This was a woman in her thirties with short hair that reached her ears and a hat tassel. She wore a faded blue shirt and black coarse cloth trousers. She had a basket slung over her right arm, which contained a sickle covered in mud and half a basket of fresh, tender green pea shoots.
She and Li Xiangdong and a few others walked towards each other.
Strangers rarely visit the village of Forty-Eight Bays. Suddenly, a large group of unfamiliar faces appeared, and the women stared intently at them, scrutinizing them from head to toe.
Suddenly, her face turned a little pale, and her eyes were fixed on Chen Zaohua's face.
Then, Chen Zaohua gently opened her mouth and called out, "Sister-in-law!"
Then, the woman's scalp tingled, and she screamed in a shrill voice, "Ghosts! Ghosts in broad daylight!"
She grabbed the basket and ran off as fast as she could.
Xiao Lei was so frightened by her that he clung tightly to Chen Zaohua's leg until she had run far away, at which point he dared to ask, "Mom, is she crazy?"
Chen Zaohua gave a wry smile, "That's your aunt."
Li Xiangdong's eyes darkened; it seemed that things here were not so simple.
But since we've already come this far, let's just take it one step at a time!
Forty-Eight Bays Village is not large. When they arrived at a three-room mud house that looked slightly dilapidated, the woman from before was already leading several people to guard the door.
They were old and young, some holding kitchen knives, others wooden sticks, all ready for battle.
Zhou Hongsong and Li Guoqing discreetly protected Chen Zaohua, Xiao Leizi, and Guo Haiguang behind them.
Li Xiangdong asked in a friendly manner, "Fellow villagers, what are you trying to do?"
The woman pointed at Chen Zaohua and said sternly, "What are you doing? What are you doing? Didn't you come back with Chen Zaohua to seize her family property?"
Li Xiangdong frowned. "Where did this come from? We came to this village to talk to the village chief about something."
The woman looked at him with disbelief, "What do you want with the village chief? Isn't it all about fighting over the family property!"
Then she turned to Chen Zaohua and said, "Chen Zaohua, you and Quan Jun left on your own, it wasn't any of us who forced you! This house has already been given to my son, and you want to take it back? No way!"
After saying this long string of words, the woman's chest heaved and she was panting heavily, which showed that she was indeed very agitated.
While the women, including Chen Zaohua, were catching their breath, they finally got a chance to speak. "Sister-in-law, I'm not here to steal the family property."
"I don't believe you! Then what are you doing here? You're dressed so smartly, and your complexion is rosy. You must be doing well. Why did you come back?"
"And where's Fu Quanjun? Why hasn't he come back? Who's this little brat? Is he your son?"
A hint of desolation flashed in Chen Zaohua's eyes as she whispered, "The whole army is gone. This is the army's posthumous child, Xiao Leizi."
"What? What did you say?"
"The entire army is gone."
"Thud—"
The cleaver that the woman was wielding with such force instantly fell to the ground.
————
Inside the house, the woman poured a bowl of water for Li Xiangdong and the others, then took out a peach shortbread from under the cupboard. After thinking for a moment, she broke off half of it and put it back, handing the other half to Xiao Leizi.
"Leizi, have some peach shortbread."
Xiao Lei has been living with Li Lan and the others lately, and his palate has become quite picky. Looking at this hard peach shortbread in front of him, he really doesn't want to eat it.
However, he was quite polite; he accepted it and said, "Thank you, Auntie!"
"Hey, eat up!"
The woman affectionately patted his little head.
"Sigh, so many young people in the army, all perfectly healthy, how could they just be gone like that!"
Chen Zaohua looked around the room. It was still the same layout. Even the cabinet where her sister-in-law had put the peach cakes was the same camphor wood cabinet that Fu Quanjun had made for her by hand years ago.
If you put your clothes in there, they'll smell nice.
"Sister-in-law, this house..."
Before she could finish her sentence, the woman immediately became alert, her hair standing on end. "Zao Hua'er, don't think that I let you in just to give you the house!"
"Don't you understand in your heart? Although Quan Jun's surname is Fu, he is not a member of the Fu family at all. It was his father-in-law who was kind-hearted and forcibly separated half of the residential land allocated to Quan Jun to build a house for him."
"But when you insisted on bringing your mother-in-law's ashes back to Dongwei Village, you told your father-in-law that you didn't want this house anymore! You said that even if you turned to ashes, you wouldn't go back to Sishibawan Village!"
"I also have two sons. How can one house support two wives?"
“Zaohua, you have to understand how hard your sister-in-law works! Your brother can’t earn money, and he can’t even afford the bride price.”
The woman was initially fierce, then began to complain, and finally shed two tears.
Chen Zaohua hugged the frightened Xiao Leizi tightly and sighed, saying, "Sister-in-law, what I wanted to say was that I don't want this house, and I won't fight you for it."
"Really?"
"More real than real gold!"
The woman burst into tears, and this time it was real crying, unlike the tears she had shed earlier.
Having resolved the housing issue, Li Xiangdong roughly understood why Fu Quanjun and Chen Zaohua had left their hometown for Huichuan.
It is estimated that back then, Chen Zaohua's mother-in-law brought Fu Quanjun, who was still a child, with her when she married into the Fu family. Fu's father built a house for Fu Quanjun. Later, Chen Zaohua's mother-in-law died for some unknown reason, and Fu Quanjun also fell out with Fu's father over the ashes.
Fu Quanjun, in a fit of anger, left Sishibawan Village with his wife Chen Zaohua, only to die a violent death at a young age.
This woman was Chen Zaohua's sister-in-law. At first glance, she thought Chen Zaohua was a ghost. But when she realized what was happening, she was afraid that Chen Zaohua had come to steal the house.
Now that the conversation was out in the open, the woman named Shuixiu completely let her guard down and finally had time to ask Chen Zaohua what she had come for.
"Sister-in-law, we came to the village for the five-needle pine bonsai."
"Bonsai? I haven't done that in years. What's the point of having those? They're not for eating or drinking!"
Shui Xiu's sister-in-law disagreed.
Li Xiangdong glanced at the sky and saw that it was still early. He said to Shui Xiu, "Sister-in-law, if it's convenient for you, could you take us to see the village chief?"
"What's inconvenient about that! Let's go!"
Shui Xiu was overjoyed to have rightfully obtained the house, but she also felt a vague sense of guilt, which made her exceptionally attentive.
The village chief of Sishibawan Village is an experienced craftsman who makes five-needle pine bonsai.
He is in his sixties and spends his time tending to the fields and growing vegetables, as well as tending to the few gnarled and twisted five-needle pine bonsai in his home.
After learning the purpose of Li Xiangdong's visit, he stroked his two wisps of gray mustache and smiled at his wife, saying:
“I told you there are discerning people out there, but you insisted I was treating this five-needle pine like a sacred object, not eating or drinking it! Well, now it can be exchanged for money!”
The village chief's wife's eyes crinkled with laughter. "Great! Great!"
The village chief asked Li Xiangdong, "Which pot do you want?"
Li Xiangdong pointed and said, "This one, this one, that one, and that one, I want them all."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com