Chapter 16 Chapter 16 He actually stole the eggs...
Lin Chunhe, who was addicted to eating, nodded vigorously.
Lin Chuntao smiled, looked at Lin Chunxing and Pei Ying beside her, and also buried her head in eating. Perhaps she felt that she was older and could not eat like the two younger ones who wolfed down their food.
She stood up and got a pair of chopsticks, picked up some mushrooms and put them into the bowls of Lin Chunxing and Pei Ying.
I don’t know if it was because the food smelled so good or because I was too hungry, but I ate all the rice and mushrooms, and even drank up the little bit of soup from the fried mushrooms.
Lin Chunhe sighed, "This is the most delicious meal I've ever had in my life, and it's also the most filling."
Lin Chuntao felt a little distressed. Seeing the sisters so thin, with dry and yellow hair and severe malnutrition, she knew how pitiful they were.
Lin Duoer also nodded vigorously. She looked at Lin Chuntao and asked, "Sister, can we eat lard rice and fried mushrooms every day from now on?"
"If you eat it every day, you'll get tired of it soon, right?"
Lin Duoer shook her head: "No, I can eat it every day."
Lin Chuntao smiled and whispered in her ear, "Maybe we can eat pheasant meat tomorrow. It's more delicious."
Lin Duoer stayed where she was, and a few people chuckled.
After dinner, Pei Ying went to fetch water to wash the pots and dishes. Lin Duoer pulled Lin Chunxing and Lin Chunhe to play with her with stones.
Lin Chuntao wanted to go to the fields before it got dark, take a walk and see what vegetables she could grow.
It's May now, so it's too late to plant potatoes or something, but you can still grow some vegetables.
Due to their current financial situation, they cannot afford to buy vegetables, but they cannot always go without vegetables.
You can only grow your own crops, plant one crop of vegetables, and then plant buckwheat on all the land at the end of summer. You can eat the harvest or sell some to get money to buy other food.
Seeing that Lin Chuntao was going to the field, Pei Ying stood up and accompanied her.
Lin Chuntao did not refuse. She told her sisters to look after the house, and the two of them walked out of the yard and towards the village entrance.
But before they left the village, they ran into Zhang and Lin Jiabao who were looking for trouble.
"Lin Chuntao, stop right there!"
Zhang rushed forward angrily. Pei Ying pulled Lin Chuntao behind him. Zhang, who had rushed forward, quickly stopped and pointed at Lin Chuntao, cursing, "You little bitch! What are you doing hiding back there? Come out!"
Lin Chuntao looked at Zhang's angry expression and smiled slightly: "Zhang Qiuzhen, what do you want from me?"
Lin Chuntao called her by her name, and Zhang was stunned.
"You ungrateful bastard, what did you call me?"
Lin Chuntao shrugged slightly: "Name, what does it have to do with you? If not my name, what else can I call you?"
Zhang was so angry that her veins bulged, but that was not important. What was important was why Lin Chuntao slandered Lin Jiabao as a thief.
"You're such an ungrateful person! What right do you have to accuse Jiabao of stealing eggs? Did he offend you? You're so heartless!"
Lin Chuntao listened to her cursing, which was of no use to her, but she had a hundred ways to make them mad to death.
"Did I wrong him? He can explain to those aunts."
Zhang was furious: "He didn't steal, what does he need to explain?"
Lin Chuntao smiled and said, "If you didn't steal, then you're innocent. No need to explain. No matter what people say, just stand up straight and behave yourself!"
"I'm afraid I'll actually steal it and feel guilty."
It was the time when every household had finished dinner and was enjoying the cool air outside. The place was in the village, and Zhang's voice quickly attracted many villagers.
Among them were several women who had just gone to fetch water.
When these people heard that Lin Jiabao stole eggs, they wanted to go find Zhang to talk to her, but then they thought that they were from the same village and they hadn't caught him on the spot. So they rushed over, but Zhang didn't admit that they were right, so they just let it go. Unexpectedly, Zhang was now arguing with Lin Chuntao about stealing eggs.
They hurriedly gathered around and said bluntly, "Sister Zhang, Jiabao did something wrong, you should just teach him a lesson, why are you making things difficult for Chuntao? It wasn't Chuntao who asked Jiabao to steal."
Zhang glared at the woman who had spoken fiercely, "What did Jiabao do wrong? This little bitch is talking nonsense, and you still believe it!"
"But we do have fewer eggs."
"If it's missing, does that mean my Jiabao stole it? I said my food was lost, and now you say it was you who stole it, are you going to admit it?"
Lin Chuntao looked at Zhang. After all, she was an adult and had rich experience in quarreling.
Seeing Zhang's behavior, the woman refused to give in and said directly, "Didn't he steal with his younger brother? Go call the younger ones. If the older ones don't tell the truth, won't the younger ones tell the truth too?"
A kid who was watching the excitement nearby ran away and said, "I'll go and shout."
Soon, several boys from the second, fourth and fifth branches of the Lin family were called over.
The woman looked at them and asked, "Have any of you followed Jiabao to steal eggs?"
The people from the second room looked confused and hurriedly said no. The two people from the fourth room and one person from the fifth room avoided glances, and Lin Chuntao was stunned.
She said that Lin Jiabao stole eggs only because he slandered her for stealing money, so she wanted him to taste the feeling of being slandered as a thief.
Now looking at the expressions of those little guys, they actually stole eggs from the villagers.
She looked at the two and called out their names directly, "Lin Jiacai, Lin Jialiang, Lin Jialang, why don't you three tell the truth? You are still young and not the mastermind. You would have been beaten if you had confessed earlier."
Looking at Zhang's angry face, Lin Jiacai and Lin Jialiang shrank back and said, "Aunt, it was our third brother who took us there. We were just looking out, we didn't steal anything."
Zhang's face flushed red, perhaps out of embarrassment or anger.
She picked up a branch from the ground, pointed at Lin Jiacai and Lin Jialiang and asked, "Say it again."
Lin Jialiang hid behind his brother Lin Jiacai and whispered back, "Brother Jiabao took us and Jialang there. Brother Bao also said that if we touched one of them in the same chicken coop, they wouldn't know!"
Once this detail was revealed, it directly confirmed that Lin Jiabao had stolen eggs in the village.
Zhang was so embarrassed that she hit Lin Jiabao twice with a branch. "Did your family let you starve or didn't let you eat? You went to steal! I'll beat you to death, you rebellious son!"
Children from every household in the village had been beaten, but when there were outsiders around, they would usually just pretend to be beaten, and after a few hits someone would come and take them away.
But when Zhang had hit him for the fourth time, no one came to stop him. Lin Jiabao just stood there and didn't know how to run away, which made Zhang so angry that she almost fainted.
When Tian learned that her grandson had been beaten, she rushed over, pulled the beaten Lin Jiabao behind her, and said to Zhang: "What are you doing? Beating the child so harshly?"
The women were thinking about the plump white eggs in their chicken coops, wondering how many had been stolen and eaten by this thief, and they were getting angry.
When Tian asked this, they said directly, "Auntie Tian, your Jiabao and his brothers have been stealing eggs in the village. Even when we were so poor that we couldn't even eat enough, there were no thieves in our village. But now there are thieves! If you don't punish them when they are young, when they grow up, it won't be as simple as stealing eggs."
Tian's old face darkened, and she said fiercely, "What nonsense are you talking about? Stealing eggs? Who dares to talk nonsense after seeing this?"
"Aunt, you can't be so protective of someone. Jiacai and Jialiang have admitted it. They were on the lookout while Lin Jiabao was stalking the chicken coop."
Tian's face flushed red, and the woman continued, "Besides, we really don't know how long he has been stealing, and it's not easy to ask your family to compensate. We are all from the same village, so just don't steal again in the future."
Zhang gritted her teeth and said in a deep voice, "I'll go back and question the children. We'll compensate whoever took the amount."
Everyone just listened to this and didn't take it seriously.
After such a delay, it was already late. The woman turned around and asked Lin Chuntao, "Where are you going?"
Lin Chuntao replied, "Let's just take a stroll and show him around our village."
The woman glanced at Pei Ying, then smiled and said, "Come on, let's go to my house and sit down and eat some melon seeds."
"No, Auntie, it's getting dark and we're going back."
As she said she was leaving, the crowd dispersed, leaving behind Zhang, Tian, and several children from the old Lin family.
On the way back, Pei Ying asked about it. Lin Chuntao smiled and said to him, "I just went to wash the steamer. This bastard tried to bully me, saying that I stole the money I used to buy the steamer. In a fit of rage, I accused him of stealing eggs. I just wanted to make him feel wronged, but I didn't expect it to be true."
Pei Ying smiled helplessly.
"When we have more money in the future, we'll buy a big goose to look after our home."
Everyone dispersed, but Tian, Zhang, Lin Jiabao and the others were still standing there.
Master Lin stood at the gate and cursed fiercely, "Why don't you get back here? Standing there is embarrassing!"
Tian didn't dare to get angry with the old man, so she could only blame Zhang.
"It's all that bitch who's stirring up trouble. Why don't you just go after her behind her back? Why do you have to block her here?"
Zhang felt aggrieved after being scolded by Tian. She came to question Lin Chuntao in a rage. She had never expected that her son would actually steal eggs. The more she thought about it, the angrier she became, and she was very upset.
When she returned to the yard, several sisters-in-law were waiting to laugh at her.
"Hey, Jiabao, it's not like grandma and grandpa didn't give you eggs to eat. Why did you go out and steal eggs? Why not steal something else? Stealing chickens and dogs is so ugly."
Feng from the second house said sarcastically, "You're even bringing your brothers along to keep watch. Isn't this a bad example for your brothers?"
Yang from the fourth room and Miao from the fifth room were also very unhappy. "Sister-in-law, you have to take good care of Jiabao. How can you bring your little brothers to do such things?"
Zhang couldn't contradict her parents-in-law, but the three sisters-in-law kept arguing with each other, which made her angry. She opened her mouth and scolded: "When the child was young, I don't know what kind of people they were. One day they coaxed Jiabao and said, 'Jiabao, when you go out to play, you must take your younger brothers with you. When you go out, you must take care of your younger brothers.'"
"Now that the child is older and no longer needs help, you're blaming Jiabao for leading his younger brother astray?"
"Why didn't you tell me before? Didn't your son eat those eggs? Now you want to blame everything on Jiabao? He's already a grown-up kid, and you're still acting like he's three years old and doesn't understand anything?"
Zhang scolded Yang and Miao until they blushed, while Feng from the second house chuckled.
"Are you trying to say that there are three or four thieves in our family at once? Unfortunately, the mastermind is the mastermind, and the accomplice is the accomplice. They can't be confused!"
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