Chapter 395 - 343: Aggrieved Like a Snail
Chapter 395: Chapter 343: Aggrieved Like a Snail
Life was peaceful and happy, and time flew by. In the blink of an eye, another Chinese New Year had passed.
Xiao Man didn’t return to G Province for this winter break. She had a mother and father now, in a sense, and it was only right for Tang Qingshan and Ai Wenli to spend their first year of marriage together as a complete family.
Before the break even started, she had written letters to her relatives and friends in G Province explaining the situation. Grandpa and Grandma in Gongdao Village already knew and wrote back, telling Xiao Man not to be in a hurry to come home. They told her to listen to her grandpa, grandma, father, and mother’s arrangements and wait until next year’s summer vacation to return to their old home in the countryside.
On the twentieth day of the twelfth lunar month, Grandpa and Grandma took their three grandsons and one granddaughter to Wancheng to browse the department stores. They made a special trip to the post and telecommunications office and paid for a half-hour long-distance call to Beijing. They let her cousins all say a few words to Xiao Man before taking the phone for themselves. Xiao Man laughed and chatted with her Grandpa and Grandma, her tears soaking her handkerchief. She missed them, but more than that, she was happy that they could finally enjoy the happiness of being with their own children and grandchildren.
Tang Qingyun also returned to Beijing for the New Year. His train arrived at West City Station on the night of the twenty-ninth of the last lunar month. He had called Wu Xiaowen in advance, so she went to the station to pick him up with Tang Yaxuan. Tang Haocheng, meanwhile, went over by himself from the Tang Mansion. His plan was to return to the Tang Mansion after meeting his father, but Tang Qingyun insisted on pulling him along to go "home" with them. Grandpa Tang had made it clear he would arrange an apartment for Wu Xiaowen, and that was to be their little family’s new home. Now that their father was back, how could the family be complete without the son? The pain of losing his daughter was already an unhealing wound; he had to hold on to his son no matter what. They would stay in the work-unit apartment tonight and go back to the old mansion for the reunion dinner tomorrow. It would look so much better for the whole family to walk in together.
Tang Qingyun’s idea was excellent and perfectly reasonable, but he never expected that in this so-called "new home," there wasn’t even a room for his son.
Wu Xiaowen hadn’t told him that Wu Xiaorui had occupied the master bedroom of the work-unit apartment. The place was now like a girls’ dormitory, with the three of them—one older, two younger—each taking a room. When Tang Qingyun walked through the door, he saw three or four young women sitting on the living room sofa, cracking sunflower seeds and watching TV with the volume blasting. From the wide-open master bedroom door, the sorrowful strains of Deng Li Jun’s "When Will You Return, My Love?" drifted out from a tape recorder, also at maximum volume. Inside, it sounded like more than three girls were giggling, chasing each other, and roughhousing... If Wu Xiaowen and Tang Yaxuan hadn’t pushed him inside, Tang Qingyun would have thought he’d gone to the wrong place and entered someone else’s home.
Tang Yaxuan pulled Tang Qingyun into her room and told him, "My aunt loves this new apartment and doesn’t want to live in the courtyard house anymore. As soon as Mom got the keys, she rushed to move in. She even said that when she gets married, she wants us to move out and make room for her!"
Tang Qingyun grew angry. He could let other things slide, but this was his and his wife’s home. He wouldn’t stand for Wu Xiaorui’s willfulness affecting his and his children’s lives.
Tang Qingyun told Wu Xiaowen to go talk to her younger sister herself: If she really didn’t want to live in the courtyard house and wanted to stay here, that was fine. But she would have to move in with Xuanxuan and free up a room for Hao Hao. This was Hao Hao’s home too, and it was unreasonable for him not to have his own room.
But who would have thought that not only did Wu Xiaowen refuse to go talk to Wu Xiaorui, she turned around and accused Tang Qingyun of being a weak-willed coward. She complained that the huge Tang Mansion was occupied solely by the first branch of the family. The second branch had a son, so why couldn’t they live there instead of being cooped up in a tiny apartment like snails in a shell?
Tang Qingyun was thoroughly infuriated by Wu Xiaowen’s attitude. Seeing that Tang Haocheng couldn’t stand the noise in the apartment and had already left on his own, he couldn’t be bothered to argue with her. He simply picked up his suitcase and followed his son back to the Tang Mansion.
On New Year’s Eve, Wu Xiaowen was still absent from the reunion dinner at the Tang Mansion. Xiao Man heard Grandpa Tang ask Tang Qingyun, "Didn’t you say you were going to pick up Hao Hao’s mother? Where is she?" With a neutral expression, Tang Qingyun replied, "She’s not coming. Let’s eat."
No one else asked any questions. Everyone, smiling, followed Grandpa Tang in raising their glasses and began to enjoy the rich and delicious New Year’s Eve feast. In truth, if Wu Xiaowen had been there, the atmosphere might not have been so harmonious and pleasant.
After dinner, Tang Haocheng and Xiao Man sat in a corner of the sofa, chatting idly. The topic somehow turned to Wu Xiaowen and Tang Yaxuan. Tang Haocheng sighed and told Xiao Man, "At two o’clock this afternoon, Dad took me to get Mom and bring her back for the New Year. Tang Yaxuan was nowhere to be found at the time, and Mom readily got dressed up and came downstairs with us. But just as we reached the car, Wu Xiaorui suddenly returned with Tang Yaxuan. Tang Yaxuan threw herself into Dad’s arms, a complete mess of tears, and begged him incoherently to take her with them. Dad just sighed, patted her gently a couple of times, and pulled her to her feet. Then he took out a stack of ten-yuan bills, placed them in her hand, and told her to take a car to the Wu Mansion and spend the New Year with her maternal grandparents. He said that from now on, if Wu Xiaowen was willing to keep raising her, she could continue living with Wu Xiaowen, but she was only to call him ’Uncle,’ and not ’Dad’ anymore!"
"Tang Yaxuan clutched the money, crying so hard she was staggering and nearly fainted. Mom rushed forward to hold her, accusing Dad of being heartless. Dad just chuckled coldly and said, ’You call this heartless? At least I’ve arranged a place for her to go. Back then, you, as her biological mother, gently and considerately persuaded me to prioritize my future and abandon my own daughter, leaving her at Liu Fengying’s mercy. *That* was heartless! Xiao Wen, it’s true. I’ve thought about it over and over, and I’ve realized you are far more ruthless than I am!’"
"After hearing Dad’s words, Mom glared at him furiously. Neither of them spoke again. Finally, Mom snatched the bills from Tang Yaxuan’s hand and threw them hard in Dad’s face. Then, under the silent gazes of the father and son, she held her head high, pulled Tang Yaxuan along, and hailed a taxi. We don’t know where they went, but they probably went to the Wu Mansion."
Looking at the boy, whose expression was indifferent but whose eyes held a trace of sorrow, Xiao Man could only sigh helplessly. There was nothing else she could do.
From the first to the third day of the New Year, Tang Qingyun accompanied his father and older brother to several holiday banquets. He didn’t see Wu Xiaowen again, refused all calls from the Wu Mansion, and didn’t go there to pay New Year’s respects. On the fourth day, Tang Qingshan and Gu Qifan led a few of the younger generation to see him off at the airport. It was several days after he had left Beijing that Wu Xiaowen finally came to the Tang Mansion looking for him and their son. When she learned that Tang Qingyun had already returned to the mountains in the countryside, she burst into angry tears on the spot, her eyes turning red.
The Tang family’s New Year celebration was happy and festive. Grandpa and Grandma Tang looked at the children, grandchildren, and new daughter-in-law gathered around them, grinning from ear to ear with genuine joy and contentment.
Over at the Gu family’s home, however, it wasn’t as lively as in previous years, and there was much less laughter. There were two reasons for this. First, Gu Qiyuan, his wife, and Gu Shaoling were staying in Lian City and hadn’t returned. It wasn’t that they didn’t want to, but Grandpa Gu wouldn’t allow them, a decision Granny Gu had even argued with him about. Second, Zheng Shaolian had been discharged from the military, and this year, he and his brother returned to the Zheng Family home in Tianjin for the holiday. With so many people suddenly missing from the household, it was hard for things to be lively.
On the morning of the first day of the New Year, Gu Shaozhen and Gu Shaoqin went to the Tang family’s home to pay their respects as usual. Xiao Man and Hao Hao then followed them back to the Gu family home. After paying their respects and receiving their red envelopes, they didn’t stay long, quietly slipping away with some other children when the Gu family members weren’t looking. Afterward, the Tang family did not hold a special banquet for the entire Gu family. When the Gu family extended invitations, the Tangs didn’t go as a whole group either, sending only the men as representatives. Grandma Tang took her daughter-in-law and granddaughter to visit relatives from the Ai Family, leaving early in the morning for several days in a row, causing Granny Gu and Zhou Huilan to find them gone every time they came to invite them over.