As the two people argued, Su Tang turned to Su Laiwang and said, “Laiwang, please run and call the village head over.”
Su Laiwang had just been standing idly behind his parents, so when he heard Su Tang’s request, he nodded immediately. “Alright. Aunt Tang, just wait here, I’ll call him over right away.”
Su Laiwang turned around and quickly rushed away to find the village head but, unexpectedly, Chen Xiuxiu managed to overhear what Su Tang had said to him, so she sent a few frantic winks to her husband. She finally started to feel a bit worried now. What if Wang Changhe really came and saw this scene? In the future, even if Sun Guiha really married into his family, wouldn’t the Wang family all look down on the rest of the Sun family as thieves? That would be terrible. After all, the whole point of marrying her daughter to the Wang family was to tie them together as ‘in-laws’ so that they would help her Sun family out in the future, but if that prospect were to be ruined wouldn’t everything have been in vain?
Sun Tiezhu understood his wife’s concerns, so he rapidly moved to try to stop Su Laiwang but, in the end, Su Laiwang was much younger than Sun Tiezhu and as soon as he saw that someone was chasing behind him to stop him, he ran as quick as he could to get away. Sun Tiezhu could only huff and puff as he tried to catch up.
Chen Xiuxiu’s face had turned unpleasant, but she still tried to bargain. “Tang girl, this should be enough, right? Don’t you just want the food? Here, I’ll give it to you.”
By now, she was very worried that her husband wouldn’t be able to stop Su Laiwang, so she threw down the bags of grain in Su Tang’s direction and turned to leave, wanting to help her husband give chase.
However, just by looking at her eyes, Su Tang could tell what ideas were flickering through the other woman’s mind. She sneered, “Madam Chen, are you trying to run now?”
“I would never…” Chen Xiuxiu, of course, didn’t admit that that was exactly her plan. In fact, ever since she realized that the situation had turned bad, Chen Xiuxiu had wanted to run away. Her only thought was that as long as she wasn’t caught red-handed by actually coming face to face with Wang Changhe here, so would be able to explain away anything if anyone were to come asking.
Unfortunately, because of Su Tang’s probing question, Madam Qin, Madam Wen, Madam Tong, Madam Lu, and Madam Zhou, who had all arrived by now, all turned and stared at Chen Xiuxiu in unison. This shameless woman had come to steal from their Su family, if they just let her run away like this, what would other people think their Su family was?
Although it was true that the Su family of today was not as good as it had been in the past, and that even the position of village head had been taken away by another family, at the end of the day, this was still Sujia Village. They were still one of the largest families in the village, and it wasn’t like just anyone could come up and bully them.
So even as Chen Xiuxiu began to try to run away, she suddenly found herself surrounded by the women from the Su family. Madam Lu, Su Laiwang’s wife, sneered: “Where are you trying to go?”
“Just now, weren’t you saying how you wanted to help our Su family’s children? After doing such a good thing, how could you just leave without a word?”
Madam Tong and Madam Lu completely cut off Chen Xiuxiu’s route of escape and began berating her sarcastically.
Chen Xiuxiu realized that she wouldn’t be able to run away, and her husband wouldn’t be able to catch up with Su Laiwang, so she simply squatted down on the ground without struggling further. She began wailing, “Ahhh, it seems that the Su family can bully whoever they want in this village nowadays. I’m being maligned and misunderstood just for kindly trying to send some food to my neighbors.”
It was then that Madam Zhao and Su Yonggui arrived, accompanied by Madam Wu. When Su Yonggui saw Chen Xiuxiu sitting on the ground, crying and wailing, his face turned dark.
Meanwhile, Madam Zhao was staring hard at Madam Zhang from a distance, silently scolding this daughter-in-law of hers for being an idiot. Even if she had wanted to take someone else’s things, shouldn’t she have at least known to wait until it was dark and there was no one around? Now she had made a big show of herself in broad daylight and gotten caught, it was simply a disgrace.
Then, Madam Zhao looked over and saw the pair of siblings standing next to Su Yongqiang, both without a scratch on them, and she gritted her teeth with hatred. She still remembered that it was all because of these two brats tricking her last time that she had been beaten with a board.
Plus, when she looked at the cotton-padded clothes they were wearing, although a bit plain, she could tell at a glance that they were well made, both thick and warm. Also, their faces were much fleshier than before, and seeing it all just made her feel that much more hateful. Why was it that these two brats were living such a good life?!
Su Tang felt this vicious gaze, and turned to look over in search of the source. Su Nuo happened to follow her eyes and ended up catching sight of Madam Zhao’s twisted expression, which cause him to start with fright. However, he immediately grabbed his sister’s hand and said firmly, “Sister, I’m not afraid!”
He wanted to show Su Tang that he wasn’t afraid at all. After all, in the past, his sister had told him that he was already a little man, and that men should be strong and brave.
