A Good Country Wife
Chapter 357 - 351_1

Chapter 357: Chapter 351_1

Because of the incident with Chen Family, Lin Yue’s wife, Li Xiaomei had a particular hatred for those with sticky fingers, speaking ill of thieves with words harsher than the last. Even though she knew that someone had started to work hard and diligently, that mean mouth of hers hadn’t changed, sharp as a knife, every word like a blow to Zhao Wusi’s heart.

"It’s not that I don’t want to teach him a lesson, but yelling at him like this is useless. What should we do? Erhu, should we get the village chief? I always give you face in public, Lin Yue, satisfying that bit of male ego. So instead of deciding myself, I look to you, Zhao Erhu, to handle this."

Zhao Erhu and Lin Yue shared the same thoughts. Although Zhao Wusi worked for them, he was still a villager. It seemed improper to deal with the matter privately; it would be better to involve the village chief. Knowing the chief’s temperament and how he was in charge of hiring for the village, this misconduct by Zhao Wusi was a slap in his face, so the chief was unlikely to let Zhao Wusi off easily.

"Let’s do that, having the village chief adjudicate would be fairer in this situation," Zhao Erhu said as he was about to send a servant to fetch the village chief.

When Li Xiaomei caught Zhao Wusi, he was already dumbfounded, and her scolding left him confused and just taking it, not daring to utter a word of rebuttal. After all, he was the one who had stolen from Silber Coin, and his guilt was immense. If his family hadn’t been so utterly desperate, he wouldn’t have done it. Hearing Zhao Erhu say that he would hand him over to the village chief, Zhao Wusi panicked and knelt down before Zhao Erhu with a thud.

"Dongjia, I beg your mercy; please don’t hand me over to the village chief. I’ll return all the stolen sweet potatoes. If my dad finds out, he won’t be able to take it." Zhao Wusi, not good with words, said just this much, and kept kowtowing to Zhao Erhu, until his forehead swelled.

Zhao Erhu knew Zhao Wusi had stolen the sweet potatoes, which was somewhat unexpected. Zhao Wusi was an honest man, working hard, arriving early and leaving later than others. Zhao Erhu had been considering observing him for a while longer, and if he continued to perform well, Zhao Erhu would have offered him a long-term job in his household.

They all lived in the same village, and Zhao Erhu knew Zhao Wusi’s family had a hard life. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have remained unmarried for so long; his family was too poor for a dowry. Not just Zhao Wusi, but his three elder brothers were also single, with only Zhao Wusi’s eldest brother married. With their father bedridden and unable to get up, a steady salary would have significantly relieved his family’s hardship. But with this incident, such hopes were dashed.

"If I don’t deal with you, no one will remember this lesson. Others will follow your example, stealing sweet potatoes to take home. Then how will we manage the workshop? It’ll become a complete mess. I tell you, Zhao Wusi, how could you be so lacking, to do such a thing?" Aside from his own relatives, Zhao Erhu was not one to be soft-hearted towards others. Though he had had some hopes for Zhao Wusi, he was now angry at his failure to live up to them, and his tone was fierce and stern.

"Dongjia, I’m really sorry, but I had no choice. My family is in such a state, and my dad is waiting for me to earn money to buy medicine. We don’t even have enough food to get through winter, and I really had no other way out. I didn’t want to do it, Dongjia, please just let me off this once. I’m not afraid of punishment, but my dad is in poor health. If he knew I did something like this, I’m afraid he wouldn’t be able to take it." Zhao Wusi became more and more worried and fearful as he spoke, and a grown man burst into tears, unleashing the suffering and repression he had been enduring for so long.

What Zhao Wusi said was actually true, not just excuses to get off the hook. He was indeed desperate. His mother could have quite a few children, and including him, she had a total of six. Unfortunately, they were extremely poor, without any land, relying on the brothers’ odd jobs to get by. Before the New Year, Zhao Wusi’s father fell ill and had been bedridden since, maintaining only with herbal soups, which caused their already impoverished family to become even more strapped for cash. The money that the brothers earned from odd jobs was not even enough to cover the medical expenses. They were already worrying about how to survive the winter when Lin Yue’s family started hiring workers, and Zhao Wusi took a job with Zhao Erhu’s family.

Lin Yue looked at Zhao Wusi and truly felt sorry for him. After all, it wasn’t out of greed that he stole from their family, but out of desperate poverty. Seeing the remorse on Zhao Wusi’s face and understanding that he didn’t wish to resort to thievery, Lin Yue’s heart softened. The last time she went to collect beans and passed by Zhao Wusi’s house, she saw his two young nephews wearing only thin clothes in such cold weather, their faces turning slightly blue from the cold and their clothes patched over and over again. Despite her advanced age, Zhao Wusi’s mother still went up the mountains to gather firewood to sell. Such is the way of the world, she thought; no matter how hard they work, it’s futile. It was understandable that people are driven to do things against their morals in order to survive.

"Zhao Erhu, maybe we shouldn’t bother calling the village chief after all. He’s busy, and we can handle such a small matter ourselves," Lin Yue said with a reluctant heart.

Zhao Wusi’s situation had touched a hidden sorrow in her heart. In her previous life, if it hadn’t been for her family’s poverty, her parents wouldn’t have gone out to work and met with an accident, leaving her alone and helpless. While other children were pampered and cherished by their parents, she never felt that warmth, and could only watch enviously. Although her grandfather treated her kindly, that loss was irreplaceable. Her grandmother, too, died early because the family was poor and she hadn’t received good care after childbirth, leaving just her and her grandfather.

Zhao Erhu’s original intention was to punish Zhao Wusi severely, to serve as a deterrent to others, but seeing his wife’s pity and not wanting to go against her wishes, he thought there would be other ways to assert his authority without making an example of Zhao Wusi. As long as his wife was happy, letting Zhao Wusi off was no big deal. However, he thought his wife was too kind, and decided she should not be involved in such matters in the future.

"That’s true, the village chief is quite busy, so we shouldn’t trouble him. Zhao Wusi, come with me!" Zhao Erhu, though internally ready to let Zhao Wusi go in accordance with his wife’s wishes, couldn’t show this in front of everyone else. His expression became even grimmer, as if he was indeed going to give Zhao Wusi a serious lesson.

"Xiaomei, come along too," Lin Yue called to Li Xiaomei as she left, who thought Lin Yue valued her opinion, hence the invitation to join them. Xiaomei happily followed, oblivious to the fact that Lin Yue was actually worried that, in her triumph at catching the thief, Xiaomei might say something reckless in front of everyone. Lin Yue could not instruct her in public and had to bring her along to caution her privately.

By now, Lin Yue was almost certain that Zhao Wusi wasn’t the only one stealing the sweet potatoes; his thefts were just petty, smuggling some sweet potatoes out in his clothing each day.