Shen Ju cursed in his mouth, but he couldn't help but quicken his pace. He couldn't tell whether he was happy or disgusted with this son. Because of the cold relationship between his wife, Sun, and his wife, he was not close to Shen Rui and his son. But his wife is deceased, and as a father, he feels more than just the responsibility of a father. Sun is not only the mother of the fourth house, but also a great contributor to the fourth house.
Shen Juren was a disciple of Confucius and Mencius and had no economic knowledge. Without Sun's twenty years of management, there would be no fourth house today. Even if he wanted to obtain half of Sun's dowry, he not only favored the eldest son, but also wanted to Hopefully the two brothers can support each other in the future.
The Shen family is well-known for their scholarship, but Shen Rui is not good at reading, and his future is limited. He can only rely on his father and brother in the future. Shen Jin is recorded in the name of Sun, and his relationship with Shen Rui is even closer. Even if it is just to look good in front of the world , Shen Jin will not abandon his brother Shen Rui. To be clear, when Shen Jin is recorded in Sun's name, Shen Rui becomes Shen Jin's responsibility. This is not only a matter of flesh and blood, but also involves morality.
I just didn't expect that it would lead to this situation.
In order to force out the so-called "leftover person", Shen Juren would freeze and starve his own grandson for several days. Shen Juren complained about Zhang Laoan's move. As for Shen Rui, who was beaten by him before he was frozen and starved, he abandoned it. to the back of the head.
When he walked outside the mourning hall and looked at Shen Rui, who was kneeling on the throne of a filial son and burning paper money, Shen Juren couldn't help but feel a little surprised. Who is this child who is kneeling there quietly with a plain face and a sad face? This is the most arrogant and naughty child in his memory. son?
He held his forehead, trying to recall what his second son looked like in the past. The few scenes he saw were of him scolding his son, with Lao An protecting him, and Sun watching silently. In front of his wife, he was really lacking in confidence, and he didn't even bother to scold him. Reprimanded, out of sight, out of mind, the time father and son spend together becomes increasingly short.
Shen Rui was concentrating on burning paper money when his sleeves were pulled up. When he raised his head, he saw that there were more people in the mourning hall.
Shen Jin stood up next to him, and he also stood up. Shen Juren coughed twice and said to Shen Jin with a straight face: "You are the elder brother, please look for more of your younger brothers."
Shen Jin hurriedly bowed and said: "I respect your orders."
Shen Juren looked at Shen Rui again, frowned and said: "I will follow your elder brother and keep my filial piety, and don't do anything strange again!"
"No." Shen Rui responded calmly.
Seeing his lukewarm appearance, Shen Juren felt his chest feel clogged, and he suddenly lost interest in talking. He snorted coldly and rolled away his sleeves.
Seeing this, Shen Jin whispered to Shen Rui: "In front of the master, my second brother is more or less docile."
Shen Rui was quite surprised. He glanced at Shen Jin and saw that his face was full of sincerity and he was indeed out of good intentions. He nodded and said, "Thank you, brother."
Having nothing else to say, the two brothers continued their silent vigil.
Mrs. Guo returned home, asked about some housework, and hurried over. Seeing that Shen Rui was still in the mourning hall, she persuaded him to go back to the house to rest. Shen Rui was determined to keep vigil, so he persuaded Mrs. Guo to go home. When Mrs. Guo saw him He persisted in this and sighed "Be filial to your child" twice, but did not force him to go back. He just looked at him with more loving eyes.
Parents in the world don't want their children to be filial. Shen Rui insisted on keeping vigil for his mother at a young age, just after recovering from a serious illness, which shows that he is truly filial. However, seeing Shen Jin beside him, Mrs. Guo felt a little uneasy after all, so she returned home If you go, ask your legitimate son Shen Quan to come over, and stay here to look after Shen Rui on the pretext of guarding the funeral of the Sun family on behalf of Sister Fu.
Sister Fu's daughter was a young daughter of the Guo family. She was born with difficulty in childbirth, but Sun's help allowed her to be born safely. When she was full moon, Guo took her daughter to the house and recognized Sun as her devoted mother.
Now that Sister Fu's son is only six months old, it makes sense for Mrs. Guo to arrange for her youngest son to "keep vigil on her sister's behalf".
Shen Quan and Shen Jin were both fourteen years old and one month older than Shen Jin. They had already passed the county and government examinations, but failed in the college examination and were only considered as children.
The Guo family has three sons and one daughter. The eldest son was the son who failed in the imperial examination last spring. Because he wanted to take the next examination, he did not return to his hometown after failing and stayed in the capital to study. The Guo family was enlightened and sent his eldest daughter-in-law to the capital to take care of his son's daily life. The second son is a Gongsheng student and is currently serving as an eunuch at the Imperial College in Nanjing.
Guo's husband, Shen Hong, was in poor health, so Shen Quan became Guo's assistant. He usually took care of the household affairs and was somewhat mature and steady. Since he was ordered by his mother to come here, he naturally focused on taking care of Shen Rui. However, he and Shen Rui Shen Rui was several years older and we didn't know each other well, so we had nothing to say for a while.
He had already heard about Shen Rui's harsh treatment. Although he couldn't stand the behavior of Zhang Laoan and Mr. Shen, he didn't think that the fault should be attributed to Shen Jin.
He and Shen Jin are brothers and neighbors. They grew up together and know Shen Jin's temperament best. Although Shen Jin is a concubine, she has an upright and peaceful temperament and does not have the petty and stingy nature of ordinary concubines. It is just that she is tightly restrained by the Zheng family. , just immersed himself in reading all day long, a little ignorant of the world, and really has no bad intentions. As for occupying Shen Rui's "filial son position", in his opinion, it is just a matter of filial piety to his aunt, and it is definitely not what the tribesmen speculated. So many calculations have been made.
Shen Quan also made a distinction between Shen Jin in front of the old man of the fifth house and the Guo family. The two elders looked noncommittal. It was actually Shen Juren's intention to embezzle his wife's dowry, and Shen Rui's experience in the past few days was too unbearable. , it has to make people think more.
In contrast to his favorable impression of Shen Jin, Shen Quan's impression of Shen Rui was not good.
Shen Rui has a stubborn temper, but he has seen it before. The first time he was beaten was because of Shen Rui. He was ten years old at the time, but he was hit on the forehead by a stone thrown by five-year-old Shen Rui. There are still bruises on the corner of his hair. A scar the size of the little finger cap.
He originally wanted to complain in front of his parents, but his brother persuaded him to let it go. Being beaten by a five-year-old child, it was not honorable to speak out. Besides, the two mothers were on good terms, so there was no need for them to get into trouble over such trivial matters. It was just that He had a memory in his heart and avoided the little bully next door from then on.
Unexpectedly, the phoenix would also fall to the ground. Is this still the same little overlord? Could it be that the core has been changed? Shen Quan, who was looking at Shen Rui, was filled with doubts.
This well-behaved and honest look almost dazzled him.
Shen Ruizhi felt that his scalp was numb. He was really uncomfortable being stared at by Shen Quan, so he turned sideways and said, "Brother Quan has been staring at his younger brother, but do you have something to give me?"
Shen Quan touched his chin, laughed twice, and said, "I haven't seen my second brother Rui for some days, so I don't dare to recognize him."
Of course Shen Rui knew that he was different from the original owner, but no one in the Shen family noticed anything, so there was no need to worry about the brothers next door, so he lowered his head and stopped talking. So what if others noticed that he was different from the original owner? The protagonist experienced the pain of losing his mother, was beaten again, and almost died of cold and starvation. The change in temperament is reasonable.
Above the mourning hall, it was not a place for laughter after all. Shen Quan looked at Shen Ruixiao's mother's face, thinking about Sun's kindness during his lifetime, and regained his solemnity.
The pattern of three people keeping vigil has become a routine from this day on.
It has long been known to everyone that the Sun family accepted Sister Fu's son as his mother-in-law. Now that Shen Quan is here on his mother's orders, although Shen Juren is a little uncomfortable, he doesn't want to cause trouble, so he just lets it go. Zhang Laoan, on the other hand, wants to There were so many people that I had to ask Shen Juren to talk about it privately, saying that I wanted to prevent Guo from borrowing his daughter's name and dividing Sun's dowry and private property, and so on.
Shen Juren was worried about the reputation of the fourth family these days, so he didn't hear this. He comforted Lao An a few words, and then ran away. As for Zhang Lao'an's request for him to count the Sun family's dowry assets as soon as possible, he also prevaricated it again. .
If you really want to act like that when Sun is filial, you really don’t need the face of the fourth family. Besides, since Sun was bedridden, Sun’s outside property has gradually been taken over by Uncle Zhang and several older uncles of the Zhang family. Control. It is not that Shen Juren has not heard about his uncle's family taking advantage of him, but out of consideration for Zhang Lao'an's kindness, Shen Juren does not want to argue with his uncle's family over a few coins.
A few days passed by, although Shen Rui followed the rules and followed the vegetarian diet, he finally had enough to eat. His weak body was getting better, but his heart was not at ease. For no other reason, he really couldn't worry about Mama Wang and Liu Ya. I thought that these two people Since it was bought by Shen Li, even if it was not resold by Shen Li and given back to him, he expected there would be news coming back, but there was no news. Could it be that it was hit hard? What's wrong with it?
When the Sun family arrived on February 7th, both Guo family and Shen Li came to visit.
Shen Rui didn't need to take the initiative to ask, Shen Li told the matter in private: "I heard from Aunt Hong that you are thinking about the two foster mothers and maids you sold. There is no need to worry, their illness is almost recovered. It's just that now I don’t want to send it back to you, otherwise I don’t know what Lao An will say. I’ll wait for Auntie to finish the big thing, and then we’ll make arrangements for the two of them.”
Shen Rui thought for a while and whispered: "Brother Six, did they tell Lao An why he wanted to starve and freeze me on purpose?"
Shen Li shook his head and said: "I asked carefully. The two of them were temporarily arranged by Mr. Lao An to serve you, and they were not served by Mr. Lao An. I saw that Mr. Lao An seemed to like them both alone. It has nothing to do with others and can be easily dealt with, just like selling people this time. If you choose someone else, you might have to sell your whole family. For the others, Brother Six will continue to investigate. Brother Rui is still young, so he just needs to take care of himself. There is no need Think about this."
Seeing his solemnity, Shen Rui knew that there must be other private matters involved. After all, Zhang Laoan's previous arrangements were too strange. He knew about Sun's dowry donation, and guessed that it was probably Zhang Laoan who was "acting out his anger" to others. Seeing that Si Fang was acting like this, he was suspected of "taking lives and taking wealth."
Shen Rui didn't mention the matter for the time being, and said seriously: "Sixth brother, after my mother is buried, I want to follow my example and make a house in front of my mother's spirit to observe filial piety."
Hearing this, Shen Li was stunned for a moment, then frowned and said, "No, you are young and frail, and it is the twelfth lunar month when the funeral is held. How can you withstand this? Your filial piety is not here. Take care of yourself, and my aunt will leave. Peace of mind. ”
Shen Rui smiled bitterly and said: "In front of others, the younger brother will only talk about filial piety, which is how it should be. In front of the sixth brother, the younger brother will tell the truth. The younger brother wants to live. The younger brother wants to study like the sixth brother and get ahead. But if In this family, I don't know when my younger brother will be 'sick' again, or when he will be subject to 'family law' again. Even if he is not sick or beaten, he is still a 'naughty and willful' person, and I don't know what kind of bad reputation will be spread. In the past, When I was young and my mother was around, even if there were rumors, it wouldn't matter. Now I am getting older and I am in filial piety. Soon, I will be able to eat people with my tongue. My brother is really scared..."