Convinced that Gu Jianli was just bluffing, Wang Erfeng not only didn’t stop him but also deliberately provoked him with her words.
"Do you... do you believe I’ll drink this now and die right here for you to see?" Gu Jianli was indeed trying to scare Wang Erfeng, but upon hearing her words, he became so infuriated he almost died from anger.
He had long known that his parents favored his younger brother, but he didn’t expect their favoritism to go this far. Fortunately, he had come to his senses in time and knew he had to fight for himself. Otherwise, once his brother graduated, there would be nothing left for him in the family home.
He had to have this house.
Wang Erfeng wasn’t afraid at all and continued to egg him on, "Go ahead, drink! If you drink now and die, tomorrow I’ll find a straw mat to bury you with. I won’t even hold a funeral for you. Your father and I will pretend we never had such a useless son."
Why didn’t she farm and instead went to the city to do business? One reason was that farming didn’t make money, but another was that people in the village were whispering behind her back, calling Gu Jianli a rapist.
This reputation was far worse than being a swindler. Her husband was so angry that he got sick, and their younger son was so upset he refused to return to the village.
Now, just as he returned, without even setting foot in the house, he was already demanding the house. This son was like a debt collector; it would be simpler if he were dead.
"So, you’ve made up your mind to give this house to Jianbin and not to me, is that right?" Gu Jianli was so angry his eyeballs nearly bulged out of his head, furious to the point where he truly contemplated drinking the pesticide.
Wang Erfeng had yet to notice Gu Jianli’s abnormal state. She knew her eldest son too well; he wouldn’t dare drink the pesticide. Besides, he had never dared to talk back to her before, yet now he was defiant. She felt that if she backed down this time, in the future her eldest son would walk all over her.
So she said, "Even if I were to sell this house, I wouldn’t give it to you."
Having said that, she turned and walked into the house.
"Then let no one live in it!" Gu Jianli yelled at her retreating figure, grabbed the pesticide bottle, unscrewed the cap and gulped it down in one go. Afterward, he entered his room, kicked the door open, laid down on the bed, and lay there as if waiting to die.
Having returned to her room, Wang Erfeng didn’t hear anything for a while except for the sounds of crashing and banging outside. She thought her eldest son was just throwing a tantrum, so she locked her door, took off her shoes, and took a nap on the bed.
She slept for more than two hours, and when she woke up it was already one o’clock in the afternoon. It was quiet outside, and Wang Erfeng thought her eldest son had calmed down. She unlocked the door and walked out.
The living room was filled with a strong smell of pesticide, giving Wang Erfeng a sudden bad feeling. The source of thɪs content is 𝕟𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕝✶𝓯𝓲𝓻𝓮✶𝓷𝓮𝓽
She hurried to the yard and saw nothing but an empty pesticide bottle on the ground—no sign of Gu Jianli. Remembering the noise she had heard earlier, Wang Erfeng quickly ran to her eldest son’s room.
The moment she opened the door, her vision darkened and she nearly fainted. There lay Gu Jianli, stiff on the floor, his eyes wide and bulging, his face turned black, with a stream of black blood oozing from his eyes and mouth.
As she slowly came to her senses, Wang Erfeng cried out loud, "A man has died, a man has died... my son..."
Shen Mianmian only inadvertently learned of Gu Jianli’s death from Dajun on the third day after it happened. Rural folks talk a lot, and news spreads from one to ten and ten to a hundred, no slower than the speed of the internet.
Since Gu Jianli never married, in their culture, when an unmarried person dies, they simply buy a coffin and bury it in their own field without holding a funeral.