Flip the table and divide the family property! Take his wife and daughter into the mountains and eat

As soon as he said that, the room became so quiet that even the crackling of the embers in the stove sounded harsh, like someone had poured cold water into boiling oil.

Wang Xiulan's hand, which was reaching out to tuck the blanket in, froze in mid-air. Half of her body was turned to the side, and she was stuck, unable to move forward or backward.

The old man at the door took the pipe out of his mouth, his eyes revealing a complex emotion that was hard to describe.

The old barefoot doctor slowly raised his head, staring at the medicine bottle on the table, without saying a word.

Wang Xiulan was the first to come to her senses, and her face gradually darkened.

"Xiaoyu, don't be stubborn. Your aunt isn't trying to stop you, but if you really go to find your brother now, it might not be a good way out."

Zhao Xiaoyu leaned against the headboard, her eyes fixed on a point in the void, her lips pressed tightly together, not uttering a single word.

Looking at her stubborn expression, Wang Xiulan lowered her voice even further, her voice filled with heartfelt earnestness: "Your brother's heart has long been chilled to the bone by your whole family. It's been frozen solid with ice shards. It's not like you're desperate now and think of him, running over to call him 'brother' and he'll be back to how he was before, letting your Zhao family do whatever they want with him."

The old barefoot doctor frowned as he spoke, adding a harsh remark: "That's the best-case scenario; you can still hope he'll have some old feelings for you. To put it another way, you might not even see him now. Shanhe is no longer the hothead he used to be, running around the mountains with a broken gun. Now he's in the city, managing a hundred or so people, living in a grand mansion, and his social circle isn't made up of those peasants anymore. Even the Red Star Machinery Factory specifically invited him to be their factory director; he's a real man now."

The old man at the door exhaled a puff of smoke and added in a muffled voice, "The path your brother Shanhe has taken has long diverged from your Zhao family's. If you go to see him now, he might not be willing to see you, and even if he does, he might not still acknowledge you as his sister."

The room was eerily quiet. Zhao Xiaoyu's chest heaved violently, as if something was raging beneath her thin skin, unable to find an outlet.

After a long silence, she finally managed to squeeze out a sentence, her voice hoarse and filled with a resentful fierceness: "Then what else can I do..."

"Your aunt knows you're having a hard time, but just because you're having a hard time doesn't mean people will automatically turn around and lend you a hand. You've... been hurt before. Back then, when were you ever not standing behind your mother and your two brothers, sucking his blood along with them?"

These words were like a poisoned needle, piercing right into Zhao Xiaoyu's most vulnerable spot.

Zhao Xiaoyu was stunned for two seconds, then her lips began to tremble, and she shrank back as if she had been electrocuted.

"Did I break his heart?"

Her voice was so soft it was almost ethereal, tinged with a sharp, self-deprecating edge, "And what about them? Didn't they break his heart?! Why should it all be blamed on me in the end?!"

It was as if those words had opened a bloody wound in her heart. She suddenly raised her head, and the tears she had been holding back burst forth, smearing her pale face.

"Didn't my second brother's education cost more than mine?! All those years of supporting him and my third brother, every single penny of that hard-earned money was squeezed out of my eldest brother's pocket!"

"When my third brother was young, he would get into fights and cause trouble. Every time, wasn't it my eldest brother who had to smile and apologize to the people?! People would point their fingers at him, curse him, and spit in his face, and he still had to bow and scrape, begging for forgiveness! And my second brother? He would stay indoors reading by lamplight. When his pen ran out of ink, he would ask for money; when he ran out of paper, he would ask for money. If the teacher said he needed to buy something, the family would sell everything they owned to provide it—where did the money come from?! Wasn't it all earned by my eldest brother, who would go into the mountains time and time again, risking his life fighting with animals in the snow?!"

Zhao Xiaoyu's speech became increasingly incoherent and rapid, her voice cracking with excitement and piercing the eardrums.

"Where is my mother?! She scolds him, beats him, and treats him like a beast of burden, wishing she could squeeze every last drop of oil from his bones for money! He's the one who goes up the mountain in winter, the one who skins people in the middle of the night, and the one who carries grain and water, repairs the house and fixes leaks—it's all his work! But what happens when he comes home?! He can't even get a peaceful meal when he's home! She scolds him whether she's happy or unhappy, blaming him for being useless, calling him a born debt collector! They all bleed him dry, driving him to the brink of divorce, and now I'm being driven to my death too. Why is all this blame being placed on me?!"

As she spoke, tears streamed down her face, pelting the pillow as she sobbed, her whole body arching like a shrimp struggling in boiling water.

"I wasn't that good to him! But I'm not as bad as my mother!! I'm not as cruel as them!! I'm not completely heartless, I never intended to drive him to his death!!"

Zhao Xiaoyu seemed to be possessed, her eyes darting around, her voice trembling uncontrollably: "I...I know he's suffering...I've seen it! I've seen it all! He came back from the mountains in the heavy snow, his face blue from the cold, his cotton shoes filled with ice crystals, his heels bleeding from every step..."

"I've seen him hiding in the kitchen at night, gnawing on dry, frozen buns, without even a sip of hot water. I've also seen my mother serve all the meat to my second and third brothers first, leaving only a little bit of bland broth for him... I've seen it all!! But what could I do?! Did I dare to speak up?! Did I dare to stop him?!"

She practically screamed out that question with blood on her face.

"The moment I open my mouth, my mother points at my forehead and berates me, and my second and third brothers complain that I'm meddling! Do you think I can raise my voice much in that house?! I admit... I took his things, I ate his meat, I shamelessly used his money... But who in the family hasn't taken things?! Who hasn't eaten?! Why is it that now everyone else is clean, but I'm the one who wronged him the most?!"

Her fingers, gripping the corner of the blanket, turned white inch by inch, her nails digging deep into the cotton.

"What's wrong with me studying?! When I was studying, I thought that if I graduated and became successful, I could pay him back! I didn't want to live off him forever! It's not that I didn't think about paying him back! I just... I just didn't dare... I didn't have the guts to protect him... I just thought I could keep getting by like this..."

When she said those words, even she felt like she was choked by something, making a hoarse sound in her throat and her lips trembling.

"What am I supposed to do?! Tell me!! I'm in this state, what else can I do?! My mother sold me like an animal! Zhao Laizi is blocking the door outside, trying to kill me! You keep saying this road is blocked, then that road is impassable—who else can I turn to besides him?!"

"He's got power now! He's not the Zhao Shanhe who used to come home and get yelled at! Now he can just open his mouth and raise his hand to shut down this little mess of mine! I'm begging him to help me this once, just this once, please?! I'll kneel down for him! I'll kowtow to him! As long as I can live, I'll do anything for him from now on—"

"Shut up."

The sound was not loud; it even carried a chilling calmness.

But as soon as the sound fell, all the screams, cries, and roars in the room were abruptly cut off.

Zhao Xiaoyu froze abruptly, her sobs caught in her throat. Wang Xiulan, the old barefoot doctor, and the old man at the door all turned around almost simultaneously.

The curtain had been lifted at some point. Lin Xiu stood in the doorway, her shoulders still carrying the lingering chill of the outside air, two unmelted snowflakes clinging to the ends of her hair, her face as white as frost.

She didn't know how long she had been standing outside.

But those eyes were fixed on Zhao Xiaoyu on the kang (a heated brick bed), and that gaze was even colder than the dead of winter outside.