"Alright, Auntie, you can go!"
After bidding farewell to Auntie Li, Yang Chuxia walked quickly to the construction site to distribute water to everyone. Then, she hurried back to help Ms. Wang prepare lunch.
Word about the third branch of the family building a house had spread throughout the Yang Family by that morning. This left Old Lady Hua’s face displeased all morning. When they had lived together back then, she had oppressed the couple of the third branch, taking their money whenever Yang Dachuan returned from some casual work. She knew exactly how much money they had. In her mind, it was impossible for the third branch to afford to build a house, yet now they were.
This got her wondering where the third branch got the money from, and she unconsciously thought back to the time when she once got Old Yang drunk. Hmph, that must have been when the damned old man gave them the money. He lied to her, saying they didn’t have any money.
That damned old man, she had made him believe that Yang Chuxia wasn’t his biological son, but he was still thinking about him. For so many years, he had ignored the third branch, and she had thought this was because he believed that the child wasn’t really his son. It seemed that might not be the case after all.
No, the more Old Lady Hua thought about it, the more unhappy she became. She remembered that she had once coaxed tens of taels of silver out of the old man’s mouth, and she couldn’t let the third branch get away with this.
She didn’t believe that the old man had no money, but no matter how she inquired, he refused to admit it. What could she do?
Old Lady Hua sat in the room, racking her brain for a solution. Meanwhile, her daughters-in-law were also circling around Ms. Wang, following her around the courtyard.
"Ms. Wang, how did your family suddenly come up with the money to build a house?" Ms. Liu asked with a distorted smile, full of envy and jealousy. "Could it be that your husband was hiding some money all this time?"
It’s worth mentioning that Ms. Liu’s jealousy led her to selectively remember only Yang Chuxia’s warnings and not Ms. Wang’s submission to them at the time. So, when she questioned her now, she didn’t bother hiding it.
Ms. Luo, too, chimed in with a biting remark, "Indeed, I always thought your husband was the most filial one. And now he’s exposed as a money-hider. What a shame to his filial reputation. It seems like only our head of the family is truly honest, to the point of not even having a single penny of pocket money."
Ms. Ye was even more direct. "Ms. Wang, since you are rich enough to build a house, why don’t you lend some money to your sisters-in-law? You know your second brother and nephew are still in jail, and you can imagine what the conditions are like there. My poor Qingwen is so young but has to suffer such a punishment, and I, as his mother, don’t have any money to grease palms."
When Yang Chuxia returned, she saw that her mother was being surrounded by Ms. Liu and the others. Upon hearing what Ms. Ye had said, she had no idea what to say. This was beyond being presumptuous; it was downright brainless.
Yang Chuxia slammed the wooden bucket to the ground and glared at her sisters-in-law. "Have you all forgotten my warning? Are you jealous that my family can afford to build a house? Want to find out where we got the money? Fine, I’ll tell you!"
Upon hearing that Yang Chuxia was about to reveal the source of the money, everyone suddenly ignored her tone and strained their ears to listen. Even Old Lady Hua inside the house was listening closely to the sounds outside the window.