"Good heavens," Chief Xie slapped himself hard, "I actually forgot about that."
"What do we do now?" Xie Clan Chief's second son asked anxiously. "Xiao Xie Village is notorious in the surrounding area. He can forget about finding a wife again."
"Let me think," Chief Xie said, also with a headache, "to see if there's any good way."
"Dad, you shouldn't have sided with my cousin and his gang yesterday. They're a bunch of bastards. It would be better if they died. What's the point of helping them? Now the whole village is in trouble."
"I..." Chief Xie moved his lips, but didn't know how to explain.
He thought that signing the pledge would resolve the matter, but who knew the Huang family was so cunning.
To kill someone like that just for a girl who's losing money is to make an enemy of the whole village!
Is it necessary?
"If I had known this would happen, I certainly wouldn't have protected them."
Unfortunately, it's too late to say anything now.
“Father,” Xie’s eldest son said bluntly, “the best course of action now is to completely abandon this family and sever all ties.”
"Does elder brother mean to exterminate the clan?"
"Yes, only by completely severing ties can we remove Xiaoxiezhuang from the picture and minimize its impact."
“But if they are exterminated, they will become refugees. Won’t people say that Father is ruthlessly killing his own kind?”
"When faced with two evils, one must choose the lesser one."
"Let me think about it some more," Chief Xie said, still undecided. "Perhaps there is a better way."
Expelling one's own cousin's family from the clan before the cousin's burial is seen as callous by the world, regardless of the reason.
Moreover, expelling someone from the clan is tantamount to forcing them to die. He doesn't want to do that until the very last step, since they are, after all, members of the same clan.
"Clan leader, something terrible has happened!" Suddenly, an urgent voice came over, "Someone, someone wants to sever ties with the Xie family."
After the person finished speaking, he leaned against the door and breathed heavily.
"Severing ties?" Clan Chief Xie froze. "What's going on? Who wants to sever ties? Has the Huang family returned?"
"No, no," the man quickly waved his hand. "The daughter of the Shi family, the one who married into Dingjia Village, her husband's family has come to sever ties with us."
"What?" Clan Chief Xie clenched his fists. "How dare they? Call your men right now! If the Ding family doesn't give us an explanation, they won't leave Xiaoxie Village alive."
"Father, the news has spread like wildfire. You've managed to suppress the Ding family, the Li family, and the Wang family, but you can't suppress them all. The most urgent thing is to get rid of that family as soon as possible."
"The Ding family is going too far," Chief Xie sneered. "They dare to make my Xie family daughter sever ties with her maternal family based solely on rumors of unknown veracity. Do they think the Xie family is dead? They must be taught a lesson."
In the end, they still couldn't bear to expel the people from the clan, Xie's eldest son thought to himself with resentment.
He just couldn't understand what kind of spell that family had cast on his father, that made him so fiercely protective of him.
"I hope Dad won't regret it later!"
His confident tone carried a barely perceptible hint of sarcasm.
He always felt that even though his father was the clan chief, he wouldn't have a good ending this time.
Knowing that she couldn't go against her own father, she simply stopped caring and waited for the outcome.
Ultimately, Chief Xie did not hold out until the end.
Just like his eldest son said, even if the Ding family is suppressed, there are still the Li and Wang families, not to mention that he hasn't even suppressed the Ding family.
The people of Dingjia Village are united and spirited. After being pressured by Chief Xie and his men, they became enraged and left with a letter of divorce.
After that, several more families returned, all of them wanting to sever ties.
This incident has put Xiaoxiezhuang in the spotlight, and what was once a matter of doubt has now become a matter of unwavering belief.
The logic is very simple.
If the Xie family is only at odds with the Huang family, then both families may be at fault.
With so many in-laws threatening to sever ties, no one, not even a fool, would believe that the Xie family has no problems whatsoever.
Ultimately, this evolved into a situation where anyone even remotely connected to the Xie family wanted to distance themselves as far away as possible.
In fact, many marriages that had already been arranged fell through because of this.
Snap!
Chief Xie was slapped.
"Fool!" The Xie family elder looked at his son with disappointment. "Your father entrusted Xiaoxie Village to you, and this is how you handle things?"
The reputation that the Xie family had built up over a century was destroyed in an instant.
“Elder,” Chief Xie lowered his head, revealing half of his swollen cheek, “this was an accident, I will handle it.”
“Handle it? How do you intend to handle it?” The elder looked at him coldly. “If you could handle it properly and let things escalate to this point, how could your wise father have given birth to such a fool as you?”
A tiger father and a dog son!
"Trust me, I can definitely handle it."
Chief Xie was also feeling uneasy, but he knew he had to make a promise.
He sensed that the clan elders were extremely dissatisfied with him, a dissatisfaction he had never felt before.
Although the Xie family's reputation had indeed suffered a devastating blow, he felt that someone else might not have done a better job.
"Believe you? You might as well believe in ghosts," the elder said sternly. "Since you can't be a good clan leader, step down and hand over the clan genealogy and seal to Xie Ming."
Upon hearing this, Chief Xie's voice suddenly became shrill, "How can this be!"
"Why not?" the elder sneered. "We've already given you enough face by not punishing you for dragging the Xie family down like this. If you still want to continue as the clan leader, not only will I not agree, but the clan members won't agree either."
"I refuse to accept this."
"You still dare to disobey?" The elder roared, slapping the woman again. "Do you know how many Xie family girls have been forced to break off their engagements because of the stupid things you've done? How many boys have been rejected? How many people no longer want to have anything to do with the Xie family? And how many people are secretly laughing at us?"
"I……"
"What do you mean 'you'? Quickly hand the things over to Xie Ming, or you'll be exterminated along with your clan if you're even a quarter of an hour late."
Chief Xie never imagined that a single moment of hesitation would cost him the power he once held.
He struggled, but it was no use.
Having become a sinner in the Xie family, he had long lost his prestige. Neither the clan elders nor the ordinary villagers accepted him as the clan leader, and some even took their anger out on Xie Ming because of him.
However, Xie Ming is more shrewd than his father.
First, they used the pretext of "cleaning up the family" to expel the girl from the clan and shift the blame to the Xie family. Then, they repaired the marriage relationship and stated that the Xie family would not mistreat the girl, much less scheme against their in-laws.
Although he is still suspected, he is no longer universally condemned as before.
Only after the Xie family was truly exterminated did they begin to feel the lingering fear.
"Brother, what should we do? I don't want to become a vagrant." Xie Lao Er was almost crying with anxiety.
"You're asking me? Who should I ask?" Old Master Xie was completely baffled. "How could we be expelled from the clan for no reason? Nothing like this has ever happened in our Xie family before."
"Chieftain, it must be his revenge," Old Lady Xie felt she had grasped the truth, and immediately felt murderous. "No, I have to ask, why can the chieftain just exterminate the clan like this? What about the elders? Did they just stand by and watch the chieftain harm us?"
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