Because it's Lunar New Year's Eve tonight, Dingshui Village is holding a New Year's celebration with all the families who moved to the village this year, just like last year.
The village committee provides half of the supplies and money, and the rest is split equally among the families in the village. A sumptuous New Year's Eve dinner costs only 68 coins per family. Only a fool wouldn't participate!
Therefore, every household mobilized its entire population, and everyone ate and drank to their heart's content. The children were so happy that they ran around the village picking up unexploded firecrackers, and the sporadic sound of firecrackers could be heard all around.
When the adults see the children happy, they are naturally even happier, and in their happiness, they inevitably drink a few more glasses.
Just like Old Man Lu, who doesn't usually drink much, he drank to his heart's content with Village Chief Li Dachui and the others tonight, and was eventually helped home by Chen.
Not to mention Chen, everyone in the village was praising her tonight, saying that she had raised a good son and would have no worries about the future, and that she also had such a good daughter-in-law. The whole village envied her family.
She'd said so many nice things, and that's why she drank so much fruit wine. Besides, this fruit wine was brewed by Jiang Qinyu and everyone else together, so Chen Shi felt even more comfortable drinking it.
"Old Lu and his wife still haven't come out, isn't that your doing?" Aunt Qin lifted Chen Xiuer up from the ground. "Tell me! What did you do to them?"
"Them? I just gave them a little bit of the sleeping pills that I got from Doctor Gu..." Chen Xiuer tilted her head, a hint of excitement in her eyes.
Aunt Qin roared, "Are you even human? Hasn't Sister Chen been good to you? And you actually wanted to burn her alive!"
"Good?" Chen Xiuer retorted, "What's good about it? She knows I like my cousin, but she won't let me marry him, and she won't let my cousin divorce that bitch Jiang Qinyu!"
Aunt Qin was speechless. Did this crazy woman live in her own fantasy world? Anyone with eyes can see that Lu Yanzheng only has eyes for Jiang Qinyu, okay?
Chen Shao grabbed Chen Xiuer and tied her up tightly with a rope he had somehow acquired.
"Mother, don't bother talking to her anymore. She's a madwoman who wanted to burn our whole village alive! What a pity, she really miscalculated." Chen Shao glanced at Chen Xiuer with disdain.
Chen Xiuer's smiling face suddenly froze for a moment, and she looked at Chen Shao and asked, "What do you mean?"
"What do you mean?" Chen Shaoxing suddenly laughed. "Don't you know that our village will be moving to new houses on the other side after the New Year? These old houses can be burned down, since many of them are thatched huts. If you burn them down, it will save us a lot of effort."
Chen Xiuer was stunned. "When did this happen?"
"You're not from our village, why should we tell you about village affairs?" Chen Shao retorted arrogantly.
Chen Xiuer suddenly sprang to her feet, ramming her head into Chen Shao, shouting, "I knew you never considered me one of your own! You all deserve to die! You all deserve to die..."
Chen Shao naturally wouldn't be bumped into by her; he nimbly took a step back, causing Chen Xiuer to fall flat on her face.
"Alright, Ah Shao, don't say any more to her. We'll settle accounts with her after the village chief and the others come out!" Aunt Qin now loathed Chen Xiuer and didn't even want to look at her.
Chen Shao was too lazy to say anything more to her. Seeing that Liu Yazi and the others hadn't come out yet, he said to Aunt Qin, "Mother, I'll go in and help too."
Without hesitation, Aunt Qin nodded and said, "Okay, let your father go with you too."
The Lu family is too important to Dingshui Village; nothing can happen to Old Man Lu and Madam Chen.
Meanwhile, Village Chief Li, Meng Tianze, and Liu Yazi finally emerged.
Meng Tianze walked in the middle, holding one arm with the other. On his left was Old Man Lu, and on his right was Chen Shi, while Liu Yazi and Village Chief Li supported them on the other side.
Seeing this, the others quickly went to take it.
"My God, Lao Lu and the others are still not awake!"
"Go find Doctor Gu quickly! Ask him what's wrong with the medicine he prescribed for Chen Xiuer. How come she's still not awake?"
"..."
After a period of chaos and turmoil, Old Man Lu and Mrs. Chen were settled in the home of Village Chief Li.
Perhaps fearing discovery, Chen Xiuer did not set fire to Village Chief Li's house.
After settling Old Man Lu and Chen Shi in, Village Chief Li heard from Aunt Qin about Chen Xiuer setting fire to the village.
"What a menace!" Village Chief Li slammed his fist on the table. "When Old Lu and his wife wake up, I'm going to have to talk to them. This woman can't stay in the village anymore."
"That's right. Although we're moving to a new house after the New Year, the old house was burned down. Where will those people live?" Aunt Qin said angrily.
It's possible that Chen Xiuer poured the most oil into her house and Jiang Qinyu's house, which is why their houses were burned the most and are basically uninhabitable.
Other people's homes were a bit better off; they could manage to stay in them after the fire was put out.
That's why so many people came to help earlier. They all took care of their own problems before coming over. Otherwise, what would happen if the village burned all night?
“The housing problem is easy to solve. Most of the new residents have one or two empty rooms. I can ask them to stay there without any problem.” Village Chief Li waved his hand. “Now we need to take stock of what each family has lost and make up for what we need as soon as possible.”
“But Brother Lu and the others aren’t home, so how do we keep track of their numbers?” Chen Shao asked immediately.
All of Jiang Qinyu's belongings have just been moved out of her house.
Village Chief Li said, "Write down what you brought out first, and I'll send a letter to my niece tomorrow."
Jiang Qinyu had previously sent a letter to Dingshui Village when she had some free time, informing Village Chief Li of her current address.
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