latelenovela Chapter 175 Selfishness
Chapter 175 Selfishness
When Ma Da returned home, the family was gathered together making dumplings with sauerkraut stuffing.
When Village Chief Ma saw Ma Da coming back so early, he started scolding him as soon as he stepped into the house.
"You bastard, why did you come back so early? Isn't it your turn to be on duty today? Is it time yet? Are you anxious to eat this bite of food?"
Ma Da panted heavily, calmed down his breath from running so fast, and quickly explained.
"No, Dad, I'm not in a hurry to eat. Someone shot an arrow at the gate of our village, and there was a note hanging on it. Li Er and I can't read, so we came back specially to let the boss see it!"
Village Chief Ma then realized that he had wronged Ma Da, and quickly asked his eldest grandson to take the note from Ma Da's hand to see what was going on.
Everyone working at the table stopped what they were doing and listened quietly!
It was not until the words above were read aloud that the chopsticks in the hands of the women below fell to the ground.
"The people of your village are in my hands. If you want them to live, bring 500 taels of silver and kilograms of rice to the mountain to redeem them tomorrow at noon..."
The specific location is written very clearly, and it seems that it was planned in advance.
"Who? Who was caught?" Village Chief Ma asked quickly.
Today, Ma Da and Li Er were guarding the door, and they knew best who had gone out.
"Only Ma Kui and Zheng Guoqu went out today. They said they went to the mountains to chop firewood. No one else went out! Could it be that they were arrested?"
"Going up the mountain to chop firewood, going up the mountain to chop firewood on New Year's Day? Who are you trying to fool? Do you two have any brains? Who is going up the mountain to chop firewood on New Year's Day?
They must have gone to the mountains to catch game. Could they have been caught?
Who arrested him? And who left the letter?"
"I, I, I don't know either!"
Village chief Ma was so angry when he saw his son who knew nothing about anything.
What’s even more infuriating is that Ma Kui and Zheng Guoqu couldn’t just stay at home and relax during the New Year but had to leave the village. Now, no one knows what happened to them. Were they the ones who were arrested?
"Grandpa, go ask Aunt Xia for her advice!"
At the suggestion of his grandson, Village Chief Ma took Ma Da to find Xia Shengsheng.
Xia Shengsheng's whole family was gathered together to eat hotpot, and they hadn't even started eating before!
He was interrupted by Village Chief Ma knocking on the door.
After welcoming the people in, we found out that something had happened in the village.
Xia Shengsheng took the note from Ma Da's hand and looked at it carefully.
"It looks like they are heading for our village. They must have planned this for a long time. How long have Ma Kui and the others been out?" Xia Shengsheng asked.
"I went out this morning, and it has been more than three hours now." Ma Da replied.
Xia Shengsheng thought about it carefully. There were indeed people leaving the village. These four rules seemed to have been prepared in advance, but they did not seem to be lies.
It was estimated that those people had been waiting outside the village for a long time, waiting for someone from the village to go out alone so that they could catch them asking for food and silver from the village!
Some time ago, the villagers went out to chop firewood in groups. Now there were more than a dozen people. It was not easy to take action with so many people. Today, there happened to be only Ma Kui and his two companions, so it was a good time to take action.
I just don’t know if these people just want money and food, or they want human lives as well?
"Village chief, our village is indeed more conspicuous in the surrounding area. Two previous waves of bandits tried to attack and failed. Now I guess this group of people have learned their lesson and want to capture our villagers and blackmail us. I'm afraid Ma Kui and the other two have been arrested!" Xia Shengsheng said.
"Well, what should we do? It's not easy to get the one hundred taels of silver and 500 kilograms of grain!" Village chief Ma was also a little anxious. Such a thing happened, and it was his dereliction of duty as the village chief. What's more, one of these two people was his nephew.
"I have money in my hand, I can pay the money first!"
Tao Siyuan took over the conversation. He did have a lot of silver in his hand, plus Tao Wuji had saved a lot with Xia Shengsheng. Let alone catching two villagers, even saving ten, twenty, or even a hundred people would be no problem.
But he had no food, and everything he ate and used during this period was provided by Xia Shengsheng, so he had no way to deal with the food problem.
"Master Tao, you are truly the benefactor of our village!
Don't worry, Master Tao. Even if they have borrowed your money, I guarantee with my personal integrity that no matter what, both families will return the money to you in the future!
If they can't pay it back, I will pay it back! I will never let Master Tao suffer any loss!"
Xia Shengsheng was not worried about the ransom money and food. He was mainly afraid that even if he taught these things, the other party would not release him or had a bigger plan.
"We can't make a decision on this matter privately. We need to call Ma Kui's sister-in-law and discuss it with the Zheng family!" Xia Shengsheng suggested.
Village chief Ma also nodded and immediately asked Ma Da to notify the two families.
Xia Shengsheng asked Xia Yi to call a few more villagers, preferably those who are better in skills and braver!
When the people from the Ma Kui family and the Zheng family learned about the situation of the two people, they were terrified.
"How could it be? How did he get caught?
This bastard, I told him not to go to the back mountain, but he insisted that there was no meat during the New Year, and now what? Is he going to let me live?"
"Sister-in-law, keep your voice down. Don't let the children hear you and get anxious! They are all waiting for you to discuss how to save Ma Kui! Go to Xiao Xia quickly. I have to go inform the Zheng family!"
The Ma Kui family were also clear-headed people. They immediately figured out the interests involved. After Ma Da left, they first took all the silver in the family, then counted the food stored in the house, and then ran towards the Xia family.
The Zheng family has a large population, and after Ma Da informed them of the situation, the whole family started arguing with each other.
Fortunately, Mrs. Zheng was a smart woman. She did the same thing as the Ma Kui family. She counted the silver and grain in the family and asked several children about their private money.
Zheng Guoqu is the eldest in the family and has two younger brothers.
Two of the three sisters-in-law work for Xia Shengsheng, so they must have some money saved.
The Zheng family went back to their room and took out all of their private money, which was more than two taels.
Because Zheng Erjia was not chosen by Xia Shengsheng at the beginning, he lost some subsidies and only had a few hundred copper coins in his hands, which were earned by the second son of the Zheng family when he built a house with Xia Shengsheng. Most of them were given to Mrs. Zheng, and only a small portion of the silver was kept in his hands.
In order to save Zhengguo Canal, they all took out.
But Zheng Laosan had a selfish thought. Even if he emptied his family's coffers, it would not be enough to redeem the person. Even if he could barely get the person back, his family would be left without food and silver. What would the family of more than ten people eat? Would they all starve?
When Mrs. Zheng saw that her beloved third son did not want to take out the money at this time, she could only look at her younger daughter-in-law who was always cowardly.
But it's useless to look at it. Zheng Laosan doesn't give the order, and his wife is so cowardly, how dare she disobey?
Finally, Ma Da urged again and again, and Mrs. Zheng had no choice but to take the silver in her hand, calculate the family's grain reserves, and shake her head in disappointment at her beloved youngest son.
Just went to Xia's house.