A Good Country Wife

"Zhao Yunxiang, it’s you who are feeling guilty. My grandson is a good child; he wouldn’t make things up out of thin air." The village chief’s wife, who had been just standing on the side and listening, usually did not interfere with her husband’s affairs. But hearing Zhao Yunxiang say that, with the intense love for her grandson, she immediately wouldn’t stand for it.

"I’m not wrong, it was you. That day you wore blue clothing, it was definitely you. I’ve seen you before; you are Dalang’s aunt. I couldn’t possibly mistake someone else!" Zhao Mingfeng, although timid, also wouldn’t allow others to bully him. He hadn’t lied in the first place, and with his grandma backing him up, he raised his voice and insisted.

"You, you despicable child, stop spouting nonsense!" Zhao Yunxiang, pointed out so directly and loudly by Zhao Mingfeng, became even more flustered. She tried to scare the child with her raised voice, hoping he would stop making the accusation.

Startled by Zhao Yunxiang’s fierce words, the village chief’s wife quickly moved her cherished grandson behind her protectively. She doted on and protected her precious grandson; how could she allow Zhao Yunxiang to treat him so? "Who do you think you’re yelling at, Zhao Yunxiang? You commit a misdeed and don’t want to admit it, and yet you shout at my grandson? Try shouting again, I dare you!"

Having been the village chief’s wife for many years, she had an imposing manner that was absolutely undeniable. Zhao Yunxiang, fundamentally lacking in confidence, couldn’t just agree to admit her wrongdoing. "I was merely suggesting that your grandson might have seen things incorrectly, not that he was lying. Little children, after all, can get confused and might not understand what really happened."

"Big sister, enough. You’ve truly disappointed me. Did you think it was only Mingfeng who saw you? What’s the use of making excuses for something you’ve done?"

"What, what do you mean?" Zhao Yunxiang, hearing Zhao Erhu speak this way, grew even less brave and dared not meet Zhao Erhu’s gaze. She wondered if someone else had seen what happened that day. She was sure to check her surroundings and thought no one was there when she acted so brazenly. Maybe someone came to the back mountain later, and she hadn’t noticed? Her luck couldn’t be so bad. If it were only the child Zhao Mingfeng who saw it, she could still argue that children make mistakes in what they see, but if someone else had witnessed it, she couldn’t say that both witnesses were wrong.

Zhao Erhu, seeing Zhao Yunxiang’s stubbornness and unwillingness to admit the truth until faced with undeniable evidence, sighed inwardly. He took out the sachet he had picked up from the slope earlier. At the time, he found it somewhat familiar but thought it was normal since most sachets looked alike, and familiarity wasn’t strange. However, now that everything was linked together, he remembered having seen this sachet on Zhao Yunxiang’s person.

Zhao Yunxiang, seeing that sachet, found herself unable to utter any more excuses. She had been wondering where her sachet had gone; it turned out that Lin Yue had torn it off. But she had been too frantic and rushed to notice its absence.