When Su Yongqiang heard what his son said, his face turned black. “Do they think there is no one left in my Su family?! Let’s go!”
When Su Tang heard what was going on, she hurriedly grabbed Su Nuo and also began heading over to their house. The group moved quickly because, although it had snowed heavily the night before, there was already a path formed in the snow from all the people who had walked toward their house.
Su Tang and Su Nuo immediately followed Su Yongqiang, and a moment later Su Yongshun and his family followed as well. As the group approached, they could all hear a commotion coming from Su Tang’s yard.
“Of course I’m taking this iron pot. Even they’ve already died, they were at least still members of the Su family. However you, a person from the Sun family, have no right to come and take the Su family’s iron pot. Also, you need to give me all that grain as well. Everything here belongs to the Su family.” Su Sanshou’s wife, Madam Zhang, was in the middle of pointing at Chen Xiuxiu and scolded her.
Meanwhile, Chen Xiuxiu was already carrying several sacks of goods and, when she heard the other woman scolding her, she wasn’t willing to take it lying down and immediately retaliated, “Bah, so what if you are from the Su family? If I hadn’t told you that the house had collapsed, would you have even known? Now after crossing the bridge, you want to have all the benefits for yourself? Keep dreaming.”
Chen Xiuxiu had recently lost 500 cooper coins to the Zhou family, so she was a bit uncomfortable at home and liked to wander outside. Of course, she had always been a lazy woman who generally did nothing, and her husband Sun Tiezhu had long given up on trying to change her, so this behavior was nothing unusual. Anyway, after she got up early this morning and slipped outside, she happened to see that Su Tang and her brother’s house had collapsed the night before.
Of course, these days the two siblings would go to town every day and they would generally only eat their breakfast at this house. On top of that, Su Tang had her space, so their house didn’t actually have much food inside it, at most there was just a bit of grain.
However, Chen Xiuxiu didn’t mind that. As soon as she saw that the house had collapsed she quickly went to find all the food in the kitchen, and then hurriedly went home to get some sacks so she could pack everything away and take it home with her.
But who knew that, while she was on her way back to the collapsed house with the sacks, she would meet Madam Zhang, who was also out and idling around. As soon as Madam Zhang saw the furtive and sneaky way Chen Xiuxiu was moving, she immediately suspected that the other woman had stumbled into something good, so she blocked her on the road and interrogated her, wanting to get some benefits for herself.
As a result of her questioning, she heard from Chen Xiuxiu that Su Tang’s house had collapsed. Chen Xiuxiu also told her that there were still bowls and chopsticks in the house and, most importantly, a big iron pot, so Madam Zhang should come with her to help gather the things and she would let Madam Zhang have the pot. And, when she heard that offer, Madam Zhang was very tempted.
After all, the used bowls and chopsticks would be worth a few copper coins at the pawnshop, but the iron pot was a great prize. A big iron pot should be worth at least 100 copper coins in town. Plus, recently Madam Wu had been deducting Madam Zhang’s share of the money from the family, so her hands had been feeling empty.
Thus, in the end, Madam Zhang pretended to be persuaded by Chen Xiuxiu’s words and followed the other woman to pick the things up together. But, in the end, as soon as the iron pot was in her hands, Madam Zhang changed her tune and asserted that the grain was hers too and that Chen Xiuxiu needed to hand it over. Of course, Chen Xiuxiu was no pushover, so when she heard Madam Zhang’s shameless words, she quickly rolled up her sleeves and got ready to fight.
But what they didn’t know was that someone else had also seen that Su Tang’s house had collapsed and gone into the village to call for help. Thus, when Su Laiwang arrived with a group of men in tow, all armed with hoes and shovels and ready to dig up the house, they came upon the scene of the two women quarreling.
In the end, Su Laiwang could only helplessly tell the people with him to start digging while he ran off to find Su Yongqiang.
And that was how it came to be that Su Tang arrived at the entrance of her own yard and saw two women, one holding her iron pot and the other holding her grain, arguing and scolding each other about who the stuff belonged to. Looking at it, she could only feel the whole scene was really ironic and ridiculous.
A moment later, Su Yongqiang arrived and directly shouted, “Shut up!”
When she saw who it was, the expression on Madam Zhang’s face changed, and a trace of fear flickered by. After all, Su Yongqiang was the patriarch of the Su family, while she was just a wife who had married into Su family, so she knew she had to be careful around him.
However, Chen Xiuxiu directly ignored his angry tone and said, “Ah, so it’s the head of the Su family. This matter had nothing to do with you, but I have to say that you really need to educate your Su family properly. Certain members are just too shameless.”
Su Yongqiang had always known that Sun Tiezhu’s wife was no good, but his face still turned black when he saw her acting like this. “How could it have nothing to do with me when you’ve come here steal and rob things from my Su family? Sun Tiezhu, were you the one who sent your wife here?”
Chen Xiuxiu’s expression changed, and she followed Su Yongqiang’s eyes to find her husband, Sun Tiezhu, standing there.
