Chapter 34: Tang Erlong Gets Beaten Up

**When it came to Erlong, people fell silent. After a while, someone said, "Well, you see, Old Lady Tang cherishes him so much, how could she bear to let him do any work? I heard he only watches the cows in the morning and doesn't have to do anything in the afternoon. He enjoys his time."

A fifteen-year-old boy just watching cows?

After a moment, someone else said, "I heard that it was Liu Xiujuan who wanted to plant sweet potatoes, but Old Lady Tang didn't agree. At that time, she said, 'If you want to plant, you manage it yourself.' So that's why Xiujuan ended up like this, working in the public fields during the day and tending to her own land's sweet potatoes after work."

"If sweet potatoes are Xiujuan's responsibility, does that mean she gets to keep the harvest all to herself?"

Another round of silence followed.

Someone changed the topic, "I heard that Liu Xiujuan was knocked unconscious by some thieves, and it was her one-year-old daughter, Ailian, who went looking for her with a bucket of water."

"Really? What were the adults in their family doing?"

"Oh, it's tough when your husband isn't around."

"That's right, their husband works outside, sounds good when you talk about it, with prestige and all, but when it comes to real problems, it's tough."

"It's better to marry someone who's with you."

"In fact, I heard that Old Master Tang sent his second son, Erlong, to find Liu Xiujuan, but I don't know where he went."

"Ha, Erlong, how could he go look for his sister-in-law? He was playing at the Zhangs' house last night."

Tang's house. Hearing the gossip from outside, Old Master Tang got furious. He slapped Erlong and said, "You! I told you to go find your sister-in-law, where did you go to play?"

"I did go look for her. I went to play after I couldn't find her," Erlong naturally wouldn't admit that he hadn't actually gone to look for her.

"You still talk back! You couldn't find her? Why didn't you come back and ask someone to help you look? Did you really go look for her? Why were you at the Zhangs' house? Their place is in the opposite direction of our land. Instead of looking for your sister-in-law at the self-cultivated land, you went to the Zhangs'. Do you dare to say you looked for your sister-in-law? Your little uncle took Tang Ailian to the self-cultivated land, and you didn't even see a trace of them. Where were you looking?"

While scolding, Old Master Tang kept hitting Erlong, who hid behind his mother, saying, "Dad, I won't dare anymore. Please forgive me."

Other people may dote on their eldest sons and grandsons, but Old Lady Tang favored her second son the most. It was because after giving birth to her eldest son, several children in a row didn't survive, so when she gave birth to Erlong, she held him in the palm of her hand and cherished him dearly.

In these more than ten years, this was the first time Erlong had been beaten. Old Lady Tang felt sorry for him and said, "Ah, don't be so harsh on him. Now that Xiujuan has returned, why did you beat him so hard? Enough, he knows he was wrong."

Old Master Tang's anger couldn't be extinguished, though. He pointed at Erlong and said, "Do you know what he did? If he didn't want to go find her, he shouldn't have agreed. If he didn't agree, I would have gone to find her myself. But he agreed to go find his sister-in-law, and then he didn't go but went to play at someone else's house. That's not keeping his word."

"And, sending a one-year-old child to find her mother—what would others think of us? They'd probably think all the adults in our family are dead, so we sent a one-year-old to find her mother!"

Old Lady Tang wasn't happy with the way he mentioned death. She said, "What can we do now that it's already happened? Do you want to beat him to death?"

Pointing at Erlong, Old Master Tang said, "Listen to me. Starting tomorrow, you'll watch the cows every morning and water our self-cultivated sweet potatoes every afternoon. I will check, and if they're not watered properly, you won't be allowed to eat dinner!"

Erlong secretly lamented his bad luck. If he had known this, he would have gone to look for his sister-in-law. Originally, he only had to watch the cows in the morning and could go play in the afternoon. Now, he had to watch cows in the morning and water the self-cultivated sweet potatoes in the afternoon. He felt really unlucky.

Liu Xiujuan finally felt a bit relieved. After all, watering two acres of sweet potatoes took at least a dozen buckets of water to finish. She used to do it all alone and it was truly exhausting. If it weren't for her daughter pouring water over her when she returned home every day, helping her recover, her body would have given up long ago.

While Liu Xiujuan felt relieved, Erlong had a stroke of bad luck. Watching cows in the morning and watering plants in the afternoon caused him to "fall ill" after a few days.

Old Lady Tang felt extremely sorry for him and said, "Oh, poor thing, take a few days off. It's all because of that old man, making my Erlong work himself to exhaustion."

(End of this chapter)