“Mother, Second Sister-in-law,” Jin said softly, her face flushed, poking her finger, “you can continue, just pretend I’m not here.”
Well, another clown!
She even suspected that the Huang family occupied some kind of auspicious feng shui location, because each and every one of them was a talented individual!
At noon, Lai Zi, who had been missing all along, returned carrying two sacks.
“Auntie,” he smiled shyly, “I went to the county town to buy some things for you.”
Is this just a little something? Jiang Nuan's eyelids twitched.
Before Jiang Nuan could refuse, Lai Zi dropped a bombshell, "Don't worry about the corvée labor, I'll think of something else."
"Do you have a solution?"
Upon hearing this, Lai Zi suddenly became embarrassed, and after fidgeting for a while, he finally spoke in a low voice, "Auntie, I actually... work as a servant in the yamen!"
"What?"
This news left Jiang Nuan completely stunned.
It's unbelievable that a petty thief and scoundrel like Chuanwen is working in a government office.
They really kept the news under wraps; no wonder we haven't seen them for so long.
After a long while, Jiang Nuan, who had come to her senses, tentatively asked, "Can you speak on matters related to corvée labor?"
“I’m afraid that won’t work,” Lai Zi said, lowering his head in embarrassment. “I haven’t been working long enough to get involved in such important matters. However, my eldest son is supervising this year’s corvée labor, so I’ll give him some face.”
“It seems,” Jiang Nuan said with a sigh, “that Huangjiakou will benefit from your success.”
“That’s not right,” Jiang Nuan suddenly realized, “You kept this news so well under wraps, how did it suddenly leak out?”
“Well,” Lai Zi rubbed his nose, “the boss put me in charge of the Huangjiakou and Jijiacun sections of the road, so there’s no way to hide it from him.”
Of course, there were other reasons, but Lai Zi didn't want to tell Jiang Nuan about them.
He had indeed received great kindness from the clan, but he was also despised in every way, especially by the women in the village. Their words were like poisoned knives, cruel and vicious, and they even told him to his face why he didn't just die.
As a child, he naively thought that old women were gossipy and didn't know what they were doing, and that the uncles and elders in the village treated him very well, until he overheard an uncle cursing him as a "little beast" along with his wife...
At that time, he really wanted to die. He didn't eat for five days. He even felt that the King of Hell was greeting him, but his fifth uncle carried him back to his home.
My aunt had only been married into the family for a few years and was still a young wife. When she saw that I was so hungry that I was barely breathing, she poured me a bowl of brown sugar water and cooked me some rice porridge without saying a word.
At that time, he felt that if he survived, he must treat his uncle and aunt as his own parents and be filial to them.
At the time, he clearly saw that although the other members of the Huang family didn't say anything, their faces were very ugly, as if he had stolen their grain...
From then on, he vowed that apart from his fifth uncle and aunt, he had no other relatives in Huangjiakou.
He wanted to take full advantage of those people while ensuring they couldn't benefit from a single hair on his head.
“I see,” Jiang Nuan said, then patted his shoulder happily. “With you here, I don’t have to worry about corvée labor at all.”
Originally, she thought that even if she offered benefits, it was unlikely that the other party would agree to take away the power of the supervisor.
"Auntie," Lai Zi whispered, "can we not tell them about this yet?"
“Okay,” Jiang Nuan’s eyes flashed with excitement, “Let them continue to live in fear.”
Having truly experienced Jiang's situation in the village, Jiang Nuan had long been unhappy.
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