Si Cheng and his men were quite lucky the next few days. They quickly found a large village and traded the salt they had brought, keeping only the 30 jin of salt they had brought. All four oxen were tied high with grain, and each person also had some on them – it was truly a bumper harvest.
Of course, there was a twist to the story of having so much grain. When the village saw the six of them, along with several cows and so much salt, coming alone to the village to exchange for goods, some people had ulterior motives. Although they had agreed on the terms for exchanging the salt, they turned their backs on them after entering the village.
"Seeing that everyone is having a hard time, you can leave the cattle and salt here and go." The people who had been haggling with them before entering the village suddenly changed their tune.
It seems like we've run into a double-cross, but we don't know who's eating whom.
"Brother, this is a bit unreasonable. We came here with good intentions to exchange salt with you, and we even agreed on a price. Isn't it a bit much to suddenly rip us off like this?" Si Cheng really felt that he had misjudged the group. The honest and simple group of people had changed their attitude as soon as they entered the village. They were probably thinking that there were few of them and wanted to make a quick buck.
"Why waste so much time talking to them? Just lead the cow away and throw them out too."
The two couples, Gu Dongzhi and Gao Shitou, nervously held onto the cattle ropes, keeping a close eye on the people opposite them, fearing that they would rush up and lead their oxen away.
Wu Yong crossed his arms and looked at the people in front of him. "Are you representing your village or yourselves?"
"So what if I represent the village? So what if I represent an individual?" The person who led the price negotiation looked up at him with his head held high.
“If you’re representing someone personally, don’t cry when we deal with you. If you’re representing the village, then your village should send someone to speak up. You have no right to talk to us.”
"Hey, don't you even know what kind of situation you're in now? You still dare to say such things." As he spoke, he led the group in laughing so hard they were bent over. "Look at the dozen or so brothers behind me, they've seen blood on their hands."
"Let's go, there's no point in talking to these people." Si Cheng gestured to Gao Shitou and Gu Dongzhi to lead the oxen outside.
Seeing that Si Cheng didn't take them seriously at all, the people on the other side got anxious.
"Close the gate, close the gate!" the leader shouted to the two villagers who were locked at the door. The two villagers quickly closed the gate to the village.
"It's not too late to let us leave now." Wu Yong knew from their demeanor that they wouldn't give up until they achieved their goal.
"Leave your things behind and you can leave." Perhaps because it was the first time doing something like this, some of them started to get nervous.
Si Cheng didn't waste any words with them. He took a few steps forward and used both hands at the same time. In no time, the dozen or so people were piled up like a human pyramid, and he held a stick on top of them, making them unable to move.
"Cool, but bro, could you leave a couple for me to practice with next time?" Wu Yong looked at the mountain of people in front of him with deep sympathy. You see, when a group of young men from the village challenged Brother Cheng, they were piled up into a mountain of people just like this, only that mountain was much more spectacular than this. What was most regrettable was that he hadn't had such a good opportunity to practice.
Si Cheng was about to suggest letting two people practice when he heard the sound of a gong coming from the doorway.
They had forgotten about the two villagers guarding the entrance, and that's when they remembered to warn others.
"Brother Cheng, should we leave here first?" Gu Dongzhi was a little timid and wondered if they should take advantage of this time to leave.
“We haven’t done anything wrong, so why should we leave? Besides, I think this is their private matter. Otherwise, if such a big village were to engage in this kind of shady business, it would definitely be wiped out by the surrounding people sooner or later.”
As if to confirm his words, those who were being held down began to beg for mercy.
"We'll exchange you as previously agreed, please release us first."
"Yes, we'll give you an extra layer."
"Please release them to us quickly, please!"
"We definitely won't do it again next time. I was just joking with you guys."
Seeing how quickly the situation had reversed, even Wu Yong was stunned. It turned out that these people were just bluffing, trying to intimidate people with such a show of force.
They didn't have to wait long; the villagers quickly gathered here.
"What are you doing? Why are you coming to our village to beat people up?" A middle-aged man who was the first to arrive shouted when he saw the situation.
"They haven't even figured out the situation yet, and they're already accusing us of all sorts of crimes. Don't they even know how we got into the village? Is it fun for us to run in and beat them up?" Wu Yong saw that Si Cheng didn't say anything, so he simply spoke up himself.
"If you don't beat people, then why are we villagers being suppressed?" The middle-aged man was about to say something more when the two people who were originally at the village entrance ran over and whispered something in his ear. He then looked at them in surprise.
Soon, villagers arrived one after another, many of them carrying kitchen knives and sticks. However, seeing so many of their villagers pinned down, they dared not rush forward.
The middle-aged man who had arrived earlier quickly told the people behind him about it.
"..."
It seems he brought this upon himself, and even wanted to drag the whole village down with him. At this moment, the villagers looked angrily at those who were trapped underneath.
Some of them, perhaps feeling ashamed to face their families, kept their heads bowed.
"Everyone, I'm so sorry. These ignorant kids have caused you so much trouble." An elderly man, probably their village chief, stepped forward at this moment.
Sure enough, "I am the village chief of Xianghe Village, my surname is Cen. I didn't expect them to be so audacious. You see, this is all a misunderstanding. Can you let them go for now? We will definitely punish them properly later."
“These kids you’re talking about are quite old. They’re lucky they ran into us this time. If it were anyone else, they might have gotten away with it.” Si Cheng looked at Village Chief Cen and said, word by word.
"Isn't it true that in the eyes of all the old people, these people are just kids? It was a slip of the tongue. I don't know what you want to do with it?" Village Chief Cen looked at them with a hint of disappointment, but he still had to protect his own villagers.
"We only brought some salt, intending to exchange it for some grain, but we didn't expect your villagers to have such a big appetite. Not only did they want our salt, but they also wanted our oxen. We won't exchange the oxen, but we can still exchange the salt for them, but the price won't be what we agreed on before." Si Cheng also realized that this matter had little to do with the village; it was the idea of these young people. So he had to teach them a lesson. Trying to take advantage of him wouldn't be so easy.
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