Tong Xiaoqian patted Wangcai’s head. “Let’s go, you come along too.”
No sooner had the two left with Wangcai than Wang Yumei hurried after them to find Lei Wanguo.
At this moment, in Tong Tieshan’s home—which was originally Tong Xiaoya’s house:
Tong Tieshan was lying on the *kang* bed, sighing and groaning repeatedly.
His buttocks had been bitten by the dog, so he could neither sit nor lie down comfortably.
Tong Dahai was also on the *kang*, clutching his ankle and whining continuously.
Tian Juhua, still wrapped in bandages, was mumbling incoherently with her slurred speech, “It’s all your fault, insisting on paying that money! He could lie on the ground, and so could I! Isn’t it just acting like a rogue? As if I don’t know how!”
Every time she thought of those six hundred yuan, her heart throbbed with a agonizing, meat-carving pain.
She took out a handkerchief from the cabinet, opened it, and saw that hardly any money was left inside.
Buying things, repairing the house, plus paying that six hundred yuan in compensation had completely emptied her family savings.
Annoyed by her incessant nagging, Tong Tieshan knit his brows and waved his hand. “Enough! You’ve been nagging endlessly ever since we came back! With the state the second Lei brother’s son was in, could you guarantee nothing would happen to him if he went to the hospital? If he had ended up dying in the hospital, we would have even had to cover his funeral expenses!”
He sighed again. “Seeing how the eldest Lei brother protected his younger brother today reminded me of my own brother. Back then, if I was bullied, my brother would stick his head out for me too… To think that after he passed away, Xiaoya became my only living relative. Tell me, am I not her only relative too?”
As he spoke, he lowered his head and wiped away a tear, completely unexpected that Tian Juhua suddenly blew her top. She slapped the table and scolded, “Stop talking nonsense right there! Now you remember your brother? When I was beating that fool back then, why didn’t you say a single word?!”
“Now you’re putting on this act of deep brotherly affection—who are you showing it to? So I ended up being the bad guy, is that it?! Back then, if you had just farted and said ‘This is the only child my brother left behind,’ I could have at least given her a bite to eat! Do you dare claim that I was the only one eyeing this house? You didn’t harbor any designs of your own? If she died, you’d be her only uncle—wouldn’t the house still belong to you? Now you’re crying and whimpering here as if you had nothing to do with it!”
“And what do you mean by ‘only relative’? Is my maiden family not considered family or what?”
Feeling in the wrong, Tong Tieshan waved his hand impatiently. “Alright, alright, stop jabbering! If your jaw drops off again in a moment, it’ll cost another five yuan!”
“Your maiden family counts as relatives? It’s already good enough if they don’t come over to tear off a chunk of meat from us!”
Tian Juhua clutched her jaw and glared at him viciously, her jaw throbbing with pain from shouting just now.
During lunch, when the steamed buns were slightly hard, she felt her cheeks aching, and in the end had no choice but to soak the buns in soup before eating them.
Right now, she felt a dull, sore pain running from her neck down to her shoulder, as if she had a stiff neck or a flare-up of frozen shoulder.
Either way, raising her head was impossible, and lowering her neck made it feel sore; nothing felt comfortable.
Her arm was so numb she couldn’t even raise it.
She turned her head to look at Tong Tieshan, who was lying there with reddened eyes, unsure whether he was genuinely missing his brother or what.
“Hey, I say, did you feel like that fool was acting a bit off? Even before she went foolish, she wasn’t this articulate. The moment she regained her senses, it’s like she became a completely different person. Don’t you think there’s something fishy about this?”
The more she thought about it now, the more off it felt.
Having been foolish for ten years, even if she suddenly snapped out of it, she shouldn’t be speaking this fluently, and her personality was far too different.
Tong Tieshan turned his head to look at her. “What do you mean? What, could she be possessed by a ghost or something?”
Hearing the word “ghost,” Tian Juhua shivered. “I… I was just wondering if she could have been pretending to be foolish before, or if she ran into something supernatural… How could the difference be this huge?”
As she said this, she involuntarily glanced around the room.
Her husband’s elder brother and sister-in-law had both died in this very room back then…
“Dad of the kids, do you think we should get the village medium over to cleanse the house or something? I keep feeling a cold draft blowing on my spine…”
Tong Tieshan looked at her with disgust. “Enough! Stop acting paranoid—you’ve just done too many guilt-ridden things! Didn’t Xiaoya say she wants to take this house back? We don’t even know if we can keep it.”
At the mention of this matter, Tian Juhua grew worried. Having lived here for so many years, she had long considered this place her own home.
They went to the Lei house today precisely for this reason, only to end up accomplishing nothing and getting themselves covered in trouble.
“No way, we can’t give the house back to her. We spent our own money repairing and fixing up the courtyard and the house. At worst, we’ll give her a bit of money…”
“Give her a bit of money?” Tong Tieshan let out a cold laugh. “How much money would be appropriate to give her?”
At this moment, Tong Xiaoqian had already arrived outside the courtyard with the young man and the dog.
The house in her memory was somewhat blurry.
This place wasn’t too far from the Lei family home. The Lei family was located in the center of the village, a proper prime location.
This spot wasn’t bad either, sitting right next to a fork in the road; if one were to open a convenience store, the location would indeed be very good.
A wall had already been built around the courtyard, and there were no weeds around the house.
Pushing open the courtyard gate, the yard was not overly large, consisting of a front yard and a back yard. The house inside was still a combination of traditional earth-brick construction with modern elements.
However, the front face had been lined with a layer of bricks, making it look like a high-grade brick house.
New tiles had also been laid on the roof, looking much better than before.
The wooden shed in the yard had also been replaced with one made of mud bricks.
They really had treated this place as their own home and fixed it up quite nicely.
In fact, when villagers bought houses nowadays, they were mainly purchasing the land plot; only with a housing plot could they build a new house.
However, since the house was already built and well-made, the price could naturally go up, saving the buyers the trouble of building.
Hearing the courtyard gate creak, Tian Juhua hastily opened the door. Seeing Tong Xiaoqian and Lei Yihong, she hurriedly took two steps back. “What are you here for?”
Wangcai barked twice from behind, taking advantage of its master’s presence, and the moment Tong Tieshan heard the dog bark, his buttocks immediately throbbed with pain.
“To reclaim the house. Since you haven’t moved out yet, are you planning on having me help you move?”
Tian Juhua panicked. “I’m not leaving! We built the shed in the courtyard, and we replaced the tiles on the roof!”
Fixing this place up had cost five to six hundred yuan; she wouldn’t leave even if it killed her.
Tong Xiaoqian glanced at her. “Did you get my permission when you built things in my family’s courtyard?”
Hissing in pain, Tong Tieshan struggled to slide off the *kang* bed and onto the floor, pulling on his shoes. “Xiaoya, see if this works: you’re married now, so how about we give you some money and consider it as your Second Uncle buying this house from you…”
Tong Xiaoqian smiled. “Buy it? Sure, one million yuan.”
Tian Juhua’s eyes widened completely. “Are you crazy?! One million! Do you think this house is Tiananmen?!”
After shouting, she hastily clutched her jaw.
Hearing her tone, Tong Tieshan knew she had no intention of negotiating. “Xiaoya, let’s talk about a realistic price. I’m your biological Second Uncle. Now that you’re married, you’ll need backing from your maternal family no matter what…”
“Maternal family?” Tong Xiaoqian scoffed. She unhurriedly sat down on a chair, while Lei Yihong grabbed another chair from the side and sat right at the doorway.
Between the two of them, in the middle of the doorway, lay Wangcai, staring menacingly.
They didn’t dare touch a single one of these three creatures.
Touching the one at the door cost six hundred yuan, the one in the middle bit people, and the one over here acted like a lunatic.
“This house has already been sold. If you don’t move out, I’ll help you move!” As Tong Xiaoqian spoke, she picked up a ceramic teapot from the table and inspected it—brand new, with a red “Double Happiness” character on it, likely meant for Tong Dahai’s wedding.
Holding it loosely between two fingers as if she failed to hold onto it, it dropped onto the floor with a loud *clatter* and shattered into pieces.