novelhk Chapter 158 Such a grand display, yet no official...
Chapter 158 Such a grand display, yet no official...
Bao Ya learned from Chen Yongjun that his mother remarried Zhang Gui when he was thirteen years old.
Zhang Gui's family originally had four sons, and he was the same age as the second son of that family. In that family, he got up earlier than the chickens and went to bed later than the dogs. He also had to work non-stop every day.
At first, when the Zhang brothers bullied him, his mother would say a few words in his defense. But later, his mother and stepfather had another son, and they stopped paying attention to him altogether.
After Chen Yongjun joined the army, he wrote a letter home. From that letter onward, his mother started asking him for money.
He also felt that his mother had a hard life, so he sent money every month. He started with five yuan, then ten yuan, then twenty yuan, and continued to send money for eight years.
Bao Ya frowned as she listened to him. What a woman's sentimentality! They've already escaped the fire, why keep contacting each other? If they just ignored them, there wouldn't be so much trouble.
His mother was brainless, and his stepfather was cunning. These people were of no help to him at all; they just wanted to leech off him.
As they were talking, Sanmao came over and told them that the old couple had arrived.
Bao Ya looked out the window, then took a stack of papers and a pen from the desk, and casually stuffed a red object into the middle of the stack of papers. Then she asked Sanmao to put those things into the room they had prepared.
When Bao Ya arrived in the courtyard, she saw the couple.
Zhang Guisheng was thin and bony, with high cheekbones and a sallow complexion that showed no sign of good fortune. His only feature was a pair of small eyes hidden in loose eyelid creases. He always looked at people with a sidelong glance, like a mouse guarding a grain store.
Chen Yongjun's mother, Li Zhaodi, had a pointed face, thin eyebrows, thin lips, and a protruding chin; she was clearly a formidable woman who wouldn't suffer a loss. She was short and thin, quick as the wind, and spoke in a high-pitched voice.
These two are a perfect match in terms of appearance, like a pair of rats. Chen Yongjun, on the other hand, has a simple and honest look, probably like his father.
"This must be Uncle Chen and Aunt Chen, welcome, welcome!"
Bao Ya greeted the couple with a big smile and shook hands with them.
When Zhang Gui heard Bao Ya call him Uncle Chen, his smile froze on his face, and he looked a little embarrassed, but he quickly put on a smile again.
"My surname is Zhang, and I am Chen Yongjun's stepfather."
Upon hearing that his surname was Zhang and that he was Chen Yongjun's stepfather, Bao Ya's smile faded considerably. After a pause, she put on a faint, polite smile again, and her slightly hunched back straightened.
"Stepfather, oh well, stepfather is an elder too, hehe."
Turning to Sanmao, he said:
"Xiao Su, please invite the two of you in and have a seat."
As he spoke, his contemptuous gaze was made no attempt to conceal it.
After saying that, he ignored the two people behind him, raised his chin, and went into the room by himself. He sat down behind the interrogation table and flipped through a few papers on the table without looking up.
Sanmao responded and led the two into the room. After sitting down in the interrogation seat, he returned to sit next to Baoya, picked up a piece of paper from the table, and pretended to read it.
Bao Ya's actions immediately made Zhang Gui and his wife anxious. Did she have a problem with them or something?
Looking at the furnishings inside, which resembled an interrogation room, my heart started to pound. What did this mean? Were they being interrogated like criminals?
By doing this, Bao Ya was clearly telling him that he was her stepfather and that he needed to know his place.
Another thing is to make these two behave themselves; not everyone can tolerate their misbehavior.
It's useless to reason with someone who's being unreasonable. Give them a hard time first, intimidate them, and then everything will be easier to discuss.
The few people observing them from the other side were also stunned, thinking to themselves, "Such a big ego, yet they don't have any official rank at all. And you know what, there's something about it."
"Uncle Zhang, Aunt Chen, we've come today to gather some information so we can report back to our superiors."
Don't worry, if what you're saying is true, the higher-ups will definitely deal with it seriously. Who wants to speak first?
Seeing that Bao Ya was letting them speak, Zhang Gui thought for a moment, then gave Li Zhaodi a wink, and Li Zhaodi immediately responded:
"Let me go first. I raised Gouwazi from infancy, scrimping and saving, working myself to the bone, and never enjoying a single day of happiness. Now that he's all grown up, he doesn't even respect his mother. He's broken my heart..."
As they spoke, they began to wipe away tears, and Zhang Gui sighed along with them, as if they were a pair of parents abandoned by their unfilial son.
These two old bastards work together quite well; one pretends to be honest and scouts the way, while the other uses his cunning to gain advantages. But they're going to be disappointed today.
"Da da da".
Bao Ya tapped her finger on the table to stop Li Zhaodi's crying, and said somewhat impatiently:
"Aunt Chen, time is limited, let's get to the specifics."
Answer my questions. Don't be nervous, just like you're having a normal conversation.
I heard that you two are both remarried, and Chen Yongjun was brought to your wife's home when she remarried. Uncle Zhang, how many children did you have before that?
Zhang Gui didn't know what she meant by asking that question, so he spoke cautiously, paying close attention to her expression as he spoke.
"Four."
"All sons? How old is the youngest?"
"The youngest one in front is twenty-one this year. The youngest one, whom your aunt and I had, is ten years old this year."
Zhang Gui had a bad feeling, but he dared not hide it now and could only tell the truth.
"Oh, including Chen Yongjun, you have five grown sons. I remember they said before that Chen Yongjun sends you twenty yuan a month."
Bao Ya counted on her fingers for them with great seriousness:
"If one son is twenty, then five sons would be a hundred. Uncle, your family has an income of a hundred yuan a month, which is more than the landlords of the past."
How were your ingredients determined? This is a crucial question, Xiao Su, please write it down. The ingredients are very important; we need to communicate with them thoroughly.
"Okay, I remember everything."
When Sanmao heard Baoya's instructions, he immediately and readily agreed.
Every time they said something, Sanmao would scribble or draw on the paper, as if she were recording it.
When Zhang Gui heard that they were going to discuss his family's class background, he immediately panicked. If they were classified as landlords, wouldn't they be dragged out and criticized every day?
He knew exactly how miserable the landlords in the village had become.
Thinking about this made me panic, and a fine layer of sweat appeared on my forehead.
The composition issue was set in the early days of the People's Republic of China, and it hasn't changed much since. However, Bao Ya felt that he might not understand it, so she brought it up to scare them.
"There aren't that many. Those four are useless; they just toil in the fields and barely make ends meet. They all rely on Gouwazi for help."
Taking advantage of wiping his sweat with his sleeve, Zhang Gui secretly glanced at Bao Ya. He felt that these two people today were different from the leaders he had met before; it seemed like they had come specifically to cause trouble for them.
Bao Ya looked at the old man with disdain and curled her lip. She had given birth to four good-for-nothings, yet she still had the nerve to exploit her stepson.
"So you're saying none of the four of them will give you any money for your retirement? They're so unfilial."
Xiao Su, write this down. We need to have a serious talk with their leaders about this. This kind of unfilial son should be sent to a farm for reformation.