bayedsolid Chapter 349 Failure to report knowledge will be severely punished.
Chapter 349 Failure to report knowledge will be severely punished.
This was the first time the mother and her two children had encountered such a situation. Although Old Mrs. Xu was domineering, she had no idea how to refute her.
Xu Dao naturally denied it, but he couldn't make a sound.
Xu Gu was not only clear-headed but also pragmatic. "Mother, elder brother, it's true that we mistook you for someone else and bothered you. Whatever this lady asks, let's answer her properly and not say anything irrelevant that might offend her."
The Xu family was once wealthy, but things declined in the previous generation. After the head of the family passed away, things went downhill, and now... let's not talk about it.
Xu Gu had seen good things before, and he hadn't noticed it when the candlelight was dim, but Lin Chang'er put the jade pendant into his elder brother's mouth, which made it clear to him.
This kind of brand isn't something an ordinary family can afford.
No wonder this young lady dared to do such a thing.
Old Mrs. Xu hadn't been eating for nothing all these years; she understood what was going on and chimed in, "Yes, yes, we mistook you for someone else. Whatever you want to know, madam, we'll tell you."
Xu Dao shook his head, making "woo-woo" noises incessantly.
Lin Chang'er found him annoying, "Brother, come here and throw this guy next door."
"Alright!" Huo Shiyi pushed open the door and strode in.
Lin Chang'er pointed casually, and Huo Shiyi picked up Xu Dao and dragged him outside.
"Gently, gently..." Old Mrs. Xu felt very distressed, but she didn't dare to say anything more.
After the door was closed again, Lin Chang'er sat back in the chair Wu Qingfeng had prepared for her, raised her chin at Xu Gu, and said, "Speak!"
Xu Gu swallowed hard and slowly began, "My sister-in-law was originally my family's child bride, but later..."
Xu Gu paused for a moment and looked at his parents.
Grandma Xu quickly chimed in, "Later she ran off with someone!" Grandma Xu thought that since they didn't recognize their daughter-in-law Yu Damai, the person they were talking about now had nothing to do with the woman in front of them, so it shouldn't be a problem to pinch her casually.
"Is that so?" Lin Chang'er frowned.
Wu Qingfeng interrupted, "Why did you run away? Explain clearly! Otherwise..."
He only gave a soft shout, but Old Lady Xu and Xu Gu trembled all over, as if there was an invisible pressure pressing down on them, making them afraid to move.
Xu Gu glanced at his parents, and seeing Old Mrs. Xu nod with her neck shrank, he continued, "Our family has fallen on hard times and can no longer make a living. In order to support my eldest brother's studies, we pawned her to the old master to give birth to his son..."
"What?" Lin Chang'er's eyes widened, and she was stunned for a long time, feeling suffocated.
She had considered many possibilities, but only after hearing it with her own ears did she realize that women in this era suffered far more hardship than she had imagined...
He pawned his wife as a means of reproduction, moving her to the next family after she gave birth to one, until she could no longer have children...
Wu Qingfeng's brows furrowed deeply. He considered himself to have seen plenty of the shady dealings within the inner quarters of a household, but upon hearing this, he couldn't help but curse, "A scumbag who profits by pawning his wife deserves to be a scholar!" He would definitely write to the education commissioner later, asking him to strip this dog of his qualifications.
Old Mrs. Xu frowned. "What can we do if we have no money at home?"
Lin Chang'er suppressed the urge to beat them up again, "And then what happened? Keep telling me."
"Later, my sister-in-law did not give birth to a son, but only a girl. The old rich man readily gave her the remaining money and even let my sister-in-law stay at his house for postpartum care. However, the girl was not even a month old when the old rich man passed away."
"Before leaving, I brought my sister-in-law and that girl back together."
"My elder brother tasted the sweetness and sent the girl to my sister-in-law's family. He was also preparing to find a new husband for my sister-in-law. My sister-in-law had a big fight with my elder brother, saying that after she gave birth to the girl, the old rich man's wife gave her a drug that would prevent her from having children, so she could not have any more children."
"My older brother beat up my sister-in-law and then sold her to a human trafficker..."
Lin Chang'er's fists were about to burst open. "Is your sister-in-law an object? She's been sold off by your family time and time again. What do you want from her now? To sell her again?"
"Go to hell! A grown man who doesn't know how to earn money to support his family only knows how to take shortcuts and eat women's blood buns. What's the point of having good hands and feet?"
Lin Chang'er grabbed the broken-legged stool and rushed outside.
Before long, a man's bloodcurdling screams, like a pig being slaughtered, echoed from the courtyard.
Xu Gu and his wife inside the house trembled, not daring to utter a single word.
Wu Qingfeng thought that Lin Chang'er wouldn't be able to vent her anger for a while, so he sat down in the chair she had been sitting in. "According to the laws of our dynasty, kidnappers are beheaded. A husband who sells his own wife is no different from a kidnapper. If he knows about it and doesn't report it, he will be severely punished. Since your elder brother is a scholar, you should have been educated too?"
Xu Gu's eyes widened, and beads of cold sweat slid down his forehead. Laws are laws, but aren't there plenty of people selling their children and wives in this countryside?
Why should they be implicated and punished as a whole?
Xu Gu was terrified and hurriedly kowtowed to Wu Qingfeng, saying, "We were bewitched. We heard that my sister-in-law is now living a wealthy life, and we had some improper thoughts."
"We were wrong, we'll never do it again, please, kind sir, have mercy on us..."
Not content with kowtowing himself, he hurriedly reminded Old Lady Xu, "Mother, what are you standing there for? Quickly kowtow to the important person! Do you want to be exiled at your age?"
Upon hearing the word "exile," Old Lady Xu shuddered again and kowtowed along with Xu Gu.
While kowtowing, he begged for forgiveness and promised, "It's all our fault. We shouldn't have offended such an important person."
Wu Qingfeng's gaze was fixed on Xu Gu. "Who told you that?"
Xu Gu said, "One of my sisters in the village got married here. I heard it from her."
Wu Qingfeng frowned, asked the woman's name, and said in a deep voice, "Your sister-in-law was sold off by your brother a long time ago. Today, it was actually you and your two children who saw that the Gu family was having a banquet and thought they could make money, so they deliberately caused trouble and provoked us."
Xu Gu and Old Lady Xu exchanged a glance, as if they had figured something out, and nodded hurriedly.
"Yes, yes, what you say is true. It was because we saw that the woman was dressed so beautifully that we had inappropriate thoughts. It was our fault, it was our fault."
Wu Qingfeng nodded, thinking to himself that his youngest son was indeed intelligent, but unfortunately, that was all he was. He lacked courage and loyalty, and deserved to be stuck with his parents and that scoundrel.
In the courtyard, Xu Dao, in pain, rolled around on the ground like a worm.
Lin Chang'er was exhausted from fighting and was panting with her arms around her waist when Huo Shiyi came to take over.
Wu Qingfeng came out of the house. "Chang'er, everything's taken care of here."
Lin Chang'er straightened up and kicked Xu Dao again, "Consider yourself lucky."
Wu Qingfeng then said to Huo Shiyi, "Brother Shiyi, I'll trouble you to lead the brothers to keep an eye on these three. I'll send someone to deal with them in a little while."
With the magistrate speaking, Huo Shiyi dared not disagree, patting his chest and saying, "You two can rest assured!"
Wu Qingfeng gave Lin Chang'er a wink, and Lin Chang'er knew that he probably had something to say to her privately. She dropped the stool leg she was holding and left with him first.