Chapter 1412: New Article Recommendation: [The Beautiful Countryside of the Farmer’s Daughter-in-Law]_4
Don’t say that Honest Mulberry, in the midst of fleeing, out of panic chose a path and with one misstep fell off a cliff, was unable to extend a helping hand toward Li Dazhu who was left behind and then caught by the black bear. In such a critical situation, even if Honest Mulberry had exerted all his effort to rescue, it would have been in vain anyway.
Although Honest Mulberry, after being rescued, recounted the incident clearly and in detail, Widow Li aggressively accused him of valuing his life over honor, claiming he took the opportunity to escape and fortunately saved his own life while her husband faced the black bear alone.
As for Honest Mulberry’s leg being broken in the fall from the cliff, that was an accident, God punishing him for not attempting to save a life.
Honest Mulberry got his nickname in the village precisely because he was too honest and simply couldn’t tell a lie. The villagers all believed that Li Dazhu’s death was an accident and not Honest Mulberry’s fault, so nobody sided with Widow Li. They even advised her not to make unreasonable troubles and wear away years of neighborly relations.
Maybe Widow Li herself believed this, but with her husband dead and having to care for her child, she started to hassle others deliberately, hoping to guilt Honest Mulberry and the Sang Family into compensation—a slight towards the honest. To put it plainly, she was just bullying the honest man!
At that time, Widow Li made quite the scene, summoning her maternal family to carry the putrid corpse of Li Dazhu to Sang Family’s doorstep. She not only forced the Sang Family to pay for a grand burial for Li Dazhu but also demanded they provide for her and her child’s future needs, from support to housing to marriage arrangements. Her initial demand was for Fifty taels of silver.
Back then, the Sang Family had just separated from the main house, and a family of seven had merely inherited two dilapidated thatched-roof houses and a sack of sweet potatoes, barely enough to scrape by, not to mention Honest Mulberry’s broken leg and the need for a doctor and medicine, which drained the little Hundreds of Wen Money they had. To say nothing of Fifty taels of silver, they couldn’t even produce One Wen money.
Seeing the Sang Family unwilling to give up the silver, Widow Li simply held a kitchen knife to her own neck in a deadly threat and even claimed she would kill her son before taking her own life.