Cheng Xiao Xiao followed her mother into the kitchen. Breakfast was already prepared, Mrs. Cheng stood next to the stove and looked attentively at her daughter with the ability to “turn stone into gold.” She had mixed emotions along with a hint of worry.
Mrs. Cheng’s look made Cheng Xiao Xiao unfortable. She couldn’t help but to ask, “Mom, something wrong? Is there something you want to tell me?”
“Xiao Xiao….” Mrs. Cheng’s lips quivered. She was about to say something but stopped. With quiet sadness, she sighed, “No, nothing. Bring the porridge out and let’s have breakfast!”
“Okay!” Cheng Xiao Xiao started helping with breakfast. Suddenly she remembered that the fish in the dimension had matured, her smile brightened and said, “Mom, the fish in the dimension had matured. We can have fried fish for lunch!”
“Okay! We haven’t had fish in a long time!”
“I am sure the young ones want it more!”
“Of course they do, they like everything!”
After breakfast, Mrs. Cheng went inside the house and got the support of Cheng Biyuan and happily left for Willow Village with a chicken and a rabbit.
Cheng Xiao Xiao looked at her generous mother and shook her head. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to give away one extra rabbit; she just felt that they should continue to say low key and not to attract any unwanted attention.
What she didn’t know was that their two trips to the marketplace had already attracted attention.
A couple of hours later, Cheng Xiao Xiao, who had been waiting the whole time, finally saw her mother returning.
She noticed that Mrs. Cheng looked both angry and happy at the same time. Baffled, she asked, “Mom, what’s the matter? Did something happen?”
“A little bit!” Mrs. Cheng sighed and said, “But it was resolved. Patriarch Liu accepted our proposal. After all, nobody from Willow Village spent time on cultivating this land. It was bare land until we cultivated it. And it’s still Willow Village who’s managing it, he didn’t have too much objection.”
“Did someone else say something?” Cheng Xiao Xiao was not surprised.
Mrs. Cheng nodded slightly and started recounting the events.
Matter of fact, when Mrs. Cheng was heading to Patriarch Liu’s house with a chicken and a rabbit, she was spotted by Willow villagers right away. Not only were they surprised by her generosity (from the villagers perspective, a chicken and a rabbit was a fairly substantial gift), but they were even more curious about the purpose of her visit.
That had brought a few gossipy-type women to Patriarch Liu’s house when Mrs. Cheng just brought up the idea of transferring the fields to them. Under the clamoring of these women, Patriarch Liu was hesitant to accept her proposal right away. After all, all properties of Willow Village belong to the villagers. Patriarch Liu couldn’t be too draconian about it.
Mrs. Cheng was never a quick-witted woman. She wasn’t able to out wit these gossipy women. However, when An Xiao Hung started bringing up Cheng Xiao Xiao, Mrs. Cheng figured out what she was trying to get at.
She was so furious her face turned beet red. It wasn’t that she looked down on the villagers, but they were attacking her daughter with the nastiest of all languages, all because her daughter made them lose face two days ago.
The always protective Mrs. Cheng exploded and scolded them till they were speechless. When it es to reasoning, none of these uneducated women could measure up to Mrs. Cheng. All they knew were foul languages.
Finally, Patriarch Liu, who has always been fond of the Cheng’s, was fed up with these women ganging up on the outsider Mrs. Cheng and decisively promised to transfer over the ownership of the fields and would acpany her to plete the paper work the next day.
After Cheng Xiao Xiao finished listening to the story, she was livid. But there was nothing she could do to these unreasonable, gossipy woman. She resigned to saying, “Mom, let’s just ignore them for now. If they really try to e and cause trouble, we can handle them!”
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