Qiao Qingyan had already pieced together what had happened. She gently tried to calm Xiao Jinye.
“Don’t do anything rash.”
Then she stepped forward and faced the overbearing Yang Chunfeng head-on.
“So by your logic, everyone who eats chicken, duck, fish, or meat every day is guilty of a terrible sin?”
“Hunting is no different from butchering pigs or selling meat. It’s an honest living earned through hard work.”
“If you ask me, you’re nothing but an unreasonable shrew who enjoys bullying widows and orphans. My mother-in-law is kind and gentle. She doesn’t argue with you, not because she’s in the wrong, but because she’s compassionate. That doesn’t give you the right to push her around!”
Hearing her daughter-in-law defend her, Zeng Yumei could no longer hold back her tears. They rolled down her cheeks.
Yang Chunfeng folded her arms across her chest and looked down disdainfully at Qiao Qingyan, who was nearly a head shorter than her.
“Hmph. You’re the new bride of the Xiao family? Marrying into that family is the worst luck you could’ve had.”
Those words completely enraged Xiao Jinye.
He drew the hunting knife from his waist.
Swish!
His hand flashed.
The razor-sharp blade sliced past Yang Chunfeng’s ear with deadly precision, cutting off a lock of her hair.
“Say one more word, and I’ll kill you!”
Yang Chunfeng let out a terrified scream.
“Murder! Murder!”
She knew Xiao Jinye was a fearless brute with incredible strength, but she had never imagined he’d actually pull a knife on her in broad daylight.
The surrounding villagers were equally startled.
“You damn—”
Just as Xiao Jinye was about to step forward again, Qiao Qingyan blocked his path once more and shot him a warning look.
His chest rose and fell violently as he forced himself to suppress his fury.
Qiao Qingyan knew that arguing with someone as unreasonable as Yang Chunfeng would only play into her hands.
Calmly, she looked at Yang Chunfeng.
“Stop screaming. If you keep making a scene, don’t blame the knife for having no eyes.”
“You keep insisting my mother-in-law destroyed your melon patch. Then show us the evidence.”
“Evidence?” Yang Chunfeng scoffed. “I already caught the culprit! What more evidence do I need?”
She turned toward the crowd.
“If you don’t believe me, I have a witness!”
She called out,
“Chen Li! Come here! Tell everyone whether you’ve seen Zeng Yumei hanging around my melon field these past few days!”
A woman stepped out from the crowd.
Qiao Qingyan recognized her immediately. She was the woman she’d seen washing clothes by the river that morning—the one riding on the back of a bicycle. She was also her stepmother’s younger sister-in-law.
“That’s right,” Chen Li said. “Lately my husband has been taking me into town every day—buying me clothes and even household appliances. Every time we passed by, I saw Sister Zeng wandering around here.”
The crowd immediately erupted into murmurs.
Qiao Qingyan turned to look at her mother-in-law.
Zeng Yumei’s lips trembled slightly, her eyes filled with grievance and anger.
After spending the past few days together, Qingyan knew her mother-in-law well enough. She was gentle, honest, and never caused trouble. There was no way she would secretly destroy someone else’s crops.
She turned to Chen Li.
“You only saw my mother-in-law walking nearby. Did you actually see her pull up the vines or destroy the melon patch?”
Chen Li froze and shrank back.
“W-Well… no.”
Qiao Qingyan immediately raised her voice so everyone could hear.
“You’ve all heard her. She didn’t witness anything herself, yet she calls herself a witness?”
“Without seeing a thing, you’re accusing my mother-in-law of destroying someone’s field. If everyone could make accusations based on nothing but guesses, then who would dare walk past someone else’s farmland in the future? Would simply passing by make you a suspect?”
“Isn’t that ridiculous? Even catching a thief requires stolen goods as evidence. Without proof, how can anyone spread rumors and frame an innocent person?”
Several villagers immediately nodded in agreement.
“She’s right.”
“You can’t accuse people without evidence.”
Seeing that the Xiao family’s new daughter-in-law was eloquent, Yang Chunfeng refused to back down.
“I didn’t frame her! Everyone knows the Xiao family has a grudge against mine. If it wasn’t her, then who else could it be?”
“Half my melon patch has been ruined. All the young melons that hadn’t even ripened are gone! If you don’t compensate me today, I won’t let this matter rest!”
Qiao Qingyan sneered inwardly.
So this woman simply wanted a scapegoat to pay for her losses.
She no longer wasted words arguing.
Instead, she crouched down and carefully examined the damaged melon vines.
She noticed tiny tooth marks on both the vines and the melons—clear signs of gnawing by rodents or wild animals. The broken stems were ragged, not the clean tears left by human hands.
Following the trail of destruction, she saw it stretched all the way toward the distant mountains.
She instantly understood what had happened.
Looking up, she gestured for Xiao Jinye to examine the vines and tracks as well.
After inspecting them carefully, he said in a deep voice,
“It’s badgers. This is the season when they’re most active.”
“Jinye, are you saying this entire melon patch was destroyed by badgers?” a villager asked in surprise.
Qiao Qingyan pointed at the marks across the field.
“Everyone, look here. The trampled and chewed path runs in a straight line from here all the way to the woods behind the mountain.”
“If my mother-in-law had done this, she would’ve come from the village road or along the field ridges. She wouldn’t have taken a huge detour through the forest.”
“And people walk on two feet. They don’t leave behind these kinds of crushed tracks made by wild animals.”
Yang Chunfeng refused to give up such a convenient opportunity to make someone else pay.
Her melon field had suffered heavy losses, and she simply wouldn’t accept it.
“Nonsense! Then why was it only my melon patch that got ruined?”
At that moment, Fang Zhijie spoke up.
“Badgers love melons more than anything. It’s your first time growing them, so you wouldn’t know. Those of us who’ve planted melons before all know that summer is when we fear badgers sneaking down the mountain at night to eat them.”
“My family used to grow cantaloupes. They got destroyed every single year.”
He turned to another villager.
“Uncle Wang, didn’t your family grow melons last year too? Tell her if I’m right.”
The man thought for a moment before nodding.
“That’s true. When growing melons in the summer, you have to guard against both people and wild animals. We’d often catch two or three badgers at night. Eventually they caused us so much trouble that I stopped planting melons altogether.”
A woman who had long disliked Yang Chunfeng couldn’t help speaking up.
“Chunfeng, you’re obviously looking for a scapegoat! Your melon patch was destroyed by badgers, yet you’re trying to pin it on the Xiao family just so they’ll compensate you. How can anyone be so shameless?”
Yang Chunfeng’s face flushed red with embarrassment.
“I… I… It was my first time growing melons. How was I supposed to know it was badgers?”
Qingyan snorted.
“So you weren’t even sure. Yet without a shred of solid evidence, you falsely accused my mother-in-law.”
“Shouldn’t you apologize to her?”
“Apologize?” Yang Chunfeng lifted her chin stubbornly.
“I didn’t actually do anything to her. Why should I apologize?”
Qiao Qingyan’s voice became even louder.
“You didn’t do anything?”
“You falsely accused an innocent person. You frightened my little sister-in-law so badly that the poor child’s face turned pale. And you still claim you didn’t do anything?”
“Don’t think you can bully my mother-in-law just because she’s kind-hearted.”
“Let me tell you something—my husband has a bad temper. If I hadn’t stopped him today, he would’ve beaten you so badly you wouldn’t even know which way was home.”
The moment Xiao Jinye heard the words “my husband,” one of his brows lifted unconsciously as he turned to look at her.
Meeting his unreadable gaze, Qiao Qingyan bit her lip awkwardly.
In truth, she herself had always been gentle and reasonable, rarely arguing with anyone.
The only reason she had been so forceful today was because she couldn’t stand seeing her kind mother-in-law bullied like this.
And besides…
With Xiao Jinye standing beside her—tall, broad-shouldered, and powerfully built—his mere presence made her feel safe.
With him there, she had nothing to be afraid of.