Witty Wife, Better Life
Chapter 211 - 204: Found Out Who It Is

Chapter 211: Chapter 204: Found Out Who It Is

Er Damao nodded in agreement after listening, indeed, if chickens were so easy to raise, she would have raised a hundred or eighty of them herself, and it would never be Yunfang’s turn.

"That’s exactly what I said, it must be that the Li Family folks don’t have much sense, once it comes out of their mouths it all gets twisted."

Dashuan’s wife nodded in agreement. Along the way, the two of them criticized the people of Taoshu Village for their lack of sense. Even after Er Damao got home, she kept holding onto Dashuan’s wife to continue the conversation.

Dashuan’s wife found an excuse, and only then she finally managed to leave. When she got back, she didn’t go home, but went directly to Yunfang’s place.

"Yunfang, I just heard from your Er Damao that the whole Taoshu Village is saying that your family has raised a whole bunch of little hens." As soon as Dashuan’s wife saw her, she hurriedly repeated everything she had just heard.

Shen Yunfang frowned as she listened, without needing to think, she knew it must be the result of her mother-in-law and sister-in-law’s irresponsible gossiping.

"Ah, actually this isn’t a big deal, let them talk if they love to, they’ll stop once they’ve said enough." Seeing Yunfang’s unhappy face, Dashuan’s wife didn’t add fuel to the fire, "Alright, now that you know about it, it’s getting late, I should head back home. That little ancestor at home must have turned heaven and earth by now."

Shen Yunfang smiled as she saw off her visitor, and after returning to her work, she pondered the situation. She had a bad feeling that if such rumors continued to spread unchecked, it wouldn’t be a good thing.

If such talk reached the ears of some ne’er-do-wells, wouldn’t it attract unwanted attention? As a young woman living alone, with so many older chickens and ducks at home, her place could easily become a target. If the character of the person considering it was good, they might only covet the chickens and ducks at home, but if they were rotten to the core, they might even covet her, the young woman herself.

If such talk reached those with ulterior motives, the radicals, they could exploit her, extorting something under pretense. That would be even harder to deal with.

As she racked her brain for a solution without success, she suddenly saw Taxue bolt out from its den and dash to the pigsty in the backyard, starting to loudly bark at the wall.

Shen Yunfang also hurried over, and before she got there, she thought she heard a groan of pain, and then there was silence.

"Taxue, stop barking." Shen Yunfang calmed her dog, then pricked up her ears to listen, but heard nothing. "Come on, let’s go check it out."

It was already dark, and the best thing to do would have been to wait inside the house for daylight, or to shout for the neighbors to come over, but her house was at the very edge, and the nearest neighbor was dozens of meters away. Shouting wouldn’t have helped, and besides, she wouldn’t have been able to relax without knowing what was going on.

So, grabbing a kindling stick from the side and pulling a flashlight out of her pocket ("space"), she and Taxue went out the back door.

She peeked out first to ensure there wasn’t any danger, then walked out slowly, locked the back door, and followed Taxue.

After making a few turns, they reached the outside of the pigsty wall.

Taxue started to bark standing there, and Shen Yunfang quickly soothed it, then turned on the flashlight, casting light on the pile of stones at the base of the wall. Without a doubt, someone had placed the stones there intending to use them to peek into her yard.

Shen Yunfang shone the flashlight around to confirm there was nobody present and that there were no other such piles of stones, then she started moving the stones herself, throwing them far away.

Then, she whispered a few words into Taxue’s ear, and the two of them silently made their way toward the village.

At this moment, the second old lady was rubbing her own butt, cursing as she ran back to her house.

It was her, once again attempting to climb over the wall.

Once she got back home, she first counted the chicken eggs in the basket—there were ten in total. She was quite satisfied with this number, but it made her wonder once more exactly how many chickens Yunfang had. To be able to give away ten chicken eggs so casually, her household must be raising quite a few.

After pondering for a while, she quietly slipped out again, this time heading over to Shen Yunfang’s place. She didn’t knock on the door but walked along the courtyard wall to the back. Seeing that the pile of stones was still there from the daytime, she gladly climbed up them.

However, as soon as she got on top of the stone, she made some noise, which caught Taxue’s attention.

She had just steadied herself, ready to jump up to see if she could spot anything, when the barking scared her so much that she fell off again, landing squarely on her bottom and hurting herself quite a bit.

Too afraid to continue peeking, she limped her way back home.

Shen Yunfang had been following Taxue, who was sniffing around as it walked, until it stopped in front of the second old lady’s house and started barking loudly.

The second old lady, who had just gotten home and hadn’t managed to tidy up her disheveled state, panicked when she heard the dog barking outside, worried it could be following her.

"You old man, too busy puffing on that pipe of yours, why don’t you smoke yourself to death? Hurry up and go check it out—what’s going on? Why is there a dog barking outside our place?" Frightened, the second old lady didn’t dare go out herself and sent her husband instead.

But the second old man wasn’t the meddling type. He completely ignored his wife, continued to lie on the kang bed, contentedly puffing on his pipe, listening to tunes on the radio.

Seeing him like this made the second old lady even angrier, and she started to scold him.

The second old man acted as if he hadn’t heard a thing and turned over, showing his back to her, not sparing her a glance.

Shen Yunfang, standing outside the door, patted Taxue on the head, signalling it to stop barking. She knew who had been climbing her wall just now and understood why Taxue had wanted to bite the second old lady earlier in the day.

"Let’s go, Taxue, let’s head back home," said Shen Yunfang, leading Taxue away.

She didn’t plan to confront the second old lady. Without catching her red-handed, it would be pointless to argue afterwards if the other party didn’t admit to it. Now that she knew who was behind the underhandedness, it was a warning for her. It was more important to think about how to protect her home.

Inside her house, the second old lady was in full swing, berating her husband when the dog’s barking outside suddenly ceased. She pricked up her ears and listened for a good while, then crept to the courtyard door to listen some more. Only when she was sure the dog was truly gone did she relax, sighing deeply—she had been so scared.

On the other hand, after returning home, Shen Yunfang thought the whole night through but couldn’t come up with a good solution.

In fact, the best way to deal with the rumor would be to butcher all her chickens early, let everyone see for themselves that she indeed didn’t have that many chickens, and then the rumors would naturally fall apart.

Only, the chicks at her home were all newly raised in the past two years. Aside from this year’s chicks that hadn’t started laying eggs yet, the other young hens were laying well. After all the time and effort spent raising them, and just when it was time to reap the rewards, she just couldn’t bring herself to kill them so abruptly.

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