“Huh, Su Sanshou doesn’t need to properly address me. Wasn’t he a member of the Su family, Brother Yongqiang? Did he suddenly leave? Why didn’t you let me know about such a big thing?”
When Su Yongqiang heard Su Tang’s tone, he immediately understood what she was getting at and played along, “How could I not inform you, Sister Tang? Of course, I would have told you ahead of time, but I only just learned myself that there was actually someone that didn’t want to be a part of the Su family.”
Without knowing how, the topic had suddenly turned deadly serious. ‘Not wanting to be a member of the Su family’, wouldn’t that just mean that person would be expelled from the family? Something like this wasn’t something you could just say casually. In this era, family was considered to be something very important. If a person was removed from their family, everyone would immediately think that there was something terribly wrong with their character.
If nothing else, people who had been expelled from their families were completely hopeless when it came to the imperial examination and had no chance of passing at all. It wasn’t just that though, pretty much any job would be the same. At the end of the day, no matter what a person without a family tried to do, they would always be looked down upon by the people around them.
“Who said…” Madam Zhao didn’t expect that Su Tang had hardly said a few words but the topic had already jumped directly to Su Sanshou being expelled from the family. She felt like she had to open her mouth to object.
Su Yonggui saw that his wife was going to do something stupid so he cut in and directly said, “You shut up!”
Madam Zhao was always very domineering at home, always lording over Su Yonggui like a queen, so when he suddenly shouted at her she immediately howled back, “Su Yonggui, how dare you…”
Su Yonggui’s face became darker and darker, and Madam Wu suddenly hated this mother-in-law of hers very much. She really felt that there might not be anyone in the world that was stupider than Madam Zhao at this moment, but she still hastened forward to pull her back and said, “Niang, let’s just let father speak.”
However, Madam Zhao was in a fit of shame and anger from having her usually quiet husband yell at her, so when Madam Wu tried to pull her back she turned and threw out a slap while hollering, “You shameless little whore, is it your place to interrupt me when I’m speaking?”
Madam Wu covered her face where she had been struck but continued to try to persuade her mother-in-law, “Niang, we’re in front of the patriarch right now. Father won’t appreciate you undermining him.”
Sure enough, because of Madam Wu’s attempts to mediate, Su Yonggui sent her a brief glance tinged with gratefulness.
Meanwhile, Su Tang was just watching all the complicated little interactions between the Su family from the side, feeling that the whole scene was very interesting.
‘Heh heh, these stupid two-legged beasts really don’t have much in the way of ability, but they do have all sorts of little ideas.’ In the background, a certain Divine Beast was using his head to push a snowball around, seemingly intending to make a snow cat in his own likeness.
When Su Tang saw the orange cat making disparaging remarks while at the same time playing around in the snow, she sent him a contemptuous glance. “I really don’t think you have any right to speak here!”
After all, did someone so idiotic as to use their own big head to push snowballs around have a place to criticize others?
Orange cat: I seem to feel a deep sense of malice and disdain emanating from my master!
Madam Zhao had slapped Madam Wu just now, so some of the fire in her belly seemed to have been vented. On top of that, when she looked over at Su Yonggui, who had his face twisted into a fierce expression, she suddenly remembered how she had ended up being receiving boards as punishment last time, so she puckered her lips and didn’t dare to say anything further.
When Su Yonggui saw that his wife had finally gone silent, he turned and spoke to Su Yongqiang. “Brother Qiang, don’t say that, that’s not what we meant.”
“So, Brother Gui, does that mean that Nephew Sanshou is still willing to be a part of the Su family and pay his respects to me as his aunt?” Su Tang asked with a sly smile.
Su Yonggui looked at Su Tang with indifferent eyes and warned, “That’s only natural. But, in the end, you, Tang girl, grew up eating our food and living at our place, right? So sometimes we might forget.”
He said that as a reminder that, although Su Tang and her brother had already been adopted into another branch of the family, they had only been able to grow up this big thanks to the support of his family. Between the lines, there was a silent warning: Don’t go too far.
Despite his warning, Su Tang responded flippantly, “Brother Gui, I don’t dare to agree. I’m still only a child so I don’t really understand these complicated things.”
Not to mention anyone else, even Su Yongqiang wanted to laugh when he heard Su Tang’s rascally words.
And, sure enough, Su Yonggui’s expression turned a shade darker after she spoke. Su Tang felt very happy in her heart when she looked at his constipated expression. After all, who made her be only eight years old? She was more than willing to suppress people with her seniority one moment and then turn around and plead ignorance because of her age the next.
In truth, Su Tang was actually very unhappy with this old man. He had very thick skin to say that his family had raised her and her brother. Back then, who was it that had to get up early every day to work like slaves, and then only get to eat rice porridge so thin that it was practically clear water? He dared to call that ‘raising them’?
