"Second brother, slow down! Wait for third brother and Ruru, Ruru's about to cry!" Xingxing patted his shoulder, her voice both cute and fierce.
Zhou Erfu was a little depressed. Ever since his aunt's little sister Ruru came to visit, Xingxing preferred to play with her. The two little girls would either play throwing stones or playing with rope, and rarely played with the brothers anymore.
"Such a coward, yet he loves to go out and play. What a nuisance," Zhou Erfu muttered to himself.
Xingxing said seriously, "Second brother, you mustn't say bad things about Ruru. Ruru is sick, which is why she cries and makes a fuss. Now she's slowly getting better, so we should be nice to her so she can get better faster. If you secretly bully her, I'll be angry."
"I know, Second Brother wouldn't dare to bully her. Xingxing, don't be angry with Second Brother, okay?" Zhou Erfu had no way to deal with her and could only coax and spoil her.
On the sixth day of the Lunar New Year, a large patch of wasteland not far from Old Zhou's house at the end of the village was suddenly disturbed by people cutting weeds and shrubs. Old Zhou's family lived there all the time, and it was usually very quiet. But now a large group of people had come and were making a ruckus.
Zhou Laoda and his wife went out to see what was going on, but they didn't expect that a lot of villagers had gathered outside, and even the village chief had come. Zhou Laoda invited the village chief to his house for tea, wanting to ask him what had happened.
The village chief didn't refuse and went into the house with him one after the other. As soon as they sat down, Zhou Laoda asked anxiously, "What are those people outside doing? Are they clearing land for farming?"
"Those are servants sent by Master Song from the county. They said they wanted to dig a foundation in our village to build a house," the village chief said helplessly.
"Is our village some kind of auspicious place? Why did Master Song choose Yegou Village?" Old Zhou was very puzzled.
The village chief was both amused and exasperated. "Sigh, it's because other villages were robbed by refugees before, and many people died. Only our village took precautions, so no one was killed, our food was preserved, and we even killed quite a few refugees."
This Master Song was probably terrified by the refugees, worried that another famine would strike and he wouldn't know where to flee. Hearing that our village fought the refugees fiercely, managed to preserve our food, and that no one lost their life, he came to our village to build a house.”
“Our village is full of refugees who settled here. It’s not appropriate for a wealthy man like him to come here.” Yegou Village is full of refugees who used to be acquaintances from the same or neighboring villages, so they naturally reject outsiders from intruding.
The village chief said earnestly, "Precisely because we are refugees, we can't do anything to others. We have no background, no money, and no power. We heard that someone in the Song family is an official in the capital. They are very wealthy and powerful. The county magistrate and the village head have both agreed to let him build a house in our village. What can we do?"
"This isn't necessarily a bad thing. He wants to build a big house, and he'll ask people from our village to help build it. They'll pay him 200 coins a day, and he'll even get lunch."
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