"How old are you? No wonder you've accomplished nothing. You call yourself a shrewd person? I think you're shrewd to an extreme."

A barrage of accusations came crashing down on him, leaving Fan Damu dumbfounded.

It's completely different from what he expected.

He asked incredulously, "You, you guys, is picking mushrooms more important than rice? You don't care about exchanging water chestnuts for rice, but you care about those worthless mushrooms?"

Everyone: Haha, it's not worthless now!

Mushrooms can be exchanged for rice, you guys just didn't know that.

Seeing that the time was ripe, Zhao Fugui, with his large belly sticking out, stepped forward, cleared his throat, and said loudly, "Everyone, I hereby declare that the things Fan Jin promised you in my name have nothing to do with me! If there are any problems, just go find him."

Who are you?

"Can you find me?"

"We've already given you the rice, what more do you want to say?"

They had no idea how this person got out.

Zhao Fugui's face turned a deep purplish-red from the question. He looked at Fan Jin and asked with considerable displeasure, "Fan Jin, tell me what's going on? If you can't explain it clearly, we'll have to go and talk to the academy's teachers about it!"

"What's so hard to explain? It's just that we didn't want others to know who the real big buyer was, so we just said it offhand."

"I was worried someone might cause trouble, but I didn't expect I was right. But this Young Master Zhao, oh no, Uncle Zhao, it's really kind of you to come all this way. It's not easy for you," Shui Qing said, picking up the thread.

When Shui Qing kept calling him "Grandpa," Zhao Fugui, who had been proudly puffing out his large belly—a symbol of wealth—quickly shrank back.

Just as he was about to speak, Shui Qing asked, "Uncle Zhao's family started out in business, so surely you know about business matters?"

Or is it that Grandpa Zhao has always been completely honest and upright, never uttering a single word against his conscience or trying to cover something up? He truly is an upright and incorruptible man.

Stop saying things against your conscience. He's done plenty of dirty and disgusting things. Upright and honest? Pure and innocent? Isn't that a slap in the face?

Zhao Fugui stepped down, but Fan Qian was displeased and pressed on relentlessly: "Fan Jin, you are my own brother, tell me, who is the big buyer behind this?"

If you can't explain yourself clearly, as your older brother, I absolutely cannot let you continue down the path of making the same mistakes!

The villagers who were watching scoffed!

On the path of making mistakes, Fan Jin's two older brothers probably wanted to even more.

"Of course it's the Bai family."

Zhao Fugui's eyes, which were squeezed into slits by the meat, lit up, and he asked without thinking, "Which Bai family?"

Is it the Bai family he's thinking of?

After asking the question, he looked up and saw that it was Fan Qian's servant speaking.

Everyone else was equally baffled.

"The Bai family of Nandu, known as the Bai family of half the city, what's so strange about the Bai family collecting things all over the country?" Bai Ziqian was dressed in tattered clothes, but the scenes he had seen since childhood and the confidence given by the Bai family made him not intimidated at all when facing Zhao Fugui.

Ignoring the surrounding whispers, Zhao Fugui scoffed, "Just empty words, you think you can take everything I say as fact?"

"Auntie, take out the jade pendant," Bai Ziqian reminded Shang Shuiqing.

Shui Qing took out the jade pendant, and Bai Ziqian arrogantly raised his chin at Zhao Fugui: "Look closely! Flawless, delicate, warm and translucent, made of top-grade Hetian jade. Tell me, who in the entire Guangning Prefecture can have such fine white jade?"

Faced with the flawless white jade, even the most ignorant person would know it was a good thing, let alone Zhao Fugui, who was somewhat knowledgeable.

He examined it for a while, said goodbye, and walked away without looking back, trudging through the mud.

The crowd remained, whispering amongst themselves.

"Isn't this the kid who works as a helper at Fan's house?"

"Is the Bai family really that powerful?"

"Wait, why didn't he help the Fan family, but instead helped the Fan family?"

Who exactly is he?