wang, Zhao, and Sun, as well as some other scattered households with different surnames. But the Shao family’s surname was from a large village, which had a history that was a hundred years longer than Xiushui Village. Old lady Shao’s family in the village could also be considered an upper middle class family. If it were not for Wang Zhisong’s success in studying, Wang’s family in Xiushui Village would not be considered a big family. In addition, old lady Wang had given the Shao family a lot of money for this marriage.

Speaking of the whole thing, the Wang family was in the wrong, so Shao’s patriarch had personally come from the Shao family village. If not for the clan’s face and the fact that the people of the village could not be allowed to suffer losses outside the village, Xiushui Village really wouldn’t care about the Wang family. Wang Wenhe, the patriarch of the Wang family, also could not allow his people to be bullied. So even though he knew it was a wrong done by old lady Wang’s family, he could not let Shao’s village make trouble here. Although Zhao Lizheng and Zhao Zheng were the heads of the Zhao family, at this time, the village naturally had to show a united front. Just when Zhao Zheng didn’t know how to solve the matter, a loud noise suddenly stopped the courtyard full of cursing.

Picking up a corner of the table from the ground, Shao Yunan apologetically said towards the startled Zhao Lizheng: “Sorry, uncle Zhao Lizheng. I wanted to see if the blade was sharp or not. I didn’t expect it to be so sharp. I’ll pay for the table tomorrow.”

Zhao Lizheng first looked at the firewood axe in Shao Yunan’s hands and then looked at the corner of the table, before swallowing his saliva. “No, this table was already old.”

“Yunan.” Old lady Shao got up from the ground and wiped her face, that was without a single tear, to lean towards her son, but Shao Yunan raised his hand to stop her. “Don’t move. We’ll talk about what’s going on later, but first let’s get things straight.”

“Yunan! How can you talk back to your mother!?” Shao Dahu’s face immediately sank and old lady Shao’s expression also darkened.

Edited by: Jaisland

Proofreader: 

Support translation: