Yun Fujin reacted rather strongly. "Secretary, are you saying you don't trust us? You've always been fair. Are you like the others now?"
If others heard this, wouldn't it seem as if they had a guilty conscience?
Suddenly, everyone present started whispering.
The secretary's face didn't look good.
It wasn't that he didn't trust the Yun family. On the contrary, he actually thought highly of these kids.
They had potential, just like he did when he was young.
But the general trend was irresistible, and he was helpless.
Especially when he saw Yun Fujin so agitated, the secretary couldn't help but have his doubts.
He was really afraid that Yun Fujin would do something shady.
Frowning and thinking for a while, the secretary let out a shout.
"All of you shut up! There's no conclusion yet, and you're already talking about people to their faces. After all, we're all villagers. Maybe our ancestors were related a few generations ago. What kind of behavior is this constant gossiping!"
But there were many who didn't buy it. "Secretary, it's precisely because we're all from the same village that we can't tolerate this kind of thing. Haven't these little brats caused enough trouble? Don't blame us. Who wants to get themselves into trouble for no reason?"
The secretary's face turned completely dark. By now, there was no choice but to investigate.
The secretary looked at Yun Fujin. "If your family really did something, it's best to confess now. Don't make things embarrassing for everyone."
Yun Fujin's face was full of helplessness. "It's simply not true. Who knows what's wrong with them? They just keep targeting my family."
The secretary was also at his wits' end. "But anyway, we can't just go by what your family says. Moreover, this back mountain is kind of like half the village's territory. So... let's search it. Oldest, I'm sorry."
The secretary didn't let them tie anyone up. He stayed behind to watch Yun Fujin while sending others to search.
Seeing this, everyone thought the Yun family definitely couldn't escape this time, so they immediately volunteered to search the mountain.
The secretary stood to one side, glancing at Yun Fujin's expression as he said,
"Your family are all honest people. Seeking wealth for your own family isn't a big deal. But living in this village, seeing each other every day, it's bound to arouse suspicion."
It had nothing to do with anything else, just the inferiority of human nature. People just couldn't stand to see others doing well.
Yun Fujin nodded slightly. "I know."
The group searched for a full two hours. When they came back, they only found two huge wooden stakes in the cave.
However, Yun Fujin's clothes were placed beside the wooden stakes, so it was naturally assumed that they were the stakes Yun Fujin had found. So everyone carried the stakes back and reported to the secretary.
"Look, didn't we find something?"
There really was something?
The secretary looked at Yun Fujin doubtfully.
But the wooden stakes looked ordinary and couldn't prove anything.
"Just this?"
"Isn't this enough? Secretary, look. These wooden stakes are so thick. We don't know which tree they were cut from. There must be something else going on."
The secretary stepped forward and took a closer look. He was so angry that he laughed.
"Are you all crazy or blind? Isn't this the kind of tree that's everywhere around here? You burn branches from this kind of tree for firewood all the time. Can't you recognize it just because it's thicker?"
Looking more closely, there were even traces of fire on the tree stump. He didn't know what the Yun family was going to do with this thing.
"Did you hide this?" the secretary asked.
"I was going to take it home. I couldn't carry it by myself, so I left it in the cave first. It doesn't count as hiding," Yun Fujin said.
Everyone was a bit stunned, but still felt there was a hidden secret.
"Then tell us where you got it and what you're going to do with it?"
Yun Fujin scoffed. "These were originally the burned trees in the forest that caught fire later. I asked the forest ranger and made sure I could take them before bringing them back. As for what to do with them, my family sold wood carvings before. It's okay to pick up some useless wood and continue doing it, right?"
This answer was really flawless. There was not a single fault to be found.
After all this trouble, was this really all they were doing?
But there were still some who were not convinced.
"Oh, so you're going to do business with antiques? You're really brave! Secretary, I think they have bad intentions. Maybe it's some shady deal."
This time, the secretary couldn't bear it anymore. "All of you shut up!"
He shouted.
"One by one, are you never going to stop? Doing business means having bad intentions? If you're suspicious, you have to show evidence. Talking nonsense without knowing anything is no different from decades ago. After all, you all learned to read during the literacy campaign. Why are you still so unenlightened!"
Actually, everyone knew they were in the wrong. It was just a case of finding an excuse to blame others.
Now that the secretary had said this, they didn't know what to say.
The secretary waved to Yun Fujin, signaling him to come over.
"Besides making wood carvings, what else do you want to do?"
"For now, that's all. If there's a chance in the future, we might also do antiques," Yun Fujin said.
The secretary listened to his words and fell into deep thought.
It seemed that their family was really aboveboard.
But when others saw this, they would only be jealous.
"Oh, so you're going to do antiques?"
"How much ability do you have? How dare you do this? Aren't you afraid of losing money?"
That's just how people are. Even if they can't find any faults, in their eyes, everything you do and every move you make is wrong.
Finally, the secretary spoke.
"The kids didn't do anything wrong at all, but you've wronged them like this. You've lived for decades in vain. Go home quickly! Don't go around spreading rumors about today's incident!"
Everyone was already in the wrong. At this point, they could only say a few sour words. Now that the secretary had spoken, they naturally couldn't make things difficult for them.
But from then on, the feud between the Yun family and Yuhe Village deepened.
Yun Fujin understood this clearly, and the others in the Yun family understood it even more.
After he got home, his face had been looking very gloomy.
When he saw Yun Que'er come in from the outer room, Yun Fujin's mood finally eased a bit.
"Little Que'er," Yun Fujin said with a strong sense of weariness in his tone. "You were right. There are really a lot of people in this village keeping an eye on us."
Fortunately, Yun Que'er was smart. First, she designed a plan to make them think there was something wrong with the family. Then she hid things in Yun Yi's wardrobe in advance and deliberately led them in to search.
Actually, if they had looked a little further, they would have seen the things hidden inside. But those people had already been scolded away by Yun Yi.
As for what happened later on the other side of the mountain, it was all part of the act.
"Fortunately, we had you," Yun Fujin said.
"I'm fine. It's just that I feel sorry for Third Sister. She had to stay under the quilt on such a hot day. I just saw that she had heat rash," Yun Que'er stepped forward.
Yun Fujin frowned. "This time they didn't find anything. Let's hurry up. Otherwise, it's going to cause a lot more trouble."