Chapter 20: The Selfishness of Human Nature

The people in the courtyard were a little stunned to see Qi Wanfeng carrying Cao Xiangnan out. Smelling an unpleasant odor, Second Brother and his wife recoiled with disgusted looks. When the children in the family saw their Fourth Uncle, they screamed and ran away.

“Qi Wanfeng, what are you doing carrying Fourth Son out here? Fourth Son isn’t even dead yet, and you’re already tormenting him like this! What are you planning, Qi Wanfeng?” Chen Zhu reacted, pointing a finger at Qi Wanfeng and scolding him.

“Amu, it was my idea to come out, it has nothing to do with Wanfeng.” Cao Xiangnan could feel Qi Wanfeng’s fear of Chen Zhu. He reached out and grabbed Qi Wanfeng’s hand, using this gesture to silently tell him that he was here.

He asked Qi Wanfeng to put him down on the ground, so he wouldn’t be too tired from carrying him. Qi Wanfeng was unwilling, but he lowered his head and told the child to be a good boy and go get a small stool for his adie. Only then did he put him down to sit.

Cao Xiangnan ignored his harsh amu. He thought that maybe it wasn’t Qi Wanfeng who wanted him to die, but this whole family did. His Qi Wanfeng wouldn’t want him to die. He looked at his adie and asked, “Adie, did you and Amu say you want to separate the family?”

Cao Adie paused in his smoking, grunted an “Mm,” and then lowered his head to take a puff of his dry tobacco pipe.

“Adie, I heard your words in the house. Adie, Amu, do you want to separate me and Wanfeng out to live on our own?” Cao Xiangnan saw that his adie was lowering his head. He had seen too many of these guilty expressions. These people wouldn’t feel guilty enough to not do it. They were doing it for themselves, and this guilt was just to make themselves feel better.

“Your amu and I have discussed it, and that’s what we meant,” Cao Adie said, raising his head to look at his child.

In just a few short days, after this ordeal, Cao Xiangnan had become as thin as a bag of bones, looking like he was terminally ill. Hearing his adie’s words, Cao Xiangnan coughed softly a couple of times. With his pale and gaunt face, he fully played the part of a pitiful figure. He put on a “I understand” look and said, “Adie and Amu, I can understand why you’re doing this.”

“Adie, Amu, I’ve done everything I could for this family over the years. But now, in my condition… it’s better to separate us out, so I don’t drag everyone down in the future.” Cao Xiangnan knew that this was the reason why his adie and amu were separating them out.

Taking in the expressions of everyone in the courtyard, Cao Xiangnan sneered inwardly. He had to catch his breath after saying a sentence, putting on an act as if he was about to pass away and was giving his last words. “I know my own body. Adie, Amu, Eldest Brother, Second Brother, if something happens to me, I hope you can consider us as family. If something happens to Wanfeng and the child, can you help Wanfeng and the child out? Then I can leave in peace.”

Even if something really happened to him, Cao Xiangnan wouldn’t entrust Qi Wanfeng and the child to this family. He was afraid that this family would eat his Qi Wanfeng and his child! But by saying this now, he was saying what these people feared the most, so he was doing it on purpose.

“Fulang…” Qi Wanfeng didn’t want his fulang to say such things, and the look in his eyes was of sadness.

“Since we’re separating the family, we’ll naturally be living our own lives from now on. There are several children in our family, so many mouths to feed. We can barely support our own children. I’m afraid that even if we want to help you, we’ll be unable to.” As soon as Second Brother’s wife, Wang Yan, heard his fourth uncle’s words, he thought that if his fourth uncle really passed away, they would have to take on this mess. He didn’t even want to think about it.

“That’s right, the family is barely making ends meet. Sigh, even the bride price for Jinbao’s wedding, I, as an amu, can’t come up with it. In another two years, we’ll have to consider the matter of Yinbao’s wedding, so what should we do?” Eldest Brother’s wife, Chen Li, tugged at her dangjia, who was about to agree, and gave him a look. Chen Li was really afraid that her dangjia would take on the fourth uncle’s family’s affairs.

Brothers are brothers, but life is still one’s own. Their family wasn’t rich either, so where would they get the leisure to help others?