Su Yongqiang didn’t bother trying to talk to this woman directly, instead, he directed his question to Sun Tiezhu, who had arrived at some point. Suddenly called out by Su Yongqiang, Sun Tiezhu glanced at his wife and then retorted in a strangled tone, “You can’t say that these things belong to your Su family when they are clearly ours!”
“That’s right! All of this grain belongs to our family, rather, it was that wife from the Su family over there who was so shameless and came to steal the iron pot, only to spot me and get greedy for my things as well.” Chen Xiuxiu proudly hugged the sacks of grain in her hands as she spoke.
Su Yongqiang hadn’t expected that both members of this couple would be so shameless and his face turned black with anger. He was about to open his mouth to say something more, when he suddenly heard a burst of applause coming from behind him.
Turning back, he saw it was Su Tang.
Su Tang slowly walked out from behind Su Yongqiang while clapping her hands sardonically. When the men who Su Laiwang had brought over to try to dig Su Tang and her brother out of the rubble saw those very siblings suddenly appearing from behind the Su family patriarch they were all stupefied, but after a moment they reacted and stopped their digging.
“Wonderful, I’ve seen something really wonderful!” Su Tang laughed sarcastically and kept clapping her hands.
When Chen Xiuxiu and Madam Zhang were suddenly confronted by Su Tang, they were both startled and screamed, “Ghost!”
“Hm? You know, it’s said that if you don’t do anything wrong then you won’t be afraid of ghosts coming to knock at your door. Madam Chen, a moment ago you said so confidently that the grain in your hands was yours, so why is it that when you saw me just now your face looked so guilty? And Madam Zhang, it’s really been a while. I seem to remember the last time we met you were beaten with a board, but it seems you’ve forgotten the pain!”
Su Tang sneered at Madam Zhang coldly and looked her in her eyes. In Madam Zhang’s perspective, those eyes were like two dark pits layered with thick snow, dark, cold, and somehow seeming larger than any child’s eyes ought to be. When Madam Zhang felt the gaze of those eyes, she felt a chill sweep up her spine and a dull pain suddenly throbbed in the place where she had been beaten last time.
Meanwhile, Chen Xiuxiu had regained herself and, after inspection, she realized that Su Tang still had a shadow, so she probably wasn’t a ghost. It seemed that the truth was that the girl hadn’t been crushed to death at all. Emboldened by that realization, she quickly scolded back, “Who here looked guilty? I don’t feel guilty at all, so why would I look guilty? Bah, you two really do have a hard fate though, even when your house collapses you can run away and be just fine.”
Originally Su Tang and her brother had a reputation for their ‘hard fate’, and it would seem that the snow crushing their house in the middle of the night would only reaffirm that reputation. After all, when another person’s family encountered this sort of disaster they would consider themselves lucky if they weren’t directly killed, and they would probably be injured at the very least.
When Chen Xiuxiu finished her words, many of the surrounding people also began to look at Su Tang and her brother with scrutinizing eyes, only to see that there really was nothing wrong with them. Compared with the crushed and collapsed house behind them, the contrast was just too sharp.
They all remembered how recently, when Zhou Xiaocao fell into the water, Su Tang had been able to point out the place to dive in order to rescue her, and now there was this situation where it seemed she had managed to escape the disaster sent by the heavens… some of the gathered people carefully took a few steps back. Their eyes betraying their thoughts that perhaps these two siblings really were touched by something unnatural.
Naturally, Su Tang was able to see these reactions, and she wasn’t surprised at all. Ever since she had first decided to go along with Su Yonggui’s plan to go on a stroll at the bottom of the Qing River she had known things would be like this. If she and her brother had really died, these villagers would all have sympathized with them and maybe even have said a few kind words.
However, if they instead didn’t die, she had known that the sorts of eyes that she was seeing right now would undoubtedly follow her and her brother for many years into the future. The villagers would all look at them with suspicion, with strange prejudices and misunderstandings, and even with fear.
However, she didn’t care at all. After all, there were so many people in the world, she had no time to care about what each and every one of them thought. She just lived by her own principles. If people were good to her, she would be good in return, while if they were bad to her, she would return the same.
Except for the people she cared about, others were just unimportant and meaningless existences, passers-by in her life.
Thus, although she was easily able to see how these people were reacting, Su Tang just put on an indifferent expression and continued to press Chen Xiuxiu, “Madam Chen, you don’t need to change the subject, alright? Let’s just say it out, you came to my house to steal my grain, right? Do you admit it?”
“Bullshit! This grain is my own family’s grain, what does it have to do with you? All you people from the Su family are the same, huh? Really shameless and greedy for other people’s things.” Confronted with her crime, Chen Xiuxiu didn’t give the slightest impression of a person who was in the wrong, instead, she fiercely argued back in a righteous tone.
Su Tang saw the other woman’s attitude and snorted coldly, “Someone ask the village head to come here. Today, he can be the witness as we find out whether it’s my Su family or your Sun family that is shameless.”
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