"Second Brother, what do we do now?" one of the men asked in a low voice.
Billy Lin glanced uncertainly at Clara. "Are we… really taking him away?"
Clara nodded calmly. "Go ahead. I won't stop you."
The men fell silent.
Billy still felt a bit unsettled after she'd shoved him earlier. He didn't want to be seen as someone who bullied women and children, especially not in front of the whole village. Gritting his teeth, he made up his mind.
Fine! You two want to act out a double act? Let's see who's left crying in the end!
"Take him!"
At his command, the others hoisted Lester—still tied up like a dumpling—off the ground and carried him away, ignoring his frantic struggles.
They didn't get far before one of them turned back to sneak a look at Clara.
She didn't react. Not a twitch.
Billy had never seen anything like it. Weren't married couples supposed to have at least some affection for each other? Not even a trace?
And those four Liew kids—none of them tried to stop it. Just how horrible was this Lester Liew?
As Lester's screams faded into the distance, Adam glanced nervously at Clara and whispered, "You didn't really mean for them to kill Father, right? You just wanted to scare him... right?"
Clara said nothing.
The four children fell silent.
As Clara calmly shooed away the remaining onlookers, then picked up her hoe and a couple of unfamiliar-looking sacks and headed into the house, the siblings stared at each other in bewilderment.
Then, as if on cue, the three boys cried, "Father!" and took off like mad in the direction Lester had been taken.
Too bad their malnourished bodies gave out after just a few steps. Legs shaking, heads spinning, they collapsed beneath the old tree at the edge of the village.
Not long after, they slunk back, dragging their feet, and silently watched Clara's back as she worked, too afraid to speak.
Moments later, a new commotion approached—the hurried stomping of feet as Old Walter Liew and his three sons came rushing back from the fields.
The war had only recently ended, and the Sheng Empire was still rebuilding. With the population thinned, land had been generously distributed: Each adult male was given about 50 acres of land, and each adult female received roughly 20 acres. Of course, taxes had increased too.
The villagers of Liew worked nonstop—millet in spring, wheat in autumn—but even with all that labor, the harvests barely fed their large families.
With the weather turning cold, Old Walter Liew dared not rest. Before dawn, he'd taken his three sons out to the fields. The womenfolk weren't idle either—his wife and two daughters-in-law had gone to the vegetable plots to try and harvest one last round of greens before winter.
When the drama unfolded at Lester's place, only an eight-year-old child had been left to watch the house. A neighbor came running to report that the third uncle lester was being dragged off by debt collectors, possibly to be beaten to death.
The child, despite having often heard the adults bad-mouth his third uncle, was still alarmed enough to lock the house and dash to the fields to alert the others.
The Liew men returned in a panic, only to find the crowd gone and Lester nowhere in sight. The four Liew siblings stood in the yard, pale and trembling.
Old Walter Liew felt a chill run down his spine. Something wasn't right.
"Adam, where's your father?"Brandon Liew, the eldest son, beat his father to the question.
Adam looked between his grandfather, uncles, and the house, hesitant to speak.
Should he say, Our stepmother had Father carried off to be killed to pay off his debts?
Seeing the children clammed up, Old Walter Liew gestured for the men to approach the house.
Lester's home was barely a hut—just river mud smeared over wooden frames, no proper walls at all. There were two tiny rooms, a makeshift open-air kitchen with a stone stove and a single pot, and not even a fence to mark a yard.
In just a few steps, they reached Clara.
Old Walter Liew had seen her once before—three days ago, when that shameless son of his showed up at the ancestral home begging ten coins to rent a cart and pick up his new bride from the county town.
Despite being a scoundrel, Lester hadn't forgotten his father. He'd even had Clara bow respectfully to the old man.
Clara had looked thin and pale, dressed in hand-me-downs. Old Martha Liew had shaken her head, whispering that such a frail girl wouldn't survive a life with someone like Lester. But her features were pretty—no wonder Lester insisted on fetching her in person.
"Father. Eldest Brother. Second Brother. Younger Brother," Clara greeted politely.
The men nodded back, stiff but civil.
Old Walter Liew exhaled heavily, face dark. "Where's that disgraceful son of mine?"
Clara set her hoe behind the door—it was the most valuable thing in the house—then replied mildly, "He went to pay his debts."
Second Brother, Caleb Liew, narrowed his eyes. "And what's he paying with? That man won't even spare a single coin for peanuts!"
Clara looked straight at them and said plainly, "If he has no money, then he'll pay with his life."
The four men went pale.
Clara didn't bother explaining. "If you want to redeem him, go ahead—pay them yourselves. I don't have a single coin to spare."
They looked around. The state of the household spoke for itself.
Speechless, the men stared at each other, until the youngest, Logan Liew, spoke up from the back with a scoff. "Forget it, let's just eat. We've got to rest before heading back to the fields. Are we really going to scrape up silver to save that worthless Third Brother? Come on, Father—be reasonable. We don't have that kind of money."
He was only fourteen, the youngest of the bunch, born to Old Walter Liew and his second wife, long after the other sons. Though he had a fiery temper, even he had been working the fields since he was eight.
Compared to his hardworking brothers, only Lester had always been the odd one out—rebellious from birth, always doing the opposite of what he was told.
Old Master Liew had given him the name "Lester"—meaning "last"—thinking he'd be the final child. Who would've guessed that fate would grant him a fourth son years later?
Looking at this family of boys, Old Master Liew could only sigh.
But Lester… Lester had always been the wild one.
(End of Chapter)