Chapter 12 Brothers Fighting, Xie Hong Negotiates Price...
Big Yellow Teeth thought to himself, "This is truly a case of finding something without even looking for it, and then getting it without any effort at all."
He had only intended to try his luck in the surrounding villages, inquiring about families who couldn't find a suitable match for Zhu Mingyue so he could personally visit them and promote her. Unexpectedly, he encountered one as soon as he entered the village.
Big Yellow Teeth instinctively wanted to laugh, but the laugh aggravated the wound on the corner of his mouth. The newly scabbed wound was torn open, and blood flowed down his chin, making him look quite gruesome.
He wiped away the yellow teeth perfunctorily with his sleeve, his eyes intently following the tall man who had just been arguing with someone.
The tall man walked extremely fast in his rage, and the man with yellow teeth could barely keep up, almost running the whole way.
Upon arriving at an earthen house, the tall man kicked open the half-closed wooden door and stormed in.
Big Yellow Teeth didn't dare to approach rashly, and secretly observed from behind a tree.
Big Yellow Teeth stared at the earthen house with a disdainful expression.
It seems the short man's insults were all true; this guy is indeed too poor to find a wife. If we were to sell Zhu Mingyue to him, he probably wouldn't be able to afford much.
He pondered this in his mind, and finally took a step to leave, but he suppressed the urge to go, sat down behind the tree, and prepared to find a good opportunity to pretend to bump into her and try to get information out of her.
Zhu Mingyue is ill, so she probably won't fetch a high price, but at least when she's not sick, she's extremely beautiful, so selling her for a few bushels of rice shouldn't be a problem.
The tall man, named Xie Hong, was unaware that he had been targeted and was slurping up his rice porridge.
In front of the stove, a boy of about fifteen or sixteen years old was squatting. His cheeks were sunken, probably due to long-term malnutrition, leaving only his prominent cheekbones.
At this moment, he silently broke off dry branches for firewood, expressionless, as if he didn't see anyone else in the house.
Xie Hong was furious when he came back and saw this face that completely disregarded him.
As soon as he opened his mouth, harsh words came out: "You always have a dead face, I think you're mourning your parents who just died!"
The boy looked up at him, glanced at him indifferently, then lowered his head again and continued with his work.
Xie Hong thought that Xie would remain silent and pretend not to hear the trouble he had personally provoked, and felt utterly bored.
However, the boy surprisingly spoke up today.
“My father is also your father, and my mother…” the boy’s tone rose, as if mocking, “I almost forgot, your mother died a long time ago too.”
Xie Hong flew into a rage, slamming the bowl down on the table. "You, Xie Pei! You dare mention my mother? If my mother hadn't died young, you, Xie Pei, would be nothing but a bastard now!"
The boy, Xie Pei, was being verbally abused and stopped talking back. No one could see the bloodthirsty hatred in his eyes beneath his lowered head.
He had heard the rumors about him being a bastard countless times since he was a child. Not only did Xie Hong often mention it to his face at home, but people in the village would also talk about it behind his back.
Xie Pei had heard it so many times that he became numb to it, but that didn't mean he didn't hate it. He hated these scumbags who could hurt people all over with just a few words!
Xie Hong unleashed a torrent of vulgarities upon Xie Pei, "You should be grateful to me for not kicking you out of my house, you ungrateful wretch! Why did your slutty mother throw you into the cesspool to drown you before you were even born..."
Exhausted from cursing, Xie Hong took a deep breath and finished the remaining porridge in his bowl in one gulp. His emotions had finally calmed down, but when he saw Xie Pei's indifferent expression, he looked like a clown jumping up and down. His vision went black, and he cursed, "Why don't you just die?" He fled out the door as if escaping.
Big Yellow Teeth, with a dry blade of grass dangling from his mouth, was crouching outside, almost asleep. In his drowsy state, he saw a dark shadow flash by and instantly snapped awake.
He got up, spat out the grass roots, and quickly followed.
"Ouch!"
Xie Hong felt that everything was going wrong that day. He was scolded by people outside, and when he got home he had to put up with the bastard child left by his father. He had just come out to clear his head when he was bumped into by some clueless person.
Before he could even utter a sound, the other person shouted first.
"Are you blind? You're a grown man, and you just barged right into me. Are you trying to extort me?"
Xie Hong said it casually, but when he turned around, he was so frightened by the face of the person behind him that he took a few steps back.
That injured face is clearly a sign that someone is trying to extort money from him. There's no one around, so who can prove that the person on the face wasn't beaten up by him?
Xie Hong's mind raced, his eyes lit up, and he kicked off his run home. Since there was no one around, wouldn't it be that as long as he ran fast enough, no one could prove that he was the one who beat up the person?
"Hey! Don't run away!" Big Yellow Tooth winced in pain. Seeing the other person about to run away, he felt like the sky was falling. He grabbed the other person's clothes with all his might.
Xie Hong dragged him for more than ten meters before finally breaking down, saying, "What do you want? I really have no money. It's no use you coming to me."
For a few moments, Xie Hong even had the fleeting thought of killing the person and dumping the body in the wilderness. At least if the person was dead, he wouldn't be extorted. It wasn't his fault; the other party was just unlucky enough to be the one extorting him.
"What?" Big Yellow Teeth was stunned. He had only been chasing too fast, and the other person had suddenly stopped, causing them to accidentally bump into each other. How could the other person immediately say he had no money? Did he know what his purpose was? That shouldn't be the case; he hadn't told anyone about this.
He tentatively asked, "Do you know what I do?"
Xie Hong spat, spraying saliva all over his face, revealing his yellow teeth. "Let me tell you, you've got the wrong person. The injuries on your face weren't caused by me. Don't expect to get a single penny from me."
As he spoke, he looked around for stones on the ground, preferably the kind that could kill instantly, just in time to send him to his death during the ensuing argument.
Big Yellow Teeth was even more confused now. He was a human trafficker, and his business was based on mutual consent. If someone didn't want to buy, they didn't have to! How could he be accused of extorting money?
As he thought about it, he got angry and stopped teasing him. He said in a deep voice, "I was thinking of introducing you to a beautiful woman. If the deal doesn't go through, so be it. But how did accidentally bumping into you become extortion?"
After saying that, he wanted to turn around and leave. He wasn't the only one in the surrounding villages who couldn't find a wife, and he wouldn't even look at such a stingy guy!
"What?" Xie Hong's eyes lit up immediately when he heard the word "wife". He stopped looking around for stones and grabbed the other person tightly when he saw that he was about to leave.
Big Yellow Teeth was truly enraged now, and tried to shake him off forcefully. "What's wrong with you? Just now I grabbed you and insisted that I was trying to extort you, and now that I want to leave, you won't let me go. What exactly do you want!"
Xie Hong's eyes darted around, and he said with a forced smile, "Brother, it's all a misunderstanding. I'm an honest man. I've been swindled a few times before and I'm afraid of being swindled. When I saw you bump into me with an injury on your face, I overreacted."
"real?"
"Really! Absolutely true."
"Alright then!" Big Yellow Teeth reluctantly agreed.
Since it was all a misunderstanding, he didn't want to argue with the other person and delay his business, so he removed the other person's hand and prepared to leave.
"Hey! Brother, don't go!" Xie Hong reacted and immediately ran forward to block Big Yellow Teeth's path. "What's this about the woman you were talking about? Would you do me the honor of telling me?"
After this ordeal, Big Yellow Teeth was impatient to do business with him anymore. Because of his short stature, he tried to squeeze under Xie Hong's arm, but was blocked completely. This time, he couldn't escape.
So she rolled her eyes at Xie Hong and said contemptuously, "You can't afford it anyway, why do you have to ask?"
"Who says I can't afford it!" Xie Hong raised his hand and patted his chest, loudly retorting, "Go ask around in the village, how many men are richer than me?"
Upon hearing this, Big Yellow Teeth recalled what the other person had said during his argument, and he became even more unwilling to talk to him.
If you don't have money, you don't have money. Why pretend to be something you're not in front of him? He's a businessman, not a philanthropist. What's the point of talking nonsense to fool him?
Seeing that he was unmoved by what Xie Hong said, he became a little anxious. He really missed his wife. The brothels in the county town were too expensive for a night, and he couldn't afford to go there often.
Most nights he could only do that kind of thing in his dreams, but no matter how many erotic dreams he had, they were ultimately illusory, and the loneliness and emptiness he felt after waking up were even stronger.
"Brother, how about this? You agree on the price first, and if I can afford it, we'll exchange money for goods. Is that alright?" Xie Hong discussed with Big Yellow Teeth.
Upon hearing this, Big Yellow Teeth indeed stood still, pondered seriously for a moment, gritted his teeth, and said, "Fine!" He wouldn't lose out by quoting a price anyway.
"Where is my wife? Can you take me to see her now?" Xie Hong's eyes shone, and his heart pounded with excitement. He was about to have a wife! He was determined to throw a big party to show off to the village and let those who looked down on him see that he, Xie Hong, was capable.
Big Yellow Teeth looked down on his impatient manner and said with a sneer, "Don't rush, let's agree on the price first before I can show you. If we don't agree on the price, there's nothing to see."
"Oh, right," Big Yellow Teeth added, "Let me make this clear beforehand, the one I have here is a man, he can't have children, so you'd better think it through."
A man? Upon hearing this, Xie Hong immediately lost most of his interest. He was indifferent to both men and women, but most men were hard and stiff, unlike women who were soft and yielding when held. Most importantly, men couldn't carry on his family line.
Seeing this, Big Yellow Teeth felt contemptuous. He thought to himself, "You have the right to complain? If Zhu Mingyue didn't have some illness, she wouldn't have been sold to him."
He thought this to himself and said it aloud, “Don’t be so quick to complain. If it weren’t for this person having a minor, harmless ailment, you wouldn’t have gotten a chance. Someone else offered seventy taels before you.”
Wow! Seventy taels! Xie Hong had never seen so much money in his twenty-five years of life. His interest, which had been on a rollercoaster, returned to its peak. How handsome must a man be to be so expensive?
Big Yellow Teeth grinned smugly: "If you don't want us to part ways here, I'm in a hurry to go ask around in other villages!"
"Yes, yes," Xie Hong quickly replied. "Name your price, and if it's suitable, bring the person over so I can take a look and see if that's alright?"
“I see you don’t have much money at home, so why not exchange it for grain? I don’t need much, but considering our connection,” Big Yellow Teeth held up four fingers and looked at Xie Hong, “How about four shi of rice?”
A note from the author:
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