Free Web NovelChapter 176: Chapter 174: It’s Over, They Even Know Each Other
Elderly people are supposed to wear burial clothes before they pass. The old woman thought she should put them on while she could still move. freewēbnoveℓ.com
That way, she wouldn’t be jostled around by others after she died. More importantly, it would save her granddaughter some trouble.
"If you didn’t bring them, hurry up and go buy some. I want to go home and take a bath, too," the old woman said.
"Why are you so fickle?" Xue Rui said, annoyed.
"Don’t hide it from me. I know everything." After saying this, the old woman seemed to age several years in an instant.
Xue Rui’s brow twitched. ’What is all this? It’s only been a day and the old lady is already preparing for her funeral?’
The man keeping vigil at the next bed asked, "So soon? Didn’t the doctor say how much time she has left?"
Usually, when a doctor says, "Let them eat whatever they want," it means there’s no hope, but they still have some time left.
How could she have been admitted yesterday and be talking about burial clothes today? Hearing this made his heart heavy.
Xue Rui turned his head in surprise. "How much time for what?"
The man pulled Xue Rui aside and whispered a few things, a "don’t worry, I get it" look on his face.
"My condolences." The man patted Xue Rui’s shoulder.
Xue Rui gritted his teeth. "I appreciate it, but the old lady doesn’t have a terminal illness."
’So this guy was the one planting ideas in her head?’
That’s just how people are. When someone keeps feeding them suggestions, they subconsciously start steering everything in that direction.
This is especially true for the elderly, whose judgment deteriorates. They’ll even believe TV commercials for "cure-all" medicines...
"Did I guess wrong? My apologies, my apologies. Have a piece of fruit."
The man gave an embarrassed laugh and handed Xue Rui an Orange as an apology. So it had all been just his speculation from the very beginning?
Xue Rui pulled up a stool and sat down next to the old woman. "Xixi isn’t here. If you have something to say, just say it."
He didn’t explain the situation to the old woman right away. He wanted to hear how she planned to "arrange" things for him.
"Xixi has been so sensible since she was a little girl. I still remember when she was stung by a hornet. She didn’t make a peep, just to help me shuck corn. It wasn’t until that evening that I saw how swollen her little finger was..." The old woman started wiping away tears as she spoke.
Listening to this, Xue Rui’s brows furrowed, and he nervously wrung his hands.
The man in the next bed was moved to tears. ’Can a child really be that well-behaved?’ Such a sensible child was heartbreakingly endearing.
He looked at the boy on the bed. His own son had broken his leg after skipping school to go to an internet cafe...
’Why is the gap between children so huge?’ He resentfully tapped the cast on his son’s leg.
"Dad! What are you doing?" the boy cried out in pain.
"Nothing. Just checking if you still have any feeling in your leg."
The old woman continued, "And another time..."
Xue Rui couldn’t bear to hear any more. The mental images were too vivid. He cut her off, "Get to the point."
’She’s built this up so much. What does she really want to say to me?’
"I know you like another girl. Maybe even three or four," the old woman said.
The eavesdropping man’s eyes went wide. "This kid is that capable?"
"Bro, you’re the man!"
Even the boy with the broken leg, lying in the next bed, scooted his body closer to Xue Rui’s side.
’Another piece of shocking gossip!’
"Grandma, don’t slander me. What’s this about three or four?" Xue Rui thought, ’How does the old lady know?’
He only had two in total. To Xue Rui, three or four was pure slander...
"You mean, three or four isn’t even enough?" the boy with the broken leg asked in astonishment.
"Mind your own business." Xue Rui pulled the curtain on the other side closed, but he could still see the shadows of two heads leaning against it.
Xue Rui felt the kid in the next bed was just begging for a beating. ’His leg was probably broken by someone else, huh?’
"I don’t care how many you like..." The old woman struggled to sit up.
Seeing the old woman acting like she was at death’s door, Xue Rui went to the head of the bed and raised it slightly.
"You can continue," Xue Rui said calmly.
The old woman had a lot she wanted to say, but Xue Rui was far more mature than his peers...
"Don’t abandon her," the old woman said.
After getting to know him for two years, the old woman was very clear on Xue Rui’s character;
although he seemed wild and unrestrained on the surface, he was actually a good kid with a conscience.
She didn’t want to know how many girls Xue Rui had gotten involved with, nor did she have the energy to care.
But as long as Lin Ruoxi was by Xue Rui’s side, she was confident her granddaughter would be the one to remain in the end.
No man could refuse an obedient, gentle, family-oriented woman, especially one as beautiful as her granddaughter.
"I’ve saved a little money. It’s tucked behind the sofa backrest. I was thinking, for when Xixi gets married..." the old woman started rambling again.
Xue Rui finally couldn’t take it anymore. "Grandma, you don’t have a terminal illness. You can be discharged and go home next week."
"At this point, what’s the use in lying to me?" The old woman gave a bitter smile. ’Xue Rui is a kind-hearted boy,’ she thought, ’he’s just a bit of a player.’
Xue Rui clicked his tongue. "You think I want to be saddled with a burden? If you were really on your way out, shouldn’t I be happy?" fɾēewebnσveℓ.com
The old woman thought about it. That actually made sense! ’So... there’s nothing wrong with me?’
She frowned. "Then why did all those relatives of mine come here? Weren’t they here to see me off?"
"Those people wanted to swindle Xixi out of her money. I transferred over twenty million to her and had her fund a new road for the village. News must have reached your side of the family," Xue Rui explained.
Suddenly, Xue Rui heard two shouts of "Holy shit!" from the next bed.
"Are you two ever going to quit?" Xue Rui snapped, yanking open the curtain.
The father and son instantly shut up and glanced at each other. They both thought Xue Rui was bluffing.
But looking at the gift basket from the Agricultural Bank on the floor, they weren’t so sure. How much money would it take for a bank to make a house call?
The old woman recalled the day’s events. No wonder those people had been staring at Lin Ruoxi.
"Those bastards. We’ll have nothing to do with them until the day we die," the old woman cursed.
"Yeah, I had the village chief escort them out," Xue Rui said, pinching the bridge of his nose.
The old woman mulled over Xue Rui’s words. Her granddaughter had donated a road, and the village chief had come to visit her. It all added up.
’Over twenty million yuan? Could this kid be that generous?’
She couldn’t imagine such an astronomical sum. An acre of wheat earned three or four hundred yuan. How many acres of wheat was twenty million?
The old woman shook her head. She couldn’t do the math...
"Then what about these funeral wreaths?" The old woman pointed to the flower baskets piled on the floor, which were adorned with colorful ribbons.
"Don’t be morbid! What funeral wreaths? Those are get-well flower baskets! Who sends funeral wreaths to someone who isn’t dead?" Xue Rui chided.
The two in the next bed could barely contain themselves, muffling their laughter. PFFT-PFFT.
Flower baskets are less practical than fruit baskets since you can only look at them, not eat them. Aside from official visits from work units, people rarely send them, which is why the old woman had never seen one like this in a hospital room...
Xue Rui picked up a flower basket and showed the characters on the ribbon to the old woman. "Do you recognize this?"
The old woman shook her head. "I’m illiterate."
She didn’t know many characters, only a few with simple strokes.
"PFFT!" The sound of suppressed laughter from the next bed grew a little louder.
"Then what do you think it says?" For the first time, Xue Rui understood the importance of universal education.
If the old woman could read, this kind of mix-up would never have happened.
The old woman saw there were four words, but she only recognized one of them: "long."
The old woman mulled it over for a long time before guessing, "’Live on in memory.’"
"It says ’Health and Long Life,’ for fuck’s sake!" Xue Rui gritted out.
The two in the next bed couldn’t hold it in any longer and burst out laughing. "HAHAHA, ’Live on in memory’ is something you write on a funeral banner."
As a result, in his excitement, the boy slapped his own cast-covered thigh and let out a blood-curdling scream. "AHHH!"
Now it was Xue Rui’s turn to laugh. "A smile never disappears, it just moves from one person’s face to another’s."
Realizing there was nothing wrong with her, the old woman let out a huge sigh of relief. Suddenly, her arm started hurting again.
"You just can’t let your guard down. This arm is starting to ache again." The old woman winced, feeling the pain in her arm intensify.
"Go on, keep being dramatic. The day you die, it’ll be from being overly dramatic," Xue Rui said, annoyed, as he pressed the call button by the bed.
The young man in the next bed pointed to his own headboard with a pained expression. "Press mine too..."
Xue Rui shot him a cold glance. Even if he pressed it again, the same nurse would come. There was no need.
"Bro, you’re still holding a grudge?" the boy asked with a pained look, turning his head towards his dad. "Dad?"
As it turned out, his dad ignored him too...
...
「Meanwhile, Village Chief Hua arrived at Wang Village with several people in tow.」
As they reached the village committee building, the people in the car immediately lowered their heads.
Many old men and women were sitting in the square next to the committee building. If they were spotted, word would spread throughout the entire village in no time...
Village Chief Hua got out of the car coolly, kicked the door shut, and waved for the others to get out.
The group looked at the sturdy young men standing around and didn’t dare try to run.
Even though they were right at their own doorstep, they felt even more panicked.
A middle-aged man walked over from a short distance away. Their eyes lit up—it was their village chief.
’We’re from the same village. The chief is definitely on our side.’
But then, they watched as Village Chief Hua smilingly offered a cigarette to their own village chief, and the two sat chatting on a bench with their arms around each other’s shoulders.
The woman’s heart sank. ’It’s over. They really know each other...’
Nowadays, most men who become village chiefs weren’t saints in their youth. They were usually well-known ruffians in the area...
These types of men often had large extended families and were feared in the village. As they got older, their tempers mellowed out, but they remained fiercely loyal and protective of their fellow villagers, possessing a kind of undeniable charisma...
That’s why everyone, from their peers to the village elders, was willing to vote for these old rascals.
"Old Hua, you mean you want them to write a letter of guarantee?" Village Chief Wang smiled. He thought his brother was going to beat them up and was planning to talk him down, but he hadn’t expected Old Hua to be so civilized.
After hearing his childhood friend’s description of events, he found these people more and more detestable.
’Where were you before? You weren’t there when they were starving, but now that they’re rich, you show up to claim kinship? Your intentions are too obvious!’
"Get over here. Lie down under the flagpole and write that letter of guarantee."
"Okay..." The group walked over with their heads bowed, the gossiping whispers of the village elders filling their ears.
"Did they get in trouble?"
"Let’s go listen..."
...
Watched by a crowd of villagers, the group finished writing their letters of guarantee while lying on the ground beneath the flagpole. They even pressed their red thumbprints on them. When they handed the letters to the village chief, they looked just like elementary school students turning in homework.
"Old Hua, what do you think? Is this good enough?" Village Chief Wang frowned. ’Why is it only a few lines?’
Village Chief Hua frowned as well. ’That’s it?’ he thought.
’It doesn’t seem very sincere.’
The two men exchanged a look. Then, to everyone’s surprise, Village Chief Wang tore the letters to shreds.
"Write them again. Fill up two whole pages."
The group’s faces fell. How much can you even write in a letter of guarantee?
How many words would it take to fill two pages? Would it even be a letter of guarantee at that point?
It was obvious these people weren’t very educated, but they didn’t dare argue with the two village chiefs. Under the watchful eyes of both men, they could only pick up their pens again and write furiously, laying out all their crooked thoughts in black and white...
