If everything could have remained as it was that year, perhaps everything that followed wouldn't have been so terrible.
However, a year later, things changed.
All the changes were because Father Tan Ye brought back a woman.
Her name was "Liu Ruomei," a courtesan, who appeared to be only in her early twenties back then.
Even the young Tan Xing at the time could tell that this Liu Ruomei was very beautiful.
She possessed that rare kind of charming and flamboyant beauty, seldom seen in the small village where the Tan family lived in Qin Zhou City.
If she hadn't arrived at the Tan family with a bulging belly, looking at everyone in the Tan family with arrogance, Tan Xing felt that perhaps no one would have disliked this woman upon their first meeting.
But what he would never forget was that day, Tan Ye told everyone that Liu Ruomei was carrying his child, and he wanted Liu Ruomei to be a concubine of equal status to Tan Yue and Tan Xing's mother, to be their equal!
This was something Tan Yue and Tan Xing could not accept, and even more so, Yu Ming Cui could not accept it.
It was the first time in so many years that Yu Ming Cui had so strongly opposed Tan Ye's decision.
She even smashed a teacup, picked up the shards from the ground, and held them against her throat: "Impossible! Tan Ye, I have followed you for so many years, and I will never tolerate you bringing a concubine of equal status into our home, especially one who is a courtesan! Either you kill me, and let the whole world know that you are a heartless man!"
Let alone Tan Ye, even Tan Yue and Tan Xing were startled by their mother's fierce demeanor.
In everyone's memory, Yu Ming Cui had always been gentle and kind.
Serving Tan Ye all these years, she had worked tirelessly, endured beatings and scoldings, and never uttered a word of protest.
Perhaps it was precisely because of this that when Yu Ming Cui began to resist, Tan Ye became even more fearful and wary.
Even though Tan Ye wanted to give Liu Ruomei a proper title, he ultimately only took Liu Ruomei as a concubine, and dared not mention "equal status" again.
For Tan Ye, everything changed after Liu Ruomei arrived at the Tan family with the child in her womb.
Tan Ye no longer drank every day; instead, he began to take good care of his health and put on a spirited front, as if he had finally become a flesh-and-blood "person."
He stopped hitting people and even occasionally showed concern for Tan Yue and Tan Xing, as if showing Tan Xing what a "father" should be like.
But for Yu Ming Cui, that period was also painful.
Because of Liu Ruomei, Tan Ye never came to Yu Ming Cui's quarters again.
He handed over all matters concerning him to Liu Ruomei, and even during meals, he no longer allowed Yu Ming Cui to sit at the table.
At the same time, Liu Ruomei became increasingly brazen in bullying Yu Ming Cui.
Yu Ming Cui's appearance gradually aged, and her spirit grew weaker.
If it weren't for her two children, Tan Yue and Tan Xing, she probably wouldn't have known how to continue living this way.
It was precisely because of this that Tan Yue and Tan Xing became increasingly convinced: they had to take their mother away and live a life completely different from their current one, regardless of their father or that Liu Ruomei!
Two months later, Liu Ruomei's child was born.
It was a stormy night, yet Liu Ruomei suffered from a difficult labor.
It was the first time Tan Xing saw Tan Ye so anxious and helpless; he searched through all the medical texts, wanting to alleviate Liu Ruomei's pain.
Finally, he found an ancient prescription, but the medicinal herbs he needed were not available in the Tan family.
So, on that stormy night, Tan Ye drove out his eldest son, Tan Yue.
He sent him to the most dangerous forested mountain to gather the required medicinal herbs, and declared that if he didn't go, he would no longer be a child of the Tan family. He would not learn any medical skills from him, nor should he ever dream of taking Yu Ming Cui away from here in the future.
Tan Ye told Tan Yue that if he didn't go, his most cherished mother Yu Ming Cui and his younger brother Tan Xing would suffer in the Tan family for eternity.
At that moment, Tan Xing finally understood.
In fact, Tan Ye knew everything in his heart...
He was a devil, but a devil from whom one could never escape!
On that rainy night, Tan Xing watched as Tan Yue put on his straw hat and went out.
That night was the most chaotic night for the Tan family.
In the room, Liu Ruomei's pained cries were incessant, and the child was still not born.
Tan Ye's curses followed: "That scoundrel Tan Yue, why isn't he back yet?! When he returns, I will beat him to death!"
"Waa—"
When the baby's cries finally sounded, Tan Xing and Yu Ming Cui, who were huddled together in the corner, also opened their eyes.
The sky outside had already brightened, and the heavy rain had long since stopped.
Liu Ruomei and Tan Ye, immersed in their newborn child, paid no attention to anything else.
Even when Tan Xing wanted to enter the room, he was driven out by Tan Ye: "Get out, get out, go to the kitchen to cook for your aunt! She has worked so hard to give our Tan family a daughter! Tell your mother to hurry up, and if she starves Mei'er, I'll skin her alive!"
He made no mention of his eldest son Tan Yue, as if he had forgotten that he had sent Tan Yue out.
Yu Ming Cui, as usual, accepted Tan Ye's treatment.
As she walked towards the kitchen, she glanced at the distant forested mountain, then instructed Tan Xing: "Go and look for your brother! The rain was heavy last night, he might have taken shelter in the mountains. Tell him the child has been born safely and ask him to come back!"
Tan Xing, without even eating, dashed out the door—
He followed the traces of wild herbs growing on the forested mountain, searching slowly.
Finally, at the foot of a steep cliff, amidst the grass, he found Tan Yue, covered in blood!
Tan Yue was dead.
He had died in the heavy rain last night, his body already cold and stiff.
Yet, in his hand, he still tightly clutched the medicinal herb that Tan Ye had asked him to find!
Speaking of this, extreme hatred erupted in Tan Xing's eyes: "He must have done it for us, which is why he didn't stop even in the heavy rain last night, and then he missed his footing on the steep cliff and fell! But my so-called father, he didn't even come to look at his eldest son! He was only concerned with the joy of having a new daughter, completely disregarding the life and death of his eldest son!"
Tan Xing said that later, it was the villagers who helped Yu Ming Cui and Tan Xing carry Tan Yue's body back.
But Liu Ruomei found Tan Yue's body to be too inauspicious to be brought into the house, fearing it would jinx her newborn daughter, so she refused to let Tan Yue's body enter.
Thus, the poor Tan Yue, even in death, could not enter his own home and was hastily buried at the foot of the forested mountain at his father's command!