Chapter 2 Why does Guagua have such a big piece of bacon?

There are always a lot of gossips around a widow, especially in a rural area like this. If a group of people come into someone's house and make trouble, regardless of whether the affair is true or not, the act alone is completely insulting.

Xiang Yao wasn't the only one who had this thought. Someone immediately hesitated and said, "That's not good. A large group of you rushing into someone else's house is totally unacceptable!"

Someone echoed: "Yeah, yeah, I think this is not good either. How will the orphans and widows live their lives then?"

But some people also mocked her: "You're already having an affair, and you're still afraid of people coming to your door to find out? If it were two years ago, you would have been paraded through the streets with a sign hanging on your head!"

Everyone was in a dilemma. It would be impolite to go to someone else's house, but if they didn't go, they would have trouble getting over the matter at Dashan's house today. What should they do?

But everyone didn't feel embarrassed for too long. A soft but firm voice came from the back of the crowd:

"I, Zhang Meiyun, am upright and have done nothing wrong. I'm not afraid of ghosts knocking on my door. If you want to come to my house and see, then go ahead!"

Xiang Yao looked up and met a pair of determined eyes.

The young widow had beautiful eyes, and even though her face was a little thinner and darker, it did not completely conceal her beauty.

One can't help but think that when she was nurtured by a warm family, she must have been a very beautiful person.

Since I had spoken, everyone no longer had any psychological burden. They didn't even have time to eat and just followed me in a mighty manner.

Xiang Yao hesitated for a second between eating the Xiang family's thin soup and rice and eating the melon, and then decisively followed behind the three aunts.

She took out another handful of peanuts and approached them: "Aunts, this Aunt Zhang, her husband must be Uncle Xiang Jin, right? I remember Uncle Xiang Jin has been dead for several years. Why didn't she remarry?"

The aunts were grateful for what they received, and each of them got a few peanuts. The wrinkles on their faces became deeper, and they no longer cared about Xiang Yao's young age and started chattering.

"When Xiang Jin left, you were still in junior high school! Back then..."

Xiang Yao nodded. At that time, both junior high school and high school were two-year programs. According to the original body's memory, Xiang Jin left more than three years ago.

However, the original body turned a deaf ear to what was happening outside and had no idea why.

It turned out that this widow's family was from a neighboring brigade under the same commune. They were poor and had a bad background. They just happened to fall in love with Xiang Jin, a bachelor who had no parents and was doing odd jobs there.

After getting married, they had a few good years. The couple had a rare good relationship in the team and they even had a baby.

As a result, Xiang Jin had an accident before the baby was even a month old...

Although Widow Zhang looks weak, she is a person with strong opinions. She lives alone with her baby and has neither returned to her parents' home nor remarried. She has lived like this until now, her baby is more than three years old.

"She's a pretty good person, actually. Before Xiang Jin left, she always smiled at everyone she met. Even in our brigade, there were quite a few bachelors who wanted to marry her!" Yang Xiaohong said, "But that widow Zhang is a stubborn person. She refused to accept any offer. She's been through a hard time these past two years, and she doesn't smile anymore."

Zhang Laidi also said, "There are families in our brigade who are better off than the Dashans. I don't believe that Widow Zhang had to steal him when there are so many other people to steal from."

"It's hard to say. Look at that bald-faced guy from Team Five. His wife treats him like a treasure, afraid he might be seduced away by someone else." He Yuezhi smiled ambiguously. "People have different preferences!"

"Hehe, as the saying goes, don't judge a book by its cover. Maybe he's good at that skill! Yuan Dashan is tall and you can tell at first glance that he's not a coward." Yang Xiaohong also winked.

After she said that, she remembered that there was a little girl who knew nothing about society next to her, and she suddenly felt embarrassed.

Xiang Yao smiled understandingly: "It's okay, it's okay, aunts, continue chatting, don't worry about me!"

Although they said so, in front of the little girl, the middle-aged women really couldn't speak freely, and for a moment, they restrained themselves a lot.

Xiang Yao sighed regretfully.

When it comes to theoretical knowledge in certain areas, she has much more knowledge than the other aunts around her.

Decades later, the internet is so advanced, what should and shouldn't she have seen? Because of certain information controls, what sexually suggestive homophones and pronouns is she unfamiliar with?

Fortunately, this slightly awkward atmosphere did not last long, and they soon arrived at Widow Zhang's house.

Yuan Dashan had been silent all the way, and his face was still ashen.

He looked at Li Xianggui steadily: "Mrs. Zhang has agreed. If you want to see it, go and see it. Look at the beam at the back of the main hall. Take a good look and see if it's newly built!"

Li Xianggui was originally trying to commit suicide in the fields, but when Liu Meiyun really asked her to come and see, she felt guilty instead.

No matter how stupid she was, she understood one thing: if someone tried to hide something, then it was possible that he had done something wrong. But if someone was really open and honest and asked everyone to come and see, then it was very likely that he really had nothing to do with her Yuan Dashan.

But it was hard to get off the tiger. She had been put here and had to watch. So she stiffened her neck and shouted, "Look! I want to see how many men this widow has hidden in her house!"

Widow Zhang's house consists of two adobe houses. The main hall is right when you enter the house, and on the left is a narrow and dim room. At the back is a kitchen and toilet built in a shed. It looks simple, but everything is clean and tidy.

Her three-year-old child, Xiang Tiedan, was sitting naked on the ground at the door and playing. When he suddenly saw so many adults coming, he was so scared that tears welled up in his eyes and he kept biting his dirty fingers.

Widow Zhang stood under the eaves, looking at the excited crowd rubbing their hands. "Look carefully later, there's a crack in the middle of that beam. Captain Yuan checked it and said it could break at any time. He was afraid it might hit someone, so he tied it up with some straight wood."

There was not much expression on her face, more of numbness, but her words were neither hurried nor slow, making people feel credible.

But when Li Xianggui stood at the front of the crowd and was about to step into the house, Widow Zhang stared at her and said, "But let me be frank. If this is really the case, you must clear my name in front of everyone, apologize to me, and apologize to my dead man!"

As soon as these words were spoken, there was another sigh among the crowd.

Yes, this widow lost her husband at a young age, and had to live a hard life with her child. She had to go hungry for at least half of the year. Wasn’t that what she was holding on to?

She wants an apology, isn't that what she should do?

So everyone looked at Li Xianggui with burning eyes.

This was not the first time that Li Xianggui was being watched by so many eyes today, but she had a clear conscience before and was only concerned about making things worse and making Yuan Dashan and Zhang Guafu suffer. But now she was a little afraid to lift a foot.

If Widow Zhang was really wronged today, she would really lose all her dignity.

But now so many people were waiting to watch the fun, she had to take this step even if she didn't want to. So she wiped her face and glared at Widow Zhang fiercely: "Alright, let's watch! If you two really didn't cheat, I, Li Xianggui, will apologize. But I'm saying this, if you really did, then from now on, you two dogs and bitches will definitely have a hard time!"

Widow Zhang pulled Tiedan, who looked panicked, up and put him aside. She walked into the house first and stopped talking.

Everyone followed in and saw the repaired beams at a glance.

The beams were installed many years ago when the house was built, and they had long lost their original color, which formed a sharp contrast with the newly tied wood.

Li Xianggui stared at the ceiling and didn't speak for a long time.

Xiang Yao did not stare at the beam with everyone else. She had taken a look at it early in the morning, then looked away, thought for a while, and while no one was paying attention, she secretly tugged at the collar of Tiedan, who was standing behind them, and calmly stuffed a handful of peanuts into his hand.

Tiedan didn't understand what the adults were doing. He only knew that he received a handful of peanuts from this sister for some unknown reason. He sniffed his nose and immediately smiled, so happy that he wanted to speak.

Xiang Yao raised a finger to his lips: "Shh! Be quiet, be good."

Tiedan nodded, stared at me with his big black eyes, closed his little mouth obediently, and began to gnaw on the peanut shells with his teeth.

The child's fingers were black and muddy, and as he tried to chew peanuts with his little teeth, saliva dripped from the corners of his mouth. Xiang Yao couldn't help frowning and forced himself to look away, looking back at the center of the storm.

Li Xianggui opened and closed her mouth again and again, staring at the beam without saying a word. The people watching the excitement became anxious.

"Why aren't you talking? We have to go home and eat! We've been tired for half the morning!"

"That's right, Dashan's wife can't lose face, right? She said that with such confidence just now, but she created it herself."

"I told you that Widow Zhang is a good woman who only works hard and wouldn't cheat on other men, but you still don't believe me!"

"Tsk, in my opinion, this is Li Xianggui taking advantage of the fact that there is no man in the family to bully others. With their family being like that, she is still the team leader. I think we should change someone else!"

The crowd surrounding Widow Zhang's house was black and dense, and now they were all spitting, not caring about anyone's face, and their voices were quite loud.

When Li Xianggui heard these words, her face felt hot and her eyes rolled around, but she still couldn't say the words of apology.

Just when everyone's patience was about to run out, she suddenly turned to the side.

Everyone thought she was going to go up to Widow Zhang and apologize, so they all got ready to watch the last part of this exciting event.

As a result, Li Xianggui didn't know what she saw and walked straight to the corner of the main room.

Following many eyes, she stood in front of the rice jar in the corner, pulled a piece of straw rope sticking out from the mouth of the jar, then suddenly opened the lid of the rice jar and looked inside.

When she turned around again, Li Xianggui's expression returned to its previous fierce and sharp tone.

"All right, all right! You think you can fool me with the excuse of repairing the roof beams?" She pointed at the rice jar and said angrily, "Tell me, your family is so poor that you can't even afford to fix the tiles, so where did you get such a big jar of rice?"

Then, she grabbed the loop of straw rope she had just seen and held up a black object. "Where did you get this big piece of bacon? Didn't you steal it from a man? Can you afford to eat meat?"

What? A huge jar of rice? And bacon?

Now everyone's eyes were different.

Although the double harvest season is underway and the golden rice is harvested and dried every day, the public grain tax has not yet been paid and the grain has not yet been distributed to each household.

Widow Zhang's family was so poor that they had to patchwork cloth together. They were the most struggling family in the brigade. Every year they had to buy work points on credit to exchange for food. Where did she get so much rice?

We were all suffering from poverty, so how come she had such a big piece of bacon?