Xiao’s mother hurriedly got up to open the door. “What’s wrong with my field?”
Outside stood a woman of about the same age as Xiao’s mother. “It stinks! It stinks terribly! There are loads of dead rats in your cornfield. I had a look—at least ten of them. It looks as though someone’s deliberately dumped them there…”
Hearing the woman’s account, Mrs Xiao’s face darkened instantly, and she began to curse under her breath, “It’s that little rascal again, with time on his hands. If I catch him, I’ll skin him alive!”
Having said that, she turned to Jiang Fusheng, who had followed her out. “Come on, dear, just stay at home and rest. If you need anything, just call Changhe!”
“Auntie, I’ll come with you.” ” Jiang Fusheng stepped forward and hooked her arm through my mother’s, leaning against her like a small sugarcane stalk against a thick wooden post.
“But you’ve only just recovered from a serious illness, you…”
“Don’t worry, Auntie, I’m perfectly fine now!” Jiang Fusheng beamed. “Come on, I want to go and see where our family’s land is too!”
Hearing this, the woman recalled the farce that had unfolded at the Xiao household earlier that day and asked curiously, “Lai Di, have you really married Changhe again?”
“I have!” Jiang Fuseng nodded, her face flushing with shyness as she stood obediently by Xiao’s mother’s side.
Xiao’s mother patted Jiang Fuseng’s small hand and turned to the woman. “Speaking of which, once Changhe’s father returns, we’ll pick an auspicious date and hold a wedding banquet for the two of them here in the village. You must come along and join in the festivities!”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be there,” the woman nodded. “But for now, let’s hurry over to your fields! That stench is unbearable!”
“Let’s go!”
On the way to the Xiao family’s fields, Jiang Fuseng learnt from Mother Xiao that this woman was actually her rare close friend in Heping Village, ‘Li Mei’.
She had no recollection of Li Mei.
It was simply because the original owner had often been sent off by her parents to do chores, or had to follow her younger brother, Jiang Yaozhu, around cleaning up after him; she’d been so busy she’d been running around in circles and simply hadn’t had the time to get to know everyone in the village.
Soon, the three of them arrived at the cornfield.
A crowd had already gathered there.
Jiang Fusheng had a keen sense of smell to begin with; even before she’d laid eyes on the dead rat, the stench wafting from afar had already turned her face pale.
It stinks!
Who on earth would be so heartless as to dump a dead rat in someone’s cornfield just as they were about to harvest it!
When the crowd saw Xiao’s mother appear, they all gloated.
“Cen Jinhua, is your corn poisoned? It’s even killed a rat!”
“What? Is that true? I bought a bag of corn kernels from her just a few days ago. If it really is poisoned, then my chickens and ducks… No, I’d better rush home and check!”
“Come to think of it, Cen Jinhua, could it be that you’ve done something so wicked that even Heaven can’t bear to look upon it?”
Xiao’s mother’s face darkened as she glared at them fiercely. “What on earth are you on about! Have you done so many wicked deeds yourself that you’ve jumped to the conclusion I’ve done something wicked? And ‘Heaven can’t bear to look upon it’… Pah, this is the new era—stop believing in such superstitious nonsense! I’d bet it was you who dumped that dead rat on my land!”
“I certainly didn’t do that! Don’t slander me!”
“Then shut your mouth this instant—are you asking for a slap?!”
Mother Xiao stood with her hands on her hips, looking every bit the part of a giant kettle; the slightest misstep and the ‘boiling water’ spurting from her mouth would douse you, leaving you screaming in pain.
Seeing this, the chatterboxes all fell silent, too scared to utter a word.
Standing nearby, Jiang Fusheng couldn’t help but click her tongue.
This mother-in-law!
She’s got some serious firepower!
“Hmph!” Mother Xiao shot a glare at the mocking villagers, then strode towards the field and parted the nearest cornstalks.
As she did so, a dead rat hanging from the stalk fell to the ground.
Had she not dodged in time, the dead rat would have splattered all over her face.
Mrs Xiao: “Which bloody bastard did this? I curse you to give birth to a son with no arsehole…”
Jiang Fuseng looked up to see a dozen or so dead rats scattered across the field; they’d simply been hidden by the dense cornstalks, which was why no one had noticed them before.
Now, looking closely, they realised the dead rats were already swarming with maggots and giving off a foul stench.
“Ugh!”
“It’s absolutely stinking!”
“Cen Jinhua, get rid of those dead rats straight away! My vegetables are planted right next to your maize field. If they pick up that stench, how on earth am I supposed to sell them?”
“What’s the rush!” Xiao’s mother was both furious and aggrieved; she had no idea who’d done this, but it was clearly intended to cause trouble.
The villagers were already unfriendly towards the Xiao family, and now they’d seized the opportunity to rub salt into the wound, claiming the Xios must have done something wrong to deserve such retribution.
No one noticed that Jiang Fusheng had already made her way round to the other side of the maize field.
She had just realised that all these dead rats were clustered around the maize stalks that Aunt Xiao had parted moments earlier.
This suggested that the dead rats had been deliberately dumped there.
In her previous life, in order to improve her culinary skills, she had studied a number of unusual cuisines, some of which were rather off-putting.
For instance, dishes featuring rodents as the main ingredient.
She had personally prepared farmed, edible rats before, so she could tell at a glance that these rats had only just died.
The reason they smelled so foul was the weather; they were decomposing rapidly…
She walked around the area but found no clues.
“Everyone, quiet down.” Jiang Fuseng stepped in front of the crowd.
Xiao’s mother, who had been poking at the dead rats with a stick, stopped, her eyes brimming with confusion. “What’s the matter, Laidi?”
Jiang Fusheng replied, “I’d like to ask if anyone saw anyone sneaking about here earlier.”
Upon hearing this, Xiao’s mother gave a wry, resigned smile. “It’s no use. There are only a few households in this village on good terms with the Xiao family. Even if they knew, they wouldn’t say a word!”
“Then we’ll use money.”
“What do you mean?”
“Money talks!” Jiang Fuseng’s lips curled into a smile as she raised an eyebrow and looked at the crowd. “Did anyone just see someone sneaking around here?”
The villagers exchanged glances and all claimed they hadn’t seen anything.
Or rather, even if they had, they wouldn’t have said a word.
Jiang Fuseng glanced at everyone, then turned her back on the crowd and whispered to Xiao’s mother, “Auntie, do you have any money on you?”
“How much do you need?”
“Just one yuan will do.”
“Here.”
The reason Jiang Fuseng asked for just one yuan was that a year’s income from farming amounted to two or three hundred yuan; on average, it took nearly two days to earn a single yuan.
Now, all it took was to speak up and name the person they’d seen to receive a yuan. She was certain someone would be willing to do it!
“I’ll ask one more time: who saw someone sneaking this way just now?”
No one responded to Jiang Fuseng; they all wore expressions of spectators watching a show.
“I have a yuan here. Whoever saw someone throwing a dead rat into the fields, I’ll give them this yuan!”
Hearing Jiang Fuseng’s words, everyone’s expressions changed.
That’s a whole yuan!
It could buy a pound of pork!
“Lai Di, is this really a good idea?” Xiao’s mother tugged at Jiang Fuseng’s arm. “What if someone makes false accusations?”
Jiang Fuseng reassured her: “Don’t worry. With so many people watching, unless the accuser is a fool who’s lost their mind, who would dare to falsely accuse someone like that?”
“You’re right!”
“I’m still worried, Auntie. That one yuan won’t be a loss.”
Just as everyone was looking at one another, someone raised their hand. “I saw who threw that stinking rat onto the ground!”