Three Women in the Cage

Yang Yu returned home exhausted. When he reached the gate of the yard, he saw Zhang Erfa sitting on a long wooden bench with a dazed look in his eyes. At his feet, Huanhuan was squatting on the ground with a dirty face, playing with mud.

Huanhuan was the first to notice Yang Yu. She grinned and yelled "Mom" in her direction. Yang Yu, somewhat angrily, stepped forward and scooped her up. Looking at her clothes, which were covered in mud and stained with rice, she couldn't help but yell at Zhang Erfa, "Is this how you raise a child? I let you take care of her for half a day, and you've made her look like this. Even if you let her go free, you wouldn't do it like this. What the hell are you doing?"

Zhang Erfa shouted back, unwilling to be outdone, "Whose man is taking care of the child? You, a proper woman, shouldn't be at home taking care of the child. What are you doing all day messing around? What have you done out there again?"

"How dare you ask me, if you don't do the farm work outside and I don't do it, how can we make a living? If you don't go out, would I be willing to leave the children behind and go out?"

"Go out, go out, I'll go out tomorrow. You take care of the child yourself, I can't do it." Zhang Erfa scratched his hair in annoyance.

Seeing Zhang Erfa finally give in, Yang Yu stopped arguing with him and took Huanhuan inside to change her clothes. Huanhuan then said, "Mom, I'm hungry." Yang Yu glanced at the clock on the wall and saw it was already 1 p.m. No wonder Huanhuan was saying she was hungry; she felt a bit hungry too. So, she said, "Come on, Mom will go to the kitchen to make you something to eat," and happily pulled Huanhuan into the kitchen.

But when she saw the kitchen, her face immediately darkened. She hadn't expected Zhang Erfa to make lunch, and he hadn't even found something for Huanhuan to eat. She had endured it all, but when she saw the dirty pots and pans scattered all over the stove, and the mess on the floor, her habit of being neat and clean couldn't stand it anymore. She yelled at Zhang Erfa who was sitting outside, "Zhang Erfa, can't you wash the dishes after you finish your meal? You threw them in a pile and waited for me to clean them up? You can't cook, can't you even clean up and wash the dishes? Are you just waiting for me to serve you? You are used to being lazy, right?"

Yang Yu really couldn't understand why Zhang Erfa had become so lazy and gluttonous after the family split up. Before, he was still under the care of his parents, doing farm work outside every day, and doing things within his ability when he returned home. How come he has become so irresponsible and unaccountable now?

Hearing Yang Yu's words, Zhang Erfa said angrily, "Aren't these houseworks done by you women? Otherwise, why would I marry a wife? How dare you scold me? What time is it now? Have you made lunch? You are even lazy about housework and want me to do it. Men work outside. Who is the man who does housework at home?"

"Then why don't you go out and do it? Why do you stay at home every day? If you go out to work, how can I not be at home to clean up for you?"

"When did I say I wouldn't go? I'm going tomorrow. Thanks for your help. Hurry up and cook for me. I'm starving," Zhang Erfa said hurriedly.

Finally, the Buddha was going to go out to do farm work. Yang Yu breathed a sigh of relief and turned around to work tirelessly to clean up the mess and prepare lunch. The whole time, Huanhuan was circling around Yang Yu like a little tail. She could feel that her father didn't like her. Only her mother treated her best, and she couldn't bear to leave her mother.

After lunch, Yang Yu took Huanhuan with him to clean up the mess, clean the place, and wash the clothes. After they were done, he sat down and told Zhang Erfa that he wanted to ask Zhang's mother for the dowry money he had received to buy some livestock and some household items.

After hearing this, Zhang Erfa felt embarrassed. "I don't care about those things. I don't know about the dowry money before. Besides, my mother didn't take it out on her own initiative. How can I have the nerve to ask?" He couldn't open his mouth no matter what, and he didn't want Yang Yu to ask for it.

"So what should we do now? We can't feed the livestock without money, and we have to buy some household necessities. Otherwise, we can ask. If that doesn't work, we can borrow money. After we feed the livestock and raise them, we can sell them and get money, and then return it to her." Yang Yu didn't want to push him too much, so she asked him to ask first.

Zhang Erfa was urged to go to Zhang's mother's place. Seeing Zhang Erfa, Zhang's mother was not surprised at all. Because since Zhang Erfa left the family, in addition to sitting in a daze at the gate every day, he kept running to Zhang's mother's place. It seemed that only when he came here could his heart be at peace. Zhang's mother knew that he was used to relying on them and was not used to it for a while. Zhang Erfa would come here often. Whenever he encountered something, he would ask Zhang's father and mother for advice. Occasionally, his younger brothers would also encourage him. So in his heart, his original family was the first priority. He would listen to their opinions and ideas. This was the trust and blind obedience that he had developed from childhood to adulthood over the past twenty years.

So when Zhang Erfa explained the purpose of his visit, Zhang's mother knew that it was Yang Yu's idea, so she said somewhat unhappily, "Erfa, it's not that mom doesn't want to give it to you, it's just that I have already used it. You know, Sanmao got married some time ago and it cost a lot of money, and the renovation of Sanmao's house also cost money, so it's really all used up. Look, our family spends money on everything, and as an older brother, you still have to support these younger brothers."

The younger brothers who were listening were silent, their expressions becoming increasingly grim. They felt that Yang Yu must be stirring things up, and their attitude towards him became even more disgusted. The fifth brother, always a mischievous child, blurted out, "Second brother, you can't just get married and forget about mother. It wasn't easy for our parents to raise so many of us brothers. Your wife is here cooking, making a fuss every day, giving us a hard time, and now that we've separated, she still comes to annoy us. Are you trying to drive us to death?"

Zhang Erfa originally felt that as the eldest brother in the family, he should take care of his parents and younger brothers, especially after he got married, he felt that he had to shoulder the burden of the family. However, the reality seemed to make everyone's relationship worse. Instead of shouldering the burden, he made his parents unhappy and did not take good care of his younger brothers. Now he came to ask for money, which made him feel even more ashamed. He didn't know how he walked back in a daze.

Seeing Zhang Erfa's distraught look, Yang Yu probably knew that he hadn't gotten the money, so she shouldn't have counted on him. It seemed that she had no choice but to try later. Yang Yu decided that if it really didn't work, she would just borrow it and wait a few days to figure out how to explain it.

The next morning, the first thing Yang Yu did when she woke up was to urge Zhang Erfa to get up quickly and finish turning the patch of soil that he hadn't finished turning the day before. Zhang Erfa had slept in for a long time and was not used to it. He shouted angrily, "Okay, go make breakfast first, I'll go after I eat," and then took advantage of Yang Yu's absence in the kitchen to fall asleep again.