Transmigration: A Farm Girl's Brocade-Chapter 41 - Big Uncle_1
Chapter 41: Chapter 41 Big Uncle_1
Chapter 41: Chapter 41 Big Uncle_1
Following the voice, three opulently dressed young men approached. The speaker was a very tall youth with a slender and graceful stature and a handsome, three-dimensional face. If it weren’t for his voice changing, Qian Yixiu would have thought he was a young man of seventeen or eighteen. His appearance was fine indeed, except that it seemed overly hurried, the opposite of her delayed development.
The other two youths looked about thirteen or fourteen years old and were each half a head shorter than the tall one. One of them was Zhang Yang, the only son of Zhang Zhongkun, thin and refined—Qian Yixiu had seen this youth before. The other youth bore a slight resemblance to the tall talker, with a handsome and spirited countenance, and an excellent temperament.
The group came to Qian Yixiu’s side, bowed to the old lady, then turned their faces to look at her.
Especially the tall one, who glanced disdainfully at Qian Yixiu with drooping eyelids. Because he was quite tall, probably close to 1.8 meters, Qian Yixiu had to tilt her head back to see his face.
Although the boy was tall, handsome and dashing, his words were irritating, and his expression was even more exasperating.
Qian Yixiu’s face flushed with anger; this annoying brat was truly loathsome. She retorted without restraint, “Big Uncle, do you think ten taels of silver is a lot? Do you believe that reducing three years’ worth of taxes can make life better? Not to mention that my family hasn’t received such generous treatment, even those who have can’t replace a strong laborer who may have been the main support of their family. How long do you think ten taels of silver can feed a family of the old and weak?”
The other two youths couldn’t help laughing when they heard the little girl call Liang Jinzhao ‘Big Uncle’.
Song Huaijin asked with a smile, “You call him Big Uncle, so what do you call us two?”
“I’ll call you Big Brother,” Qian Yixiu crisply replied.
As soon as Qian Yixiu finished speaking, the two youths burst into laughter, stamping their feet.
Liang Jinzhao hadn’t expected the little girl to have such a sharp tongue, and even calling him Big Uncle; he was only thirteen years old, the youngest of the three young men. Because of his mature appearance, he often became the butt of jokes among his peers, and now a little girl had brazenly slapped him in the face, causing his face to turn red with anger.
Moreover, he wasn’t without sympathy for the families of the fallen soldiers; he just thought this clever little girl was overdoing it, certain that she was deceiving others for sympathy.
Liang Jinzhao, with his excellent vision, had spotted the little girl singing and selling flowers all the way from the fourth floor of the Moon-viewing Pavilion. He saw her mournful and teary when there were people around, but as soon as the flower buyers left, she would cheerfully count the money in her hands. What was more intolerable was that she even bit on a Money Ingot. The woman standing at a distance, who was obviously part of their group, didn’t walk along with them—what was this if not a ploy for sympathy?
Liang Jinzhao scolded, “Hmph, young in age but too scheming for your own good. The old lady and Mrs. Zhang are charitable people who believed your nonsense, but I don’t. How could it be possible that your father died in battle and the Imperial Court didn’t issue a pension?” He picked a flower from the large basket Qian Manxia was carrying and said, “This is Xia Grass, yet you insist on calling it Gypsophila, claiming that we are lying to get money. And that woman behind you too, she’s with you but pretends as if she doesn’t recognize you.”
Qian Manxia, who was originally very afraid of these wealthy young masters, gestured with her eyes to her niece to not offend them. But now, these accusations that her niece was lying and scamming them made her lose her fear, and she spoke angrily, “Yixiu is not lying, my brother died in a big battle. Since they couldn’t find the body, they declared him missing, so there was no person and no silver.” She couldn’t finish her words before tears streamed down her face, and she pointed to the Gypsophila saying, “Yixiu hasn’t lied; she has always told people that this is Xia Grass, which we have a lot of in our mountains, and its another name is Gypsophila. My mother has been following us from behind because she’s afraid something might happen to us, and we never said we didn’t know her…”
Qian Yixiu saw the brat had made her little aunt cry, and she got so angry that her little heart pounded furiously, and she burst into tears.
She didn’t wail loudly like other little girls, nor did she silently shed tears like her little aunt, but was much like her own mother, the White Lotus. Big tears welled up in her large almond eyes, swaying unsteadily within their sockets. She didn’t cry out loud, but sniffled with her little red nose and started sobbing. Pulling at Qian Manxia’s clothes, pleading and weeping, she said, “Little aunt, I want daddy… The uncle who returned from the war said daddy was brave in battle, and even became a Lieutenant, so why hasn’t he come back? You all say he was killed in action, but big brother’s daddy got money even though he died in the war, why don’t we have any money? Without daddy, there’s no one at home to do the heavy work, and we’re often bullied. Grandpa is seriously ill, bedridden most of the time, and we still need to buy medicine to treat him… Our family only has two acres of sloping land, and grandma works hard every day but doesn’t earn much. Yixiu has grown up and never known what it feels like to have a full stomach…”
At this point, tears slowly rolled down her cheeks.
Then she turned to the great-grandma and said, “Great-grandma, I’m not lying. Last month, my mother and I were bullied and fell down the slope, my mother’s head was injured, her arm was broken, and she bled a lot, and I also nearly died. To pay for the treatment, we borrowed one guan and six hundred wen. Old Master Zhang knows about it; he even waived our consultation fee. Recently, we sold all of the wheat we harvested without keeping a single pound, and after paying the tax, we had only two guan money left. We have to live, pay debts, and even give respect money to my great-grandma, which isn’t enough at all. Wuu wuu wuu… I’m hungry, I want to eat… Thinking these flowers looked nice, I ran up the mountain every day to gather them, hoping maybe I could sell some to pay off debts and buy some food. But this big uncle accused us of swindling money… Wuu wuu wuu… I didn’t deceive anyone, I want my daddy… Daddy, where are you…”
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Qian Yixiu first wept quietly, but as she spoke, she became more distressed and couldn’t help crying. She was holding back as much as she could, trying to keep her sobbing quiet. This was not an act; she was truly heartbroken.
Such a young age, tremendous restraint, and a tragic fate.
Not to mention the great-grandma and Lady Song who started wiping their tears with handkerchiefs, the maids and old women nearby also had red-rimmed eyes. Qian Manxia broke down in loud sobs, and even Zhang Yang and Song Huaijin who were just laughing at Liang Jinzhao became serious.
Liang Jinzhao didn’t expect things to turn out like this; he didn’t mean to ‘bully’ the little girl into such sorrowful despair, causing an outcry among the onlookers. For a moment, he stood there, stupefied.
Just then, a man in his thirties, pale with a slight beard, slender and handsome, arrived. He was Zhang Zhongkun, the head of Baohe Hall, and had just returned from inspecting Baohe Hall. He was supposed to visit the Moon-viewing Pavilion to treat some honored guests from the Capital City when he heard a burst of crying from the back garden and came over.
On his way, he also heard the little girl’s intermittent sobs, guessing that the two young visitors were unaware of the common people’s hardships and, perhaps, said something that hurt the young girl.
On seeing the little girl, he realized she was an acquaintance; he had just treated her and her mother last month. He came forward smiling and asked, “Oh my, isn’t this little sister from the Qian family? Are you feeling better after your illness?”
Qian Yixiu, her eyes red from crying, choked up and said, “This big uncle said I lied, but I didn’t lie, I didn’t swindle any money. It’s true my daddy was killed in the war, and we spent a lot of money on treatment… It’s just that we really couldn’t make ends meet, so I picked some flowers to sell…”
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