"I didn't!" Yan Yongxin pointed at Fang Dongming, "He is in the same group as them, teaming up to slander me!"
Fang Dongming snorted coldly, "The loan shark Ge has been arrested. Tell them that as long as Qiaoling is caught, you will have the money to pay them back..."
After hearing this, Yan Yongxin hurriedly defended himself, "Comrades from the police, they forced me to do this. I didn't have the money to pay back, so they wanted to chop off my hands..."
"You beast!" Zhou Huaian kicked Yan Yongxin. "Mrs. Yan treated you like her own child. You actually stole food, paralyzed your own mother, and watched her starve to death. You even wanted to snatch the child and sell him to pay off your gambling debts. A beast like you should be shot!"
"Bah!" The crowd spit at him. "How cruel! He didn't even let his own mother and daughter go. This beast should be shot!"
Luo Haili looked at Yan Yongxin being taken away by the police like a dead dog. The heavy stone that was weighing on her heart suddenly disappeared. She hugged Luo Qiaoling and tears suddenly flowed down her cheeks. "I'm not afraid anymore. I won't be afraid anymore..."
Luo Qiaoling hugged her, "Mom, don't cry! I'm not afraid!"
Zhou Yumei put her arm around her shoulders and patted her gently, "Let's go home, my mother is waiting for us to go back for dinner!"
Zhou Huaian smiled and clasped his fists towards the crowd, "Thank you all for your help. Next time, go to the Qiao Jia Ren store in front to buy clothes. There will be discounts!"
A man laughed and said, "Brother, who are you to the boss lady? Do you keep your word?"
"It counts!" Zhou Yumei replied with a smile, "What my youngest brother said is the same as what I said!"
"So it's my brother-in-law! Great! I'll buy New Year's goods at your house!"
A group of people were walking back laughing. They turned around and saw Zhou Jiaming and Zhao Meina sitting astride their bicycles. "You two should wait and go back together."
Zhou Jiaming got out of the car and asked, "Dad, why are you all here?"
"That bastard Yan Yongxin..." Zhou Huaian said briefly, and then said to the two of them, "Get on the tractor, go back to Fangtian and pick up Xiu Na and Xiao Chuan as well!"
Seeing that they hadn't packed up yet, Zhou Jiaming said, "Forget it! It's faster for us to ride bicycles!"
"Yes, Uncle Zhou!" Zhao Meina waved her hand, "Let's go back and pick up Xiaochuan and Xiu Na first, and wait for you at Funiu!"
"Great!" Zhou Huaian waved at the two of them and went to help pack up and go home.
Fang Dongming bought a lot of food and clothes. It took half an hour to load all the bags onto the tractor. When they got home, Zhou Jiaming and Zhao Meina were already at Zhou's house with Xiaochuan and Xiu Na.
Because there will be a wedding next year, this dinner was a family gathering, and only Aunt Zhou's family and Zhou Yiding's family were invited.
There were more than a dozen children in several families. The older ones were watching TV in the TV room, while the younger ones, Xiaowan, Xiaolong and Xiaojiuer, were lying in the yard driving toy cars. The yard was very lively.
When Zhou's mother saw Fang Dongming's two colleagues, her first reaction was to see if they were a good match for Luo Haili. She stopped worrying when she learned that their children were old enough to help with cooking.
He then asked Zhou Yumei about Yan Yongxin's arrest. After hearing her detailed account, he clapped his hands in joy and said, "It would be best if he is locked up for 20 to 30 years and released only when he is old."
"I heard from Dongming that what Yan Yongxin did had a very bad impact, and he might be sentenced to life imprisonment!"
"Life imprisonment is better! People like this should be locked up in the cell and never released for the rest of their lives." Zhou's mother looked at Luo Haili and said, "Please persuade her more. It's better to find someone suitable if there is one."
"There is one that is quite suitable..."
When Zhou's mother heard that a junior high school teacher had taken a fancy to Luo Haili, she hurriedly pulled her aside and asked the teacher what she was like and whether she liked him.
Luo Haili looked at her lovingly and said with a smile, "Aunt, there are many teachers from junior high schools and elementary schools who come to the store to buy clothes. Don't listen to Yumei. Those teachers are all educated people. How could they like someone like me?"
Zhou's mother glared at her in reproach, "Why don't you like him? You're no worse than others! Yumei said that the teacher who likes you is a junior high school teacher. He has a son. If you two get married, you don't have to worry about him wanting a son..."
"Oh!" Luo Haili understood, "You are talking about Teacher Wen. It's not what you think. I helped his son mend his sweater twice, and he came to me to buy clothes out of gratitude."
Zhou's mother didn't believe it. "You are still young. If you find someone suitable, just look around. There are still many good people in the world. Not all of them are like Yan Yongxin, that beast."
"Okay!" Luo Haili knew that she was worried about her and that no one would take care of her when she got old, so she comforted her: "Don't worry, if I meet someone suitable in the future, I will definitely look around for him."
She really thinks that the current situation is good enough, and plans to wait until there is land for sale in the county next year, and then use the money she gets to buy a piece of land and become neighbors with her cousins and Yumei.
Zhou's mother thought she had really listened to her, and happily pulled her to help serve the dishes.
After dinner, Zhou Huaian and Zhou Yiding took Fang Dongming and his colleagues to the river to fish, while the women watched TV and talked at home.
Zhao Meina sat next to Yang Chunyan and said with a smile: "Aunt, Zou Xin thought the chickens were still at my house, and now he doesn't dare to go near my house to see them. Every morning, he stands in his backyard and watches Xiaochuan release the chickens."
"This kind of person is a typical bully. If he hadn't beaten Jiaming, your Uncle Zhou and Uncle Yiding would have asked Uncle Xia to help prepare things to scare them!"
Zhao Meina smiled and said, "You don't even know that Zou Xin hides when he sees Jiaming now!"
Zhou Jiaming said, "Of course he's scared of me now! My dad beat him up and threatened to send him to the forest to feed leeches, ants and bugs."
Zhou Jiakang said with admiration: "Uncle Yiding said that he and my father used to beat people up so well that even the scoundrels in town didn't dare to mess with them."
Zhou Jialiang gestured twice, "Look at my mysterious fist, it will beat the scoundrels to a pulp!"
"You two are so excited when you talk about fighting!" Zhao Huifang knocked on one of them, "The final exam is coming soon, then I'll treat you to some mysterious yellow broom sticks!"
"Ouch! You hit my head again!" Zhou Jialiang covered his head and pulled Zhou Jiakang, "Let's go to the river to watch Dad and the others cast their nets!"
Zhou Jiaming said to Zhao Meina, "Sister Meina, let's go too!"
"Okay!" Zhao Meina stood up, and several kids followed her.
Wan Xuejiao looked at the children who had run away in a swarm, "Sister-in-law, your house is still the most lively!"
"The children are very lively at home!" Yang Chunyan saw Wan Xuejiao with two panda eyes and comforted her, "Don't worry, the hospital has invited a doctor from the city to perform the operation on Uncle Wan. Everything will go smoothly tomorrow."
"Sister-in-law, I just can't help but think about it and worry about my old man..." Wan Xuejiao sniffed, "These days I've been thinking, what's the point of being a human being?
My old man has suffered all his life and never enjoyed a single day of happiness. Now that his life is getting better day by day, he has contracted this strange disease and I don’t know if he will have surgery tomorrow…”
Yang Chunyan comforted her clumsily, "No, it will be fine. I'll take care of Xiao Wan for you. Go and have a good sleep!"
Wan Xuejiao nodded, "Excuse me, sister-in-law. I'll just take a nap on the recliner for a while."
"Okay!" Yang Chunyan went into the house to get a blanket to cover her, then took Xiao Wan and Xiao Jiuer to the yard to talk to Zhou's mother and the others.
Zhou Yumei and her friends played in Funiu for the whole afternoon and had dinner together before Zhou Huaian sent them back to town.
When Zhou Huaian came back and passed by Zhou Yiding's house, he saw him standing at the gate of the courtyard, "I'm going to Ning'an tomorrow too, what time are you leaving? I'll pick you up?"
Zhou Yiding handed him a cigarette and said, "The surgery is scheduled for 9:30. We'll leave at 7 and go talk to him for a while. The surgery will take a while, so we plan to stay in Ning'an for one night and ask my sister-in-law to help look after the house tomorrow."
Zhou Huaian nodded, "Okay! I'll tell her when I get back."
The next morning, they arrived at the hospital entrance at a quarter after eight. Zhou Huaian accompanied the two to the ward, and all members of the Wan family, young and old, came.
Mr. Wan's hair was shaved bald. When he saw several people coming, he comforted them happily and assured them.
Zhou Huaian greeted him and said goodbye to go to Deshengtang. Wang Zhen and Yang Dongmei had not returned yet, so he came to Ning'an to help dry the herbs.
Doctor Wang came out with a dustpan in his hand. Seeing him coming, he said with a smile, "Two pieces of news. The bad news is that a truffle buyer rented the yard of the Hong family in the back row and hired a craftsman to build an oven these days. Another truffle buyer went to the next door to buy.
The good news is that Wang Zhen called yesterday and said that they went to Mr. Zheng’s house yesterday and they said that as long as the quality of your products remains the same as it is now, they will not change people.”
Zhou Huaian smiled happily and said, "This is the best. Bad news is not that bad. Wang Zhen and I originally thought that there would be three or four families coming at once."
"They went to the canning factory today to watch the canning process. Do you really want to make canned pickles and sell them?" Doctor Wang felt that if the two continued doing this, their annual income would be very good, and there was no need to bother with anything else.
Zhou Huaian thought for a moment and said, "We think that there will be more and more people collecting mountain products in the future. We should find another way out while we are still young."
Doctor Wang thought of his youth and nodded with a smile, "It's good for young people to be enterprising!"
"Yes!" Zhou Huaian put the dustpan on the drying rack, "I told Dalin that he will come to help collect it in the afternoon."
Doctor Wang smiled and nodded, then went back to the clinic.
Zhou Huaian helped to move the herbs to be dried and spread them out in a winnowing basket. Seeing that it was already eleven o'clock, he said goodbye to Dr. Wang and went to the Chinese Medicine Hospital. He saw that the Wan family members were waiting outside the operating room with anxious looks on their faces.
Zhou Yiding saw him coming and shook his head at him. "The doctor said that brain surgery is difficult to perform. Sometimes it takes several hours at a time."
"Then I'll go back first and pick you up tomorrow morning!"
"That's great!" Zhou Yiding sent him out of the hospital and watched him walk away before turning around and walking back.
The family waited outside for more than an hour, and the door of the operating room finally opened. The nurse pushed Wan's father out and said, "The operation was successful..."
"Doctor, why doesn't he open his eyes?" Wan's mother interrupted her anxiously.
"He'll wake up after the anesthesia wears off." The nurse helped send Wan's father to the ward, settled him down, and gave him some instructions before leaving.
Zhou Yiding breathed a sigh of relief. When Zhou Yiding woke up, he asked Doctor Wang to prescribe Chinese medicine for him to regulate his body. The money was not borne by the Wan brothers, but was all given by him, which touched Wan Xuejiao deeply.
The old couple of the Wan family said wherever they went that they had found a good son-in-law who was more capable than their son. (End of this chapter)
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