Chapter 201: Chapter 193: The Immediate Difficulty

However, the situation wasn’t as complicated as she’d imagined. The two brothers’ stories were perfectly consistent; it was a simple robbery. Bai Dazhu had been brutally beaten trying to protect the silver, but it was all for nothing. The silver had been stolen anyway...

The old woman felt her head spin, stars bursting before her eyes. ’Ten taels of silver, stolen. Ten taels of silver, stolen.’ The phrase echoed in her mind, drowning out everything else.

Seeing the old woman in such a state, Bai Erzhu quickly shouted, "Mother, don’t worry! There’s more! We still have ten taels of silver!"

The old woman’s eyes lit up. "What did you say?"

Bai Erzhu explained, "Mother, the Jade Pendant fetched twenty taels of silver. Big Brother was carrying ten, and I was carrying ten. The robbers only got the silver Big Brother had. I ran, so I managed to save these ten taels."

A wave of relief washed over the family. ’There are still ten taels. Thank God, there are still ten taels!’

Bai Erzhu quickly took out the ten taels of silver and presented them to the old woman.

The old woman snatched the silver, clutching it tightly as if afraid it might grow legs and run away.

Even as she clutched the ten taels of silver, the old woman’s heart ached fiercely. ’That was ten taels of silver! She hadn’t managed to save that much even after ten years of scrimping.’ The loss felt like a knife carving a piece of flesh from her very heart.

Liu’s heart ached to see her husband beaten so badly, and she was furious about the stolen ten taels. Standing in the courtyard, she erupted into a stream of curses, damning the robbers’ ancestors back eighteen generations. But she wasn’t finished. She grabbed Bai Dazhu and started to pull him away.

Bai Dazhu shoved his frantic wife away. "What are you doing?"

Her eyes red, Liu cried, "Husband, are you daft? You were beaten this badly and robbed of ten taels of silver! We have to report it to the officials immediately! Maybe they’ll catch those two thugs, and we can get the ten taels back!"

Bai Dazhu shot her a speechless glare and snapped, "You foolish woman, who do you think you are? You want to go report a crime in the middle of the night, saying you were robbed of ten taels of silver, but you don’t know who did it or even what they looked like? You expect the officials to leave their pretty concubines at home to go chase down some bandits for you? Do you really think that’s going to happen?"

Ms. Zhang chimed in, "Last year, Uncle Zhong from our village... his son was robbed. They not only stole his money, they beat him to death. The government just asked a few questions and dropped the whole matter. They never even sent soldiers to look for the robbers."

Liu stomped her foot. "Then what are we supposed to do? Just let it go?"

Bai Dazhu sighed. "What else can we do? They didn’t kill me. I’m lucky to be alive. What more could you ask for?" ’He hadn’t really thought about it then, but looking back now... if those two had pulled out knives and stabbed him, would he still be breathing?’

"Let’s go inside," Bai Erzhu said. "Consider it a price paid to avoid a worse disaster. We’ll just have to be more careful when we go out from now on."

The old woman wasn’t listening to them at all. Her mind was already racing, calculating what to do with the ten taels of silver. ’Six taels have to be paid back to Doctor Lu, which leaves only four. I wonder what the price of rice is now... Only two of our five acres of land will have a harvest... How will we survive the winter? How will we pay for Xiao Feng’s school fees next year?’

But those were worries for another time. The entire family hadn’t eaten all day and was weak with hunger. The most pressing problem was the one right in front of them: they had to get something to eat.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.