Ye Laosan was panicking when Old Madam Ye suddenly showed up.
Watching his mother get closer and closer, his legs almost started trembling.
The others immediately tried to put away the mahjong tiles.
The money on the table had already been stuffed into their pockets.
Old Madam Ye was famous throughout Bali Village for being fierce and formidable. No one wanted to provoke her.
After all, gambling was forbidden. If a commotion broke out and they were discovered, nobody would escape punishment.
The guiltiest among them was Zhao Jinbao.
After all, he was the one who had angered Old Madam Ye so badly last time that she had fainted.
But Old Madam Ye gave them no chance to hide anything.
She slammed her rolling pin onto the table.
The men froze mid-motion.
Suppressing his temper, Zhao Jinbao said,
“Aunt Ye, I’m about to clean up and prepare dinner. Please move aside.”
Old Madam Ye snorted.
“Our family’s rice and flour were taken away by you people. We’re practically starving. And you’re still thinking about dinner?”
Zhao Jinbao immediately became unhappy.
Being a local bully by nature, he raised his voice.
“Aunt Ye, that’s not fair.
A bet is a bet. Ye Laosan lost that stuff to me fair and square.
You can’t lose a gamble and then refuse to pay. That’s not how it works.”
Ye Xiu’e was furious too.
How dare they bully her mother and younger brother?
She was about to step forward and argue when Old Madam Ye stopped her.
“Mom?”
Ye Xiu’e looked confused.
Old Madam Ye gave her a reassuring look.
Not angry in the slightest, she said,
“Fine. A bet is a bet, right?”
Then she sat down at the mahjong table.
“I’ll play a few rounds with you. And I guarantee I’ll honor the outcome.”
The sudden turn of events nearly made Zhao Jinbao and the others stumble.
They had thought she came here to fight.
“Aunt Ye, you’re joking, right? Later people will say us youngsters won money from an old lady.”
Old Madam Ye sat upright.
“Don’t be so sure who’s going to win whose money.
What? Are you afraid to play against an old woman like me?”
Young and hot-blooded, Zhao Jinbao couldn’t stand the challenge.
“Well now, that’s a bold mouth you’ve got!
Brothers, let’s play a few rounds with Aunt Ye.”
Ye Xiu’e nervously tugged at her mother’s sleeve.
Her mother barely played mahjong.
Not only would they fail to bring Ye Laosan home, they might end up losing Old Madam Ye’s money too.
“Mom, stop messing around. You hardly ever play mahjong. How can you beat them?”
Ye Laosan was moved to tears.
“Mom, I know I was wrong. Let’s just go home. I swear I’ll never gamble again.”
He had thought his mother disliked him lately.
But now she was personally sitting down to defend his honor.
Even though she supposedly played terribly, she was still fighting for him.
How could he not be touched?
Su Wanwan, however, felt sorry for Zhao Jinbao and his friends.
Her grandmother had once won a Shanghai Mahjong Championship.
How could these amateurs possibly challenge the Mahjong Queen?
They were doomed.
Ye Xiu’e and Ye Laosan kept trying to pull their apparently irrational mother away.
Old Madam Ye nearly chased them out herself.
Zhao Jinbao was delighted.
He had never seen someone so eager to give away money.
Su Wanwan quietly comforted Ye Xiu’e.
“Mom, don’t worry yet. Let’s watch for a while.”
What followed was complete domination.
“Peng!”
“Kong and draw!”
“Winning hand!”
“Self-draw!”
Old Madam Ye smiled so broadly her face looked like a blooming flower.
Ten rounds in a row.
She won every single one.
Ye Laosan and Ye Xiu’e stared in shock.
Despite the freezing winter weather, Zhao Jinbao and the others were sweating.
Su Wanwan had expected this outcome from the beginning.
She was the calmest person present.
Old Madam Ye had already won back almost everything Ye Laosan had lost.
Yet she showed no intention of stopping.
Unwilling to accept defeat, Zhao Jinbao and his friends kept trying to win their money back.
Exactly what Old Madam Ye wanted.
Another ten rounds followed.
She crushed them completely.
Not only did she recover all the money they had lost, she practically emptied Zhao Jinbao’s pockets.
Ye Laosan looked at his mother as if she were a deity.
Admiration overflowed from his eyes.
Ye Xiu’e was thrilled to see the money recovered, but she couldn’t help feeling puzzled.
When had her mother become this good at mahjong?
Zhao Jinbao wiped sweat from his forehead.
He wasn’t wealthy to begin with.
The money he had brought today was urgently needed.
He had never expected to lose all of it.
In fact, he hadn’t even planned to play today.
It was Ye Laosan who had come looking for them.
Now, without money, important plans would fall apart.
At first, Zhao Jinbao thought Old Madam Ye was simply lucky.
But later he realized she was terrifyingly skilled.
She could predict what tiles people held.
She could even predict what tile would be drawn next.
To Old Madam Ye, these were basic skills.
If she couldn’t memorize and predict tiles, how could she deserve the title of Mahjong Queen?
Seeing that her opponents were broke, she prepared to leave.
But the young men refused to let her go.
They simply couldn’t believe anyone could be this good.
It was practically supernatural.
“Aunt Ye, were you cheating?”
Ye Laosan exploded in anger.
“So it’s fine when you keep winning my money,
but when my mother wins yours, she’s cheating?
We played right in front of everyone.
The table is yours.
The mahjong set is yours.
The three of you were even working together.
Where exactly did you see my mother cheating?”
“I…”
Zhao Jinzhu’s face turned red.
He couldn’t think of a response.
Deep down he knew the accusation was unreasonable.
But he couldn’t let that money leave.
Old Madam Ye rolled her eyes.
If they hadn’t bullied her family and raided their home before, she wouldn’t have been so ruthless.
“Wasn’t it you who said a bet is a bet?
What now?
Refusing to pay?”
Seeing that the cheating accusation wasn’t working, Zhao Jinbao finally revealed his true nature.
“I am refusing. So what?
Aunt Ye, carrying that much money isn’t safe.
You should just return it to us.”
The other three gamblers immediately agreed.
They couldn’t allow her to leave with all that cash.
They openly showed their thug-like attitudes.
“That’s right, Aunt Ye.
Don’t blame us for stopping you.
If you take all our money, how are we supposed to celebrate the New Year?”
Old Madam Ye snorted coldly.
“How you celebrate the New Year is none of my concern.
When you stole our family’s rice and flour,
did you ever think about how we’d survive?”
Ye Xiu’e became nervous.
The other side had four strong adult men.
Their side consisted of women, a child, and one useless man.
Still, she refused to back down.
“What? Are you planning to lock us up now?”
Zhao Jinbao chuckled.
With his brothers backing him, his confidence grew.
“Of course not.
Why would we lock you up?
Just return the money you won.”
Su Wanwan was speechless.
She had thought people in this era were mostly honest and simple.
Why did every terrible person seem to appear around her?
Then again…
Extreme poverty often bred desperate people.
The atmosphere inside the room became tense.
Then a childish voice suddenly broke the silence.
“Uncle, how do you take care of your skin?
How did you manage to make it so thick?”
Only then did Zhao Jinbao notice the little girl.
“Where did this ugly brat come from? Go play somewhere else.”
The insult instantly enraged the Ye family.
Refusing to honor a bet was one thing.
But insulting their Wanwan was another matter entirely.