The road to wealth of a peasant widow

Liu family’s old house.

After Chang'an left, Old Zhou curled her lips at the big fish and snorted.

This is nothing. I just embarrassed her yesterday and now I send her a fish today. Is that the end? What about the snacks? Why don’t you send them to her?

She pouted and said, "Whoever wants to eat it can eat it. I won't eat it anyway."

The eldest daughter-in-law, Zhou, glanced at her father-in-law and seeing that he didn't say anything, she smiled and took the fish to the kitchen to heat it up.

Although there is a river in the village, there are only small fish and shrimps in it. Such a big fish is not common, and it is meat after all!

When Liu Youliang saw his daughter-in-law leave, he said to his wife, "Why are you so angry with the child? You made such a scene on the road yesterday. What good did it do except make people laugh at you?"

Old Zhou said angrily, "Oh, what they did was wrong, and they didn't allow me to say anything. They left their own ox cart unused and went to borrow someone else's. People who didn't know would think we didn't want to lend it to them!"

Liu Youliang said helplessly: "If they really come to borrow the car and say they want to go to the county town, will you lend it to them?"

Old Zhou almost blurted out the words "no", but then she held back and muttered, "They haven't come to lend me money yet, so how do they know if I'm willing to lend it to them? Those little brats just don't take us seriously. Since the separation, they have been drifting further and further away from us. It's like we're two different families!"

Liu Youliang didn't know what to say to his wife.

The child comes to borrow the car, but you refuse. When the child doesn't come to borrow it, you get angry. What should the child do?

As for what his wife said about the two families, he couldn't do anything about it.

In fact, ever since his second son's family separated, he had been vaguely regretting that he had gone too far in the past, only caring about the eldest son's family who was promising and capable, and putting too much pressure on his second son's family.

In fact, he originally thought of supporting the eldest son's family first, and then supporting the second son's family after the first son had a promising future.

But he didn't expect that his second son didn't understand his painstaking efforts at all. He only saw the good things he did to his eldest son and felt that he was too biased.

When the second son proposed to divide the family property, he recounted in detail all the grievances he, his wife and children had suffered over the years. Only then did Liu Youliang realize that his second son had accumulated so much disappointment in him over the years.

When he saw Lao Er banging his head against the corner of the table, with blood spurting out of his head, he felt terrified.

The old doctor who came to treat the son's injury said that it was fortunate that he was pulled in time and some of the force was relieved, otherwise the hole on his head would be bigger and even wood ash would not be able to stop the bleeding. The person would have died before others arrived and there would have been no need for treatment.

Only then did he realize that the second brother was so determined to divide the family property that he was even willing to sacrifice his own life!

Forget it, forget it, things have come to this, there is no way we can coexist peacefully if we force ourselves to stay together, so let’s just break up.

Unexpectedly, the two elders passed away just half a year after the separation.

He and his wife were naturally sad to see their son die young. His wife was even more grief-stricken and angry, thinking that if the family had not been divided, their second son might not have died.

The old woman transferred all her resentment to her second daughter-in-law and the grandchildren of the second wife.

He tried to persuade her, but it was useless, so he could only let her go.

Well, I'm old now, so I'll let the younger generation from the second house take on more responsibilities!

Although Chen Cui felt that eating braised pork early in the morning was greasy, the children did not mind it. They all ate the meat slices with relish. The stir-fried cabbage with oil residue on the side was also very popular.

Chen Cui couldn't eat braised pork, but she could eat cabbage with oil residue.

She steamed half a bowl of egg custard for Sui Sui and fed him one spoonful at a time.

She enjoyed eating this kind of food which did not require much chewing even more. When the egg custard entered her mouth, she swallowed it after moving her little mouth a few times, then opened her mouth and waited for the next bite.

After breakfast, Chen Cui announced today's task: go up the mountain to cut trees, and then drag them home to experiment with charcoal burning.

“It has to be as thick as an arm. It won’t work if it’s too thick or too thin,” said Chen Cui.

"Mom, I heard that people need to build a charcoal kiln to make charcoal, but we don't have a kiln at home, so how can we make charcoal?" Changping asked puzzled.

Chen Cui shook her head helplessly: "This is the method your father told me. As for whether it will work, I don't know. Let's cut some and try it. If it doesn't work, just burn it as firewood."

In fact, Chen Cui knew in her heart that this method would definitely work. She had seen others do it with her own eyes and could guarantee success.

However, she couldn't show this confidence now, lest they sense something was wrong.

Seeing that Chen Cui didn't seem to have any hope, let alone the three children.

It's just that they are used to listening to their parents, and after their father passed away, they listened to their mother. This concept has been engraved in their minds, so they will not easily oppose the decisions made by their mother.

Besides, it’s just chopping branches, just think of it as chopping firewood. Winter is almost here, so any amount of firewood is never too much.

So, the youngest son, Changfu, stayed at home to look after the house and take care of his younger sister, while Chen Cui took the two older sons into the mountains.

In fact, Chen Cui was a little worried about leaving the two children at home alone, but she really needed help. She couldn't leave Changping and Chang'an, so she could only ask Changfu to close the door and guard it.

It would be nice if there was a dog at home. This place is remote and we really need a dog to guard the house. Then she would feel more at ease when we need the children at home in the future.

She decided to ask someone after a while to see if anyone had puppies to give away, and bring one home to raise. It would be easier to get used to it if she started feeding it from a young age.

After the two mothers entered the mountain, they followed Changping's instructions and walked west along another road.

"There are big trees there with thick branches and twigs. Cutting them down won't affect their continued growth next year. If it's a small tree, it might die if you cut off a few branches this big."

Chen Cui said that the best tree to use for making charcoal was the iron oak, which had fine texture and hard wood. Changping then pointed out a suitable location where there were trees that met the requirements.

Changping led the way in front, and Chen Cui and Changan followed behind with axes.

After walking for about half an hour, the three arrived at the place Changping mentioned.

The trees here were indeed very sturdy. Chen Cui picked a tree of suitable size and selected branches. She asked Chang Ping to climb up the tree, sit on a branch and chop it with an axe.

Chang'an climbed up another tree and chopped the wood with an axe. Although this was a little inefficient, it was still faster than doing it alone.

Chen Cui was cutting and sorting the chopped branches below, dividing them into appropriate lengths.

She looked at her sons working hard to cut trees, feeling both relieved and sad.

If there was no one else available, she wouldn't want to let two children in their early teens do these jobs.

Once the charcoal is successfully burned and the family earns money, she will definitely compensate them well.

After working for most of the day, I finally managed to get a lot of branches down.

Finally, the three of them tied the cut branches into three bundles and dragged them back home.