"Pah."
Xiao Liu spat on the ground, leaving the surrounding villagers looking somewhat awkward. He tucked his hands into his sleeves and held his head exceedingly high, proudly puffing out his chest. The newly tailored thick padded cotton jacket he wore was particularly eye-catching.
"And they say the mountains are nice. Why do I feel like it's much colder than in the city, with way more dust and dirt?"
His tone was full of disdain.
From head to toe, he looked like someone asking for a beating—Liuzi knew this himself; he was doing it on purpose to avenge Brother Chen and the others!
Brother Chen was such a loyal and good man.
Brought along by Miss Su, he had landed a lucrative job but hadn't forgotten his poor buddies. Not only that, he even thought of these distant relatives from the Su clan.
They should be shedding tears of gratitude for such a good thing.
On their first trip here, they were almost chased out. When they finally managed to explain that they came to help them strike it rich, they actually hesitated?
They said some Japanese people had their eyes on this piece of land. Although they wouldn't pay much, they would hire them to work, giving them something to rely on for the rest of their lives.
Thinking of this made Liuzi indignant.
Japanese? They ain't shit!
His boss was backed by Miss Su. Go to Beiping City and ask anyone—Su Ning, Miss Su, is a figure of unimaginable wealth and immense power!
They truly had eyes but couldn't recognize a true Buddha.
If they did a good job and earned even a tiny bit of Miss Su's favor, they'd be eating well and drinking well, and they wouldn't even need to sell this ancestral land, right?
Thinking this, Liuzi kept glancing toward the ancestral hall nearby. Brother Chen and the prominent figures of the village were talking inside. Speaking of which, it was really strange—
There were a few people with different surnames, not surnamed Su at all.
Yet they were actually discussing matters in the Su family's ancestral hall, looking quite accustomed to it... Probably because they had been suppressed so hard in the past that they were incredibly submissive now.
Seeing that Liuzi had finally quieted down, the surrounding villagers also breathed a sigh of relief. Otherwise, holding back this anger would be unbearable. Their village had many young and strong men, and their tempers were explosive.
Getting into a physical fight over a slight disagreement was a common occurrence.
Who in the surrounding dozens of miles wasn't afraid of them?
In the past, if someone acted as arrogantly as Liuzi, they would have been slapped across the face long ago.
But who asked them to be the ones needing a favor...
"The mountain winds are strong, so it is a bit colder." A sincere-looking young man enthusiastically moved the brazier burning dry firewood closer to Liuzi, keeping it at just the right distance so the sparks wouldn't burn his cotton jacket.
"Come, it won't be cold with the fire. It'll warm you right up."
Liuzi snorted through his nose.
He accepted the gesture.
A flash of shrewdness crossed the sincere young man's eyes. He carefully approached Liuzi, his mouth full of envious praise for how new and thick his cotton jacket was. This hit right at Liuzi's heart. He held up two fingers:
"This jacket used a full two catties of cotton. Even in heavy snow or hail, wearing just this won't leave you cold. Brother Chen took us to the shop to buy them together; it wasn't just buying cloth to make ourselves."
The eyes of the surrounding people surnamed Su turned red with envy.
A cotton jacket with two catties of cotton—how warm must that be? Some of them had jackets stuffed with straw, willow catkins, and torn paper; anything but cotton.
Many people wavered.
The Japanese people's attitude was quite nice, and the conditions they proposed were tempting—but foreigners always made people feel uneasy. Brother Chen was different.
He was Chinese, and his surname was Su!
If he was this generous and good to a subordinate, wouldn't he be even better to his clansmen of the same blood and origin...
The sincere young man was named Su Heng. His grandfather was the current patriarch of the Su family. Despite his honest and simple appearance, he was the most scheming among this generation of clansmen.
At this moment, he thought much deeper than the other clansmen.
For example, Su Ning!
He flattered Liuzi a bit more, making him feel completely comfortable before tentatively saying, "Actually, it's not that we don't want to agree to Brother Chen. Working with relatives is naturally better than working for the Japanese."
"But there is just one concern."
He scratched his head, putting on the terrified look of an ignorant country bumpkin. He lowered his head and whispered why they were uneasy. The main reason was Su Ning. They had never met this person, nor had they heard of her, yet she suddenly appeared claiming to be very rich... They were afraid she was a scammer.
"Miss Su, a scammer? What a joke!"
Liuzi was indeed enraged.
Like a firing machine gun, he spilled everything he knew about Su Ning's affairs since she arrived in Beiping. He didn't know about the high-end stuff like political struggles and bets, so he didn't mention them.
But it didn't matter at all.
Just the fact that she spent hundreds of thousands of silver dollars on a funeral was enough to make the listeners breathe heavily and gasp in constant astonishment—in fact, they should have known about this.
If Eunuch Su had been buried in the ancestral graveyard.
Due to certain reasons, Eunuch Su's dying wish was not to be buried in the nearly completed, luxurious ancestral graveyard. Instead, another plot of land was found for a hasty burial.
This was also why the Su clan's attitude was so cold.
To refuse burial in the ancestral graveyard even in death—just how much did he hate and disgust the clan!
"Hundreds of thousands of silver dollars... piled up, that would be a mountain, right?"
"No wonder the wind wasn't very strong when we burned paper money for the New Year this year. Turns out the ancestors were already full to bursting and looked down on my little bit of paper money."
"Every bit of savings counts..."
"Sigh, why didn't Su Ning return to the clan? Brother Chen's family are relatives, sure, but we are relatives too... Who has closer blood ties is still up in the air."
The voice of the person who said this gradually lowered.
But many people showed agreement on their faces.
Yes, Eunuch Su had no reproductive ability, so his sons were adopted. This meant that Half-Immortal Su and Su Huaishan were nominally cousins, but their blood ties weren't that close.
There really were people in the clan with closer blood ties to Su Ning!
Hearing this, Liuzi grew anxious.
He pointed at the speaker's nose and yelled, "What kind of bullshit are you spouting? Miss Su can recognize whoever she wants. So what if she just likes Brother Chen's family? Damn it, I'm going to tell Brother Chen to ignore you ungrateful wretches."
Saying this, he started to charge into the ancestral hall.
Su Heng was quick on his feet. He grabbed Liuzi in a hug, apologizing while shooting a look at the troublemaker.
That person was also quick-witted.
He directly slapped his own mouth twice. "...You are a magnanimous person, don't hold it against me..."
Liuzi's face was as black as ink.
He wasn't appeased in the slightest. Brother Chen was capable, but without the support and promotion of this older cousin Miss Su, he wouldn't have developed so quickly—and now someone wanted to compete with Brother Chen for favor!
And they might very well win.
Truth be told, Su Heng and the other Su clan members were thinking exactly that.
As for the Japanese or whatever, they had long thrown that to the back of their minds. Working for outsiders was naturally not as good as working for their own wealthy relative.
If they just worked hard to perform and fight for it...
Hehe, maybe Brother Chen's today would be their tomorrow!
Suddenly, the beep-beep of a car horn sounded.
Not far away, a car drove up the rugged mountain road. Because it was too bumpy, the car door was pushed open with a smack the moment it came to a halt.
Sato got out of the car and vomited all over the place.
