Chapter 532: A Really Cold-Blooded Person
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Gu Zi listened with a grimace, but after all, it was someone else’s family matter. She didn’t feel it was her place to comment, so she simply listened to Aunt Yang’s words while eating her meal, her mind filled with thoughts.
She had always believed that a man who was overly afraid of his wife was not necessarily a good thing, and reality had proven her right.
Take Yang Tao, for example. He only ever listened to one side of the story, that of his wife, Mrs. Wang. He never trusted his own mother. He had no idea what kind of life his elderly mother and young child were leading at home.
But rather than saying he didn’t know, it was more likely that he didn’t care. For Yang Tao, as long as Mrs. Wang was at home, he considered himself a married man, not a bachelor. Having his mother, Aunt Yang, help raise his son was enough for him.
As for the rest, he thought it best to let Aunt Yang bear the injustices and unfairness alone. This way, apart from Aunt Yang being unhappy, he and Mrs. Wang would be content. He worked outside, earning money, and when he came home for the New Year, he was greeted by a warm wife and child. Mrs. Wang stayed at home with the child, usually leaving the child with Aunt Yang while she went out to play cards and have fun.
In retrospect, Yang Tao was a manifestation of a selfish personality. Su Shen only appeared cold-hearted, but people like Yang Tao were truly cold-blooded. To him, his mother was nothing more than an aging woman with little value left to exploit. The only value she had was to squeeze out the last bit of her labor value, because Aunt Yang was still capable of working.
They had Aunt Yang do all the housework, farm work, and take care of the livestock, as well as serve their family. They didn’t give her the respect she deserved as an elder, and she was much cheaper than hiring a maid.
If they were unhappy, they could order Aunt Yang around and scold her. After all, Aunt Yang didn’t have any money, so even if they scolded her, they weren’t afraid of her getting angry. She still had to come back to work for them and serve them in order to survive, so scolding her cost them nothing.
What was chilling was that if every child was like Yang Tao, the meaning of childbirth would be greatly diminished.
People would no longer take pride in becoming mothers. Instead, they would shrink back in fear, terrified of becoming a mother.
Because for people like Yang Tao, the greatness of a mother was her bottomless dedication, allowing them to drain the last drop of her blood, and then they would give her a handful of yellow earth, put on a show of mourning, say a few words of grief, and then the person they had exploited would be gone.
Gu Zi could imagine that if Aunt Yang continued to let them bully her without finding something to do to support herself, she would end up like the elderly women in the stories that circulated in the village, with a desolate and lonely ending.
Indeed, in rural areas, regardless of the era, the story that happened to Aunt Yang also happened to many elderly women without financial means. Aunt Yang was not an exception, it was just that she happened to be acquainted with Mother Lin, so Gu Zi and the others were able to learn about these infuriating experiences.
There were others who were worse off than Aunt Yang, but their stories were unknown.
In short, if Aunt Yang, the exploited, were to withdraw from the lives of the exploiters for a long time, the inevitable result would be that Yang Tao and Mrs. Wang, the two pleasure-seeking exploiters, would start fighting amongst themselves until they found another person like Aunt Yang to exploit. Their happy days would continue. If they couldn’t find one, Yang Tao and Mrs. Wang, the mediocre couple, would break up.
Of course, there was no need to worry that Mrs. Wang would follow in Aunt Yang’s footsteps. Because women like Mrs. Wang, while you could say she was bad, she was also the one who understood human nature the best. She knew how to get along with men, how to use men’s nature, and how to make men work for her. So she would never become the next Aunt Yang. She would only join men in exploiting kind and honest women like Aunt Yang.
Thinking about all this, Gu Zi felt a chill down her spine. People often said that ghosts were scary, but she felt that the human heart was even scarier.
Gu Zi was a very pragmatic person. Even if she was moved by Su Shen, without a material foundation, if she couldn’t hold the economic power of the Su family, or if she didn’t have enough confidence, she would never let her guard down and live with Su Shen without reservation.
When Aunt Yang had finished speaking, Gu Zi comforted her, saying, “Aunt Yang, there’s something I’ve wanted to say for a long time. Now that you’ve left that home, don’t look back. If they give you the child to raise, then raise him. If they don’t, it’s not a big deal. You’re getting on in years, and you can’t take care of the future of young people. It’s better to take care of yourself first and handle your own affairs.”