Flip the table and divide the family property! Take his wife and daughter into the mountains and eat

The young man shrank back, his hands awkwardly gesturing in the air, his face a picture of grievance and on the verge of tears.

"Brother Sun... that's a wheeled vehicle, after all! Four big wooden wheels..."

"Bullshit!"

Sun Changyou was so angry that he was trembling all over.

But the shouting was too loud, which aggravated the fascia in his right arm. There was a "thud" in the joint between his wrist bones, and a piercing pain instantly rushed up like a tidal wave!

"Ouch—! Oh my god...it hurts, it hurts so much!!"

Sun Changyou clutched his drooping right hand, writhing in pain as if he were a shrimp, his vision blurred, and he nearly knelt down before the dilapidated oxcart.

Cold sweat streamed down his muddy face like beads from a broken string. He glanced down at his hands—in just a short while, his entire fat hand had swelled up like a steamed eggplant, the skin taut and shiny, bluish-black, even the crevices under his fingernails were a creepy grayish-white.

This hand is really going to be ruined!

The driver standing nearby watched coldly, inwardly sneering, but outwardly adding fuel to the fire in a lukewarm manner:

"Boss Sun, if your bones freeze stiff in this wind, even a god couldn't bring you back to normal. No matter if it's a big cart or a small cart, you're the only living creature on this road right now. If you don't get in, we'll have to carry you all the way to the county town. It's over twenty miles, and we won't get there even if we carry you until dark."

This sentence struck Sun Changyou right where it hurt.

Sun Changyou's eyes were bloodshot, his teeth were clenched so tightly they were grinding, and he forced out a piercing howl from between his teeth:

"Stop them! To hell with them...stop them for me!!"

"Go now!!"

The young man, as if granted a pardon, scrambled to the middle of the road, waving his arms at the top of his lungs:

"Grandpa! Uncle! Stop! Stop right now!!"

The skinny old ox, its path blocked, slowly stopped, flicked its tail which was covered in dried cow dung, and let out a thick puff of white air with a "moo," its mouth still chewing on dry grass.

The old man driving the cart pulled his pipe out of his mouth, squinted his cloudy old eyes, and looked down at the tattered dog-skin hat.

As the old man sized up the group of people in the middle of the road, his brows furrowed into a deep knot.

Especially the fat man being carried behind, his expensive woolen overcoat was completely covered in yellow and black mud, the hem was ripped open, the buttons were popped off, and his once shiny slicked-back hair drooped like a pile of rotten straw. He looked no different from a plague-ridden pig that had just crawled out of a cesspool.

"What are you doing?"

The old man tapped his pipe on the cart shaft, and a thick, earthy accent slowly drifted out:

"Someone blocked my way in the middle of the day, and I'm in a hurry to deliver pig feed to the commune."

With the driver's help, Sun Changyou limped up, his eyelids sticking shut from the pain and cold sweat.

He gritted his teeth, enduring the agonizing humiliation, and with his intact left hand, pulled out two crumpled, mud-stained ten-yuan bills from his pocket, trembling as he handed them forward:

"Old man... twenty yuan! Turn around quickly and take me to the county hospital!"

"Here's all twenty dollars! Hurry up!"

The old man glanced at the two ten-yuan bills, then raised his eyelids to look at Sun Changyou's swollen, purplish-glowing right wrist, and smacked his toothless mouth:

"Going to the county town?"

"That's not on the way. My old buddy's hooves are too soft to walk fast. By the time we get to the county town, the sun will have already set and the doctor will be in bed."

As the old man spoke, he gripped the reins and prepared to pull forward:

"Besides, I'm hauling pig feed and frozen sweet potatoes for the brigade's public use, and I have to hand them over to the commune's pig farm before noon to get my work points. If I delay this public task, not only will the brigade secretary deduct my work points, but how will I explain myself to the brigade?"

"Thirty! I'll give you thirty dollars!"

When Sun Changyou saw that the old man was about to leave, he was so frightened that he let out a loud, broken scream.

His left hand, trembling with mud, frantically rummaged through the inner pocket of his coat—a pocket not yet completely soaked in mud—and pulled out another ten-yuan note, which he then shoved forward along with the two he had just received.

"Thirty yuan is all yours! That's more than half a year's work points in the brigade! Whatever the government deducts from your pay, I'll cover it all! Help me out, I don't mind the stench, just get me to the county hospital!!"

The old man glanced at the ten-yuan note that was handed to him again, raised his eyelids slightly, and stopped pulling the reins forward, but he remained sitting motionless on the carriage shaft.

He squinted his cloudy old eyes, brought the pipe back to his lips, took a puff, and slowly shook his head.

"Thirty yuan... Brother, do I look like a greedy person?"

"It's not about the money. My old ox is stubborn and sticks to its own path. It's never left the Wulipu area since it was a puppy. If you suddenly try to take it to the main road in the county town that's paved with gravel, it will hoof and refuse to take a step."

The old man sighed, glancing sideways at Sun Changyou's exposed overcoat pocket with his cloudy eyes, muttering something like a mantra:

"Besides, thirty yuan isn't enough to compensate for the work points the government deducted from me. My wife is waiting to get her work points so she can get cornmeal. If I go back empty-handed, she'll beat me with a rolling pin. My old bones can't take that."

His words were full of the stubbornness of an old farmer from the countryside, but his two fingers, as thin as tree bark, gripped the empty tobacco pipe tightly, and the cart shaft refused to turn even an inch.

Sun Changyou, who had been in the martial arts world for many years, could easily see that the old man was pretending to be stupid.

Normally, he would have jumped up and slapped that old man twice across the face.

Right now, he was experiencing sharp, stabbing pain in the gaps between his wrist bones, as if hundreds of ants were desperately gnawing at his bone marrow. His entire right arm was swollen as if it were about to burst, and he was sweating profusely from the pain, and even his legs were starting to shake.

He simply can't afford to waste time!

"Fifty! I'll give you fifty!!"

Sun Changyou was in so much pain that his tears and snot mingled with the mud on his face, and he screamed like a pig being slaughtered.

With his still-functioning left hand, he frantically turned the inside of his coat inside out, yanked out the last two crumpled ten-yuan bills, and shoved them, along with the thirty-yuan note he had just received, into the old man's calloused hand.

"Five whole ten-yuan bills! Fifty yuan all for you! That's enough to buy your old ox! I'm begging you, sir! Turn around! Take me to the county town!!"

The old man glanced down at the five stiff ten-yuan bills in his hand, didn't even count them, and casually stuffed them into the pocket of his tattered cotton-padded coat.

But the carriage shaft under his butt didn't even wobble.

The old man slowly exhaled a puff of pungent smoke from his dry tobacco. His cloudy old eyelids twitched slightly as he calmly glanced at Sun Changyou's greasy, pale, fat face. Finally, his gaze settled on the leather belt that was faintly visible around his waist and the pair of sheepskin shoes on his feet that, although covered in mud, were clearly high-end city goods.

"Fifty dollars..."

The old man smacked his toothless, withered lips, gently patting his knees with the thin willow twig in his hand:

"Brother, you want fifty dollars for my cow? You're taking advantage of me, an old country bumpkin who's never been to the city."

"My old buddy may be getting on in years, but he's the village's precious gem. In the middle of the day, risking being criticized by the village secretary at a village-wide meeting, I'm dragging you, a big boss covered in mud, for over twenty miles to the county town... If your wrist gets injured halfway there and you die on my truck, who am I supposed to complain to?"

The old man gently tapped his pipe bowl twice on the cart shaft, then extended his right hand, which resembled withered tree bark, spread his dry, blackened fingers, flipped his hand twice, and slowly gestured a number:

"two hundred."

"If you're short even a penny, then you'll have to figure it out yourself, brother."

"two hundred?!"

The young man next to him nearly popped his eyes out of their sockets and screamed:

"You old codger, are you out of your mind for money?! Two hundred yuan can buy two big, fat pigs! You dare to charge two hundred yuan for a trip to the county town?!"

The driver and the other two men also gasped in shock.

Two hundred yuan was more than half a year's wages for an ordinary worker in those days! In this remote, impoverished area near the forest, it was almost enough to get a wife and a three-wheeled vehicle and a radio!

The old man looked like a listless, honest farmer with half his body about to be buried in the ground, but when he opened his mouth, it was so black it seemed like he could suck the marrow dry!

"You...you're taking advantage of our misfortune! You're robbing us!"

Sun Changyou was so angry that he trembled violently. The surge of anger in his chest rose to his throat, and he almost fainted on the spot.

Sun Changyou, who deals in large trucks in the south, is always the one who skins others and skims their profits. Today, he was already badly beaten by Zhao Shanhe at the repair shop, who twisted his wrist and threw him into a mud pit. Now, even a country bumpkin driving an oxcart dares to hold a knife to his neck and demand two hundred yuan!

"You think it's too expensive?"

The old man wasn't annoyed. He slowly pinched some more tobacco dregs and stuffed them into the copper pipe, then took out a match and struck it with a snap.

"If you think it's too expensive, brother, just walk slowly. It's windy at the Wulipu wind gap ahead. Let it blow around for a while, and maybe your wrists will freeze and you won't feel the pain anymore."

As the old man spoke, he gave the reins a tug and let out a leisurely shout:

"Giddy up!"

A puff of white vapor shot out of the old green ox's nostrils, and it slowly began to take a step forward.

The moment the ox hoof lifted, a gust of cold wind blew in his face, and Sun Changyou's right arm suddenly convulsed violently, causing excruciating pain!

"Awooo—!!"

The excruciating pain shot through his nerves like an electric shock to his brain. Sun Changyou's entire body trembled violently from the pain, his vision went black, his knees buckled, and he collapsed solidly into the frozen mud with a thud!

He looked down and saw that the chubby hand that used to wear a gold ring was now swollen and had turned a frightening bluish-black color. The skin and flesh were taut and shiny, and the nail crevices were all purplish-black. The whole arm was cold and almost numb.

If this is delayed by another hour, forget about getting an X-ray and setting the bone at the county hospital; this arm will definitely have to be sawed off!

What good is it for Sun Changyou to earn so much money if he becomes a cripple?!

"Give it to me! I'll give it to you!! Don't go!!"

Sun Changyou's face was covered in tears, snot, blood, and mud. He lay on the ground, howling like a pig being slaughtered.

"Xiao Zhao! In the car... under the Jeep seat, that tin biscuit box! Go get it! There's a thousand yuan in cash inside for buying goods! Hurry!!"

"Give him two hundred...no, three hundred! Give it all to this old geezer! Hurry up!!"

Sun Changyou lay prone in the mud, rubbing his bloated, mud-covered face against the large wooden wheels of the oxcart, writhing in pain like a broken-backed dead dog, desperately pleading through his sobs:

"Grandpa! Dad! Stop! I'll give you money... I'll give you two hundred! Hurry up and pull me up!!"

When the old man heard the words "there's a thousand dollars in the tin box," a glint of cunning flashed in his eyes, and he subtly tightened the reins.

The old ox's hoof, which had just taken a step, came to a steady stop in its original position with a thud.

The old man sat atop the cart shaft, looking down at Sun Changyou, who lay a mangled mess in the mud. He slowly took a drag of his pipe, grinning to reveal a mouthful of stained yellow teeth.

"That's more like it, boss."

"This is a matter of life and death, how can money measure it? Climb up, let's head to the county hospital now."