Chapter 7: It’s all the fault of the rice price
Yang Sansong watched everything Xi Xingchen did quietly without saying a word, but from the gratitude in his eyes, it could be seen that the two little boys had something to do with him.
The patriarch's life is like this, and the situation of the villagers is even worse.
Walking into the village, Xi Xingchen looked at the ragged and numb villagers in the village, and his heart became heavier.
Mohist, universal love, the most unsightly thing is the suffering of the people.
Under the leadership of Yang Sansong, Xi Xingchen and the others soon arrived at the home of the sufferer Yang Xiaojin.
As soon as Xi Xingchen and others walked into the master bedroom of Ku Zhu's house, they saw two little boys and a woman hanging from the beam, swinging from side to side. The man was lame, with a hemp rope around his neck, and the other end was tied to the head of the bed. .
Although Dong Liangce told Xi Xingchen that the victims were a family of four on the way, and Xi Xingchen was mentally prepared for the crime scene, he was still shocked when he saw the real scene.
"The scene of the crime was well maintained, and no signs of fighting were found. According to my preliminary judgment, it was the woman who hanged her two sons with her own hands, and then committed suicide herself. The man saw that his wife and children were gone. , in desperation, he also found a hemp rope and put it around his neck, and used his body weight to hang himself on the bedside." Dong Liangce carefully inspected the crime scene and analyzed it while taking notes.
"It's so tragic! A family of four is just gone." said a middle-aged peasant woman who came to watch the fun.
"No, Sanmao from Lao Yang's family came to my house yesterday. I saw that he was really hungry, so I gave him half a sweet potato."
"Yesterday, the Yang family's daughter-in-law came to my house to borrow rice, but I couldn't open the pot myself. How could I lend her any rice?"
"If I had known that Mrs. Yang's mother-in-law was so unhappy, even if my whole family was hungry, I would have saved a handful of rice to cook porridge for them."
"In these years, have you saved their family for a while, or their whole life?"
"This is to blame. It's the damn owner of Dafa Rice Store, Yao Guoping, who sets the price of rice so high, one price a day. It's clear that he doesn't want people to live." A man in his twenties said The young man said angrily.
"Don't talk nonsense, you have seen what happened to Yang Laolai's family!" A villager who seemed to be the young man's elder blew his beard and cursed.
"..." When the young man heard this, his expression changed and he suddenly fell silent.
Xi Xingchen captured this scene keenly, and his heart moved: "Is there a hidden secret?"
Seeing that the young man was scolded by the old man, Xi Xingchen did not dare to speak anymore, so he pulled Yang Sansong aside and sighed with a heartbroken tone: "Mr. Yang, with all due respect, the so-called 'Tiger poison does not eat its seeds', in the end What is it that makes this woman so vicious that she has the heart to kill her own son with her own hands?"
"You're not hungry yet!" Perhaps it was Xi Xingchen's act of kindness as he handed the two little boys some biscuits. Yang Sansong was closer to Xi Xingchen than Dong Liangce, and his tone was less reserved.
"Look at this house. Yang Xiaojin is at least considered a big family in the village. He shouldn't end up with his whole family starving to death." Xi Xingchen pointed to Yang Xiaojin's house and said.
Xi Xingchen was right. Yang Xiaojin's family lived in a two-story wooden house with side rooms on both sides of the main house. With this kind of specification, even the home of Yang Sansong, who is both the upright and the patriarch, only has two more side rooms than his home. Therefore, the Yang Xiaojin family's residence in Yangjiacun can definitely be regarded as a wealthy household.
Hearing this, Yang Sansong sighed again and said, "Yes, Yang Xiaojin's family still had ten acres of farmland three years ago. With the harvest from the ten acres of farmland, the family had no worries about food and clothing."
"You mean the accident that happened to Yang Xiaojin's family happened three years ago?" Xi Xingchen's eyes lit up, as if he had caught something.
Yang Sansong nodded: "Three years ago, Yang Xiaojin had a dispute with some gangsters in the town and his legs were broken. From then on, the burden of the whole family fell on the Yang family's mother-in-law."
"Mother-in-law Yang is a woman with small feet who never touches the spring water. How can a mother-in-law with small feet get involved in the fields? In addition, there have been famines in the past few years and the fields have failed to harvest anything. Mother-in-law Yang has no choice but to They sell their land to survive, and when the land is sold out, their life will be over.”
Speaking of this, Yang Sansong seemed to have remembered something, pointing to a house next to the main building that was burned by the fire with only charred wooden shelves left, and said: "This room is the granary of Yang Xiaojin's family. If it hadn't been for the fire, the Yang Xiaojin's Years of food storage have been burned down, and their family may not end up where they are today.”
"Have you found the cause of the fire?" Xi Xingchen asked.
"Where can I find this?" Yang Sansong said angrily, "I reported it to the police back then, and the county also sent people to investigate, but nothing was found, and then everything was settled."
Having said this, Yang Sansong hesitated for a moment and then said: "But there is a rumor in the village that it was the gangsters who Yang Xiaoguang offended in the town who secretly burned the food of Yang Xiaojin's family in revenge."
"The gangster who broke Yang Xiaojin's leg was imprisoned by the government?" Xi Xingchen asked a little strangely.
"Those gangsters, run away early!" Yang Sansong shook his head helplessly.
"How can the government catch anyone these days?" a villager next to him snorted and asked.
Yang Sansong probably saw that Xi Xingchen came with Dong Liangce, and thought that Xi Xingchen was also from the government, so he smiled awkwardly and explained: "There are famines everywhere these days, and many people starve to death every day. The old man in the county is busy In the midst of disaster relief, where can we find the manpower to catch a few ruffians who are causing trouble?"
"In other words, Yang Xiaojin's leg was broken, but the government has never closed the case?" Xi Xingchen continued to ask.
Yang Sansong nodded and said nothing.
At this time, Dong Liangce took notes and came over and said: "Yang Lizheng, I just heard from the villagers that the Yang family's mother-in-law went to the rice store to buy rice before hanging herself. But I just saw the rice vat of Yang Xiaojin's house. It was so clean. You can’t even find rice bran.”
"Of course there is no rice, otherwise their family would not hang themselves." Yang Sansong said angrily.
Seeing that Yang Sansong had misunderstood what he meant, Dong Liangce quickly explained: "Yang Lizheng, I don't mean anything else. I just want to know, since the Yang family's mother-in-law has gone to buy rice, why is there not even a grain of rice at home? Is it possible?" Didn’t she buy rice? Or the rice store doesn’t sell rice either?”
When Dong Liangce talked about buying rice, Yang Sansong immediately became angry: "As far as I know, Yang Laolai... Oh, before the four members of Yang Xiaojin's family committed suicide, their family had been hungry for three days and three nights. "
"The day before hanging, that is, yesterday, Yang Xiaojin's mother-in-law finally begged for eighty cents and planned to go to the town's 'Dafa' rice store to buy a liter of rice and make porridge to survive. The boss refused to sell the rice because there were twelve large amounts of money in it that were not acceptable."
