“If that old man stays here, when will we ever have land to build a big house? Don’t you see how cramped it is? For years your father has been clinging to that plot. If you don’t drive him out, don’t blame me for no longer honoring our marriage!”

Lan’s words — she was known as a calculating daughter-in-law — drained the warm atmosphere from the house. Minh, Mr. Tu’s only son, fell silent. He knew his father was over seventy, growing frail, having spent his life farming to raise his children. The more-than-400-square-meter plot was everything Mr. Tu had saved, and it was where he wanted to spend his old age in peace.

But Lan wouldn’t accept it. Since marrying Minh, she had felt humiliated whenever friends boasted of spacious, comfortable homes while she and her husband lived with his father in the old house. Envy and greed grew inside her.

One evening after dinner, Lan brought it up again.

“Think about it — if we sell half the land and build a house facing the road, we’d have a shop and a place to live. Father is old; he can go back to the countryside to live with Uncle Hai. Why keep him here causing congestion?”

Minh sighed, but inwardly he wavered. He loved his father, but he also longed for a larger, private home. Gradually, Lan’s crafty mix of sweet words and sharp pressure made him give in.

A week later, Minh mustered the courage to tell his father.

“Father… I’ve thought about it. Our house is too cramped. Why don’t you go back to the countryside to live with Uncle Hai? We’ll send monthly support money.”

Mr. Tu froze. His aged eyes brimmed with tears.

“Do you really want me to leave? All my life I’ve been tied to this land — there’s the altar for your mother, the trees I planted…”

But Minh avoided his father’s gaze. Behind him, Lan stood with her arms crossed, looking determined. Finally, under pressure from his son and daughter-in-law, Mr. Tu quietly packed a few sets of clothes, took his old wooden chest, and left the home he had lived in for more than half his life.

When he left, everyone in the neighborhood talked. Some condemned Lan as heartless, others scolded Minh for being unfilial. But the couple ignored the gossip, lost in dreams of their new house. Minh quickly started the paperwork to transfer the land title so they could apply for a bank loan to build.

Lan eagerly painted a picture of a bustling shop on the main road and an elegant house that would make them proud. Minh believed he was only “temporarily” pushing his father away and would make amends after he succeeded.

Only one week after Mr. Tu left, trouble struck. Loan procedures stalled because the bank required documentation proving full ownership of the land, while Mr. Tu had retained part of it. On top of that, a cousin from the countryside showed up claiming the land included an inheritance portion belonging to him.

Meanwhile, news of the old man being driven out spread through the village, and Minh and Lan were shunned by neighbors and ridiculed by friends. They had expected praise for getting a “big house,” but instead they were heading toward an unexpected outcome…

At first, Lan remained upbeat, continually imagining the bustling shop and the admiring friends who would praise their new house. But the reality soon revealed that dreams don’t come easily.

When they submitted the loan application, the bank asked Minh and Lan to prove full ownership of the entire plot. Previously, Mr. Tu had only allowed Minh to be listed on part of the title while keeping the main plot for worship and as his safety net in old age. But Minh and Lan had unilaterally claimed the whole parcel as theirs. When the bank checked the records, the truth came out.

Lan was furious:

“Why didn’t you make Father sign everything from the beginning? Now we’re in trouble!”

Minh was silent; he knew his father had always been cautious and would never hand everything over until he felt secure.

It didn’t stop there. The cousin from the countryside suddenly appeared with paperwork proving that the land was part of the common inheritance from Minh’s grandparents. For years the cousin had not disputed it out of compassion — he had let the widowed younger brother raise his child in peace — but once he heard Minh and Lan planned to sell, he moved to reclaim his share.

Waves of public outrage

Word that the couple had driven their elderly father out to seize land spread fast. The neighbors viewed them with contempt. The whispers behind their backs became an invisible burden.

One neighbor bluntly said,

“If you have blessings but don’t know how to use them, drive your father away and see if you’ll have peace!”

Lan was annoyed, and the more angry she grew, the more determined she became to believe that building a big house would silence the critics. She pushed Minh to sell the portion their father had kept, no matter the cost.

Minh began to suffer severe inner conflict. He loved his father, but he was being driven by his wife every day. Guilt stirred in him. Nights were long as he remembered the image of his father quietly carrying his wooden chest out the gate. Whenever he faced Lan’s frustration, he swallowed his tears and told himself there was no turning back.

Mr. Tu stayed with his eldest brother in the countryside. Though cared for, he could not hide his sadness. He would sit by the porch, sighing:

“I’m old, I don’t ask for much, just a place to light incense for your mother… How can my children do this?”

His words made his elder brother sorrowful and provoked more neighbors’ sympathy. Someone suggested he sue, but he shook his head.

“They are my children, my flesh and blood… how could I take them to court?”

Meanwhile, Minh and Lan sank deeper. Unable to secure bank financing, they turned to high-interest, informal lenders to get money for renovations. That loan quickly snowballed into overwhelming debt with compounding interest.

Before they finished any repairs, a letter came from the commune authorities: the land dispute between Minh and the cousin had been officially filed. Minh sweated; Lan lost sleep from worry. They had not expected their greed to trigger such a tangled legal spiral.

One month after driving their father away, the house they had planned to renovate lay half-finished, surrounded by rubble. Debt surrounded them, friends turned away, and neighbors gossiped. Lan began to blame her husband.

“It’s all your weakness! If you’d been firm and forced Father to sign over everything from the start, we wouldn’t be in this mess!”

Minh snapped back,

“Don’t put this all on me! You pushed me into it. Now Father’s gone and I have no face left!”

Their arguments continued without end. The home that once promised to “blossom” had become a stifling hell.

The wooden chest

Meanwhile, Mr. Tu quietly sat in the countryside, nursing the pain of being rejected by his own child, unaware that the collapse of Minh and Lan’s lives had only just begun…

The land dispute intensified. The court required both parties to provide original documents. When Mr. Tu was called as a witness, he brought his old wooden chest — inside were the land-use certificate, original title documents, and paperwork Minh had never known about.

In front of the commune officials, he slowly said,

“This land was what my parents left us. I kept it for worship and to support myself in old age. I only let Minh live here, but I never allowed him to sell it.”

Minh hung his head, flushed with shame. Lan muttered in irritation,

“This old man is really stubborn…”

But Mr. Tu’s words tipped the legal balance in favor of him and the cousin.

While waiting for the verdict, the couple was exhausted. Their loan from informal lenders ballooned into hundreds of millions of dong; the lenders harassed and threatened them. The half-renovated home became a place of tension and dread.

Neighbors watched and shook their heads.

“Greed brings ruin — heaven sees all.”

Lan began to collapse emotionally. The sharp, capable woman she had been became haggard and sleepless. Multiple times she thought of returning to her mother’s home, but then reconsidered — if she left, everything would fall apart.

Minh was different. During his low moments he remembered when his father still lived at home: simple meals but full of warmth, evenings when the whole family gathered. Now the house was ruined, the couple quarrelled, friends had turned away. He finally understood what loss meant.

One night, Minh secretly went back to the countryside to find his father. He found the old man by an oil lamp; Mr. Tu had grown thin, but his eyes remained kind. Minh knelt, choking back tears.

“Father, I was wrong… I’m sorry.”

Mr. Tu only sighed and put his hand on his son’s shoulder.

“It’s enough that you know you were wrong. But mistakes sometimes come with a heavy price, my son.”

A few months later, the court issued its ruling: most of the land belonged to Mr. Tu and the cousin, leaving only a small portion to Minh. That meant Minh and Lan could not carry out their plans to build or do business.

With no way out, their informal lenders forced them to sell off the small remaining piece of land cheaply to pay debts. From dreaming of a “big house and busy shop,” they ended up losing everything — land gone, money gone.

Lan cried, blaming fate. Minh fell silent, realizing this ruin was the inevitable consequence of greed and unfilial conduct.

But the pain was more than financial. What hurt Minh most was his father’s disappointed look. Mr. Tu didn’t scold — he was silent — and that silence cut him deeper than a thousand knives.

The whole village knew the story. Minh and Lan no longer had the face to raise. Former close friends avoided them. They were judged by society and scorned by public opinion — that became the gravest sentence.

One late-year afternoon, when the exhausted couple came to seek forgiveness, Mr. Tu said only this:

“Possessions can be lost, but once moral character is gone, it’s hard to recover. Remember, never let greed make you forget filial duty. I’m old now; I don’t have much time left — I only hope you can understand what it means to be human.”

Minh sobbed like a child. Lan fell silent, tears streaming down her face.

They had exchanged everything — land, honor, happiness — to learn a bitter lesson: driving an elderly father out of the house was like pushing themselves off a cliff.