After eating a delicious meal of stir-fried chicken with mushrooms, Xiang Xi and Liu Er lay contentedly on the long bench.
Liu Er was fast asleep, snoring loudly, while Xiang Xi was thinking about the future.
Since she had decided to live life to the fullest, she naturally couldn’t keep doing nothing but eating and playing like she was now. The Liu family’s meager savings would be gone in just a few days at this rate.
And if she wanted to live an exciting life in this world, she couldn’t stay in this lousy village forever.
So it was time to figure out how to make money.
Her ability to predict the future by one minute didn’t seem very useful for making money. Even if it could be used, it probably wouldn’t be through any legitimate means.
So for now, she needed to think of something else.
“Second Fool, let’s go out and take a walk.”
“Yes!”
Liu Er rubbed his sleepy eyes and followed Xiang Xi out.
They had only walked a few steps when he spotted the cucumbers growing in the field by the entrance. His feet immediately stopped moving.
“Wife, cucumbers!”
“Pick them yourself!” Xiang Xi said. “Pick one for me too.”
“Okay!”
Liu Er absolutely loved munching on cucumbers, but his mother had never allowed him to eat too many. She would only give him one each time.
Now he didn’t have to listen to his mother anymore.
Happily, he picked every single cucumber in the field and stuffed a huge bundle into his clothes.
While munching on a cucumber, Xiang Xi looked around, searching for something she could use to make money.
Just as they reached the entrance of someone’s house, a black dog suddenly rushed out, baring its teeth and barking furiously at them.
Hearing the barking, a woman came running out of the house.
It was Hu-shi, another notorious shrew in the village.
By family relation, Liu Er had to call her Cousin Sister-in-law.
But sometimes, the closer two people were related, the more they hated each other.
Madam Lü and Hu-shi were both women nobody could afford to provoke. Naturally, they were like needle against wheat whenever they met. The slightest disagreement would result in them shouting insults at each other from across the street.
Several times, their fights had even escalated into their dogs joining in.
Those battles had been absolutely earth-shattering, with ghosts supposedly crying and wolves howling.
So although the two families were related by blood, the hatred between them was as deep as an unfathomable abyss.
The moment Hu-shi saw Liu Er carrying so many cucumbers, she exploded.
“Liu Er! How dare you steal cucumbers from my house!”
Liu Er stiffened his neck.
“I didn’t!”
“If you didn’t steal them, why is the dog barking at you? Did you get shit stuck all over yourself?” Hu-shi’s voice was terrifyingly loud, practically reaching G-sharp. “If you don’t give me an explanation today, I won’t let you off!”
“I didn’t, I didn’t…”
“You did! You did! You did!”
“Woof! Woof! Woof!”
Liu Er’s voice wasn’t as loud as Hu-shi’s, he wasn’t as quick with his words, and she even had a huge black dog backing her up.
He immediately lost the battle of momentum.
He pouted pitifully, turned to Xiang Xi, and whispered,
“Wife, I didn’t.”
Seeing him like this, Xiang Xi was speechless.
It seemed that even a fearless fool was afraid of an unreasonable shrew.
Fine.
A man shouldn’t argue with a woman.
Let this lady handle it!
“You melon-headed bitch! You damn bastard! You rotten fool! You worthless basket! I stole your mother, stole your sister, stole your damn ancestors’ shrine and used it as my bed!”
This curse was like throwing a lit match into a barrel of gunpowder.
Hu-shi planted her hands on her hips and immediately began howling at the top of her lungs.
“You damn bastard! You riverbank loafer! You stole my cucumbers and still have the nerve to curse me! May Heaven take you away! Let that bastard carry you off! You stole my cucumbers, may you eat them and end up with diarrhea…”
Xiang Xi was stunned.
This woman really deserved her reputation as Nan Zhu Village’s top shrew.
When it came to cursing people, her words flowed endlessly like the Yangtze River, and once she started, there was no stopping her like a Yellow River flooding its banks.
Anyone who didn’t know better might even think she was singing an opera.
Impressive.
Very impressive.
Looks like she would have to bring out some of her own signature moves.
At that moment, Hu-shi shouted at the black dog beside her,
“Bark, bark, bark! That’s all you know how to do all day! Go bite them to death!”
They said that a dog emboldened by its master would become fearless.
With Hu-shi’s overwhelming momentum behind it, the black dog barked wildly and lunged forward.
“The dog is coming! The dog is coming!”
Liu Er was not only afraid of shrews, he was also afraid of dogs because he had been bitten by one before.
Still clutching his cucumbers, he hid behind Xiang Xi.
Xiang Xi wasn’t afraid of dogs at all.
She wasn’t even afraid of wolves.
She picked up a stone and hurled it straight at the black dog’s head.
The black dog yelped in pain and scrambled away, rolling and crawling back toward its owner.
That was the final straw.
Seeing her beloved dog get hit, Hu-shi immediately threw herself onto the ground.
“Someone come! Help! The two fools from the Liu family stole my cucumbers and now they’re trying to kill me!”
She wailed so miserably that anyone ten li away would have been moved to tears.
She rolled around on the ground while crying, covering herself in mud until her hair was even more disheveled than Mei Chaofeng’s.
Xiang Xi was dumbfounded.
Wasn’t this woman even crazier than the so-called crazy woman herself?
Hu-shi’s wailing immediately attracted several nearby neighbors.
Before long, even the village chief arrived.
When everyone saw that it was the two fools from the Liu family causing trouble, they gathered around and began pointing and whispering.
“Hu-shi!”
The village chief’s surname was Wang. He was a man in his fifties.
“Stop rolling around on the ground. Get up and tell us what happened.”
Seeing that someone was there to back her up, Hu-shi immediately sat up and pointed at Xiang Xi and Liu Er.
“It was these two from the Liu family! They stole my cucumbers, cursed at me, beat my dog, and even wanted to hit me! Their shameless mother must have put them up to it! Village Chief, you have to give me justice! Ahhh!”
Village Chief Wang looked at Liu Er.
He was still carrying a huge bundle of cucumbers.
His face practically fell apart.
Nan Zhu Village was normally quite peaceful. Under his leadership, the neighbors lived harmoniously together.
The only exception was Liu Er.
That fool caused trouble everywhere he went.
Sometimes he pulled up people’s vegetable seedlings.
Other times he picked their cucumbers.
And Madam Lü was hardly someone who could be reasoned with either, which gave him an enormous headache.
Now things had gotten even worse.
The fool had brought his crazy wife along with him.
If he didn’t put a stop to this soon, would Nan Zhu Village ever have another peaceful day?
“Liu Er!” Village Chief Wang shouted sternly. “Did you steal those cucumbers?”
“I didn’t!” Liu Er hid behind Xiang Xi and whispered, “I really didn’t!”
“Just look at how cowardly you’re acting. I can tell you stole them!” Village Chief Wang said. “Go call your mother over and compensate her!”
“I… I…”
Xiang Xi found it strange.
What was wrong with Liu Er today?
She could understand why he was afraid of the shrew and the dog. After all, both of them could bite.
But there was no reason for him to be afraid of an old village chief!
Whatever.
Now wasn’t the time to figure that out.
Since the village chief had arrived, continuing to argue would be inappropriate.
Xiang Xi decided to reason with him.
So she said,
“If you’re accusing us of stealing something, you need evidence.”
Village Chief Wang froze.
He hadn’t expected this crazy woman to speak at all, let alone say something so perfectly reasonable.
Could the crazy woman have recovered?
But catching a thief required evidence, just as catching adulterers required catching them together.
He was the village chief, not a fool or a madman.
He still had to be reasonable.
So he asked Hu-shi,
“Hu-shi, you said Liu Er stole your cucumbers. Did you actually see him do it?”
“I… How could I not have seen it?” Hu-shi’s eyes shifted as she looked toward a nearby neighbor. “If you don’t believe me, ask Sister-in-law Song. She saw it too!”
“Song-shi, did you see them?”
Song-shi was startled at first, then nodded.
“Yes, I saw it too. It was definitely the two of them.”
She and Madam Lü were also sworn enemies, so naturally she was going to side with Hu-shi.
Besides, one was a fool and the other was a crazy woman.
Even if she gave false testimony, what could they possibly do to her?
“We have plenty of cucumbers at home. Why would we pick hers?”
“Hmph, who knows?” Hu-shi said smugly, sensing that victory was within reach. “They’re thieves by nature. Why would thieves need a reason to steal?”
“Hu-shi, watch your mouth!” Village Chief Wang warned.
“Liu Er! Xiang-shi! Now we have both witnesses and physical evidence. What else do you have to say?”
Xiang Xi truly hadn’t expected Hu-shi to go as far as finding someone to give false testimony.
She had miscalculated.
Since nobody here was willing to play by the rules, why the hell should she bother reasoning with them?
Her name was Xiang Xi.
Her courtesy name was Crazy.
And now, this lady was going to—
Go completely berserk!