Chapter 239: Share Hardships ④
Seeing that the woman kept targeting them, Nie Qiu’s eyes flashed. It wasn’t just Nie Qiu; even the other classmates felt it was a bit much. Zhang Haiyang blurted out, “I say, could it be that you stole it?”
The old man ran down from the hilltop to chase them, indicating that the land belonged to the old man. Although they didn’t know the woman’s relation to the old man, her indignant appearance clearly showed she wasn’t his daughter-in-law. If she were, would the young woman have so much to say with the old man present? They didn’t know about others, but everyone present knew how their own mothers treated their grandfathers.
As soon as Zhang Haiyang spoke, the woman seemed to choke, her throat catching for a long time before she finally spoke, “You’re slandering me! If you continue to speak like this, I’ll sue you for defamation! Last night, last night I clearly saw you stealing sugarcane and oranges from the field!”
“So you do know the word ‘defamation’!” Li Kai, hearing Zhang Haiyang’s words, knew how to respond. He immediately opened his mouth, “What were you doing on the mountain so late last night? Treasure hunting?”
“Since you suspect us and can check our bags, can we search your house now?” a classmate shouted, “You can’t bully us children just because you’re adults. We can also sue you for defamation! We have the law protecting minors!”
“That’s right! We need clarification, we need to be innocent!” The boys all started to stir up trouble, clamoring to go see the woman’s house.
The old man frowned and looked at the woman, as did the middle-aged men. If they had indeed wronged these children, they would have to give them an explanation.
Before the woman could say anything more, the old man led the people towards the village behind the mountain. The woman chased after them, shouting as she ran.
The woman’s house was a two-story flat building with a yard. The yard was over a person tall, and the yard gate was closed. The woman ran ahead and blocked the yard gate with her arms spread, “What are you doing? What are you doing? I’m going to sue you for trespassing!”
Who cared about trespassing? A middle-aged man, without a word, climbed over the yard wall and into the yard. Seeing the oranges and sugarcane, he frowned and pulled open the house door.
Everyone immediately surged past the woman and into her yard. Inside the yard, there were bundles and bundles of sugarcane, and baskets and baskets of oranges. There were at least seven bundles of sugarcane. Nie Qiu estimated the number of oranges and felt that their tricycle might not be able to carry them all.
The male and female classmates who squeezed in naturally burst into laughter. Those with sharper tongues directly said they would sue them for fraud and defamation.
The woman still refused to admit it, sitting down on the ground, “Oh! My life is so hard! So many of you are bullying us, an orphan and a widow! How could these sugarcane and oranges appear in our house! Heaven and earth are my witness! My life is so hard!”
Who would pay attention to her crying? If people couldn’t see the truth at such an obvious moment, they couldn’t be called human! Several men spat at the woman a few times and then helped the old man move things.
As many students had come to the village, more farmers came to watch. Almost everyone doing farm work nearby gathered. Seeing people carrying sugarcane and oranges out of the woman’s house, they pulled their acquaintances aside to ask what had happened. After learning the whole story and the truth, the villagers’ eyes towards the woman changed.
Nie Qiu heard the hushed whispers of the villagers and learned that this woman had a bad reputation in the village. She would pilfer a cucumber from here, steal a pumpkin from there, and sometimes, when eating downstairs, she would pinch a scallion from someone else’s field…
Nie Qiu and his classmates were camping by the reservoir for their study tour. During their afternoon study sessions, villagers would pass by and think it was good that young people chose this way to study during their vacation. Of course, the woman knew that Nie Qiu and the others were on a study tour.
Around nine o’clock in the evening, the woman prepared to go up the mountain to pick a couple of oranges to eat, or perhaps she could even get vegetables for tomorrow. So she went up the mountain and saw Nie Qiu, Huang Yan, Li Kai, and Zhang Haiyang sitting not far from the lakeside, eating oranges and sugarcane.
She got a little idea. So many students, if each ate a little, how much would that be? So, without a word, she went home to get a machete and went up the mountain with her seventeen-year-old son. After Nie Qiu and the others left, they began picking oranges and cutting sugarcane, busy as could be.
Originally, she hadn’t planned to cut so much; she just thought she’d get enough for however many students were visiting. But the more she cut, seeing these large patches, she felt tempted. How nice it would be if all this belonged to her. Thinking this, since she was going to frame someone else tomorrow anyway, she might as well take as much as she could at once.
She also understood that these young people were probably from the city. If they were here for fun, wouldn’t city people have some pocket money? She gave her own son a hundred yuan for living expenses each week. City people would give their children, not to mention for a trip, at least twenty yuan each, right? It wouldn’t be difficult to compensate them! If she could help out a bit, perhaps they would even thank her!
She cut sugarcane and carried it home, batch after batch, working until four in the morning before going to sleep. She set her alarm for seven o’clock and indeed heard the loud shouting and chasing sounds of the person who walked his big yellow dog to check his fields every day, and she also heard the sounds of the group of students running away.
She immediately sat up and told the people she met on the road who were going up the mountain to work that those students had stolen that family’s sugarcane and oranges and asked for their help. So, when the old man arrived, panting, they followed him.
The rest of the story is Nie Qiu and the others going up the mountain, and then to the woman’s house.
Zhang Haiyang and the others had laughed enough and chatted enough, but the affairs of another village were just that—affairs of another village. Once the truth was revealed, they had no further involvement.
After watching the lively scene, the classmates called Nie Qiu and the others to head back, to wait for the bus. The bus they were taking now wasn’t specially arranged for them. If there weren’t enough seats, they would have to wait for the next one. Now they could only go back in batches. After all, in this countryside, there were no taxis or tricycles for transportation.
The old man, accompanied by the yellow dog, saw Nie Qiu and the others about to leave without saying goodbye. But he knew that today they had misunderstood these young people. Thinking about how he had chased these students with his dog early in the morning, the old man felt a bit embarrassed and quickly called out, “Those… those classmates, it’s almost noon now. You won’t be able to catch a bus if you wait here.”
