Chapter 148: Robbing the Rich to Help the Poor

The source of the wildfire was discovered on the third day after the fire.

I heard that the fire was set intentionally.

The arsonist had gone to the mountain to chop firewood. After a busy day, he was about to transport the firewood back home when he was robbed by a group of people.

The other party was outnumbered, so he had no choice but to give up the firewood. But when he wanted to chop wood again, he was told that the place where he was chopping wood was their territory, and he had to pay the chopping fee if he wanted to chop wood.

Life was already difficult, and now he was bullied for chopping wood. The honest man was furious, thinking that if he was not allowed to chop wood, then no one else could chop wood. In an impulse, he set fire to the mountain.

The arsonist has been shot. No matter what the reason, arson is an unforgivable crime.

Xia Xiaoman sighed after hearing this. Impulse is the devil. It not only harms others but also oneself.

Bang Bang——

There was a knock on the door, and Xia Xiaoman put on a coat and went out to open the door.

Wang Shijin was outside the door, delivering coal. "Here, two hundred kilograms of coal, and a coal press."

Xia Xiaoman took the things and looked up. Wang Shijin's face was bruised and purple. "What happened to your face? Did someone beat you up?"

Wang Shijin's eyes were a little evasive, "No, I accidentally fell and hit my face."

Xia Xiaoman looked at his dark panda eyes and said jokingly, "How can you get like this from a fall? Come on, show me how you got like this."

Wang Shijin also knew that his excuse was lame, so he simply gave up and said dejectedly: "Hey, don't gloat here, I was beaten by Mr. Luo."

"Was it Old Man Luo who beat you? What did you do wrong to deserve his beating so hard? He hit you in the face." Xia Xiaoman asked curiously.

Wang Shijin didn't want to say anything, but he didn't know what he was thinking about, so he said, "Hasn't the temperature been dropping recently? We are short of supplies. I'm worried that we won't have enough supplies to buy coal in Yancheng, so I...rob the rich to help the poor."

"What robbery?" Xia Xiaoman didn't hear clearly.

Wang Shijin repeated: "Law enforcement by fishing, robbing the rich to help the poor!"

"What kind of fish did you drop? Whose wealth was you robbed?" Xia Xiaoman asked.

"Of course, fishing for those damn fish and robbing those robbers of their supplies."

Wang Shijin was inspired by the official convoy. Instead of racking his brains to earn supplies, it is better to lure the robbers out by fishing enforcement, and then find a way to find the robbers' lair and rob their supplies.

Using this method, he led the coal transport team to destroy several robbers' dens and brought back a lot of supplies.

Old Man Luo saw that they didn't bring back much coal, but did bring back a lot of miscellaneous supplies. He also saw that someone was stabbed, so he immediately realized that something was wrong.

After asking the team members who went out with Wang Shijin, he learned that they had gone to a bandit's den to be bandits. He was furious and picked up a stick as thick as his arm and chased Wang Shijin and beat him for more than half an hour.

Wang Shijin was indignant. "Those robbers deserved to die. I led people to kill the robbers and seize the spoils. This not only eliminated harm to the people, but also earned supplies in a short period of time. Isn't this a win-win situation? But Mr. Luo disagreed and said that what I did was no different from a bandit leader."

"Xia Xiaoman, please judge for yourself. How am I no different from a bandit leader? I don't harm anyone, I don't bully anyone, I just killed a few robbers. Why do you make me act like I've committed a heinous crime and beat me up like this?"

Wang Shijin felt so aggrieved that he felt he was not wrong no matter how he thought about it.

Xia Xiaoman did not answer directly, but asked: "When you went to besiege the robbers, did you disguise yourself?"

“Uh…” Wang Shijin touched the tip of his nose awkwardly, “It was dark then. Even if we weren’t disguised, they wouldn’t have recognized us!”

Xia Xiaoman asked again: "Did you kill all those who saw you?"

"Uh...it was a melee, so I didn't pay much attention. It seems like a few people slipped away."

Xia Xiaoman was speechless. "So you went to 'rob the rich and give to the poor' without any disguise, and openly revealed that you were from Shuiyue Bay, and left someone alive?"

Wang Shijin corrected: "We didn't say we were from Shuiyue Bay."

"Does it make any difference? Everyone around here knows your face. They can find out with just a little inquiry. No wonder you got beaten up. You deserved it."

It was fine to rob the robbers of their supplies, but at least they had to do a good job of both the beginning and the end. Either they had to disguise themselves so that no one could tell that they were from Shuiyue Bay, or they could just kill everyone.

If he left a few people alive, in case the other party wanted to retaliate, Wang Shijin's act of "robbing the rich to help the poor" would be equivalent to inviting enemies to Shuiyue Bay.

Wang Shijin realized his mistake and said dejectedly, "What should we do now? Should we find those people and kill them?"

"The floating city is not big, but it's not small either. How are you going to find it? And it's been so long. Who knows if they've told anyone else about this?"

Xia Xiaoman said earnestly: "Let's forget about the past. If you want to 'rob the rich and help the poor' again in the future, make full preparations and plans first, and don't act impulsively."

Wang Shijin nodded subconsciously while being scolded. Suddenly he came to his senses and stopped nodding. “You seem to be younger than me! Why are you scolding me in the tone of an elder?”

"Okay, okay, I won't chat with you anymore. I came to chat with you, but got scolded instead. I'm leaving first. Lend me your car for a few days. I'll exchange the remaining supplies for coal." After saying that, he left without waiting for Xia Xiaoman's reaction.

Xia Xiaoman's mouth twitched. He kindly reminded her but she still thought she talked too much.

However, Wang Shijin came over and reminded her that the temperature had been getting colder day by day recently, and now she had to wear a sweater before going out. It was also time to clean up the house and make room for making honeycomb coal.

He put away all the things on the first floor of the house to make room, then dug a pile of yellow mud in the yard. He used a hoe to crush the yellow mud and raw charcoal together, added a certain proportion of water, stirred evenly, and used a coal press to press out honeycomb coals, which he arranged neatly in the corner of the living room to dry in the shade.

While the honeycomb coal was drying, she got some iron sheets and wooden boards to patch up the hole in the attic that was destroyed by the tornado. She also removed the main engine and air conditioner and put them in the space.

Then, they moved the rabbits and chickens to a new place and placed them next to the small kang in the first-floor compartment. When the weather got cold, they lit the kang so that the rabbits and chickens would not freeze to death.

As for the vegetables grown indoors on the second floor, without electricity, they cannot grow even if I want to, so I just leave them on the second floor and let them grow naturally.

However, the potatoes planted two months ago were almost ripe. Xia Xiaoman was worried that if she continued to plant them, she would not get any harvest, so she pulled them up and found that the potatoes were growing well, but a little small.

She pulled out all the potatoes she had planted and harvested about 30 kilograms, enough for her to eat for a while.

After cleaning up the house, Xia Xiaoman’s daily task is to make honeycomb coal.

There was no place to pile honeycomb coal, so she put the coal that had not been dried in the shade into the space, intending to make more raw coal first and then slowly dry it in the shade, so as to avoid the weather getting cold and freezing the soil outside.