26. Our Folly...3

29 Years Ago...

Since raising this kid was his bread and butter, Chen Gu made his wife aware of how precious this baby meant to him.

He expected his moon, Wu Yen to help raise Chen Yan with so much love and care and he wouldn't tolerate any lousy attitude thereof.

Though Wu Yen knew that his husband already has a child before their marriage, he still hated the fact that he had to raise someone's child.

As this child is the oldest child of their household, he will be the one in charge when his husband is not around.

Meaning the children between Wu Yen and Chen Gu will have to follow the lead of the first son.

This made Wu Yen very unhappy and he became more hostile toward the then just three years old Chen Yan after he finally put to birth, their own first son, Chen Wu.

He started to maltreat the boy and that made him have a lot of squabbles with his husband. What's worse is the fact that his husband seems to dote on this child.

Wu Yen started to believe that the only reason Chen Gu married him was so he get a mother for his son and not because he actually wanted to create a family with him.

Chen Gu was really happy after the birth of their first son, Chen Wu. He doted on both Chen Yan and Chen Wu and tried to raise them as two brothers.

His wife delivered their second son two years later whom he named as Chen Hong. At this time, Yan was five while Wu was two and their baby brother was only a month old.

Chen Gu managed to keep the secret from his wife all this while, and truly to his uncle's words the money was timely paid and the annual increment of 20% made it so that he was now receiving twice the initial amount from five years ago.

But five years into the marriage an incident happened and he ended up having to tell his wife the whole truth.

This is because, Wu Yen, who is now called Chen Yen started to increase his maltreatment towards Chen Yan because he didn't like the fact that his sons will be under his authority as he is the first son.

His squabbles with his husband turned to real fights and he threatened to divorce Chen Gu if he doesn't take Chen Yan away from their home.

Fearing that his uncle will hear what is happening and might take Chen Yan away including all that came with him, Chen Gu decided to tell his wife the truth so that he will calm down and see things from his side.

Chen Yen was doubtful at first but later came to believe it as the allowance kept coming in before the end of every month and some people did confirm his husband's story about him being just a poor noble five years ago.

Now that he knew the truth, Chen Yen or Mama Yen relaxed a bit and stopped maltreating Chen Yan in order not to lose their source of income.

After all they could afford their lavish lifestyle because this kid.

The shop was being run by their employees while they hire some farm hands to handle their farms. Chen Gu and his wife were just lazing around and spending money like there's no tomorrow.

The ones he put in charge of the shop and the farm advised him on his spending as they were were now spending more than their income.

It got to a time some of the employees left because the shop wasn't making much since they only had just a few stocks.

The farm too wasn't doing so well as Chen Gu refuses to buy the needed chemicals and tools, so the yields kept dwindling.

Chen Gu didn't want to invest in the shop nor the farm. All he does is to continue to take more and more money out of the business.

But still everything was going very well for Chen Gu's household with the monthly stipends still flowing in timely.

The years went by and now Chen Yan was fifteen years old, with his second brother Chen Wu who is twelve and their last born Chen Hong who is ten years old.

All of them were put into school but Chen Wu wasn't as smart as the first and last brother and in no time at all he started to skip school and by the time he was sixteen, he stopped going to the academy altogether.

His dad, Chen Gu blamed it on the fact that his own father didn't like school either.

Because of their love for books, Chen Yan and Chen Hong were a lot closer as they had many similar interests and ideologies, despite the fact that they were five years apart.

By this time Chen Yan was already nineteen years and was preparing to write the National examinations.

The Chens started to face some financial challenges as their shop was on the verge of closing.

All the employees have quit because now they were not receiving their remunerations and the shop is almost empty.

Chen Yan decided to go and help at his family's shop while preparing for the national examination. He got his siblings to help but the second brother Chen Wu didn't care.

He hardly stayed at home even except when he wants to eat or sleep. The third brother Chen Hong was the only one who assisted Chen Yan at the shop.

When Chen Yan first checked their books, they were having bad credits.

Nobody owes them but their shop owed a number of suppliers and it seemed some have even reported his parents to the village head concerning the debts owed them.

Everything was a mess and as a young adult and the first born son, Chen Yan deemed it his responsibility to take care of this mess.

Since he has never seen his dad or mom working before, he believes it was just because they were not confident in running it. He never for once thought that they were just being lazy.