"Mom, the world has changed now, and the Australians are here. I heard that divorce is allowed under Australian rule. Let's go find the Australians to seek justice. Divorce him and draw a clear line with him. If you have anything to do with me in the future, Come." Guan Zongbao said with determination.
When Huang heard the word "divorce", her mind suddenly went blank. In her limited social experience, only men had divorced their wives, and she had never heard of women being able to "divorce" their husbands.
In terms of society at that time, it was not uncommon for the woman to propose "reconciliation and divorce" between husband and wife, but it was very rare. Most of the time, the husband is not doing his job properly, or he is involved in a lawsuit, and the natal family stands up for the daughter and forces the man to divorce his wife. It is said to be "harmony and separation", but in form it is still "giving up one's wife".
Huang was born into a small local clan, and her natal family was in a difficult situation, so it was naturally impossible for her to stand up for her. Her parents taught her the "Three Obediences and Four Virtues" since she was a child. Several times she went back to her parents' home to cry and complained that she couldn't live her life any longer. Her mother also advised her to be patient, live a good life, and not to make other people laugh.
Mrs. Huang muttered with tears in her eyes: "Hey, I don't want to live with him for a long time. When your grandpa promised me to him, he also thought that the Guan family was a local rich family with a family business. It was a young man who entered his family." After living a hard life, now that I think about it, marrying anyone back then was better than marrying him. My grandma, your grandma, taught us sisters from a young age to be tolerant in everything. He liked to go out and have fun and make friends, and he was kind to me in the early years. But he got this strange disease, and his temper became worse day by day. When you were a child, he still endured the pain and raised fish and flowers..."
As soon as his mother mentioned what happened when he was a child, Guan Zongbao felt an unknown fire in his heart. In his childhood memories, when he was strong and healthy, this so-called father would always get drunk with his friends. He had never had a heart-to-heart relationship with him as father and son. Got his grandma. It was his mother who cried and taught him, who was young and ignorant, to go to Guan Youde to intercede, not to divorce her because he was still young, but to let her raise the child properly. Later, Guan Youde took medicine for many years and was unable to give birth to any children. Others secretly said that this was retribution.
Seeing Huang's hesitation, Guan Zongbao said: "Didn't he say many times that he wanted to divorce you a long time ago? Since he is interested and you are also interested, the matter is half done. It's not sweet to force yourself!"
Huang said: "If he were a healthy man, I would be at ease even if he divorced me. Look at the way he looks like he is about to die. If I leave him, let alone whether it will work, others will see it. If you know what unpleasant gossip to say, your grandpa and uncle will never be able to hold their heads high as human beings in the future."
Guan Zongbao said: "Did we cause him to look like this? He did it all by himself! He said all day long that he was going to die tomorrow, but today he beat us two with great force! He is so ruthless and unjust , Ama, why are you still speaking for him!"
"Bao'er, grandma has been worthy of him in this life. He owes us, mother and son. The person I'm most sorry to in this life is..." Mrs. Huang said and started crying again, "It's you! It's all my fault. Mom is incompetent and can’t let you stay in the clan to study and gain fame.”
Guan Zongbao entered the clan school when he was young. The clan studies teachers said that he was a good student. At the age of 13, he was recommended by the clan to take the boy's examination. I don't know what Guan Youde's fault was, but he was asked to drop out of school before the boy's examination. Go home and learn a trade to support your family. At that time, Guan Zongbao felt that he had grown up and had the responsibility to shoulder the burden of the family, so he dropped out of school and went home to learn how to raise fish and flowers. As the family property was being sold off one after another to be used to treat Guan Youde's illness, fish and flowers were no longer allowed to be raised. His grandmother could raise silkworms and reel silk, so Guan Zongbao used Huang's remaining savings and the money he saved from raising fish to rent more than ten acres of mulberry gardens, firstly to provide for his own silkworm rearing, and secondly to sell to outsiders. I earned some money from some mulberry leaves, and also rented a fish pond and built a mulberry fish pond like ordinary local farmers.
God's joke turned Guan Zongbao from a weak scholar into a farmer working hard under the scorching sun, his hands covered with calluses. I thought that as long as the family lived in harmony, life would be hard but there would be a day to get through it, but Guan Youde's behavior became increasingly weird. Guan Youde originally loved drinking. After getting sick, he still kept the medicine jar in his left hand and the wine bowl in the right hand. Not only that, in recent years, he also developed the habit of smoking with his former gang of friends, which made the already difficult family worse. Guan Zongbao and Huang She hated this to the core, but Guan Youde kept saying that tobacco was an excellent medicinal material. Old Chinese doctors said that the famous doctor Zhang Jiebin highly respected tobacco. She and her son did not let him smoke because they wanted him to be buried early.
Guan Youde occupies the moral high ground. The Huang mother and son cannot defeat him, so they can only endure it, but in exchange they get worse. When Guan Zongbao was still studying, Guan Youde was still working despite his illness. He knew that money was not easy to earn and did not dare to spend it lavishly. Ever since Guan Zongbao took up the burden of the family, others praised Guan Youde for giving birth to a good son, and he should enjoy the blessings in his lifetime. Guan Youde also felt that it was time for him to enjoy himself, and he began to drift off. He used the excuse of feeling unwell to stop doing any farm work, and even stopped doing things within his power such as cooking and laundry. Instead, he spent money more and more as he pleased. , I don’t know where he heard the truth, saying that the greatest sorrow in life is that money has not been used up after death.
Huang worked hard day and night, and after finishing his silkworm work, he still had to cook and serve it in front of him. Not only did Guan Youde not feel grateful, but he also often found fault with the eggs, making them unpalatable and unpalatable. Later, Guan Zongbao heard from his neighbors that as early as when he was attending ethnic studies, Guan Youde often beat and scolded Huang, driving her into the pig pen and not letting her enter the house, but Huang never complained to him. Despite this, Mrs. Huang is still patient, and Guan Zongbao doesn't know how his mother has endured it for so many years. Guan Zongbao secretly swore that if he had a place to stand in the future, he would take his mother out of that ghost place. This is how he built the shabby thatched house in Sanji outside the village.
"Mom, I don't blame you." Guan Zongbao said, "If you want to blame it, blame the world."
When Mrs. Huang thought about her precious son, he was once the seed of a young genius, but now his hands are full of calluses. He is fifteen or sixteen years old, which is the age when he proposed marriage. Now he can't even find a matchmaker. How much later? Nian Ke was about to be a bachelor for the rest of his life, and he couldn't help crying, "Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu" Living separately, no one is willing to let their daughter marry into this family and suffer. He is not only inconsiderate of his son, but also extremely aggressive. It is really hard for a person who eats shit to make things difficult for him, wuwuwu..."
Guan Zongbao saw his mother crying and asked sadly: "Mom, let me ask you, are you still willing to live with him? As long as you make up your mind, I will go to the Australians to seek justice. I listen." People going to the market said that a group of Australian officials came to Jiujiang Market yesterday."
Huang hesitated for a moment and said: "The Australians are not here every day. Even if justice is given to us, who will recognize this justice when the Australians leave? The clan has its own rules. If I want to live separately from him, I must We need to ask the clan elders to discuss it together. As for his food and drink expenses, we also need to ask the clan elders to set rules. If he is like him, one tael of silver will be charged for making trouble today, and 2 taels will be charged for making trouble tomorrow. Yinzi, where did you get your wife’s book from?”
Guan Zongbao said: "Mom, you are so confused! Your surname is Huang, not Guan. You married into the Guan family and suffered for so many years. Has anyone in the Guan family said a fair word to you? Do you still expect someone from them to stand up and preside over it? Fair? Who will you run away to take care of this sick man? Is anyone willing to use money from the family property to fill his bottomless pit? They are pointing at us, mother and son, to wipe his ass!"
Huang hesitated and said: "We are just unknown people. It is said that an upright official cannot deal with household affairs. How can an Australian official care about such trivial matters?"
"How will you know if you don't try?"
"Then... give it a try." Huang wiped the tears on her face, her glasses were already red from crying.
The sky outside the house was darkening, but she was not sleepy at all, and she was still worried about how to get out of this desperate predicament. She asked Guan Zongbao to go to bed first. The silkworms she had made this time were almost at the "third sleep". Guan Zongbao would have to get up in the middle of the night to feed her mulberry trees. The two of them would alternate to avoid exhaustion.
Raising silkworms is a very hard work. After the silkworms hatch into silkworm ants and "pass through the nest", they need to be fed and reared every day. Silkworm farmers generally feed silkworms every three hours, eight times a day, working hard day and night, sleeping and waking up with the silkworms. Feed once in the morning, noon hour, Shen hour, You quarter, first watch, second watch, after second watch, first watch of fourth watch, and fifth watch. When feeding mulberry, wait until all the silkworms are up before putting down the mulberry leaves to prevent the different development of each silkworm, resulting in uneven quality of silkworms. Day and night, the silkworms grow bigger and need to separate their nests. The feces must be removed twice a day, once in the morning and once for carving. The silkworms must be rolled up by hand and moved to other nests to remove the silkworm feces, which can be used to cultivate mulberry base and feed pond fish.
The most serious threat is silkworm disease. When silkworms are "sleeping", silkworm farmers must always identify the color of silkworms. During the first sleep and the second sleep, less mulberry leaves are consumed. If silkworm farmers see incomplete molting, commonly known as strangulation, or see sandworm legs, green legs, sand-skin legs, etc. during the first sleep, they should abandon it immediately. Go and prevent the loss of mulberry leaves in vain. There is a disease commonly known as "blackhead", which often occurs after silkworms "sleep" and before they form cocoons. At this time, it is too late to remedy the situation. Silkworm farmers can only see whether they can form cocoons. Even if they form cocoons, they will be very thin. In severe cases, cocoons cannot be formed and may even rot and emit a foul odor. They must be discarded directly to prevent infection. There is also a silkworm disease commonly known as "red bone", which causes the silkworms to become stiff and die immediately, but fortunately it does not spread on a large scale. The most troublesome thing is an inexplicable silkworm disease. There is no sign in the early stage, and it does not appear until the harvest is about to happen, which is surprising.
