Xie Yan had been trying to catch his attention, hoping to draw his eye—in a way, yeah, you could call that flirting. He thought it over, then nodded. “I was trying to get you to notice me. You could say I was flirting.”
Lu Yang burst out laughing, loud and hearty.
He laughed so hard it made Xie Yan worry. Xie Yan tried to free a hand to help support his belly, but Lu Yang held on tight, not letting him.
“I’ve been through worse—I can handle it!” Lu Yang said, still chuckling.
The two of them were still teasing each other when, all of a sudden, a voice rang out behind them, shouting curses.
“Come see, everybody! Silly Zhu’s mother took silver from the Xie family! Poor folks worked their tails off for that money, and she took it all! Come see for yourselves—let’s see who dares call her innocent now!”
Lu Yang recognized that voice—it was Sun Erxi’s, that no-good scoundrel.
The show had started, and earlier than expected.
Lu Yang’s eyes lit up. Forget going home—he grabbed Xie Yan’s hand and joined the crowd already rushing over to Silly Zhu’s place, stumbling through the mud as they went.
Xie Yan nearly stepped in a puddle a few times, and Lu Yang was so anxious he almost wanted to throw him on his back and carry him.
They didn’t manage to get a good spot in the crowd, but it didn’t matter. The night was dark, the village quiet, and sound carried far. They could hear everything clear as day.
Silly Zhu’s mother was already out front, yelling back at Sun Erxi. The whole family had come out, shouting at the top of their lungs.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about! I oughta tear that mouth of yours apart! That was Silly Zhu’s wages! What do you know, running your mouth like that?!”
It had been over half a month since Xie Yan had set the plan in motion, with Lu Yang stirring things up and sending Lu Lin to spread little rumors—hinting that someone had taken his hard-earned cash, without saying who.
Silly Zhu’s family already had old beef with Sun Erxi. Thanks to Lu Yang’s whispering, they’d been stewing, blaming him for pocketing those four taels of silver and badmouthing them so bad Sun Erxi couldn’t clear his name—same misery the Xie family had endured for years.
But Sun Erxi wasn’t about to take it lying down. He and his clan were out here kicking up mud, determined to drag the whole village into the mess.
Everyone was dirty, everyone owed something—who was any cleaner than the next? The whole place had turned into a shouting match, and it was Sun Erxi’s bunch that stirred it up. And the word was out: Everyone had taken Xie family silver. Silly Zhu’s family? They’d taken the most!
“Why do you think they’re working so hard for them, huh? You call that wages? Who gets paid in whole strings of coins, huh?!”
But Silly Zhu’s mother knew how to fight a war of words. She yanked the spotlight right back where she wanted it.
“Oh sure, and what about you, huh? You took four taels off them! You’re feeling guilty, so you’re trying to drag my family through the mud? Go ahead, ask anyone here—wasn’t it you, Sun Erxi, who took Xie family silver?!”
In a village like this, little grudges between families were nothing new.
Someone got caught out, it was fair game for everyone else to talk about it.
And Sun Erxi, throwing muck at everyone, had made himself plenty of enemies. When Silly Zhu’s mother called him out, half the crowd chimed in without missing a beat.
“That’s right! It was you who took their money!”
That hit Sun Erxi right where it hurt. He was so mad he was practically hopping mad.
“I went to collect a debt, sure! But did I get anything?! You all went to collect too! Was I the first one banging on their door? What’s wrong with shouting a bit at these things, huh? But Silly Zhu’s family? They’re the real scum! The rest of us just made noise—they went and took it all!”
Now that they were talking about debts, Silly Zhu’s mother wasn’t scared of him anymore.
“Calling that ‘just noise’? You shouted so long and loud, you started believing your own lies! You black-hearted bastard! Bullying a widow and her orphan! You had the nerve to take two taels, not once, but twice!”
Silly Zhu’s wife jumped in too.
“Oh, sure, living large in your big house, cuddling up with your wife—you got your fill, and now you’re trying to snatch more off them! My mother called you out, and now you’re slinging dirt at us? My family’s clean as can be! You’ll get what’s coming to you!”
Sun Erxi couldn’t untangle this mess. That’s how they’d always forced the Xie family to pay up—by burying them in these twisted, murky debts. Now he swore up and down he hadn’t taken a cent, not twice, not even once—but no one believed him, no matter how loud he got.
“If I took even a penny from them, may I die a wretched death!”
Silly Zhu’s mother sneered.
“Xie Laosi made a scene at his own father’s funeral and didn’t get struck by lightning—what’s a little curse from you gonna do? Besides, you think you took just a penny? You took four taels! Spent it all, came back begging for more, and now you want your name clean too? Dream on!”
Sun Erxi couldn’t talk his way out of it, and when the shouting match started turning against him, he and his clan fell back on their usual play—smearing everyone.
Whoever accused them of taking silver, they’d accuse right back.
The whole crowd jeered at them, and when they couldn’t win that fight, they focused all their fury on Silly Zhu’s mother.
“Oh, like you didn’t take silver! You sent Silly Zhu to work at that shop, didn’t you? Every coin those two make in town, your boy brings home!”
Silly Zhu’s mother couldn’t argue with that. Lu Yang had only paid up tonight. If she claimed he hadn’t given anything before, why would Silly Zhu have kept working for free?
And if this was all about smoothing things over to avoid court, why was it that Sun Erxi and San Gui could just lounge at home, while her boy worked himself ragged?
She tried to say it was for vegetables—but really, there was extra. The bits and pieces left over from everyone’s orders got added together, and whatever they made from that, she called her hard-earned money.
Then she said it was for renting out the donkey cart. But with so many excuses piled up, she was already tangled in her own lies and couldn’t claw her way out.
Sun Erxi pounced on the chance to press his advantage. “You know in your heart what you took—and so does everybody else here!”
Silly Zhu’s mother tried to steer it back to debts again. “Just because you took their silver, you think everybody else did too? Tell me—didn’t Silly Zhu work for it? Didn’t we lend them our donkey? Us taking wages for that—how’s that wrong? Someone tell me if that doesn’t make sense! And if you don’t believe it, go ask Lu Yang yourself!”
Lu Yang and his little scholar were right there in the crowd, enjoying the show.
Lu Yang kept whispering, grinning from ear to ear. “Come on, come on—when are they gonna start throwing punches?!”
Xie Yan had already blown out the lantern, crouched awkwardly, one hand pressed against Lu Yang’s belly, worried that watching the fight would make him laugh too hard and hurt himself.
People nearby, hearing Silly Zhu’s mother call out Lu Yang’s name, couldn’t help glancing their way—but just as quickly, they looked away again. Nobody wanted to get dragged into this mess.
Right then, Sun Erxi, wild-eyed and out of options, hit rock bottom.
He shouted over and over: “You all went to their door asking for money—what, you’re gonna tell me you didn’t want silver too?! Why don’t you say it? Huh?! You’re just mad I was the one with the guts to get paid! You’re all just jealous I pulled it off!”
Silly Zhu’s mother barked out, “You hear that? Everybody, listen! He just admitted it—he took money!”
Lu Yang clapped his hands together. “Bravo!”
Xie Yan craned his neck, peering through the crowd.
Sun Erxi had just confirmed what they’d been claiming all along—that he’d taken the four taels of silver off the Xie family.
And with so many people around tonight, and Silly Zhu’s mother ready to keep the pressure on, there was no way Sun Erxi could weasel out of it now.
The rest of the arguing didn’t matter anymore. The two of them had heard what they came for.
Lu Yang clapped again, grinning as he grabbed Xie Yan’s hand to head home for dinner.
Half the village was crowded around Silly Zhu’s house, front yard and back, so the road home was quiet. Lu Yang lowered his voice and asked, “Xie Yan, were you scared just now?”
Xie Yan’s blood was pumping. He was excited.
If Lu Yang had wanted to stay, he’d have gladly sat there all night listening.
“Nope,” he said.
Lu Yang nodded, satisfied. Then he asked, “You okay with how I handle things? This is just how I am.”
Xie Yan wasn’t quite used to it—but he liked it.
“I want to learn. Will you teach me?”
Lu Yang chuckled. “Sure. But first, let’s eat.”
At home, Zhao Peilan was waiting at the gate. Things were much better now, but she still didn’t dare go wandering around the village. She barely even stepped out into the courtyard.
Even from here, she could hear the racket outside Silly Zhu’s house. She’d been pacing nervously, worried sick the boys would get caught up in the chaos. She’d finally worked up the nerve to go see what was happening when she spotted Lu Yang and Xie Yan coming back together.
The shouting was still going on in the distance, but the sight of the two of them safe and sound let her heart settle.
“Hurry up—you’ll be eating cold food if you don’t!”
Tonight’s meal was a hot pot of stewed vegetables, bubbling on the stove in a clay pot. Two fish heads had been fried up to make the broth, then simmered with plenty of water and a big pile of cabbage.
The fish heads weren’t much—just what Zhang Tie had handed over. He and Lu Lin had to live under their parents’ noses, and with all the brothers and sisters-in-law around, it wouldn’t have been right to bring a whole fish home, not when the pay was meant for the household. But two fish heads—they could spare those.
It had been ages since the family had fish. Zhao Peilan made sure to cook it up fresh.
Xie Yan urged Lu Yang to sit, and went to dish up the rice. The three of them gathered around the table in the main room and ate together.
