The village head thought he was finally saved, but to his utter surprise, when he looked up, he saw Yun Jianzhou standing above, looking down at him with disdain. It was none other than the young man he had bullied just the day before.
Instantly, he felt as if struck by lightning, and his scalp went numb.
"Good-for-nothing! What are you up to? Do you want to kill me? I was about to climb out, and what are you all doing here?"
"Come on, village head, you can't talk like that," Yun Jianzhou said, grinning from ear to ear. "We were just out for a stroll in the back mountain. Who knew you'd be here? Besides, if we had known, we definitely wouldn't have come."
Yun Jianzhou plopped down on the ground and watched the village head with glee.
Although his words were left unfinished, his attitude was clear.
They disliked the village head. If they had known he was here, they would have avoided this place. Even if they had come specifically for him, they wouldn't admit it. They just wanted to let the village head suffer.
The village head looked bitter. Instead of being rescued, he had run into his nemesis. What bad luck!
He had been lying in the stinky ditch for an entire night. In the first half of the night, his foot was swollen, and he couldn't even stand up. In the second half, he tried to climb out, but there was no place to put his feet, and no rope. He lost count of how many times he had fallen.
He remembered clearly how stuffy it had been last night. The heat made the stench in the ditch even worse. He felt as if his whole body was reeking.
If he didn't get out soon, he would surely be suffocated by the stench!
Even though he didn't want to beg for help, he had no choice but to speak up.
"Then pull me up!"
Yun Jianzhou pretended not to hear and scratched his head. He turned to Yun Fujin and asked,
"Big brother, what shall we have for lunch?"
Yun Fujin looked helpless. He knew Yun Jianzhou was deliberately teasing the village head. Although he also disliked the village head's overbearing attitude, he thought it was immoral to treat a fellow villager like this and wanted to stop Yun Jianzhou.
At this moment, Yun Que'er gently tugged at Yun Fujin's sleeve and whispered to him,
"Big brother, don't interfere. Just listen to second brother. I'll handle it later." Yun Que'er patted her chest, looking confident.
Yun Yi glanced contemptuously at the ditch and said,
"Don't overdo it. If the village head holds a grudge against us, our whole family will be in trouble."
Yun Que'er giggled. "Trust me, third sister."
Yun Yi snorted and moved aside. She didn't want to get involved in this mess.
"Big brother, say something! What shall we have for lunch?" Yun Jianzhou continued to ask.
Yun Fujin had no choice but to answer, "There's still a little bit of dried sweet potatoes left. We'll eat that."
"Alas, it's really a pity," Yun Jianzhou sighed, shaking his head. "Our family is poor. That's all we have. If we finish it, we'll have to go hungry."
As he said this, Yun Jianzhou glanced at the village head.
"I don't know when our family will be able to live a good life. But in my opinion, it doesn't really matter. What if we suddenly get rich and others get jealous and accuse us of speculation? What should we do then?"
Yun Que'er couldn't help but giggle. Yun Jianzhou was really good at teasing people. She could already imagine how ugly the village head's face was down in the ditch.
The village head's expression was indeed quite amusing. Couldn't he tell when someone was scolding him?
"You brat, what are you talking nonsense about?!" the village head scolded. "Your family may not have been involved in speculation, but you did find some treasures, right? If no one had found out, you would have kept them for yourselves!"
"You can't say that!" Yun Jianzhou pretended to be shocked. "Our family handed in all those sweet potatoes, right? It was just a few days' delay. Does that mean we wanted to keep them for ourselves? You all saw that there were so many sweet potatoes. Don't we need to find a way to transport them? At least we need a few sacks. Hey, you won't believe it!"
Yun Jianzhou slapped his thigh. "Our family just didn't have the right tools, so we were delayed. This is a different matter from keeping things for ourselves, right?"
Everyone knew what had really happened. If it had been someone else, they might have hidden the sweet potatoes too.
But Yun Jianzhou was good at arguing, which made the village head blow his top. He immediately scolded,
"Little brat, you're just showing off because you can still roam around freely. Just wait until I get out!"
"Who said we're not waiting for you to get out?" Yun Jianzhou picked up a few branches and waved them around, teasing the village head like he was a dog.
The village head's face turned ashen with anger, and he cursed loudly.
"You're something else! Let's see how long you can be happy!"
Yun Que'er skipped over and nestled beside Yun Jianzhou.
"Village head, how can you talk like that? Our family has never done anything wrong. We've always been honest and law-abiding people."
"Not only our family, but other families are also the same. Why can other families live in peace, but our family can't even have a bit of fun?"
The village head knew this little girl was a smart aleck and wouldn't say anything nice. But he didn't expect her to give him such a hard time.
Praising others as honest people right in front of him? Wasn't she just scolding him?
"Good, good for you, little girl!" the village head's fingers trembled with anger. "Don't think I won't do anything to you just because you're a girl. You'd better stay out of my way in the future!"
Yun Que'er playfully stuck out her tongue and sat down in Yun Jianzhou's lap. She joined him in teasing the village head.
"Don't worry, I'll be a good girl from now on. I'll never do anything bad, especially not like some people who can't even clean up their own mess but still meddle in other people's business."
The village head's face turned red with anger. These people were so good at scolding without using dirty words that he was about to explode with rage!
Why hadn't he realized this family was so difficult to deal with before?
At this moment, there was another thunderclap in the sky.
Yun Jianzhou looked up and caught a raindrop on his hand.
"It looks like it's really going to rain," Yun Jianzhou picked up Yun Que'er and held her in his arms. "Come on, let's go home. Big brother will steam some dried sweet potatoes for you when we get home."
When Yun Que'er heard this, her big, bright eyes sparkled.
"Can dried sweet potatoes be steamed?"
"Of course," Yun Jianzhou rubbed Yun Que'er's chubby cheeks with one hand. "Steamed dried sweet potatoes are even more delicious. Today, big brother will make an exception and add some sugar for you. How about that?"