Listening to Wang Xiaoqin’s curses, Ren Chaomei remained curled up under the quilt, quietly counting the spoils she had put into her space.
She had gotten 150 yuan, five packs of cigarettes, a bag of sesame flatbread, half a bag of dried sweet potatoes…
After counting for a while, Ren Chaomei blinked.
Something didn’t add up.
There was half a bag of white sugar, four pairs of shoe soles, two pairs of thick gloves…
She nudged Ren Ganying, who was sitting beside her, and asked, “How much stuff did the family actually lose? Those shoe soles and gloves really were stolen?”
“I don’t know.” Ren Ganying hadn’t slept all night and looked exhausted. She answered listlessly, “Mom said those things were stored together with the half bag of cotton. The half bag of cotton is still there, so those two things must have been taken.”
Although she said she didn’t know, Ren Ganying also felt that someone must have taken advantage of the chaos and stolen things from their family.
She added, “The thermos was carried out, but it was smashed too. Everyone knows you can’t knock the inner lining of a thermos around.”
The implication was obvious: she also suspected that someone had deliberately smashed it.
Ren Chaomei didn’t find it strange at all.
Human nature was fickle. Someone might see your house on fire and kindly come to help put it out, only to see that your family owned a thermos while theirs didn’t and suddenly feel resentful.
They couldn’t stand seeing the Ren family’s house burn down, but they also couldn’t stand seeing the Ren family living better than them.
Ren Chaomei was confident that no one had discovered what she had done. Her movements had been very discreet.
She was simply curious about who else had taken advantage of the chaos.
She tugged on Ren Ganying’s sleeve.
“Does Auntie suspect anyone? Who?”
“No. We don’t know who it was.” Ren Ganying was frustrated. “Everyone was terrified and panicking while fighting the fire. Who would have paid attention to something like that?”
There had been so many people around last night, and everything had been chaotic. She couldn’t even identify a single suspect.
Even Ren Ganying, who had gone into the burning house several times to retrieve things, had no idea who had taken them, let alone Wang Xiaoqin, who had been so frightened that her legs went weak and could only watch helplessly as the house burned.
Without evidence, Wang Xiaoqin could only suspect people in the brigade who had had conflicts with her in the past, or people with bad reputations.
Her house had burned down, and her belongings had been stolen on top of that. Wang Xiaoqin was extremely unwilling to accept it.
So the next morning, when the surrounding neighbors came over to express their concern, she wanted to find the culprit.
The elderly second aunt from next door came over and asked whether Wang Xiaoqin wanted to go to her house for some breakfast to fill her stomach.
Wang Xiaoqin grabbed her hand and immediately questioned her.
“Did you see anyone taking my husband Dahe’s cigarettes last night? And the half-pack of sugar I kept in the cabinet…?”
The second aunt hurriedly shook her head. She certainly hadn’t taken anything.
“I didn’t see anything. My arms and legs are old and weak, so I didn’t dare go too close.”
Another concerned neighbor who had come over to ask about them also hurriedly shook her head.
“I didn’t see anything either. I only went into your daughter’s room and helped carry out a quilt. Later, when the fire got bigger, I went to help push down the wall.”
Although Wang Xiaoqin hadn’t explicitly accused them of stealing, everyone who had helped last night felt as though they had become suspects in her eyes.
They had come to help out of kindness, only to end up covered in suspicion.
One by one, they became somewhat unhappy, and some of it even showed on their faces.
Normally, Wang Xiaoqin was quite good at reading people’s expressions, but at this moment she was completely immersed in her grief and couldn’t care less about anyone else.
She even started wondering aloud, “I didn’t notice last night. Was that Black Ox kid around? He’s always been the type to steal chickens and dogs.”
“Him? Yeah, he was there. But I saw him carrying buckets of water back and forth several times. I never saw him go inside.”
“What’s wrong? How much did your family actually lose?”
Once that topic came up, Wang Xiaoqin had plenty to say.
“Several hundred yuan from the house is missing. Gloves, undershirts, shoe soles…”
“Several hundred yuan?” The person listening was shocked and sympathetically guessed, “Could it all have been burned up in the fire?”
Ren Dahe normally had quite a good reputation too, and many men had come over to comfort him.
He had originally been using a stick to pry up bricks from the ground, hoping to find the things he had previously hidden among the ashes.
It had been dark last night, and the bricks were still scorching hot, so he hadn’t dared touch them. Now that it was daylight, he had taken a stick and started searching.
But with so many people around, he had to stop what he was doing and exchange pleasantries with them.
At this moment, the resentment in his heart was no less than Wang Xiaoqin’s, and he had even more to complain about.
“I’ve really been cursed in this lifetime. Why did this have to happen to me? I was only gone for a short while, and these useless people at home managed to burn down the whole house…”
Ren Dahe put aside the important task of searching for his belongings and began complaining to his buddies.
Unfortunately, his buddies didn’t want to listen.
He had barely gotten started when a whole group of people used the excuse that they had to go to work and left.
Ren Dahe was awkward for a moment. In the end, he could only grit his teeth and curse under his breath before lowering his head and continuing to search through the ruins.
Ren Chaomei saw his embarrassment and immediately became delighted.
The good reputation he had built through generosity and treating people to things was as flimsy as paper, breaking with the slightest poke.
If you treated someone to a cigarette, they were willing to stand there and listen to you brag.
But if you didn’t even give them a cigarette, yet still expected them to stand around and cheer you on, dream on.
Ren Chaomei rested her chin in her hands, watching Ren Dahe’s awkward state and Wang Xiaoqin constantly complaining to people. She smiled in satisfaction.
She commented quietly, “Some things, even if they’re stolen, have to be returned eventually.”
Hearing this, Ren Ganying thought she was talking about the thief Wang Xiaoqin had mentioned and couldn’t help arguing back.
“They already stole them. How could they possibly return them? We didn’t even catch whoever did it. We can only swallow this loss.”
“I wasn’t talking to you. Why are you butting in?”
Ren Chaomei was speechless.
The things she was talking about weren’t the shoe soles or gloves.
She was talking about a good life.
The good life Ren Dahe had forcibly stolen from the original owner and her father.
Now that the house was gone, part of it had been returned.
More would gradually be returned in the future.
Without the support of their accumulated wealth, Ren Dahe would slowly return to the life he was supposed to have.
More than a decade ago, Ren Dahe hadn’t even been capable of supporting his own children. How could he possibly have had the means to support his children in obtaining coveted urban food-supply jobs?
The original owner had always had a bad temper, so Ren Chaomei didn’t hold back when she said to Ren Ganying, “The house is gone, and most of the family’s money is gone too. Do you think you can still marry into the city?”
“What kind of time is this? Can you stop gloating? It’s not like you won’t go hungry just because the family is struggling.”
Ren Ganying glared at Ren Chaomei.
She felt like she and Ren Chaomei were fundamentally incompatible and couldn’t stand being around her, so she got up and went to help Ren Dahe search through the ruins.
Going hungry was definitely impossible. There was still plenty of stored food in Ren Chaomei’s space.
But now that she had burned down the house, where they would sleep that night really was a problem.
It wasn’t winter, so they wouldn’t freeze to death at night. Ren Chaomei had slept outside wrapped in a quilt the previous night without any trouble, which was why she hadn’t worried too much when making her plans.
Her thinking at the time had been simple: cross that bridge when she came to it. Burn the house first and figure out the rest later.
If she worried about this and that, dragging things out, Ren Ganying might end up marrying into the city, Ren Guodong might join the army, and the entire Ren family might eventually live a good life.
If she kept dragging things out, Ren Dahe might even live comfortably into old age…
Things were much better now.
She had nowhere to live, but neither did the Ren family.
As long as she achieved her goal, suffering a little hardship wasn’t a big deal.
Ren Chaomei didn’t particularly care where she lived, but she was still curious.
With Ren Ganying no longer beside her, she went over and tugged at Wang Xiaoqin.
“Auntie, where is the brigade leader going to arrange for us to stay tonight?”
“I don’t know. There aren’t any vacant houses in the brigade. Our old house has been too dilapidated to live in for ages…”
The moment Wang Xiaoqin mentioned this, she became deeply worried.
Even when speaking to Ren Chaomei, she had plenty to complain about.
But before she could say much, she noticed something happening in the distance.
Among the remaining bricks and collapsed walls, Ren Dahe had actually slapped Ren Ganying across the face.
The father and daughter were clearly arguing.
“How did you know I had a bundle of money wrapped in oil paper hidden here? Did you take it?”
“Dad, have you lost your mind? The oil paper wasn’t fireproof! The money was burned up in the fire, and you’re actually blaming me for it?”
It was completely absurd.
He was obviously just taking his anger out on her.