Chapter 239: Chapter 239: Mrs. Zheng Encounters Disaster
239 Mrs. Zheng Suffers Disaster
Sun Mei also grew fierce. "Hey! I hit you, and I can scold you too, you lowly thing!"
As Mrs. Zheng became angry and wanted to hit Sun Mei, Tian Cuihua and Sun Ying held her back.
Tian Cuihua warned, "Mrs. Zheng, if you want to be beaten again, I’ll oblige you."
Only then did Mrs. Zheng grumble and withdraw her hand, sneering, "Fine, you slapped me. I won’t hold a grudge. Let’s just see you gloat for one more day."
"Anyway, we’ve won now! Those merchants and bosses have already agreed with me. They’ll come to buy our pigs in the future, so you all just wait and lose money!"
Others chimed in, "That’s right, that’s right! We’re the ones who will raise pigs in this village from now on!"
Mrs. Zheng and the others were extremely pleased with themselves. However, the unexpected arrived as suddenly as a tornado.
Just as Mrs. Zheng and the others were proudly showing off, a noisy clamor approached from outside the village.
Then, they saw the merchants who had just come to their village to buy pigs, leading a group of servants and rushing over.
"There she is! Catch her for me!"
One of them pointed at Mrs. Zheng and yelled, while the others rushed straight towards her.
Frightened, Mrs. Zheng shrieked, "Ah! What are you doing? Let me go, let me go!"
But, being just one woman, how could she contend with the servants? She was quickly subdued and seized.
The surrounding villagers, seeing the situation, fled for their lives. Tian Cuihua and Sun Ying quickly pulled Sun Mei along and also hurried away.
Mrs. Zheng’s face turned pale with fear, and she pleaded repeatedly, "Sirs, sirs, is there some kind of misunderstanding? I’m just a common citizen. Why are you arresting me?"
At this moment, she recognized the men in front of her as the merchants to whom she had sold pigs just the day before yesterday. She cried out, "Sirs, what’s happened? Didn’t you just buy pigs from my house? Is there some kind of misunderstanding?"
It would have been better if she hadn’t mentioned this; the moment she did, the men only grew angrier.
Jia Xin, in particular, was furious. He had just slaughtered one of the pigs they’d bought, advertising it as high-quality meat to serve some esteemed guests from Capital City. To his dismay, however, it turned out the pig was just regular meat!
As a result, he had offended his distinguished guests and suffered a tremendous loss!
At this point, seeing Mrs. Zheng still claiming it was a misunderstanding, Jia Xin could barely contain his anger. "Misunderstanding? You still dare to call it a misunderstanding!? What exactly is the deal with the pigs you sold us!?"
Mrs. Zheng was dumbfounded. "Wha-what’s the deal? They’re just pigs, aren’t they?"
"Just pigs?" Jia Xin almost laughed out of anger. "You sold us regular pigs!"
"Huh?" Mrs. Zheng feigned ignorance. "Regular pigs, not regular pigs? What are you talking about? We raised them all ourselves, bit by bit."
At this point, another man spoke up, "Enough! Don’t waste your breath on her!"
He then glared menacingly at Mrs. Zheng. "I’m telling you, don’t play dumb with me. When we came here to buy pigs, we wanted high-quality pigs, not regular ones!"
"You dared to sell us regular pigs disguised as high-quality ones! Today, you’ll either compensate us with the high-quality pigs we wanted, or don’t blame us for being forceful!"
Mrs. Zheng’s face turned even paler as she sobbed, "Sir, what high-quality pigs? I don’t have any."
Then the merchants and their bosses, dragging the wailing Mrs. Zheng, went to her house. After searching the pigsty, they found no pigs left inside.
The men were furious and about to strike Mrs. Zheng when her husband, Zhao Tiezhu, who had heard the commotion, rushed home. Pushing open the door, he saw what was happening.
Without thinking, he rushed forward to save his wife.
The men, already full of rage, didn’t hesitate to beat Zhao Tiezhu along with her.
Mrs. Zheng’s children were terrified, crying their hearts out in the courtyard, their wails echoing through the neighborhood.
However, none of the neighbors dared to step forward and get involved, fearing trouble; they all kept their doors shut tightly.
Especially those who had sold pigs with Mrs. Zheng; they didn’t dare open their doors or show their faces, fearing those people would come for them.
As the saying goes, what you fear will come to you. And indeed, those people, with Mrs. Zheng in tow, went looking for them.
Because they couldn’t find any high-quality pigs, Jia Xin demanded that Mrs. Zheng return the money. She had only sold two pigs in total, so she could only give back the money for those two.
So, those people took Mrs. Zheng and went from house to house, demanding money.
The first place they went to was Mrs. Wang’s house.
Mrs. Wang was domineering. When they had sold the pigs, she had made sure to sell her own first, so she had sold three pigs in total.
Having just pocketed thousands of copper coins that hadn’t even warmed her purse yet, Mrs. Wang was hardly willing to give the money back. She immediately resorted to her usual shrewish display, trying to renege on the payment.
Unfortunately, these men weren’t the village women she usually quarreled with; they were thugs who resorted to violence at the slightest disagreement.
After being threatened by the thugs, Mrs. Wang had no choice but to obediently hand over the money.
Although Mrs. Zheng couldn’t read, she had remembered how many pigs each household had sold.
So, Mrs. Wang couldn’t evade her responsibility even if she wanted to. In the end, she had to hand over a large bag of copper coins to those men.
After the men took the money, Mrs. Wang and Xiao Wang sat on the ground, wailing in distress.
Finally, it dawned on them: since they had returned the money, they should get their pigs back! Scrambling up from the ground, they chased after the men to demand their pigs.
But sadly, not only did they fail to get the pigs back, they almost got beaten up in the process.
The men declared that the pigs were their compensation.
And so, those families who had sold pigs with Mrs. Zheng all suffered devastating losses. Not only did their money vanish, but they also lost their pigs.
This made their already tight lives even more difficult, like adding frost to snow.
In an instant, Mrs. Zheng became the pariah of half the village. She hid in her house, not daring to show her face.
However, even hiding at home couldn’t save her from being scolded. Mrs. Wang, who lived next door, stood in her courtyard, hitting their shared wall with an old shoe while cursing her.
Mrs. Zheng could only listen, not daring to make a sound in protest.
This pork fiasco concluded with Mrs. Zheng and the others learning their lesson, and Zhao Dong’s reputation spreading far and wide.
Now, many merchants and bosses knew that if they wanted high-quality pigs, they had to go through Zhao Dong; others were not reliable.
So, those merchants came to Zhao Dong’s residence.
Zhao Dong didn’t open the door for them, but they didn’t leave, just lingering at the entrance.
"Boss Zhao, please open the door! We’re here to buy pigs!" the merchants outside shouted towards the courtyard.
Finally, someone yelled, "What will it take for you to sell us pigs?!"
As soon as this was said, it wasn’t long before Zhao Dong opened the door.
Seeing Zhao Dong come out, they all rushed forward, their faces wreathed in smiles.
Zhao Dong, however, remained expressionless. "Hmm, strange. Didn’t you all already buy pigs from other people?"
"Oh, we were just utterly confused back then!"
"Yeah, yeah! We hadn’t seen a high-quality pig before, so we couldn’t tell the difference and got deceived."
"We only heard later that if we want to buy pigs, we have to find you to be sure. That’s why we all came."
...
Zhao Dong said, "So? Did you get your money back from them?"
The men all nodded, then proceeded to harshly curse Mrs. Zheng, who had deceived them.