“I remember that ten years ago, when Zhou Shu came back from working away from home, he brought this wife with him. It seems that she went to work near her hometown village.”

"The reason I remember her is because she also has the surname Zhao, the same as my mother's. I remembered that there was such a person in the village," Zhou Quan recalled.

“As far as I can remember, my family has never had any connection with someone like her. Why would she be so hostile towards me for no reason? I could sense it from the first time I saw her in the big tent on the mountaintop; I felt like she disliked me,” Li Mai said, puzzled.

Just then, Zhou Lei came over after helping Zhuzhu wash her hands. "Sister-in-law, have you forgotten about the day we went to Aunt Da Niu's house to buy tofu? One of the people standing by the roadside talking badly about you and your brother Zhuzhu was her. She said you were divorced by someone, otherwise why would you marry a paralyzed man?"

"Didn't you yell back later? You even said that those who gossip behind people's backs will go to the hell of having their tongues pulled out. I guess she must have been scolded by Brother Zhou Shu because of that, or she had a nightmare. Otherwise, why would she hate you?"

Although Zhou Lei was just a child and still somewhat unaware of adult matters, he had good observation and memory skills. As soon as his older brother and sister-in-law mentioned it, he immediately remembered the incident.

Li Mai looked at Zhou Lei in surprise, then suddenly realized, "So that's how it is!"

Zhou Quan and Li Mai exchanged a glance, squeezed her hand, and said softly, "Don't worry about this. I'll let Brother Shi Zhou handle it. As for her stealing Aunt Da Niu's purse, I reckon Aunt Da Niu will come after her soon, and a fight is possible. We don't need to get our hands dirty this time."

Li Mai nodded, smiled at him, and replied with a "okay".

Sometimes it's appropriate to give men a chance to protect their wives and daughters.

After taking Li Mai and Zhu Zhu home that evening, Zhou Quan went to the clan chief's house.

The next day, when Aunt Lin came to visit, she brought them the news.

Aunt Da Niu had already been suspicious of Xiao Zhao Shi, and after Li Mai's test on Xiao Zhao Shi yesterday, Aunt Da Niu was certain. She took her sons and rushed to Zhou Shu's house, where they grabbed Xiao Zhao Shi and gave her a good beating.

Fearing she would be beaten to death, Xiao Zhao confessed.

Zhou Shu had no idea about this. In his disappointment, he searched the house and found Aunt Da Niu's money bag.

The five taels of silver that were originally inside were gone, leaving only an empty money bag.

Zhou Shu blushed with embarrassment.

The clan chief, Shi Zhou, was also present at the time. Through Shi Zhou's mediation, Zhou Shu gave all of his family's only five taels of silver to Aunt Da Niu as compensation.

Aunt Da Niu took her money bag and went home.

This matter was considered over for her, but it wasn't over for Zhou Shu. He had lost all the money he had left to pay compensation, so how was he going to live?

Enraged, he slapped Xiao Zhao several times for the first time since their marriage, and took off the silver bracelet from her wrist, intending to sell it to support the family.

Zhao didn't want him to sell it, and he cried and begged her not to.

Zhou Shu said coldly to her, "If you don't let me sell the bracelet, I'll sell you. You caused this whole mess, and look at what kind of personality Dou Dou has become because of your teaching. His personality is getting further and further away from Fei Fei's."

"I won't do it again. I'll never interfere in other people's business again. I'll just live our lives well. Please don't sell the bracelet, okay? I promise I'll work hard with you to earn money. We won't starve."

“You’ve never bought me a single piece of jewelry since we got married. I saw other people wearing bracelets and I was envious. I wanted to wear one too, and I got carried away and did something wrong. I’ll never do it again. Please, don’t sell it, okay?” Little Zhao knelt down and begged Zhou Shu, crying.

Thinking of how his two brothers-in-law fought without fear of death, Zhou Shu silently turned and left.

Xiao Zhao collapsed to the ground, silently wiping away her tears, a hint of hatred in her eyes. Li Mai, that woman deserves to die. If it weren't for her meddling yesterday, she wouldn't have been slapped, Zhou Shu wouldn't have had the idea of ​​selling her, and the family's money wouldn't have all disappeared at once.

The sound of her daughter crying came from the kang (a heated brick bed). Only then did Xiao Zhao get up, dust herself off, and go to the kang to see her daughter.

...

After the seventh day of the first lunar month, on the eighth day, Li Mai and Zhou Quan drove a horse-drawn carriage to town to see the house they had bought.

Old Man Zhou, Zhou Lin, and Zhou Lei all went along.

Zhuzhu and Zhou Tao also wanted to go, but Zhao Shi didn't let them go, saying that they should go and take a look first, and then go and take a look when they could stay there.

Zhou Tao and Zhu Zhu could only pout and didn't go with them.

Li Mai smiled and told them that she would bring them next time she went.

Around noon, they went to town, and Zhou Quan drove the carriage directly to that house.

Along the way, Li Mai lifted the carriage curtain to look out at the street scene. Unexpectedly, the road from the town center to the east was quite bustling.

After traveling for a while, the carriage turned onto a north-facing street. After traveling a little further, it stopped at the corner of a house on the west side of the street. Zhou Quan jumped off the carriage and said, "You can get off the carriage here and look around. This is the outermost house. However, there is no door on the side of the road. You need to go into the alley. But there is only our family's gate inside. The alley is quite spacious."

Li Mai responded, and after Zhou Lin and his two sons jumped down, she was the last to come down.

As she was about to jump, Zhou Quan reached out his hand to her. Li Mai chuckled, took his hand, and jumped down.

Old Zhou walked to the middle of the road and looked around. On the other side of the road, he could see a residential area with a series of narrow alleys.

The house looks quite tidy.

Li Mai also looked around, and finally glanced towards the northeast. She could feel that the malevolent aura was stronger there. It seemed that was the stronghold of the Heaven and Earth Alliance.

It's clear that this house was built by a wealthy person. The courtyard wall is very high, at least ten feet high, and you can't see the roof inside from outside the wall. The house is not near the road.

Li Mai recalled the simple map on the land deed, but it didn't seem to look like this.

The courtyard wall has a one-meter-high stone foundation, topped with a wall of blue bricks. The seams of the wall are outlined with lime, and the blue bricks with white seams give it a very vintage feel.

Presumably, the Lu family bought it, so they must have cleaned the walls. They look very clean, with not a speck of dirt on them.

After looking around from the outside, Li Mai went inside, and Old Man Zhou and the others followed.

There's a screen wall with the character "福" (fortune) at the entrance of the alley, leaning against the wall so that people outside can't immediately see the house's main gate.

The width between the screen wall and the courtyard wall is only wide enough for one horse-drawn carriage to pass through.