Divorce!

Liu Fen had taken the initiative to ask for a divorce from Xia Dajun!

In those days, divorce was extremely rare. And Liu Fen, who had always endured everything silently, was the one bringing it up first!

This was nothing short of shocking.

The people eavesdropping outside the Liu family courtyard were stunned.

Even Xia Xiaolan herself hadn’t expected her mother to be this resolute. Let alone the three members of the Xia family.

Xia Dajun thought to himself: Had he gone too long without beating this woman that she had forgotten who her husband was?

He had walked all the way from Dahe Village to Qijing Village, even bringing along his sister-in-law and younger brother’s wife.

The three of them had come together to fetch the mother and daughter back.

Surely that counted as giving Liu Fen enough face.

It was true that Liu Fen had failed to give him a son, and Xia Dajun had never been happy about it. But he had never thought about replacing her with another wife.

And now?

Liu Fen was saying she didn’t want to live with him anymore.

She wanted a divorce.

“Say that again!” Xia Dajun suddenly stood up.

Big and burly, built like a block of iron, he looked like a mountain when he loomed over people. Intimidating at first glance.

“What are you trying to do? Cause trouble in the Liu family’s house?”

Liu Yong quickly grabbed a carrying pole from nearby and stepped in front of his sister.

Li Fengmei rushed outside shouting, “Someone’s hitting people! Someone’s bullying the Liu family!”

“Are they thinking Qijing Village has no one to stand up for us?”

After her moment of shock passed, Xia Xiaolan walked over and held her mother’s hand.

From her daughter’s support, Liu Fen drew courage. This was the Liu family’s home, not the Xia family’s!

She couldn’t be afraid of Xia Dajun. Even if they were back in the Xia household, she would still risk everything to speak the truth.

“I said divorce! Dajun, I can’t live like this with you anymore. Let’s divorce.”

Xia Dajun clenched his fists and tried to drag Liu Fen out. Liu Yong swung the pole at him repeatedly, but he was no match in strength. Soon Xia Dajun snatched the pole away, and the two men began grappling.

Xia Xiaolan shielded her mother behind her.

Zhang Cui looked anxious.

“Xiaolan, tell your mother to calm down! Whatever the problem is, can’t we sit down and talk it out? Why bring up divorce so casually? It’ll hurt the family relationship.”

Xia Xiaolan’s face turned cold.

“And when he was beating my mom, did that not hurt their relationship? Auntie, I don’t remember seeing you stop the fight back then.”

Zhang Cui wanted to argue that women being beaten had been the rule since ancient times.

But before she could speak, Li Fengmei returned with several villagers.

They separated Xia Dajun and Liu Yong. Some of the villagers who were close to Liu Yong even secretly kicked Xia Dajun a few times.

“What’s this? You think you can come to our village and act tough?”

“Beat him! A man who hits his wife has no guts, yet he dares fight Brother Yong?”

“He came here to cause trouble? Does he think Qijing Village has no people?”

“Do you think Qijing Village has no men?”

No one knew exactly what Li Fengmei had said while calling them over, but the villagers grew more and more furious.

Soon they were beating Xia Dajun together.

One man against many couldn’t win. Xia Dajun was knocked to the ground.

Clutching her daughter’s hand tightly, Liu Fen suddenly realized that the man who had terrified her for so long wasn’t invincible after all.

At home he raised his fists against her, but outside he was nothing more than a coward.

“Enough!”

A man in his sixties walked into the Liu courtyard with his hands clasped behind his back.

The villagers pinned Xia Dajun down so he couldn’t move.

“Uncle Da is here.”

“Uncle Da, this guy surnamed Xia is truly despicable.”

“Quiet. Uncle Da will know what to do.”

Uncle Da’s name was Chen Wangda, the village chief of Qijing Village. Chen was the dominant surname in the village, and Chen Wangda had served as chief for many years, commanding great respect.

In his youth he had served in the army. Though he hadn’t achieved great military glory, he was a genuine veteran of the revolution. Even though he was content to remain the small chief of Qijing Village, who knew how far his old comrades had risen?

Not only in Qijing Village, even at the township and county levels— Chen Wangda was a recognized figure. He had even been elected as a county People’s Congress representative.

In the past, when Liu Yong was still loafing around, he didn’t dare behave recklessly in front of Chen Wangda.

“Uncle Da, you’re here. Please, have a seat.”

Liu Yong offered him the seat of honor. Chen Wangda didn’t refuse.

After sitting down, he turned to Liu Fen.

“Your family came here as refugees long ago and doesn’t belong to the Chen clan. But you’ve lived in Qijing Village for decades. That's make you people of this village now. Your parents are gone, so I’ll shamelessly act as an elder today and make a decision for you.”

“Liu Fen, tell me. Do you really want to divorce your husband?” Liu Yong rubbed his hands, his eyes already red.

Though their family wasn’t native to the village, the villagers had never treated them as outsiders. They received their share of land like everyone else.

Now that Chen Wangda was standing up for Liu Fen, Liu Yong felt deeply grateful.

Liu Fen did too.

Strictly speaking, she had been married out for twenty years and didn’t even bear the Chen surname. Chen Wangda could easily have ignored her.

“Yes, Uncle Da. I want a divorce. Please be our witness.”

Chen Wangda nodded.

“I’ll only handle this once. If you regret it someday, I’ll just assume you two have reconciled and are living happily again. But don’t expect me to step in a second time.”

“Liu Yong, go get paper, a pen, and the ink paste. We’ll write the agreement today.”

Pinned to the ground, Xia Dajun roared angrily.

“I don’t agree! She married into the Xia family. Alive, she’s a member of the Xia family! When she's dead! She'll be a ghost of the Xia family. She’s my wife!”

Zhang Cui and Wang Jingui hadn’t expected things to escalate this far. They didn’t know much about Qijing Village, but Chen Wangda clearly wasn’t someone to provoke.

They had come intending to persuade Liu Fen to reconcile. How had it turned into arranging a divorce?

“Xiaolan! Hurry and persuade your mother! She’s speaking in anger. How will a divorced woman survive? Her household registration is still in Dahe Village. You and your mother don’t even have a piece of land in Qijing Village.”

How could farmers survive without land?

Zhang Cui wasn’t worried about Liu Fen or Xia Xiaolan. She just didn’t want them slipping out of her control.

Chen Wangda didn’t even lift his eyelids.

“Moving their household registration back isn’t difficult. You, the former sister-in-law, are quite concerned, but there’s no need. Once their registration is transferred here, Qijing Village will naturally allocate land to the mother and daughter.”

Even though Xia Xiaolan didn’t care about farmland and had no intention of staying in the countryside long-term... she still felt grateful.

Chen Wangda was backing them up.

Looking at the villagers holding Xia Dajun down and those peering into the courtyard from outside, Xia Xiaolan realized something.

Although not everyone might be willing to share land, no one objected.

Chen Wangda’s authority was high. And the villagers understood that at a moment like this they needed to stand united to support Liu Fen and her daughter.

Xia Xiaolan didn’t even have to speak.

The moment Chen Wangda stepped forward, the matter was practically settled.

“Someone come write the agreement.” A young man stepped out from the crowd. Xia Xiaolan recognized him.

Chen Qing, the village chief’s grandson and the village’s high school graduate. He usually blushed whenever he saw Xia Xiaolan, but now he stood straight and serious, looking every bit like an educated man.

And in rural China in 1983, a high school graduate was considered educated.

Chen Qing had failed the college entrance exam that year. After helping with farm work, he planned to return to school to repeat the year.

High school graduates weren’t assigned jobs anymore. Only two paths lay before him. Keep studying to enter university.

Or go back to being a farmer.

Chen Wangda dictated each line while Chen Qing wrote.

Three copies of the agreement were made. It resembled a modern divorce settlement, though Liu Fen and Xia Dajun owned little more than two dilapidated rooms, so there was hardly any property to divide.

And Xia Xiaolan didn’t need to choose which parent to follow. She was already eighteen, beyond anyone’s control.

Zhang Cui kept trying to persuade them, but Liu Fen remained unmoved.

Xia Dajun refused to sign or press his fingerprint.

Chen Wangda didn’t care whether he liked it or not. He ordered someone to grab Xia Dajun’s hand and force his fingerprint onto the paper.

When Liu Fen received the agreement, she looked at Xia Xiaolan, then at her brother and sister-in-law.

No one objected.

Without even glancing at Xia Dajun, she dipped her thumbs in the red ink paste and firmly stamped two thumbprints on the document.

Chen Wangda handed one copy to Zhang Cui.

“This one is for your family. One stays with Liu Fen. The last one I’ll personally submit to the county Civil Affairs Bureau for record.

“If you have nothing else to do here, get out.”

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