Chapter 164: The Secret Iron Box
Jiang Haidong was called back and was about to beat Mengyu, but Gu Dongxing stopped him: "You’d better return her books to her!"
Mengyu had already rushed into Li Chun and Jiang Haidong’s room, where she opened the cupboard, pulled everything out, and threw them onto the ground, stomping on them.
While throwing, she kept shouting, "Return my books to me, return my clothes to me!"
Li Chunhua was anxious to grab them back, but Mengyu ran off.
Running to the other side, she picked up the clothes and threw them at Li Chunhua: "Are you going to give them to me or not? Are you?"
After luring Li Chunhua to the other side of the bed, she immediately leaped over it and started rummaging through the cupboard again.
After throwing all the clothes out from the cupboard, she still couldn’t see her books, so she opened the bottom layer.
Rural old-style cupboards are usually , divided into three layers. The top and middle layers are just separated by wooden boards, but the bottom layer is sealed off. Only after removing the clothes above and opening a panel can you reach the stuff below.
When Mengyu’s hand reached into the bottom layer, it touched something cold, and upon feeling it, she realized it was a small iron box.
Suddenly, she remembered that before she took the university entrance exam, to eavesdrop on Li Chunhua and Jiang Haidong’s conversation from outside the window, she had once seen Li Chunhua open such a small iron box.
When she was pretending to be Ah Piao, Li Chunhua died, and Jiang Huaiyu went back for the funeral, which led to a dispute over the inheritance of this small iron box with Jiang Huaiqing.
Jiang Huaiqing argued that a married daughter was like spilled water, and Jiang Huaiyu had no right to return and claim the inheritance.
But Jiang Huaiyu insisted that everywhere in the world, a mother’s dowry is inherited by her daughter.
That time, the two siblings even went to court over it, exposing the secret of the small iron box.
In the end, when the bottom of the iron box was forced open, it revealed evidence proving that the box belonged to Li Chunhua’s maternal uncle, Li Baoxiang, and his secrets, causing the siblings to be thrown into disarray over the box’s ownership.
It’s said that Li Chunhua’s family was a big landlord family, but Li Chunhua was not the legitimate son or daughter, but the daughter of a servant. The family had considerable wealth, and some of it was confiscated during the revolution, but some essence was preserved.
When the 1965 political campaign happened, Li Chunhua, due to her status as a servant’s daughter and having married a poor farmer, was not impacted.
Li Chunhua’s brother, with a keen sense of smell, sensed that something was amiss and secured the family treasures in an iron box, bringing it to his sister to keep overnight.
After the campaign, Li Chunhua’s brother came to ask his sister Li Chunhua for the treasure box back, but Li Chunhua flatly denied ever receiving her brother’s box.
Not only that, she even reported her brother to the Revolutionary Association for keeping an account of a change.
The so-called account of change was a record her brother kept of the family’s fields and the number and addresses of their stores.
As a result, before her brother could be taken away for public denunciation, he spat out blood and passed away a few days after returning home.
It goes without saying, this iron box must be the one entrusted to Li Chunhua by her legitimate brother.
These thoughts spun in Mengyu’s head, yet in reality, it all happened in an instant. She felt a movement in her heart and put the small iron box into her space.
Seeing Mengyu opening the bottom layer, Li Chunhua panicked and desperately lunged over, trying to grab Mengyu.
Mengyu hurriedly pretended as if she hadn’t had time to check and withdrew her hand, dodging away.
Li Chunhua, seeing Mengyu coming out empty-handed, didn’t dare to check if anything inside was missing and anxiously covered the bottom board.