Ji Ying looked at her son and daughter, feeling extremely bitter inside. It was her failure to protect them that made them so eager to leave this place.
"Dividing the family property is fine, but there’s one thing I must make clear to you," Xu Zhong said with a darkened face. After calming down, he felt that dividing the family wasn’t such a bad thing.
Zhihao was married, and every year when he came back, he always made Zhiyuan give up his room.
Zhiyuan was about to go to college, yet he still didn’t have a room of his own. When the time came for him to get married, surely the two brothers couldn’t still share one room, could they?
"Since we are going to divide the property, we must certainly discuss things clearly," Xu Qinghe said in a deep voice. Because of Nianji’s delayed marriage last year, they had almost divided the property, but Xu Zhong had strongly forbidden it at that time.
Moreover, Xu Zhihao had married a girl from the city. If a family division happened at this time, it would look particularly bad in terms of saving face.
Last year’s division of property came to nothing, and because of this, his eldest son, Xu Nianji, had become a lot quieter.
Xu Zhong first explained the details of the property division: Xu Qinghe’s family of five would move into the old house.
The old house, the one that had been neglected for more than a decade, had grass in the courtyard that had grown taller than the door, a leaky roof, and drafts coming from all directions in the winter.
As for the land, the piece that Xu Qinghe’s family of five inherited was all the land in front of the old Xu family house. Not only was it not fertile, but it also had the lowest yield every year, and most importantly, Xu Zhong had allocated too little land.
Xu Qinghe sat there stunned, unable to believe that his own father would divide the family property .
Beyond the old house and those few infertile pieces of land, they would keep only the belongings inside their home, with not a single cent of money to their name.
After all these years, their family of five had no savings beyond their daily expenses?
"Dad, the elder brother is getting married in the second half of this year. It doesn’t matter if the house is old, but the money for the marriage..." Xu Qinghe finally spoke up, but before he even finished, Xu Zhong interrupted him.
"After the division, we won’t involve ourselves in Nianji’s marriage," Xu Zhong stated bluntly, his words dropping like a heavy stone onto the calm surface of a lake.
Xu Qinghe’s expression changed. With all their money handed over, if they didn’t take care of Nianji’s marriage, how could Nianji get married this year?
The marriage arrangement with the Zhou family had already been delayed by a year. It couldn’t be postponed another year, could it?
It wasn’t just that the Zhou family wouldn’t agree; even he felt he would be letting his eldest son down.
"Dad, we agreed that you would provide for Nianji’s wedding this year. Last year, when Zhihao got married to a girl from the city, you said that because Zhihao worked at the supply and marketing cooperative, it was a formal position, and for the girl to be willing to marry into the Xu family was a blessing our family had cultivated for eight generations!"
As Ji Ying brought this up, it still upset her. Her son was after all the eldest grandson. Because of this issue, they had delayed for a whole year. Last year, she had wanted to push for dividing the property, but Xu Zhong was vehemently against it, saying that if Zhihao hadn’t married this bride...
Zhihao had even threatened with his death, saying he wouldn’t live if he couldn’t marry his bride.
Ji Ying and Xu Qinghe didn’t want their son to be upset, and in the end, Xu Nianji, not wanting to see his parents struggle, had voluntarily suggested delaying his marriage for a year.
Now that it was July and they would soon be discussing wedding plans after the Mid-Autumn Festival, who could have known that Xu Zhong would suddenly declare he wouldn’t be involved in Xu Nianji’s marriage? Ji Ying wasn’t willing to accept this.
"Dad, Nianji is your grandson, your own flesh and blood. When you helped Zhihao get married last year, this isn’t what you said," Ji Ying argued, biting her lip as tears swirled in her eyes. Besides the little bit of grain they got from this year’s harvest, they didn’t have a single cent left. When school started, how would they pay the children’s tuition fees?