"That's right, they don't believe it either!"
They were never well-intentioned to begin with; only a fool would trust their enemy.
"I see!"
Huang Youquan suddenly realized, but in his heart, he still felt a little stupid.
No matter what, they wouldn't go so far as to take these people's lives. If it were someone else, like Chief Ding, well...
However, he couldn't run over and bring the person back, so in the end, he kept all his thoughts to himself.
After Huang Shi returned, he told his sister-in-law what had happened. "The one who deserved to die the most was Ding Wan. Why didn't they..." He buried her alive!
His words were filled with regret.
She truly wanted to kill Ding Wan every moment, but because of Huang Shan, she had to abandon her plans.
“A life for a life,” Huang Shi shook his head. “It’s not worth risking your life for such a fickle person.”
“I understand,” Sister-in-law Huang said through gritted teeth, “but I just can’t accept it. She has ruined our family and now she can still live with a clear conscience? She even… was all lovey-dovey with Dashan.”
Sister-in-law Huang didn't say the last sentence; she felt ashamed.
The son cherishes this person so much that even his parents are relegated to a secondary position, which is truly unbearable.
"No, don't worry, everything has a cause and effect," Huang Shi's eyes flashed with coldness. "No matter what, she has to bear the consequences of what she did."
At this moment, being alive is the greatest punishment for her.
Having incurred the enmity of her clan, been ridiculed by the world, and plagued by illness, even without taking action, she would... wish she were dead!
"Why does Dashan like such a jinx?" Sister-in-law Huang was really puzzled. "Husband, do you think she used some kind of trick on our Dashan?"
“It shouldn’t be,” Huang Shi said, sounding very disappointed when he mentioned his son. “You know his personality; he’ll jump into the fire himself, and no one can stop him.”
He has no problem liking women; that's how normal men are.
Even if he was a womanizer, he could accept it.
It's truly unacceptable for someone to be so infatuated with a woman that they abandon their parents and disregard moral principles.
"He's still young and doesn't understand. In the future..."
“What future is there?” Huang Shi interrupted his wife’s self-consolation. “Because he is an only son, we always put him first, whether it’s the best food or drink. We try our best to satisfy him. No one in the family has ever wronged him. And what has happened…”
“Our mother doesn’t want to acknowledge us, our father is gone, and he’s even spent all the money we’ve painstakingly saved. We cherish him dearly, but he treats us like dirt and tramples on us. What can you expect from a person like that?”
Providing for the elderly in their old age and seeing them off in their final days? Don't be ridiculous.
They're still young, and you dare treat them like this? When they get old and weak and can't work anymore, a few whispered words from their wives might be enough to kick them out of the house.
The longer time passed, the clearer Huang Shi's rationality became, and the more heartbroken he became towards his son.
“Our parents’ affairs have nothing to do with the mountains,” said Sister-in-law Huang, her face pale. “It’s mainly because we didn’t take good care of them.”
Although she said that, Sister-in-law Huang was very dissatisfied with the two elders' willfulness.
They've been getting along well for over a decade, but to just walk away and quit after one disagreement? What kind of family would do that?
Instead of showing consideration for the difficulties of the younger generation, they hold them back in every way. Is this what they should be doing?
Even today, Mrs. Huang still believes that the old man should not have taken that thousand taels of silver.
“Just keep deceiving yourself,” Huang Shi couldn’t help but shake his head. “I’ve completely given up on this son. I’ll just pretend he was never born.”
"It's not that simple. He's our only son, and we'll have to take care of him in his old age and see him off when he dies."
"That's assuming he's still alive by then!"
After saying this, the two fell silent.
No matter how unhappy they are, no one wants their own son to die young. No matter how fiercely they curse, their parental instincts will still make them choose to protect their child.
At the villa, after learning what had happened, Jiang Nuan was so shocked that her mouth remained agape for a long time. "The Ding family could actually do something so heinous!"
They actually planned to bury the person alive?
Such heinous acts could not have occurred in a small mountain village, and involved nearly thirty lives.
“It’s like this in many places,” Xie said after a moment of surprise. “The reputation of the clan is related to the whole clan. It’s impossible to let the whole clan be implicated by one person. Eliminating them directly is the best option.”
“It’s just cleaning house,” Jin said in a low voice. “They often use it in the inner quarters too, but they don’t dare to do it so openly. They just sell people to the coal mines in the west, and the people are gone in two or three months.”
Both of them were very familiar with the clan's way of doing things and did not find it difficult to understand.
“So,” Jiang Nuan lowered her head to hide her emotions, “human life is so cheap.”
“That’s not how it works,” Xie couldn’t help but shake her head. “There are people whose lives are precious, but those are landlords, rich people, and people with power and influence. An ordinary person’s life might not even be worth a steamed bun.”
As she spoke, Xie thought of her former self.
It can survive in such an environment; it's even more tenacious than weeds.
"I see," Jiang Nuan said with a hint of melancholy. "It seems that there is still a long way to go before the golden age arrives."
"What does a prosperous era look like?" Jin asked, puzzled.
"May the rivers be clear and the seas be calm, and may the times be peaceful and the years bountiful!"
Jiang Nuan had many words to describe this peaceful and prosperous era, but in the end, she only uttered these eight words.
Although simple, it contained everyone's expectations, including hers.
“It’s good as it is now,” Madam Xie frowned. “Mother may not know, but things have changed a lot in the last few months. The weather has been incredibly favorable. In previous years, a large number of refugees would have come here by this time.”
Xie never felt that life after marrying into the Huang family was bitter.
In fact, Huangjiakou is considered a relatively wealthy village among the surrounding villages. Although some people still go hungry, very few people starve to death.
However, in the surrounding villages, people starve to death almost every year, especially in winter. When they are hungry and cold, they may fall asleep and never wake up again.
“That’s right,” Jin said, having heard Huang Xiaosan talk about it many times, and knowing some things that others didn’t, “This year is really much better than in previous years. At least we won’t have to sell all the grain and not even keep enough for our own winter.”
Upon hearing this, Jiang Nuan asked in surprise, "Did the Great Zhou Dynasty often suffer from natural disasters and man-made calamities in the past?"
“Every year, a large number of refugees come here to beg for food,” Xie sighed. “Huangjiakou is small and remote, yet people still come here to beg for food. I heard that there are even more in the prefectural city. The dilapidated temples outside the city are not enough to accommodate them, and many people just lie on the ground and sleep fully clothed.”
Upon hearing this, Jin also chimed in, "I've heard that human traffickers love to target these vagrants. They grab people and take them away directly. The men are sold to dig in the mountains, and the women are sold to those kinds of places. They can make a lot of money just by reselling them."
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