Chapter 388: Chapter 388: Not Bad at All
The situation was better than they’d expected. Although the rain had been fierce, Ji Liansong and Shi Yong had hired people to dig a drainage ditch. Plus, they had placed wooden planks and dry grass under the vegetable piles beforehand, so nothing was waterlogged.
In a short while, many more employees arrived one after another, looking even more anxious than Ji Huan.
During the two days of rain, the other three production sites had been at a near standstill, but the West River Gully location had stopped completely. They had fallen far behind schedule and were desperate to catch up.
This was because of a rule Ji Huan had established from the start: the four production sites would be evaluated at the end, and every member of the winning team would receive a bonus. As a result, everyone was as pumped as if they’d been shot up with adrenaline.
Even without the bonus, they wanted to leave a good impression on Ji Huan, Ji Xuelan, and Widow Xie. That way, they wouldn’t have to worry about finding work in the future.
Once the area was tidied up, everyone quickly got into the swing of work.
That entire afternoon, Ji Huan felt like she was sitting on pins and needles.
Somehow, word had gotten out, and it seemed everyone knew about Guan Shan hugging her outside.
Their gazes were so mischievous. They would either huddle together to whisper or shoot teasing looks at Ji Huan before breaking into peals of laughter.
Ji Huan felt the blush she had just managed to suppress threatening to return with a vengeance. She didn’t stay long before running home, after which she ignored Guan Shan for the rest of the day.
The rain had stopped, but the road conditions wouldn’t improve right away. They would have to wait a bit longer before heading into the city. Fortunately, Ping’an was watching over things there, so she had nothing to worry about.
At noon the next day, Widow Xie came over to give Guan Shan and Dabao some cotton-padded shoes she had made in her spare time.
Finding only Ji Huan at home, she asked where the other two were.
Ji Huan jutted her chin toward the backyard. "They’re outside doing their standing practice."
Widow Xie went to have a look and her heart ached at the sight of Dabao. His eyes were red as he stubbornly held back his tears, his face a mask of aggrieved defiance. She didn’t stay long before returning.
Ji Huan’s heart ached for him too, which was why she chose not to watch.
Widow Xie also knew that children shouldn’t be coddled and that strengthening one’s body was a good thing, so she changed the subject.
"You haven’t heard, have you? Zhang Cuicui nearly chopped up her own father!"
Ji Huan’s eyes nearly popped out of her head.
She knew Zhang Cuicui was a bit reckless, but this reckless?
"Why would she want to attack her own father?"
"Hah! If you ask me, Cuicui was right to do it! That Zhang Weimin is a real son of a bitch. He and Tian Jinlian..."
Widow Tian had always had a bad reputation.
A widow who never tilled her fields or did any work, yet somehow lived comfortably and always wore makeup, dressing herself up gaudily. Who wouldn’t let their imagination run wild?
When it came to the most despised woman in the village, she was undoubtedly number one.
But the woman was cunning and had never been caught red-handed. Perhaps some wives had discovered their husbands were having clandestine dealings with her but kept quiet to save face, never making a scene.
No one expected that when a scene finally did erupt, it would be such a massive one.
Zhang Cuicui had actually noticed something was off with Zhang Weimin for a while. He was always running off to the back mountain for no good reason, often returning very late at night.
He would always return empty-handed—no firewood, no pig feed. When she asked, he’d claim he had gone up the mountain to catch "wild hens."
He just had terrible luck, he’d say. It had been more than half a year, and he hadn’t managed to catch a single feather of one.
Zhang Cuicui was, after all, an unmarried young woman and wasn’t particularly suspicious, so she actually believed him.
That is, until the family’s savings disappeared. That was money the entire family had scrimped and saved to send her younger brother to school!
They had planned to send her brother to the village school after the autumn harvest, but now that was all down the drain.
Zhang Cuicui ran to confront Zhang Weimin. Unable to deny it, he claimed he’d gambled it all away.
Half-believing and half-doubting, Zhang Cuicui began to keep a secret watch on him.
Then she discovered that her parents were arguing more and more frequently. Her mother would act as if nothing was wrong in front of her and her brother, but behind their backs, she cried more times than Cuicui could count.
Her body, already frail from years of overwork, couldn’t take the strain, and she fell ill again.
But Zhang Weimin refused to spend any money to get Mrs. Liu treatment.
For the past few months, he had been working at the lumber yard carrying logs, yet the family hadn’t seen a single cent of his monthly wages.
Zhang Cuicui started tailing Zhang Weimin.
Every time Zhang Weimin headed for the back mountain, she would hide in a concealed spot near the entrance to watch him. It wasn’t long before she noticed Widow Tian’s figure as well.
Zhang Cuicui was about to explode with rage.
’So there really was a wild hen!’
’A pair of wild hens, mother and daughter! The man I loved married the little one, and now the big one is seducing my father!’
’No wonder Mom cries her eyes out every day! No wonder Dad can’t stand the sight of her! It’s all because of these damn wild hens!’
The first time she found out, the blood rushed to Zhang Cuicui’s head, and she charged straight into the back mountain.
But the back mountain was huge; she had no idea which hole the two of them had disappeared into for their little tryst. ℯ𝕝.
She tailed them a few more times after that. She wasn’t sure if the pair had noticed something, but they became much more cautious, and their meetings grew less frequent.
As the weather grew colder, they stopped going to the back mountain almost entirely.
For a while, Zhang Cuicui thought they had broken it off.
However, Zhang Weimin’s attitude toward Mrs. Liu grew worse and worse, eventually escalating to physical violence. Once, just because a meal wasn’t to his liking, he dragged Mrs. Liu into the courtyard and beat her half to death.
Zhang Cuicui hated Zhang Weimin with a passion.
One night, she woke up in the middle of the night and faintly heard a door opening.
’Why would Zhang Weimin be sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night instead of sleeping?’
She followed him and, sure enough, saw him slip into Widow Tian’s home.
Zhang Cuicui didn’t charge in on the spot. This whole ordeal had taught her to use her head a little.
’It’s the middle of the night, and all the villagers are asleep. If I don’t make enough noise, no one will come. But if I try to make a big scene... I’m afraid the two of them will overpower me before I can attract any attention.’
’It’s better to hold back for now. I’ll wait for the right opportunity to tear the masks off those two dogs.’
She soon found her chance.
Ever since she started working at West River Gully, she didn’t have as much time to keep an eye on Zhang Weimin, so he let his guard down.
What he didn’t expect was that even though Zhang Cuicui was too busy to tail him herself, she had instructed her little brother to do it for her.
Yesterday, Zhang Weimin got off work early. As he passed Widow Tian’s doorway, the two exchanged a flurry of flirtatious glances. By the time he got home, his mind was racing with lust.
He didn’t stay seated for long before running out again. He loitered around Widow Tian’s house for a bit, and once the coast was clear, he slipped into her courtyard.
His little tail, Little Brother Zhang, immediately ran to West River Gully to get Zhang Cuicui.
It was nearly the end of the workday, and Zhang Cuicui was just cleaning up. The moment her brother finished speaking, she grabbed a knife and bolted for Widow Tian’s house.
Ji Xuelan saw that something was wrong. She grabbed Little Brother Zhang to find out what was happening, and fearing the worst, she quickly led the other workers in pursuit.
Before they even got there, they saw a stark-naked figure come howling out of Widow Tian’s yard, screaming curses like "wicked daughter" and "damned wench" over his shoulder as he ran.
And who was chasing furiously after him with a knife if not Zhang Cuicui?
Nearly everyone there was a woman. Most had lived for decades, but this was the first time they had ever seen a naked man running for his life. It was so... they couldn’t even bring themselves to step in and break up the fight.
Someone slapped their thigh and cried out, "Oh no!"
If her own father was being chased like this, could Widow Tian have fared any better?
She might have deserved it, but if she was actually hacked to death, Zhang Cuicui would be done for too!
The crowd swarmed into the yard and rushed into the house. Inside, they found Widow Tian, also naked, her upper body slumped on the floor and her lower half still draped over the edge of the kang bed. She wasn’t moving.
The room reeked. Two of the bolder women, fighting back their nausea, went to check if she was breathing. They found that she was fine—she had probably just fainted from shock.
That made sense. If she’d really been hacked to death, there would have been blood everywhere.
"Ah! Her hair."
Widow Tian herself was unharmed, but her hair had been sheared off at the roots.
The importance of hair to people of this era, especially women, went without saying. The severed locks scattered across the floor were no different than a pool of blood.
After hearing the whole story, Ji Huan was both surprised and delighted. "That Zhang Cuicui is really something else!"