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Chapter 12: The PhD Graduate is Hitting Someone
The child is more sensible than you.
─── ⋆⋅☼⋅⋆ ───
The old couple looked at each other. What is he saying?
Each word is understandable, but how come when they're put together, it doesn't make sense?
Qin Ying tugged at her husband, "What nonsense are you talking?"
"I didn’t say anything wrong," Wang Genbao replied confidently.
Madam Zhou blurted out angrily, "You fart!"
Wang Genbao furrowed his brows and shouted, "Mom—"
"I’m not your mother!"
Wang Genbao paused for a moment, "Then I’ll go find Qin Feng."
"You dare!?" Madam Zhou quickly said.
"I’m here. What do you need me for?"
The whole family looked outside, and Qin Feng had already arrived at the courtyard.
Old Qin instinctively stood up. "When did you get here?"
"When you were arguing." Qin Feng looked at his brother-in-law. "If I didn’t hear wrong, you’re saying I can go to university because my sister gave up her chance to study?"
Wang Genbao nodded. "Xiao Ying told me, she dropped out of school because there were fewer people working at home, and her work points were few, and you ate a lot—"
Qin Feng immediately punched him.
"Qin Feng!"
"Xiao Feng!"
Qin Ying and Old Qin cried out in shock, while Madam Zhou hurriedly stood up, holding Miaomiao.
Qin Feng ignored them. Without waiting for Wang Genbao to react, he grabbed his collar and dragged him into the courtyard like pulling a dog. Then he punched him in the face, followed by a knee to his stomach.
Qin Ying ran out and tried to pull Qin Feng away.
The two little brothers exchanged a glance and grabbed Qin Ying's arm.
Qin Ying couldn’t help but say, "Don’t pull me, go pull Qin Feng quickly!"
"Grandpa!" Gu Wuyi shouted at Old Qin.
Old Qin subconsciously turned around.
Gu Wuyi and his brother, with perfect coordination, pushed Qin Ying towards Old Qin.
Then the two brothers rushed over, kicking and punching Wang Genbao, pulling and scratching him, just like fierce little wolves.
Qin Ying couldn’t believe it. "What are you doing?!"
"Helping you teach this shameless man a lesson." Qin Feng glanced at his sister. "The kids are more sensible than you!"
Qin Ying froze, unable to move.
Qin Feng, feeling pain in his hands, released Wang Genbao and kicked him in the stomach. With a loud thud, he sent him flying into the vegetable garden.
"My vegetables!" Madam Zhou couldn’t help but shout.
The two brothers turned to look—Grandma had a worried expression on her face and turned around to kick Wang Genbao again.
"Unruly old fool, doesn’t even know where to fall."
Qin Feng grabbed the two brothers.
"Enough, enough. If you keep hitting him, you’ll knock him out."
The two brothers obediently stepped back.
Wang Genbao’s expression was a mixture of pain and confusion, with blood at the corner of his mouth, making his previously decent-looking face now look particularly dramatic.
Qin Feng looked down at him from above. "Say again what you told my parents before I came in."
Wang Genbao snapped back to his senses, opened his throat, and yelled, "You dare hit me?"
Qin Feng raised his leg.
Wang Genbao immediately turned pale, terrified.
Qin Ying looked at her husband and just happened to see his pathetic expression. But when she remembered he was the father of two children, she couldn’t help but feel sorry for him and reached out to support him.
Wang Genbao didn’t think twice and swatted her hand away.
Qin Ying’s hand hit the ground, and it turned red instantly.
Qin Feng kicked his brother-in-law in the arm.
Wang Genbao roared, "Are you done?! Do you really think I won’t fight back?"
"Apologize to my sister!" Qin Feng said flatly.
Wang Genbao was confused. What should he apologize for?
He didn’t do anything wrong.
Old Qin couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. "Xiao Ying was trying to help you, and you pushed her hand away. Now her hand’s all red."
Wang Genbao looked at her. The back of her hand was indeed bright red, but if you waited a little longer, it would fade. "It’s just a little red."
Old Qin immediately lost any sympathy for him.
Qin Feng cracked his knuckles.
Wang Genbao hurriedly said, "Sorry!"
Qin Feng coldly asked, "Apologizing to me?"
Wang Genbao was so scared by his tone that he stopped breathing for a moment, then reluctantly turned to Qin Ying. "Xiao Ying, sorry. I was in so much pain, I wasn’t thinking straight. I didn’t realize it was you."
Qin Ying didn’t take it to heart and turned to her brother. "Is that enough?"
Qin Feng said, "Aren’t Mom and Dad your parents? You’re just letting him talk nonsense?"
"I wanted to persuade him, but you came back," Qin Ying glanced at her parents, thought for a moment, and said frankly, "I understand our parents. I know they wouldn’t give him any money."
Qin Feng laughed angrily. "So you let Mom and Dad be the bad guys, and you play the good guy? Who’s his man?"
Qin Ying’s face turned bright red.
"What’s going on? Is there something that can’t be said properly?"
A familiar and annoying voice came from behind.
Qin Feng didn’t even turn around to know it was his paternal aunt who loved to gloat over other people's misfortunes.
"Are you jealous?" Qin Feng slowly turned around. "If you’re jealous, I don’t mind letting you have a taste of it too."
Madam Qian, showing her true colors, said, "You dare?!"
"Xiaoda, go get the iron shovel."
Gu Wuyi immediately went to find the iron shovel.
Madam Qian was so scared she shrank back.
Qin Feng didn’t take the iron shovel. Instead, he pointed at the corner of the wall. "Go over there. As soon as she shows her face, hit her down. If you kill her, it’s on me."
Gu Xiao'er couldn’t help but say, "It’s on me. Dad, I’m young. If I accidentally kill her, I’ll go to the work-study school."
Qin Feng’s forehead twitched violently. He frowned and grabbed him, turning his little head to face him. "Who told you that if a child kills someone, they go to a work-study school?"
Gu Xiao'er’s face changed slightly, and he hurriedly looked to his brother for help.
—What should I do? Will they see through me?
Gu Wuyi said, "I heard it from the people at the factory."
Qin Feng turned to him. "Stop listening to those people at the factory making up nonsense."
Gu Xiao'er sighed in relief and asked knowingly, "Isn’t that true?"
Qin Feng looked toward the east. "Her life isn’t worth you going to work-study school for."
Gu Xiao'er wasn’t surprised by his words. "I got it." He snatched the iron shovel and ran to the corner of the wall, hitting the dirt wall with all his strength.
A loud thud came from next door.
Gu Xiao'er couldn’t help but grin.
Qin Feng showed a smile.
Turning to his brother-in-law, Qin Feng’s smile disappeared. "I only heard half of what you said earlier. Now, tell me exactly what happened."
Old Qin said, "I’ll tell you."
He started from when he first saw his son-in-law at the village entrance and went on, telling everything until Qin Feng came back.
Qin Feng looked at his sister. "Did I teach you to sell cakes and bread, and you still messed it up?"
Qin Ying instinctively shook her head.
Qin Feng believed she hadn’t planned to ask him or their parents for money at first.
His sister was honest and filial. During the years he wasn’t home, she bought the yarn to knit sweaters and hats for their parents herself. During busy farming seasons, she even took leave to help harvest the crops.
Unfortunately, she got bewitched by Wang Genbao’s sweet talk and his pretty face. She would rather believe his lies than listen to Qin Feng’s good advice.
If he hadn’t come back in time, his sister would likely be convinced, just like Wang Genbao, that their parents were biased, owed her a lot, and should give her money.
Qin Feng said, "Let me ask you this. The year they reinstated the college entrance exam, did I ever say to you, 'Let’s break off the engagement with Wang Genbao, I’ll tutor you, and you can take the exam too'?"
Qin Ying nodded honestly.
"Did I ever tell you, when the vocational school in the city started enrolling in '77 and '78, that I would buy you reference books so you could try vocational school, and that it wouldn’t be too late to have children after graduating from there?"
Qin Ying nodded again.
Qin Feng asked, "Do you know that I only attended one extra year of high school compared to you, and I was able to get into college because Engineer Gu tutored me?"
Qin Ying couldn’t look him in the eye.
Qin Feng didn’t let her off the hook. "Do you know I didn’t pay tuition for college, and the school even gave me a subsidy? Not only did it save food at home, but by the end of the semester, I had saved quite a bit of money? I went abroad to study, and it was all on a government scholarship?"
Qin Ying nodded repeatedly.
Qin Feng asked, "Wang Genbao says our parents are biased and owe you. What exactly do they owe you?"
"He doesn’t know how to speak, don’t listen to him," Qin Ying couldn’t help but say.
Qin Feng turned to Wang Genbao. "Then why is he saying this?"
"He misunderstood. What I meant was, our family needed people to earn work points, and I just didn’t want to go on with school, so I didn’t continue."
Qin Feng didn’t believe it. He figured his sister might have complained a few times when she saw his success or when life wasn’t going well. But if she really hated him, that was impossible.
Qin Feng didn’t want to dig any deeper on this matter. He didn’t want to make his parents feel more hurt or disappointed, so he asked Wang Genbao, "You’re not deaf, right?"
Wang Genbao wasn’t deaf, but he hadn’t expected the usually unapproachable brother-in-law to actually be so tough, much different from the bookish scholar he’d assumed. "I don’t believe your parents didn’t give you money when you went abroad," he muttered under his breath.
Old Qin immediately wanted to kick him.
Madam Zhou spoke up, "Foreign money is so expensive. Your father and I saved and scrimped for half our lives, and it wasn’t even enough for Xiao Feng to spend in a month. What use would it be to give him more?"
"You didn’t give him any?" Wang Genbao didn’t believe it.
Old Qin replied, "We did. In '83, when Xiao Feng came back, he not only paid me back but also gave us an extra hundred foreign dollars."
Wang Genbao suddenly turned toward him.
Old Qin said, "It’s in the bank. But I won’t give it to you!"
Wang Genbao’s expression darkened.
Qin Feng stepped forward half a step.
Wang Genbao instantly turned into a grandson.
Qin Feng said, "Since you’re my niece's father, I won’t lend you any money. But I can give you a suggestion: if you have the ability, go down south and buy spring clothes in bulk to sell on the streets."
"What if someone takes it from me?" Wang Genbao blurted out.
Qin Feng replied coldly, "That means you have no skills." He then looked at his sister, "If he dares to lay a finger on you when you get home, divorce him immediately. And take the kids with you."
The couple looked at Qin Feng at the same time, both shocked and disbelieving.
Qin Feng wasn’t joking, nor was he trying to scare his sister.
Back when his sister was introduced to Wang Genbao, Qin Feng wanted to go with her. But their parents insisted there was no reason for the younger brother to tag along.
Later, he asked his sister to call him back for dinner, and Qin Feng felt that his brother-in-law was a villain.
But at that time, he was still underage—his words lacked weight, and no one took him seriously.
His mother even explained that Wang Genbao was much more handsome than his father had been when he was young.
They never considered that times had changed, and there are so many tricks in the city.
Qin Feng thought that since she wasn’t married yet, there was still time to fix things.
However, as soon as he arrived in the capital, he received a letter from his father—Wang's family was pushing hard, planning to get the marriage done in May.
Qin Feng suspected Wang Genbao could sense his dissatisfaction and feared that if too much time passed, his sister would leave him. He had thought about returning and causing a scene, but realizing his sister was love-struck, he didn’t have time to fight a long battle. Even if they stopped talking to each other, it wasn’t certain he could change her mind. She was young and could afford to make mistakes, so he decided to wait for her to hit a wall.
Three years ago, when he came back from abroad, he was mostly worried about his parents, but he also wanted to check if his sister was doing okay.
When he found out that Wang Genbao was just a temporary worker, Qin Feng hinted to his sister to cut her losses.
However, his sister pretended not to hear it.
Now that he finally had the chance, Qin Feng wasn’t about to let it slip: "I'm serious. If you can't afford it, I'll help you. Whether it's three or five, they're all the same to me."
"Stop saying nonsense," Madam Zhou thought he was just venting.
"I'm not talking nonsense." Qin Feng looked at his father, "From the start, I never thought this would work out. If I wasn’t afraid of you hitting me with a broom or a hammer, they wouldn’t have even thought about getting married."
Madam Zhou immediately stopped thinking of it as just empty talk.
Old Qin couldn’t help but assess his son—this didn’t seem like a sudden outburst, and he wasn’t blinded by anger.
Qin Ying was stunned. She had always known her brother didn’t like Wang Genbao but had always thought her brother just had high standards.
Turns out, it was all her own assumptions.
Wang Genbao also knew that Qin Feng didn’t like him. He thought Qin Feng was a scholar too proud of himself, living a life of ease without understanding the struggles of common folk.
For a moment, all four of them fell silent.
Miaomiao, disturbed by the heavy and suffocating silence, couldn’t help but speak, "Daddy…"
Qin Feng walked over, took him in his arms, and reassured him, "Miaomiao, don’t be scared. Daddy’s not mad at you."
Gu Wuyi gently held the child's hand to offer warmth.
Gu Xiao'er carried the iron shovel over, staying alert in case Wang Genbao, embarrassed and angry, tried to make a move while his father was distracted with Miaomiao.
Qin Feng freed one hand to press down on Gu Xiao'er’s small head, "I can take him on with one hand." He glanced at Wang Genbao. "The money you've saved from being married to my sister all these years is yours. The oven I built is also yours. We just want the two kids. This way, there won’t be any stepmothers or stepfathers later. You won’t have any kids, so it’s also good for you to find a woman to have a son."
Wang Genbao's mouth moved, but after a long silence, he couldn’t get a word out.
Because he had no rebuttal.
Wang Genbao loved money and was reluctant to part with the profitable oven. In fact, he was more willing to give up his two daughters, wanting a son even more.
Qin Feng was like a worm in his stomach.
Wang Genbao looked at Qin Feng’s calm demeanor and suddenly felt uneasy and afraid, his body trembling involuntarily.
Qin Ying put both hands on him. "Xiao Feng, look at how scared your brother-in-law is. If you keep talking like this, I’ll get angry."
"Are you sure he’s scared?" Qin Feng’s lips curled slightly, his handsome face gaining a bit of wickedness and sarcasm.
Wang Genbao instinctively leaned toward Qin Ying.
To Madam Zhou and Old Qin, it seemed that the daughter and son-in-law were getting along very well and would never divorce.
But when Qin Feng suddenly suggested a divorce, it truly frightened Wang Genbao.
In this village, or in this era, nine out of ten divorced women would find another man.
Madam Zhou didn’t want her two granddaughters to grow up without a father. "Let’s eat first," she said before Qin Feng could speak. "Xiaoda and Xiao’er still have school this afternoon."
Xiaoda lazily said, "The afternoon classes aren’t important. It’s fine if I don’t go."
Madam Zhou was momentarily speechless and couldn’t help but glare at him.
Gu Xiao'er nodded. "Grandma, I’m not hungry."
Madam Zhou felt like hitting the child. He was usually so well-behaved, but now he was being so disobedient.
When she looked at her son, Madam Zhou realized he hadn’t spoken.
"Qin Feng, you’re not hungry, but Miaomiao must be."
Qin Feng knew that matters of divorce couldn’t be rushed, especially when it involved his two nieces. Since his sister and Wang Genbao didn’t have any major conflicts, he said, “Alright, let’s eat.”
Madam Zhou let out a sigh of relief and pulled her son toward the main hall. “Old man, hurry and serve the food.”
Qin Feng chuckled, half amused, half exasperated. “I haven’t even washed my hands.”
Madam Zhou said, “You sit; Mom will bring you some water.” She stepped into the courtyard and signaled to her daughter and son-in-law. “Go fetch water quickly; I’ll get the bowls and chopsticks.”
Wang Genbao muttered, “Why should I?”
What kind of brother-in-law waits on a younger brother-in-law?
“Your body doesn’t hurt anymore but you still want to divorce me?"
Wang Genbao couldn’t help but glance at her. What was she talking about? She was Qin Feng’s sister; if he divorced anyone, it wouldn’t be her.
Others were desperate to find ways to make money without any leads, while Qin Feng could casually build a small oven to bake bread. Just now, when Qin Feng mentioned sourcing goods from the south, it reminded him of something his factory colleagues had said: those stylish clothes sold on the streets were also sourced from the south.
The problem was, no one knew where to source them.
Since Qin Feng spoke about it so casually, he must know how to do it. He might even know other ways to make money.
If he divorced Qin Ying, all those money-making opportunities would benefit someone else.
“You’re hesitating? Do you actually want to?” Qin Ying asked in disbelief, almost shouting.
Wang Genbao snapped back to reality and forced a smile. “No such thing.” He stretched a little, finding his limbs still functional, then grabbed a washbasin. “I was being thoughtless and spoke poorly. I’ll do what’s right.”
He mixed some cold water with a bit of hot water from the kitchen and brought it to the main hall for Qin Feng to wash his hands.
Qin Feng looked down on him even more, giving him a sidelong glance. “I thought you’d throw this basin of water in my face.”
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