Chapter 398 - 0398: Reaping the Consequences 2_1
Wang Zhengguo’s already freezing heart turned icy cold in an instant. Yet, he still managed to wear a reassuring smile on his face. "I didn’t know where you were living, do you remember? Little brother. You moved to the city more than a decade ago, and in the first couple of years, you would occasionally return home to collect grain. But then, for ten straight years, there was no sign of you. We were worried sick, yet we had no idea where you lived. It wasn’t until last year when your family invited us to Mingxuan’s wedding that we learned you had been transferred from the coal mine to the Bureau of Mines. It was a relief to know everything was alright with you," he said.
"I don’t want to hear it!" Wang Zhengjun interrupted him with a low growl, his face turning increasingly grim, "Yesterday when I sought you out, you simply turned and walked away. And today, you come to my workplace - have you come to mock me?"
He glanced around, feeling somewhat eased by the fact that there were not many people lingering nearby.
"Why would I do such a thing?" Wang Zhengguo looked genuinely surprised. "Don’t you remember that our niece had to see me urgently yesterday? Oh, I forgot - you don’t know your own niece. You only saw her once last year at my daughter’s wedding. It’s entirely reasonable that you don’t remember. As I told you yesterday, the reserve grain is a lifesaver for everyone - it belongs to the collective. I can’t make the decision to lend you several hundred pounds of it. What I’ve brought you today is my own family’s grain. I’ll see if I can bring you more when the grain is distributed next year."
"Don’t bother coming back!" Just a little bit of grain – it was hardly even worth losing face over.
Wang Zhengjun had assumed he’d brought a generous amount of grain on the donkey cart. But upon actually seeing the pitifully small pile, he was astonished. To deliver it in a donkey cart like this, making a big deal out of delivering such a measly ration, was embarrassingly misleading.