Early the next morning, at the old Zhou family’s ancestral home in Zhou Family Village, many women and elderly came to pay their respects.
The wind had been howling since midnight. Now, the sky was clear, the wind stopped, and the snow ceased. Several superstitious women muttered that good people receive their due rewards, even the heavens smile upon them.
Mrs. Zhou, born Huang, was kind-hearted and returned to Zhou Family Village after recovering many villagers in her early years. Many women came to bid her farewell, having once received her kindness.
Despite the bad reputation of the old Zhou family, the villagers who received her kindness still remembered Mrs. Zhou’s goodwill silently, standing outside the old house, planning to see her off.
Even if the ordinary people were illiterate, they had their own principles. They despised the old Zhou family and were disdainful of coexisting with them, yet they still stood outside.
Zhou Xiaocun, draped in mourning clothes, led with his eldest son, followed by the remaining sons, grandsons, and granddaughters-in-law of the old Zhou family, then Aunt Zhou and her husband, followed by their children and grandchildren.
The mourners followed the hearse, the procession heading toward the mountains.
On this day, Mrs. Zhou, who had experienced a lifetime of ups and downs, departed from this world.
And the absence of Zhou Xiaozheng and his daughter made everyone understand once again that the only good person in the old Zhou family had left, and the two families had reached an irreconcilable point.
Less than a month later, not far from Mrs. Zhou’s new grave, another solitary grave appeared. It’s unknown what the old Zhou family was thinking, knowing the discord between the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, yet still placing them so close.
Compared to Mrs. Zhou’s long-held mourning hall, Huang Zhaodi’s funeral was conducted silently.
The day after the notification, Huang Zhaodi’s body was secretly transported back to the old house by Zhou Xiaocun, accompanied by his eldest son.
The once plump body of Huang Zhaodi, now reduced to just skin and bones—her cause of death unknown, yet it wasn’t hard for Zhou Xiaocun to see that his wife was starved to death.
The four sons glared angrily at their father. They couldn’t understand why their monthly saved portion of food made their sacrificial mother so thin.
Thinking of Zhou Xiaocun’s widow mistress, of that woman’s fair and rosy face, how could they not know where their food went?
Their mother, no matter her faults, her greed was for them. To Zhou Lidong and his three brothers, their mother brought shame, but wasn’t it also maternal love?
The four brothers, tears brimming, pushed aside their father Zhou Xiaocun, stood opposite him, while their three sisters-in-law disdainfully cleaned Huang Zhaodi’s remains.
Faced with his sons’ anger, Zhou Xiaocun, momentarily speechless, could only remain silent.
He had indeed supported the pretty widow, even almost considered marrying her. But he hadn’t given up on Huang Zhaodi, she was his wife, the mother of his four sons—dared he?
He wasn’t a foolish man. Compared to the pretty widow, Huang Zhaodi was wholeheartedly devoted to him. Once, they had loved each other, even if his wife aged and lost her beauty, he never thought of abandoning her while alive.
But now, explaining that he truly gave food coupons to his wife, would they believe it? They wouldn’t! It was Mrs. Zhou secretly supplementing them, and now there’s no evidence after her death.
And where did Mrs. Zhou get the food coupons?
It was given by that bastard and that fool from the Old Zhang’s family.
Zhou Xiaocun suspected again, was this a trap set by the son-in-law and father-in-law? Perhaps even the pretty widow’s seduction was part of their scheme from the start?
"You’re not worthy to be our father!"
Zhou Xiaocun listened to his eldest son’s angry shout. He gave a bitter smile, and said hollowly, "If I said I never intended to abandon your mother, would you believe me?"



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