Chapter 1212 - 382: Returning Home, Making Mooncakes_3
"Right, speaking of which, I also have something to settle with you all." Mo Yan suddenly thought of something and said to Zhao Mu and the others with a smile, "Originally, brewing wasn’t within your duties, but since we’re short on hands, we have no choice but to trouble you. Once this batch of fruit wine is sold, I will take out twelve thousand taels from the net profit to share with you all. Young Master Yan and I have decided on this after discussion."
Zhao Mu and the others were stunned and then unanimously refused, "Boss, we eat your food, wear your clothes, and live in your house. We agreed from the beginning not to take silver, what would it look like if we did now?"
"That’s right, Boss, you’ve already helped us so much. Soon, you’re going to settle another group of our brothers; with such a great kindness, we cannot repay you, and therefore we definitely shouldn’t take the silver."
"We don’t lack food or clothing. We have nowhere to spend the silver you give us. Are we supposed to take it with us to our graves?"
"..."
Mo Yan didn’t interrupt, just listened quietly until they finished, and then with one sentence made three hundred steely men’s eyes instantly redden: "You might not need it, but do your families not need it?"
The room was so quiet you could hear a pin drop, occasionally pierced by a few suppressed sobs. These people had been away from home for far too long, so long that their longing had penetrated deep into their bones, and they reunited with their distant relatives nightly in their dreams. Their choice not to return home after being wounded did not mean they lacked affection for their families. On the contrary, it was precisely because they cared so deeply that they could not bear to burden them, living day by day, year by year, like weeds on the frontier, aimlessly, hopelessly, until life’s end.
For the younger ones like Zhao Mu, it was still bearable, as most could imagine the situation at home, but for those hundred-plus elderly men over fifty, the longest away for thirty years. They had all been in their twenties when enlisted, at a time when they had both elder and younger dependents. Now, after twenty or thirty years, they didn’t know if their aged parents were still alive, or if their young wives, presumed "widows," remarried or stayed home serving their parents, struggling to raise their young children alone. As for the children, had they grown up safely, had they married yet?