After you sever ties, it's no use crying and regretting it.

Chapter 12 Guilty Conscience

Faced with the situation of being ostracized and framed by most of the villagers, Lü Daquan's family was unwilling to accept it and still wanted to prove their innocence.

However, after receiving financial and food support from the Yuan family, Wu Guizhi used the food to control more villagers during this impending famine, making them continue to oppose Lü Daquan's family for a bite to eat. After experiencing this several times, Lü Daquan became disheartened and stopped explaining, knowing that explaining would be useless and would only bring more humiliation.

Furthermore, because of these events, their family has been ostracized, criticized, and scorned by other villagers. Even their clansmen no longer want to acknowledge them and have expelled them from the family genealogy.

The Lü family was actually quite "kind," allowing them to live at the foot of the mountain instead of completely driving them away.

The two elders of the Lü family did not explicitly deny acknowledging Lü Daquan, and their attitude remained ambiguous, thus keeping Lü Daquan's family hanging.

In this day and age, if a person is expelled from their clan and village, and has no money or power, it will be very difficult for them to survive.

Once they became refugees without any travel permits or other documents, they found it even more difficult to move around and had no future. They would be arrested and sold into slavery as undocumented immigrants.

Once you're enslaved, it becomes even more difficult to escape.

Having learned of this situation, Lü Daquan harbored resentment towards the Lü family for framing them and expelling them from the family genealogy, yet he felt it was inappropriate to leave the village under such circumstances.

Furthermore, they are grateful to the village and clan for showing mercy in allowing them to live at the foot of the mountain without leaving the village.

Although Lü Daquan and Xie Shulan were heartbroken by the attitude of the two elders, they were still grateful.

Filial piety is paramount. Since their status has not been formally denied by their parents, they still need to try their best to pay the old-age money and food that they should have received, hoping that their parents can live a better life, in order to show their filial piety.

Because of this, Lü Daquan and his family still maintained some connection with the village and the Lü family, preventing them from becoming true refugees.

This is why Lü Daquan and his companions still want to try their best to survive here.

Because their situation had become so bad, Lu Daquan and his family missed their daughter Lu Xinyan and hoped that the family could be reunited. However, they were also worried that if their daughter Lu Xinyan returned here, she would suffer the same grievances as they did.

This state of entanglement and struggle made Lü Daquan and Xie Shulan even more distressed and tormented.

Because of all these reasons, life remained very difficult for Lü Daquan and his fellow villagers in Ningshui Village.

Having fallen into such a predicament, Lü Daquan and his companions were unable to learn more about the situation and were trapped in the daily grind of arduous labor. They had no time to think about anything else and could only hope to find enough food each day to keep them alive.

The days were incredibly difficult, but their desire to see their daughter, Lü Xinyan, was a major driving force for them to persevere.

At this moment, looking at the few remaining grass roots in the basket, Xie Shulan felt a lump in her throat and a pang of sadness in her heart. She felt that they might not be able to hold on any longer.

There wasn't much food, and they were always hungry. They also suffered bullying and torment from Wu Guizhi and her gang. Life was really tough.

Xie Shulan still can't understand why, when her family was living a good life with a glimmer of hope, these sudden changes caused their situation to deteriorate so drastically, leading them to such a terrible state.

Now, they are like stray dogs, rootless duckweed, and are hated by the entire Ningshui Village.

But clearly, they didn't do anything wrong, did they?

She never switched babies; she would never have intentionally swapped her daughter with a wealthy family.

But it actually happened. Before they even knew it, they were stunned by this sudden so-called truth. Then came a series of changes and a barrage of accusations that ruined their family.

They were practically refugees; they couldn't even enter the village, and they were likely to starve to death due to lack of food!

All of this is related to the eldest son's family!

Xie Shulan still couldn't understand why her sister-in-law Wu Guizhi and the others hated them so much, and were only satisfied when they had ruined their entire family? They were only satisfied when they had completely disgraced them?

There were too many things that Xie Shulan couldn't understand, which made her even more worried about the safety of her daughter, Lü Xinyan.

The Yuan family hates them so much, and they're determined to ruin them. Would they really be good to their daughter, Lü Xinyan?

Are the Yuan family truly innocent in all of this?

Xie Shulan vaguely sensed some possibilities, which made her even more panicked.

If everything is as she imagines, that would be terrible!

Thinking about these things, Xie Shulan frowned slightly, her eyes filled with worry.

The villagers who passed by saw that Xie Shulan's tattered basket contained only a few grass roots, which were far from enough to fill her stomach, and they all mocked her with schadenfreude.

For several days in a row, Xie Shulan only managed to find a few grass roots. With such a small amount of food, it's no wonder that the whole family has become so thin and emaciated.

Although they felt a little guilty, they thought that by dealing with Lü Daquan's family, they could get coarse grains and cornbread from Wu Guizhi, and that their family could survive on these. So they hardened their hearts and abandoned that little bit of guilt and soft-heartedness.

Famine is coming, and they still want to survive. They cannot afford to offend Wu Guizhi, nor can they afford to offend the Yuan family behind Wu Guizhi.

Since the Lü Daquan family committed the heinous crime of switching children, their actions, which resulted in them obtaining food, are also a way of upholding justice and eliminating evil. They are not wrong!

This self-comfort made them all indifferent and numb again, and they continued to stand by Wu Guizhi's side, ready to support her and watch her humiliate Xie Shulan.

Xie Shulan naturally also noticed Wu Guizhi's ill intentions.

After observing the other villagers from Ningshui Village around her, and seeing their shift from feeling guilty to being self-righteous and ready to continue following Wu Guizhi, Xie Shulan knew this would be the outcome, so she didn't say anything more.

They were all pitiful people who wanted to get food from Wu Guizhi, yet they still came to bully their family, who had been wronged and framed. There was no affection left between them.

However, when Xie Shulan tried to leave with the children, Wu Guizhi and the others wouldn't let her, continuing to block her way and looking at her mockingly.