Chapter 175
175 Shanyang Village Wants to Borrow Money
A person ran into Hu Family Village with tears in his eyes. He was still stopped by a group of elders at the entrance of the village. Ever since the Blood Rain Pavilion incident, the people of Hu Family Village had become much more cautious and were more vigilant towards unfamiliar faces.
“Stop, what are you doing?!” Elder Ma glared and his tone was very sharp.
It was a young man about 20 years old. His clothes were covered in patches, and he looked like an ordinary poor person.
His face was sallow and his footsteps were weak, as if he had been hungry for a long time.
But his eyes were especially bright.
When that person heard Elder Ma’s words, he cowered a little, but he still wiped his tears and said with a smile, “I’m here to look for Old man Wang’s family. I wonder if any of them are home?”
These words made Elder Ma even more vigilant. “Why are you asking about the Wang Family? Where are you from? What did you do? Tell me clearly!”
The others also stood up from the stone bench and slowly surrounded the young man.
From the looks of it, if he said anything wrong, he would be beaten up.
“Don’t misunderstand, I’m not a bad person!” the young man hurriedly said. “I’m from Shanyang Village!”
Hearing this, everyone’s expressions became even more unfriendly.
What they hated the most now was not only those strange people from before, but also the people from Shanyang Village.
No, they did not hate Shanyang Village. They detested them.
They were a group of inhumane beasts. Just thinking about them made him feel dirty!
“You still have the cheek to come over? Get lost immediately!” Old Master Hu raised the walking stick in his hand and was about to hit him.
The young man’s pupils constricted as he subconsciously dodged.
He finally understood why the villagers had asked him to come over. They probably saw that he was young and could run quickly.
Even if he could not avoid being beaten up, at least his body was young and he could withstand it.
“I’m not here to cause trouble!” the young man hurriedly shouted. “I’m here to beg you for mercy!”
With that, the young man knelt in front of everyone without any change in expression.
“30 households from our village have received the conscription notice this year. Previously, we were sentenced to bear the conscription quota on behalf of your village as well, so we have to add another 30 households…”
Only then did the people of Hu Family Village remember that the annual conscription was supposed to take place during this period of time. However, it was usually only after the seedlings were planted that they would truly finish what they should do in spring. The conscription was often at this time.
There were still a few days before the seedlings were planted, but they had already begun to conscript soldiers.
Moreover, they did not receive any notice at all and had completely forgotten about this.
Village Chief Hu naturally received the letter, but during this period of time, their village did not have to pay spring taxes or participate in the conscription. Naturally, there was no need to tell the villagers.
It turned out that this young man was really here to beg for mercy.
He said that those who had eaten children in their village had all been chased out.
Some of them had already been tortured to death, so they naturally hated the heartless Hu Family Village to the bone. The remaining people naturally did not have a good impression of Hu Family Village.
In their opinion, the people from Hu Family Village were too unreasonable. They had fallen out with them over a child.
During this period of time, the funerals in Shanyang Village had never stopped. There were always people who died because they could not withstand it.
If not for the fact that Hu Family Village insisted on taking the incident so seriously and insisted on reporting it to the officials, how could they have suffered such a huge loss?
In short, it was all Hu Family Village’s fault!
Of course, the young man did not say these words. He only told him about the tragic situation of his village.
Elder Ma looked at the young man with scrutiny and did not pity them at all. “You all brought this on yourself. You can’t blame anyone else. Are you here just to complain? Then are you done talking nonsense? If you’re done, get lost!”
The young man: “…No.”
After a pause, he said, “I’m here to look for someone from the Wang family today.”
At this moment, Wang Chuanfu happened to return from Great River Village. He had gone to take a look at the rented land in Great River Village.
“Why are you looking for our family?” Wang Chuanfu could not help but be curious when he heard the young man’s words.
He didn’t seem to have seen this person before. Where did he come from?
When the young man learned that Wang Chuanfu was from the Wang Family, he immediately knelt down in front of Wang Chuanfu.
It was hard not to gasp at that smooth and neat movement. He must have practiced it many times at home.
“Please be merciful and help us!” The young man cried.
At this moment, someone summarized and told Wang Chuanfu about the conscription.
Wang Chuanfu was puzzled. “Isn’t this the judgment of the officials? Could it be that you want to go back on your word?”
The young man shook his head. “No, no, no. We don’t dare to go back on our word. We’ll accept the punishment. However, our village doesn’t have many strong laborers. We have to plant seedlings every few days. How can we have enough manpower? The conscripts will be gone for a month or two. We don’t even know if they’ll survive the training”
At this point, the young man looked at Wang Chuanfu’s expression. There was no obvious impatience on his face, so he continued, “But the conscription can be offset with money. We heard that Old man Wang’s family has become rich and bought a house in town. They even opened a bun shop. Your family should be very rich, right? Can, can you lend us some?”
Everyone could not help but gasp when they heard this.
How could he have the cheek to say it?!
Elder Ma spat loudly. “Your village’s skins are thicker than the city walls! Your village owes our village a debt, but you haven’t returned a single cent! You actually have the cheek to come and borrow money? How shameless! Who gave you the courage?”
“We… don’t have any money. Who doesn’t want to repay their debts if they have the money?” The young man’s tone softened. “The Wang family is rich now. It won’t hurt them at all if they lend us money. But if we don’t have money, it’ll be fatal…”
Even the honest Wang Chuanfu was so angry that he laughed.
“Why did you think that our Wang Family would lend you money?”
He was really curious about how these people thought of this.
The young man said, “They all say that your Wang Family is the most generous…”
Actually, these words were completely unfounded. Before the young man came, he had already been taught how to say it countless times.
They even asked him to threaten the Wang family to go to their bun shop to cause trouble if they did not lend them the money.
Let’s see how they’re going to continue their business.
However, the young man felt that if he said this, he might be beaten to death here today.
The people of Hu Family Village were surprisingly united.
They had no intention of watching from the sidelines at all. They also treated the Wang Family as people from Hu Family Village. It was not like what the old people in the village had said. The old people from the village said that Hu Family Village was very against outsiders.
In the end, this young man was still chased away by Old Master Hu’s walking stick. He was angry and aggrieved. Before he left, his eyes were filled with hatred.
“Shanyang Village is completely crooked. With such a group of people living beside us, I’m afraid it won’t be good for the village.” Old Master Hu’s tone was deep. “I’m just afraid that they’ll tear down all pretenses and attack.”
Elder Ma took a deep breath. “From today onwards, our village will organize some young people to take turns guarding the village entrance. It’s best if they guard the village at night too. Don’t let anyone enter the village.”
Wang Chuanfu also realized that it was better to offend a gentleman than a villain.
“I keep feeling that those people from Shanyang Village have ill intentions. The person who came today is a young man, but I don’t know if the entire village thinks like him.” Wang Chuanfu’s expression was not good either. “Why don’t I go to town and ask my parents for their opinion?”
It was impossible to lend them money, but he had to ask how to deal with it.
However, Old Master Hu said, “You can’t hide the fact that your family owns a bun shop in town, but no one from the other villages should know that you bought a house. I’m afraid our village has produced a gossiper. We have to find these people and treat them!”
Otherwise, they might not even know if the gossips sold their village one day.