The pit that Su Chen fell into was a pit left behind the newly built dry toilet for storing excrement.
At that time, there were no convenient flush toilets in the county town; almost all of them were open-air dry toilets.
The dry toilet consists of two parts: the squatting pit is inside the wall, while outside the wall is a pit dug down to a depth of more than one meter. The excrement is stored underground, covered with wooden boards, and then a thin layer of soil is sprinkled on top to isolate the odor and make it look nice.
But it needs to be cleaned frequently, otherwise it will smell.
Unfortunately for Su Chen, he happened to be there when the family was cleaning their latrine.
"Brother, are you alright?" The host looked embarrassed and wanted to go forward to help the man out, but then hesitated and ultimately stood still.
"Sorry, brother, look at you... I can't really pull you out. Can you just crawl out yourself?"
Su Chen was on the verge of tears. He suspected that he hadn't checked the almanac when he left home this morning, otherwise how could he be so unlucky?
First, he was beaten up, and after reporting the incident to the police, nothing came of it. Then, as soon as he stepped outside, he fell into a crater. The worst part was that he felt something was wrong with his foot; it hurt whenever he moved, and he couldn't put any weight on it, as if he had sprained it.
Su Chen's filthy appearance goes without saying.
By the time he finally managed to clean himself up and was taken to the hospital by his second wife, more than an hour had passed, and by then his foot was already swollen like a pig's trotter.
After paying the fees and getting his bone straightened, he leaned on his wife and limped out of the clinic courtyard.
Just as I stepped into the courtyard, a familiar voice suddenly came from behind me.
"Su Chen?"
Su Chen turned around: "Brother-in-law?"
His brother-in-law nodded in agreement and quickly came over.
As he got closer, he caught a faint, foul odor. He instinctively rubbed his nose and muttered, "What is that? It stinks!"
Su Chen looked embarrassed, and even his second wife moved aside without making a sound.
Su Chen frowned slightly and changed the subject to avoid him focusing on whether it smelled bad or not.
"Brother-in-law, didn't you go to the countryside with my mother to pick up the children? Why are you at the hospital?"
“He went, but didn’t catch up, and came back.” His brother-in-law said, “On the way back, the donkey went crazy and overturned into the ditch by the roadside. Our mother was hit on the leg by the donkey cart. The doctor said it would cost at least fifty yuan, but I don’t have any on me. I was just about to go to you.”
Su Chen felt his pocket and pulled out two small bills, which he had just received as change from the bone-setting hospital.
He turned to his wife and asked, "Honey, do you have any money left?"
His wife shook her head, her face pale: "Where would I get money?"
The old woman was domineering, and the husband listened to her completely. Apart from money for groceries, he never gave her any other expenses.
She never had more than two yuan on her person since she married into the family, so where was she going to get fifty yuan?
Su Chen looked at his brother-in-law with an embarrassed expression: "Brother-in-law, I don't have any money on me either, look at this..."
His brother-in-law: "..."
What are you looking at me for? Do you expect me to give you money?
It's true that I was driving the donkey cart, but if the donkey goes crazy, can you blame me?
You can't blame only myself. If you and your son hadn't insisted on going to the countryside to snatch the child, and if we hadn't gone, none of this would have happened!
Even if he really has to pay, we can't let him pay for everything.
His family didn't have that much money, and his relatives were all poor, unlike Su Chen, who was a working cadre. They couldn't lend him any money even if they wanted to.
His brother-in-law thought of many things in an instant, and finally, all his words came down to one sentence: "Let's go see Mother first. We'll ask her about the money and see what she thinks."
The two brothers-in-law, each with their own thoughts, walked one after the other towards the hospital ward.
Upon arriving at the ward, Su Chen and his mother burst into tears as soon as they met.
"My son, who beat you up? Look at all these bruises, does it hurt?"
"Mother, what happened to your leg? That donkey was pulling the cart perfectly fine, how could it suddenly go berserk?"
"It's all because of those damned Cheng family members! What bad luck! Running into anyone from their family always brings trouble!" Su Chen's mother cursed as she recounted her encounter with Cheng Baidong on the road.
Upon hearing this, Su Chen immediately grasped the key point: "Mom, you said Cheng Baidong came to the county town?"
"Yes," Su Chen's mother nodded, "He was riding a bicycle, and he was going incredibly fast. It was only when we ran into him that the donkey went berserk. I think he's a jinx!"
Su Chen subconsciously raised his hand to touch the corner of his mouth that was chapped, and immediately gasped in pain.
"Hiss~"
Su Chen grimaced in pain, while his mother cried out, "My precious child!"
Su Chen: "Mom, do you think it was Cheng Baidong who hit me?"
Her mother was taken aback and said, "They hit you. How would I know if you ask me? I didn't see them."
"I didn't see anyone either," Su Chen said dejectedly. "I was put in a sack as soon as I stepped out, and my eyes were covered. I didn't see anything. I reported it to the police, but they can't investigate. Am I just supposed to accept my bad luck?"
“But even if Cheng Bodong hit you, we have no evidence and we can’t get the police to arrest him.”
Su Chen's mother didn't know what to do either. She was illiterate, but she knew that you can't make things up without evidence, otherwise it would be a false accusation.
The mother and son were dejected, and for a while they started cursing and swearing at the man surnamed Cheng again. Little did they know that this was just the beginning of their bad luck.
The unlucky days ahead are numbered.
The eldest brother-in-law couldn't stand it anymore and couldn't help but remind her, "Mom, please stop scolding for a moment. We still don't have the money for the hospital stay. What do you think we should do? The doctor said it should be paid before noon."
"What do you mean, 'what should we do'? Your donkey cart overturned and injured me, so naturally you should pay for my medical treatment!" Su Chen's mother's expression changed, and her sharp eyebrows rose: "What? You don't want to pay?"
His good intentions led to trouble, and Su Chen's brother-in-law looked bitter: "Mom, this can't be entirely blamed on me..."
Su Chen's mother's voice was shrill: "You were driving the car, so who else is to blame but you?"
A verbal altercation broke out between the two sides, and a family war erupted instantly.
At Su Chen's house, a heated argument broke out over who should pay the fifty yuan for the old lady's medical treatment. The argument lasted for several days, but in the end, the old lady emerged victorious.
Su Chen's older sister and brother-in-law sold everything they could in the house and borrowed money from outside to pay off the debt. But this caused their married daughter to become estranged from her mother.
However, Su Chen's mother didn't care; she felt that as long as her son was doing well, that was enough.
But Su Chen is not doing well.
He was so unlucky that he lost money when he went out, tripped and fell while walking, and even choked half to death when drinking cold water. He even lost his job because he was involved in a major case of smuggling public textiles through postal parcels.
Of course, that's a story for another time.
Despite her leg injury, Su Chen's mother was still incredibly strong and was currently berating her eldest son-in-law.
After teaching Su Chen a lesson and buying things at the department store, Cheng Baidong was satisfied and rode his bicycle back to Chengzhuang Village.
Time to go home and hug my wife!
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