Chapter 907: Follow the Father if Present, the Elder Brother if Not

In Huaxia, there has been a rule since ancient times known as "follow the father if he is present, follow the elder brother if he is not."

Simply put, in a family, if the father is still alive, everyone in that family must listen to the father.

But if the father is not home, or has passed away, the eldest son must take over the father's role to support the household.

Furthermore, all younger brothers and sisters must follow the eldest brother's arrangements until they start their own families.

Nowadays, although this rule is no longer highly regarded, if a father is gone, the eldest brother is still the one who makes the final decision whenever a major event occurs in the family.

There is no helping it; rules passed down through thousands of years are not without reason.

Therefore, with the approval of the eldest, Li Dashan, and the agreement of the second, Li Dajiang, and the third, Li Dahe, the marriage between Wang Li and Li Xiuyu was essentially a done deal.

As for Li Xiuyu's mother, Wang An believed that the three brothers and Li Xiuyu would be able to persuade her.

While Wang An was speaking with the three brothers, Li Xiuyu, who had been tending to her mother inside, suddenly ran out. Standing on the threshold of the outer room, she shouted toward them

"Big Brother, Second Brother, Little Brother, Mom is awake! Hurry inside!"

After shouting, Li Xiuyu turned and ran back into the room.

Hearing this, Li Dashan hurriedly said to Wang An

"Brother Xiao An, I'll go in and check on my mother first. We'll chat more in a bit."

Without waiting for Wang An's answer, the three brothers rushed into the room together.

Hearing the call, Wang An and Wang Li followed them inside.

Mainly, it would have been quite impolite to turn around and leave at a time like this.

Moreover, even if Wang An could leave, Wang Li couldn't. His future mother-in-law had just woken up from a coma; if the man about to become the son-in-law ran off now, that would be damn unacceptable!

Once everyone entered the room, they saw Li Xiuyu's mother sitting up on the kang, though she looked extremely frail.

Li Xiuyu's mother's surname was Han. She had no name before she married, primarily because she was born during a time of war and chaos, and girls were not valued back then.

Thus, her family simply called her Sanya based on her birth order, and her name became Han Sanya.

After she married Li Xiuyu's father, he said the name Sanya wasn't pleasant to the ear, so he changed it to Han Sanfeng.

Truth be told, the name Han Sanfeng did sound much more dignified than Han Sanya.

Of course, these were things Mu Xueli had mentioned while chatting with Wang An and the others, and Mu Xueli had heard them from the elders in their village.

The Li family had suffered a series of mishaps lately—all of them incredibly shitty disasters—so it was only natural that Li Xiuyu's mother, Han Sanfeng, as a woman of the house, couldn't withstand the pressure.

This was precisely why the saying "follow the father if he is present, follow the elder brother if he is not" existed.

Because it must be admitted that when truly facing major crises, the stress tolerance of the vast majority of women is inferior to that of men.

Seeing that all her children had entered the room, Li Xiuyu's mother spoke in a weak, grief-stricken voice

"Those animals... did they come to ravage our home again today? When will this life ever end! Sigh... it's all the fault of that deadbeat father of yours, borrowing those 'donkey-roll' high-interest loans just to squander money. How are we women and children supposed to pay that back? Wuuu... you old dead man, you went off to find peace for yourself but left us to suffer so bitterly, wuuu wuuu..."

As she spoke, Li Xiuyu's mother began to cry sorrowfully, yet within that sorrow, there was a revelation of her endless longing for Li Xiuyu's father.

No matter how scoundrelly Li Xiuyu's father had been in life, no matter how much of a spendthrift he was, to Li Xiuyu's mother, he was her sky—her only sky.

Now, not only had the sky collapsed, but as it fell, it had smashed a giant hole into the ground—a hole so deep that the entire Li family combined could not fill it.

One could see just how helpless and desperate Han Sanfeng felt at this moment.

Hearing his mother say this, Li Dashan quickly stepped forward to explain

"Mom, stop crying. Those animals have all been arrested by the police the brother-in-law found. Our family is safe now, and we don't have to pay back those 'donkey-roll' interests anymore."

The weeping Han Sanfeng rubbed her eyes, clearly bewildered by her eldest son's words.

After Li Dashan finished, Li Dajiang added

"That's right, Mom. That police official even gave our family five bicycles. Once we sell the bikes, not only can we pay back some of those loans, but we'll actually be able to make a living."

The third son, Li Dahe, also said

"We'll just tighten our belts for the next two months. Once the grain comes in, our family will have completely recovered."

Following this, the three brothers took turns describing a beautiful future life to Han Sanfeng, which finally improved her state of mind significantly.

It must be said that as long as a person has something to look forward to, their mental state improves immediately, and when the mental state improves, the physical state inevitably follows.

The reason Han Sanfeng had been bedridden wasn't because she was usually unhealthy, but because the succession of shitty events had caused her extreme emotional distress, knocking her down.

Now that her three sons had informed her that the biggest disaster—the loan sharks—had been dealt with and the family could live well, Han Sanfeng naturally had nothing left to worry about.

The reason she didn't recover instantly was that her husband had only died two days ago; his body likely hadn't even begun to decay yet.

After a long while, Han Sanfeng finally remembered the "brother-in-law" Li Dashan had mentioned.

Thus, Han Sanfeng asked Li Dashan

"Dashan, how many days have I been unconscious? When did you find a husband for Xiaoyu? Why didn't Mom know about this?"

It was clear that Han Sanfeng had no objection to Li Dashan taking the initiative to find a husband for Li Xiuyu.

After all, her generation were the ones who truly implemented the phrase "follow the father if he is present, follow the elder brother if he is not" to the fullest.

In Han Sanfeng's view, since Li Xiuyu no longer had a father, she should listen to everything her eldest brother said.

However, Li Dashan didn't actually know when his sister had found a partner, so he replied vaguely

"Well, since our family's troubles are sorted out, Xiuyu went to find Wang Li. I'm telling you, Mom, if it weren't for your son-in-law, you wouldn't even be seeing the three of us right now..."

(End of Chapter)