Xiang Xi recognized this woman. She was one of the only two widows currently living in Nan Zhu Village—Li-shi.
Although both women were widows, Li-shi and Madam Lü were two completely different kinds of widows.
Madam Lü was old and ugly, burdened with a whole family, with her youth long gone and her body withered like a broken willow branch.
But Widow Li?
She was a thirty-year-old woman in her prime, full of vitality, with considerable beauty and charm still remaining. One glance and one smile from her could captivate anyone. Every man in Nan Zhu Village would practically lose his soul around her…
Most importantly, she had no parents-in-law and no children, and she had firmly decided never to remarry. Her goal was to remain a widow, observe mourning and chastity, and live that way for the rest of her life.
In terms of attractiveness to men, Madam Lü wasn’t even worthy of carrying Widow Li’s shoes.
If the village chief had been given Widow Li instead of Madam Lü last night, he probably would’ve been over the moon.
As the saying went, there were always plenty of men hanging around a widow’s door.
Widow Li lived alone, with her neighbors far away. This allowed her and some of Nan Zhu Village’s men to spend their nights in perfect harmony, enthusiastically writing their very own Nan Zhu Village version of That Woman and Those Men.
Now Xiang Xi and Second Fool suddenly wanted to settle down right in front of her house.
Wouldn’t that ruin her good times?
No, no.
Wouldn’t that affect the feng shui of her home?
Back when Madam Lü bought this plot of land, she had argued with Widow Li for several days and nights. Madam Lü was domineering, and after buying the land, nothing happened for years, so the matter eventually faded away.
But now that the old dispute had resurfaced, Widow Li naturally wasn’t going to compromise easily.
More importantly, she was also afraid of Second Fool Liu’s wretched copper basin.
If he came knocking on it in the middle of the night, wouldn’t it scare all the men away?
And if he happened to see something he shouldn’t…
That would be even worse.
There were many things everyone understood without saying them aloud.
Even when people saw through something, they pretended not to, just like a pile of dog shit—if you covered it up, it wouldn’t stink anymore.
But Second Fool Liu was a fool!
He was the kind of person who would see his own mother hugging the village chief and biting him, then beat a gong and announce it throughout the entire village!
It was like driving a nail straight into Widow Li’s forehead.
Did she really think she could tolerate that?
But Xiang Xi didn’t care about any of this.
The residential land had been given to her, and she had the land deed.
Even if she decided to build a pig farm here, Widow Li couldn’t do anything about it!
“Crazy woman, you don’t know what’s good for you!” Widow Li quickly became furious. “If you dare build a house here, believe it or not, I’ll set it on fire!”
Xiang Xi naturally wasn’t going to back down.
She put her hands on her hips and fired back.
“If you’ve got the guts, burn it! I’ll just move into your house!”
Widow Li was instantly stunned.
She already found it annoying enough that Xiang Xi wanted to live in front of her house.
If this crazy woman actually moved into her home…
After thinking about it, she decided that for now, she couldn’t afford to provoke her.
She’d better find a few people tonight and discuss the matter in bed, then figure out what to do.
One sentence was enough to shut Widow Li up.
Xiang Xi didn’t bother with her anymore.
It was getting late. She needed to finish building the grass hut as soon as possible, and she still had to find something to eat.
With Xiang Xi’s exceptional ability to give orders and Second Fool Liu’s formidable ability to work with his hands, the two of them worked together perfectly.
Before long, two small grass huts were finished.
They could lay some dry grass inside at night and make do with sleeping there for a few days.
“Second Fool.”
“Present!”
“Go into the mountains and find something to eat.”
“Yes!”
Xiang Xi took Second Fool Liu with her, while Second Fool carried the family’s inherited, battered wood-cutting knife.
The two headed into the mountains.
Xiang Xi had already surveyed the area that morning.
The mountains behind Nan Zhu Village stretched endlessly, and during the transition from spring to summer, the resources were incredibly abundant.
Besides wild mushrooms, there were bamboo shoots, wild sweet potato vines, pheasants, wild rabbits…
With her wilderness survival experience and skills, she couldn’t guarantee meat at every meal, but having enough food to fill their stomachs every day was definitely no problem.
From a distance, Wu-shi watched the two of them enter the forest.
She had been secretly observing nearby the entire time.
As soon as they disappeared into the mountains, she flew back to the Liu family.
“Mother-in-law! Mother-in-law!”
“How did it go?”
“Mother-in-law, you really are a genius!” Wu-shi first flattered her, then said, “That Widow Li really couldn’t tolerate the two of them. They had a huge argument.”
Madam Lü wore an expression that said she had known it all along.
“Then did Widow Li stop arguing after she couldn’t win?”
“Yes, yes!”
“She didn’t stop because she was willing to give in,” Madam Lü said. “That seductive fox is very cunning. She’s afraid she’ll suffer a loss, so she plans to find some wild men tonight to help her.”
“Then won’t there be a good show tomorrow?”
Madam Lü chuckled.
How could she possibly wait until tomorrow for a good show?
That crazy woman had caused her to lose all her dignity.
She couldn’t wait to see her suffer misfortune immediately!
“Mother-in-law, you mean we should go whisper something into Widow Li’s ear?”
“I’ve always said you’re stupid, but you’re actually worse than a pig’s brain,” Madam Lü said in exasperation. “Even if you go whisper something to her, do you think Widow Li will listen to you?”
“Then…”
“Stop with the ‘then this’ and ‘then that.’” Madam Lü waved her over. “Bring your ear here. We’ll do it like this…”
After hearing Madam Lü’s plan, Wu-shi felt as though a brilliant sunrise had suddenly appeared before her.
Her eyes sparkled.
Her mother-in-law’s plan was simply too clever and too vicious!
No wonder she could be the mother-in-law while Wu-shi could only be the daughter-in-law.
“We’ll go right now!”
…
Xiang Xi took Second Fool Liu around the mountains for a while.
They dug up two enormous bamboo shoots, each nearly a meter long, and caught a little wild pheasant that had gotten lost using a snare.
Seeing that it was getting dark, they happily headed home.
Today was a day of many happy occasions—separating from the family, breaking ground, raising the beams, moving into their new home…
They absolutely had to make braised bamboo shoots with chicken and celebrate properly.
When Wu-shi saw them approaching from a distance, she waved at her two sons.
Her older son was already eight years old and quite sensible.
The moment he saw her signal, he immediately grabbed the torches they had prepared beforehand and rushed over.
He set fire to the grass huts.
Xiang Xi was still thinking about where she could get some cooking oil.
After all, braised bamboo shoots with chicken wouldn’t taste good without some oil.
Then she heard Second Fool Liu clapping and laughing excitedly.
“Wife, look! Such a big fire! So much fun!”
Xiang Xi took one look.
Holy crap!
Wasn’t that the grass hut she had just finished building?
Which bastard with no virtue had done this?
Widow Li?
Impossible.
Widow Li wasn’t like Madam Lü.
Other than when she was in bed, she could never be this fierce.
She had immediately seen through Widow Li’s earlier threat to burn down her house—it had clearly only been meant to scare her.
If it wasn’t Widow Li, then there was only one possibility.
Old Widow Lü!
She narrowed her eyes and took a closer look.
Sure enough, she saw Wu-shi sneaking back toward the Liu family with her two little brats.
Fine.
Not giving her anything when they separated was one thing.
But now they had even burned down the grass hut she had built.
Wasn’t that bullying an honest person?
Since Madam Lü and Wu-shi wanted to drive her into a corner, they couldn’t blame her for going completely crazy!
Second Fool Liu ran around excitedly.
Instead of being upset by the blazing fire, he became even more excited.
He grabbed his copper basin and began pounding it.
Bang, bang, bang—
“It’s dry and windy today!”
“My house is on fire!”
…
“Hehehe…”
Hearing Second Fool Liu’s cries, Widow Li stood at her doorway laughing so hard that her whole body trembled.
“Oh my, oh my!”
“Even Heaven couldn’t stand it anymore!”
“I didn’t even have to do anything. Your lousy grass hut caught fire all by itself!”
“Serves you right!”
There was no denying that this woman really had some charm.
Even her schadenfreude was so alluring.
Boom!
At that moment, a deep rumble of thunder came from the distant sky.
A cool mountain breeze swept over them, and the sky grew dark and gloomy.
It looked like Heaven’s tears were about to burst forth.
“Please, Heaven, rain harder!” Widow Li said. “Drench that crazy woman!”
Xiang Xi snorted coldly.
If she hadn’t been certain that Widow Li wasn’t the one who started the fire, this lady would have made sure you laughed until you cried!
Second Fool Liu looked up at the sky.
“Wife, it’s raining!”
“Let’s go.”
“Where?”
Where else?
Of course, back to the old Liu family house!
Unfortunately, Madam Lü had already anticipated that they would return.
The main door was tightly shut, and she hadn’t even left a crack in the windows.
Xiang Xi wasn’t determined to enter the house anyway.
Instead, she went behind the Liu family’s house, beneath the eaves.
The rain wasn’t heavy. Having an eave overhead to provide some shelter was enough, as long as it didn’t interfere with cooking.
She found several large stones and used them to support the battered iron pot beneath the back eaves of the Liu house.
Firewood was already available.
There was a huge pile stacked beneath the back eaves of the Liu family’s house.
The wild pheasant wasn’t very fat this season, so there wasn’t much oil inside it.
But the bamboo shoots were genuinely fresh and tender.
Braised together with the chicken pieces, the delicious aroma spread throughout the mountains.
The Liu family had no idea that Xiang Xi was beneath their back eaves.
They had made several bowls of buckwheat porridge and brought them to the table, preparing to eat dinner.
“Grandma, are we having chicken today?”
“Chicken my ass!”
Whenever chicken was mentioned, Madam Lü felt a stab of pain.
All three of the family’s hens had been ruined by that crazy woman!
“Grandma is lying! I can smell chicken!”
Madam Lü sniffed.
Sure enough, she could smell the aroma of chicken.
Her anger intensified.
“Hmph! Some family’s chicken must’ve caught a disease. Let them eat it. Once they eat it, the people will catch it too!”
Behind the house, Xiang Xi and Second Fool Liu had already stuffed the braised bamboo shoots and chicken into their stomachs as quickly as possible.
“Second Fool, is it good?”
“Delicious!”
“Then do you want to play another fun game?”
Second Fool Liu suddenly jumped to his feet.
“Wife, are you going to play hide-and-seek with me?”
Xiang Xi: …
Hide-and-seek your ass!
“Let me ask you,” Xiang Xi said. “Was our house burning beautifully this afternoon?”
“Beautiful!”
Xiang Xi pointed toward the dry firewood beneath the back eaves.
“If you set this on fire, it’ll look even better.”
Without a second thought, Second Fool Liu picked up a still-burning branch from the fire pit and set the pile of firewood beneath the back eaves of the Liu family’s house ablaze.
As the flames instantly rose, Second Fool Liu excitedly laughed.
He turned around and grabbed his battered copper basin.
Bang, bang, bang—
“It’s dry and windy!”
“Be careful with the candles!”
“My mother’s house is on fire!”