Wealthy Beauty in the 60s-Chapter 448 - 450: Frozen to Death

Originally, the pigsty was built for raising pigs, but before any pigs were raised, it somehow became Old Lady Gao’s den.

But someone had to take care of Old Lady Gao’s eating, drinking, and toiletry needs, right? Lin Xuebi didn’t want to, neither did Yang Hua, and Gao Guofu and Gao Jianmin were also unwilling; but since they were men, it was easier for them to decline, so Lin Xuebi and Yang Hua ended up taking turns, each looking after her for a day.

However, it wasn’t long before the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law started quarreling over this matter again. Gao Guofu and Gao Jianmin couldn’t stand the commotion at home any longer, so they went to work with the Guangming Production Team, leaving early and returning late, and gradually they got used to it.

Meanwhile, Lin Xuebi and Yang Hua started slacking off, tending to Old Lady Gao with just a bite of food and sometimes neglecting her care, even leaving her excrement uncleaned and her body unwashed for days on end, attracting flies and mosquitoes constantly.

So, when Old Lady Gao became unbearably smelly, Lin Xuebi and Yang Hua started arguing again, and even got into a physical fight.

Gao Guofu and Gao Jianmin came back and said nothing. The next day, Yang Hua followed the others to work in the fields, and Lin Xuebi, who also didn’t want to wait on Old Lady Gao, went with them.

When Gao Dazhuang returned from school and saw Old Lady Gao, filthy and surrounded by flies and mosquitoes, he couldn’t help but sigh; his younger siblings were so disgusted they ran off.

"Grandma," Gao Dazhuang, holding a bundle, tried to shoo away the flies and mosquitoes, but to no avail, so he had to light some mugwort to smoke out the swarming pests.

Seeing Gao Dazhuang return, tears formed in Old Lady Gao’s eyes, and these past days, her tears had been flowing constantly, almost drying up.

Gao Dazhuang was stunned and felt nauseated seeing Old Lady Gao dirty and smelly, but thinking of Grandma, who had always been kind to him, Gao Dazhuang steeled himself, fetched water, and started washing her. After who knows how many buckets of water, he managed to clean the filth and stench from her body.

Old Lady Gao was skin and bones, extremely light, with hardly any flesh on her.

Gao Dazhuang attended to and cared for Old Lady Gao in the pigsty, cleaning her up before carrying her back into the house.

When Lin Xuebi and the others came back and saw that Gao Dazhuang had brought Old Lady Gao back into the house, they were furious.

Knowing that Gao Dazhuang had cleaned up Old Lady Gao, Lin Xuebi said, "If you don’t like studying, don’t go to school; come back and herd cattle, and tend to your Grandma."

So, with a single sentence from Lin Xuebi, Gao Dazhuang no longer had to go to school. Every day, he herded cattle and looked after Old Lady Gao, and Lin Xuebi and Gao Guofu even bought pigs for Gao Dazhuang to raise.

Old Lady Gao didn’t sleep in the pigsty anymore. After all, pigs were being raised there now, so they built a shack next to the pigsty for her to live in.

Gao Dazhuang argued with his family, feeling that it was too cruel to treat Grandma this way; and in winter, how could just one quilt be enough? But he couldn’t win against his family, who also didn’t have any extra quilts to spare.

Only during typhoons or heavy rain was Old Lady Gao allowed to sleep inside the house. The winters were extremely cold, even though it was the south and it didn’t snow, but for an old person, living in a thatched shed offered no warmth at all.

At night, the cold wind howled. Old Lady Gao lay in the shed, wrapped in a quilt, but it provided no warmth, and she felt an icy, bone-chilling draft through her entire body.

Old Lady Gao couldn’t even curl up into a ball; she was cold not just in body, but her entire heart was cold without warmth.

Old Lady Gao, whenever she felt she was going to die, she would survive. She thought of her husband, her deceased eldest and second sons, and her own miserable and desolate plight, and immediately, her old tears flowed freely.

Even in her dreams, Old Lady Gao dreamed of her husband and two sons reproaching her. They didn’t understand her, they cursed her for being heartless to Gao Guoqiang, said she deserved it, said it was retribution, and even ignored her altogether.

At such times, Old Lady Gao also felt regret, recalling how she had been domineering for most of her life and how her sons and daughters-in-law had obeyed her every command, yet unbeknownst to her, things had started to change.

When had it all begun? Old Lady Gao’s memory at this moment became clear. She remembered every little detail of the past—all of it. She recalled how she had been persuaded by Lin Xuebi and Li Shengmei to deal with Zheng Xianghong and how she had favored her youngest son, neglecting and disregarding Gao Guoqiang’s family, and always harboring the deep-seated belief that Zheng Xianghong was a jinx.

Of course, Old Lady Gao would never think it was she who had caused the deaths, but because Zheng Xianghong was the daughter-in-law she disliked and the one who had married into the family during that period, Old Lady Gao naturally blamed everything on Zheng Xianghong. It seemed the only way to prove that she was not the jinx, to prove that she had not caused the deaths of her husband and two sons.

"I was wrong, I was wrong, oh, I was wrong..." In the middle of the night, in the thatched shed, Old Lady Gao let out a heartbreaking cry of remorse.

Lin Xuebi shouted, "What’s all this noise in the middle of the night? Keep it up, and I’ll throw you out."

After that shout, Old Lady Gao’s voice was no longer heard, and everyone went back to sleep.

But early the next morning, when Gao Dazhuang went to the shed to check on Old Lady Gao, he found her under the blanket, already frozen to death—her body cold and somewhat stiff, having been dead for several hours.

"Grandma!" Gao Dazhuang cried out in grief.

Yet, when Gao Guofu, Lin Xuebi, and the others learned that Old Lady Gao had died, their faces were filled with sorrow; even Lin Xuebi and Yang Hua were already crying and wiping their tears, but inside they were heaving a deep sigh of relief.

Gao Guoqiang and Zheng Xianghong, upon receiving the news, were silent. Zheng Xianghong, too, felt a sense of relief in her heart; she had been truly frightened of Old Lady Gao.

At Old Lady Gao’s funeral, Gao Guoqiang and Zheng Xianghong, even Gao Jiazhi, Sun Yuhua, and Xia Xiao, all attended.

The dead were gone, and they were no longer concerned about the things she had done while alive. But after all, Old Lady Gao was Gao Guoqiang’s biological mother, so after her death, Gao Guoqiang still wanted to see her off.

Naturally, Gao Guofu’s family was not pleased, and they also held a grudge against Gao Guoqiang for not helping them and for refusing their request to return to the Guangming Production Team, so Gao Guoqiang’s family was sent away.

Xia Xiao felt this was for the best. She had little affection for Old Lady Gao, and even though she knew from Shitou that Old Lady Gao had died from the cold and had been sleeping in a pigsty, Xia Xiao could not feel sympathy for her.

A pitiable person often brings about their own misfortune, and Old Lady Gao had done this to herself, so Xia Xiao felt no sympathy.

However, because of Old Lady Gao’s death, Xia Xiao and her family did not celebrate the New Year. On the second day of the New Year, Gao Jiaxing’s two elder sisters’ families all returned home.

And Gao Yongfang came back alone, but now, it was not that Gao Yongfang did not want to be close to her family—it was that her family did not want to have anything to do with Gao Yongfang anymore.

After Wang Xiumei and Gao Jianhua’s divorce, Gao Yongfang, the matchmaker, had no value left; she was even less favored in her marital home.

So when Gao Yongfang returned, her body covered in injuries and her face as well, it was clear she had been bullied by her in-laws, even beaten up by Feng Zhiguang.