"Your village has such a good atmosphere; even bandits are openly kidnapping children!"

Su Yalong's sarcastic tone made Zheng Xu roll his eyes inwardly.

Zheng Xu said, "What do you mean by 'kidnapping'? You two didn't do anything when you should have done something. Our brigade can't just leave a child naked on the side of the road, can we?! Instead of thanking them, you have this attitude!"

Zheng Xu nudged Uncle Su with his elbow, and Uncle Su cleared his throat: "What are you two doing standing at their door? Why don't you go in and discuss Zhigao's matter?"

"Uncle, we'd better be able to get into their house first!" Su Yalong sneered.

Zheng Xu thought to himself, "It must be Shen Heng's bad temper. Seeing that these two are being unreasonable, he locked them out of the room to keep quiet."

But things always need to be resolved; dragging it out like this isn't a solution. There are only twenty-odd days left until the New Year, and we can't let Su Zhigao spend the New Year at someone else's house.

Zheng Xu walked past the two Su brothers, raised his hand to knock on the door knocker, and called out, "Jiaojiao, I'm the captain. Come out and open the door. Let's talk about Zhigao's matter."

Zheng Xu had considerable influence, and after a short while, Shen Heng opened the door with a dark expression.

"Let's go inside and talk." Zheng Xu said this mainly to Shen Heng. He was relieved to see that although Shen Heng looked unpleasant, he did not refute him.

Four large men entered, and the small main hall suddenly became crowded.

Bai Jiaojiao made Su Zhigao sit on the kang (a heated brick bed) and didn't let him come out at all.

"What do you two mean by not letting us see the child?" Su Yahu said without any politeness, sitting down in one of the only two chairs in the main hall.

Zheng Xu and Uncle Su sat on a long bench to the side. Su Yalong had the idea of ​​sitting on another chair, but Shen Heng reached out and pushed him away: "Get out of here."

After saying that, he gestured for Bai Jiaojiao to sit down and kicked the leg of the stool under Su Yahu's buttocks: "Don't push your luck."

Su Yahu, still holding his injured hand, raised it in front of Chen Heng: "Look at this, how am I supposed to work with this hand? If it delays the work, I'm telling you, you'll have to pay for it!"

Shen Heng reached out and pulled Su Yahu, who weighed 130 or 140 pounds, up. He sat down and said, "Captain, how do you want to argue this?"

They didn't take Su Yahu's threat seriously at all.

"Chen Heng!" Su Ya Hu was about to make a move, but Su Ya Long stopped him.

"Second brother, let's hear what Zheng Xu has to say first."

Zheng Xu looked to the side and said, "I'm not trying to be mean, but your elders are here, so you should discuss your family matters yourselves. I'm just here to say that the people who took in your child did so out of good intentions, and the brigade gave their permission. Don't end up biting the hand that feeds you."

"Who are you calling a dog?" Su Yahu's hand was injured, and he was in a terrible mood, so he suddenly got angry.

Zheng Xu was too lazy to tolerate his bad habits: "Whoever is heartless is heartless!"

"Zheng Xu, do you think you're so great just because you're a brigade leader? You're still just a peasant."

"Alright! Tiger, how can you talk like that?" Uncle Su couldn't stand it anymore. After all, Zheng Xu was very popular in the village, and Su Ya Hu was his junior. He was embarrassed to hear him talk like that.

Su Yahu snorted through his nose: "Who are you to us? You think you're something special just because I call you 'uncle'? Su Zhigao is our nephew. How we, as his uncles, deal with him is up to us. Do we need to consult you?"

Su Yahu was at the front, arguing with everyone in the room, while Su Yalong was on the side carefully observing the expressions of the others.

Seeing Bai Jiaojiao's calm and collected expression, as if she were watching a play, he immediately became angry.

So all that arguing between the two brothers was just a bunch of ignoring the fact that the guy fighting them for the child was completely uninvolved.

Su Yalong said, "Shen Heng, it's one thing for you to act like a tyrant in the village, but snatching a child is no small matter. You'd better bring the child out right now so we can take him away."

Shen Heng and Bai Jiaojiao then turned their gazes to Su Yalong. Shen Heng said, "Are you deaf? Didn't you hear what the brigade leader said? If you say 'kidnapping' again, I'll throw you headfirst into a well, you believe me?"

Shen Heng slammed his fist on the table with a "bang," and the table shook three times.

Su Yalong moved his lips, but ultimately didn't dare to say anything more. Both Su Yalong and Su Yahu were rather thin, and if they were to fight Shen Heng, they might not be able to defeat him.

In addition, Zheng Xu and his distant uncle are unlikely to help them.

Su Yalong said, "Now that we're here, you should hurry up and give Zhigao to us. After all, how could we, as his uncles, not take good care of him?"

"You can take the child away, but you need to make it clear beforehand whether you plan to take care of Zhigao until he comes of age, or whether you want to give him away to someone else to raise?" Bai Jiaojiao asked.

Su Yahu said, "What's it to you, woman? Damn it, since when can women talk business?!"

"Say that again, you fucking idiot!" Shen Heng stood up and slapped Su Yahu on the head, making Su Yahu dizzy.

Su Yalong quickly went to help him up and said, "Shen Heng, aren't you afraid we'll call the police?"

"Go ahead and report it; see if you can even get out of our house!"

The wicked will always be punished by the wicked. When the brothers Su Yalong and Su Yahu encountered someone even more ruthless, they cowered in fear.

"Brother, are you alright?" Su Yalong asked him, but Su Yahu didn't answer.

Su Yalong had no choice but to say to Bai Jiaojiao, "Don't our two families even have enough to raise a child? Why are you asking these questions?"

Bai Jiaojiao laughed and said, "After all, you asked your mother to give Zhigao away before, but she refused. You two didn't come back to see her for three or four years. With this past record, I really don't believe you're going to take Zhigao home to raise him."

Bai Jiaojiao so easily exposed this matter to their faces, but the two brothers were not ashamed at all: "So what if we give him to someone else? Would we, as his uncles, harm him? We definitely have to find a family with good conditions! If you want this child, that's fine too," Su Yahu clenched his middle three fingers, "If you can come up with this amount, we will feel at ease handing Zhigao over to you."

"Six hundred? Are you selling a child?!"

Uncle Su's eyes widened in surprise. Six hundred yuan! Su Yahu really dared to ask for that much!

"You don't even have this much sincerity, yet you want to take someone else's child back?" Su Yahu rolled his eyes at Uncle Su.

Su Yalong said, "Uncle, we're not selling the child, but we're asking them to pay money so that they'll value Zhigao. Otherwise, if it comes too easily, it will seem like Zhigao is eager to get what he wants."

"Shouldn't they thank you?" Zheng Xu's legs were sore from slapping them.

There was nothing I could do; I was too emotional and had nowhere to vent.

He had long anticipated that the two brothers would definitely send Su Zhigao away, which was the best future for Su Zhigao; otherwise, following these two uncles would only bring him suffering.