Xiao Mandong's face turned cold. "Aunt Cui, you were the one who dragged her to your house. How can you come to me demanding compensation now? And I made it very clear before—I have nothing to do with her family. If there's any problem, you can go to the hospital and talk to the Wang family about it. I can't do anything about it."
Aunt Cui saw that Xiao Mandong was about to leave and immediately panicked. "How can it have nothing to do with you? If she weren't your mother, I would never have rented the house to her. I rented it out because I trusted you. How can you just wash your hands of this?"
If Xiao Mandong refused to help, what was she supposed to do? The bride's family thought the whole thing was too unlucky and demanded an extra fifty yuan in betrothal gifts. Her family didn't have that kind of money. Unless she could squeeze some compensation out of Xiao Mandong to cover the shortfall.
"You really want me to handle this?"
Xiao Mandong pressed her fingers to her temples. She hadn't slept a wink last night, and tomorrow she had to be up at three in the morning. All she wanted right now was to go home and get some proper rest. This Aunt Cui was going on and on without end, and she had no patience to argue with her here.
Aunt Cui's eyes lit up. Everyone in the village knew Xiao Mandong had money—she'd been generous even with the beam-raising red envelopes. Surely she wouldn't give less for something like this.
"Educated Youth Xiao, I'm not trying to make things hard for you. As the saying goes, better to rent to the dying than to the newly born—a birth brings down luck, and on top of that, blood was seen. That's called 'blood striking the door.' It tainted my kang, making it 'misfortune striking the house.' Because of all this, my second son's marriage prospects took a hit. The bride's family came to demand fifty more yuan in betrothal gifts. I need to buy red cloth, replace the kang mat, and use red-shelled eggs to roll away the bad luck. I won't ask you for much—just give me a hundred yuan and we'll call it even. What do you say?"
A hundred yuan at the drop of a hat—what a nerve. The child was born premature, so Wang Meixia probably wouldn't be going anywhere for a while. She might even end up doing her month of postpartum recovery in the village. If Xiao Mandong gave money today, then any problem Wang Meixia had in the village from now on, everyone would come knocking on her door for compensation. She wasn't about to play the fool.
"If you want me to handle it, then I'll do it my way. I still believe in the law, so let's report this to the police. As for compensation, whatever the police say I should pay, I'll pay—even if they say a thousand yuan, I won't hesitate."
Upon hearing this, Aunt Cui curled her lip. She thought Xiao Mandong was just trying to scare her with the police. "Fine then, let's report it. Think I'm afraid of you?"
Aunt Cui actually felt she was in the right. Even if they called the police, she was the victim here. What did she have to fear? A good house, tainted with misfortune out of nowhere—compensation was only fair.
So she dragged Xiao Mandong to the village office, ready to make a phone call and have the police settle things in her favor. Maybe she could even squeeze out a bit more money.
The village chief was in the middle of discussing harvest plans with the party secretary when Aunt Cui came bursting in, slapping her thigh and ranting with spittle flying everywhere—first about suppressed luck, then about broken fortune, then 'blood striking the door,' 'rolling away bad energy'—getting more worked up with every word.
The chief's face grew darker and darker as he listened.
Normally, Cui Guizhi was a sharp woman. How could she suddenly be so foolish as to want to call the police? She hadn't an ounce of sense:
"Cui Guizhi, have you lost your mind?! We've been campaigning against the Four Olds and for the Four News for years, and you still dare pull out this feudal garbage? If word of this gets out, not only will your second son's marriage be ruined, but you'll be dragged off for a public criticism session! Do you want to bring the whole family down with you?"
Aunt Cui was stunned on the spot, mouth agape, unable to utter a word. How had she forgotten about that?
Aunt Cui stared at Xiao Mandong with venomous eyes, but her back was drenched in cold sweat. That little wretch was too ruthless—she'd almost walked right into her trap.
"Do you still need me to sort things out? If not, I'm heading home." She nodded to the village leaders and started walking back.
Actually, she hadn't really planned to call the police on anyone. She could understand how Aunt Cui felt, but she couldn't let people think she was easy to push around. Only this way could she completely cut ties with the Wang family.
When she reached the stone house, she saw that Brother Zhou's place had already had its roof beam raised. They'd been quick about it.
Zhou Xiaomei was tidying up the yard—tomorrow they'd build the kang and whitewash the walls, and after a day of drying fires, they could move in. Next door, Jian Qiuyue's place was just about done too; probably another three or four days and she'd be able to move in. The male educated youths had already started moving their things into the shared house, and the other empty house—she didn't know who'd rented it—was being cleaned up as well.
Xiao Manxue came back from the fields just then and told Xiao Mandong the day's big joke: Hu Guizhen, Fan Wenhai, and Chen Yulan, for reasons nobody understood, had decided to rent the last house together—all three of them.
Apparently Hu Guizhen wanted to divorce Liu Laizi, but he was asking for three hundred yuan or nothing doing.
Xiao Mandong thought to herself, that explained why the three of them had shared an oxcart today—they must have come to some kind of agreement.
The sisters ate dinner together, and Xiao Mandong told Xiao Manxue that she had something at the hospital tomorrow and would be leaving at three in the morning. A car would come pick her up, so Manxue should sleep easy and not worry—and also keep it a secret. She didn't dare say she was going to catch people at the black market for fear of frightening her sister.
Lying on the kang that night, Xiao Mandong reached out of habit toward the edge under the kang mat and found that the two ten-yuan bills she'd tucked there were gone.
She sat up and checked the other three corners. The money in the other corners was still there—only the corner near the outer door was empty.
This money had been placed when they'd first moved in, following village custom: twenty yuan in each corner, eighty yuan total for four corners, symbolizing stability and safety on all sides. But where had the money gone?
"Manxue, did any outsiders come to the house?"
Xiao Mandong didn't suspect her sister—she'd left money for her in the cabinet. So who had taken it?
At Xiao Mandong's question, Xiao Manxue's face instantly turned red. "Today, when Brother Zhou's house had its beam raising, he used our kitchen to cook."
She'd thought she'd left the kitchen clean enough and put everything back where it belonged. She had no idea how her sister had figured it out.
Today, she'd seen Zhou Qichuan setting up a stove in the yard, and she'd taken the initiative to offer him the use of her kitchen, thinking he'd helped their family plenty themselves. But then, she'd accidentally stepped on a rock and nearly slipped—Zhou Qichuan had caught her around the waist to steady her. Just that one small motion, and some of Zhou Qichuan's childhood friends had started teasing them about it. Afraid news of it might reach her sister, she hadn't dared mention that she'd invited him over to cook.
Xiao Mandong didn't notice her sister's change in expression. From what she'd observed of Zhou Qichuan lately, he wasn't the type to steal. Twenty yuan might not be much to her, but in this era, it was hardly a small amount. Without catching the culprit red-handed, she at least wanted to know who'd taken it, if only to be more wary in the future.
"Who came to cook?" Xiao Mandong pressed.
"Brother... Brother Zhou, and Zhou Xiaomei, and Jian Qiuyue and Fang Yuanyuan came by to help too. Their own house still needed Brother Zhou's help with the beam raising, so while cooking, everyone lent a hand."
With that many people around, there was no way to pin it down. Xiao Mandong didn't press further. She'd keep an eye open in the future. She had her storage space anyway—she never kept anything valuable out in the open. Still, it was annoying to have someone around with light fingers.
Xiao Mandong put away the remaining sixty yuan and lay down on the kang. Before long, her breathing grew steady and even.
Xiao Manxue was soaking her feet in the kitchen, patting her own flushed cheeks hard. Had her older sister heard something? Why would she suddenly ask so many questions?
