The Little Life of a Big Landlord

Chapter 122 Misunderstanding

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The BMW immediately accelerated, leaving the sedan far behind. Seeing the BMW suddenly speed up, the sedan also sped up and chased after it.

"Sure enough, he's the one who's been with us..." Zhang Yue exclaimed.

The five people in the BMW tensed up, almost holding their breath. The family of three in the back seat also secretly groaned. You know what, we came out to have fun and ended up with this kind of thrill.

"Shut up, you think you're part of the system? Is this all the mentality you have? It's just a ten-seater sedan chair, what's the big deal? Once we get into the village, we'll see who takes care of whom..." Zhang Fenghuang knew that in clan-based villages like Zhengjia Village or Yangjia Village, even the smallest thing could easily escalate into a village-wide brawl. Unity was a key characteristic of such villages.

"That's true..." Zhang Yue chuckled. "I wonder if their fate will be terrible?"

"What are you saying? If they encounter mountain people, they'd be lucky to escape with half their lives..." Zhang Fenghuang said, pursing her lips.

"That's right, the villagers of Zhengjia Village are all mountain people..." Zhang Yue's eyes lit up even more. As a low-level cadre in the system, she certainly knew how much of a headache mountain people could cause.

The BMW was driving ahead, and the sedan was closely following its tail. It was on this gravel road that, on the highway, the BMW could easily leave the sedan flying with a single press of the accelerator.

squeak...

With a slight jolt and the sound of shock absorbers, the BMW drove off the brick road and onto the gravel road.

"Once we get here, we can't go any faster, but we'll be entering the forest soon. Once we're in the forest, we'll be safe..." Zhang Fenghuang said.

The BMW drove along, bumping and swaying, and soon arrived at the place where the sign for Zhengjia Village was displayed. The ten-seater sedan followed closely behind, not letting up for a moment.

The BMW drove straight into the woods, with the sedan following closely behind.

The golden autumn wind has already blown into the woods, and fallen leaves have accumulated in a thin layer by the roadside. When the wind blows, they rustle and tumble into the woods.

Two large, crooked trees by the roadside, like doormen welcoming guests, stretched their branches almost together onto the gravel road, leaving a dappled shadow on the gravel. The BMW had just driven past, and the sedan chair, not paying any attention, continued to follow. Suddenly, a thick, oily rope sprang up from the ground and blocked the sedan chair's path.

The sedan chair braked suddenly, the driver's side window opened, and Li Tinggui poked her head out: "Who is it?" Her voice was somewhat frightened, because this situation looked particularly like highway robbery. However, Li Tinggui immediately put that thought out of the blue. This was a farmhouse resort, and if there were highway robbers here, causing tourists to be robbed, then Zhengjia Village would have to bear an unshirkable responsibility. Besides, a much richer BMW had just driven by, and no one robbed it, right?

"Who is it? You filthy hooligans, get out of the car right now..." At this moment, a young man holding a thick wooden stick jumped out from behind a big tree by the roadside and shouted.

Immediately afterwards, four more young men emerged from their hiding place by the roadside, each carrying a weapon, and surrounded the ten-person sedan chair.

At this time of year, although the weather is rather bleak, with trees shedding their leaves and wild grass turning yellow, the woods are not bare, just a bit sparse. Hiding a few people by the roadside is not a difficult task at all.

"What are you doing here?" Sweat immediately beaded on Li Tinggui's forehead, and he didn't dare to get out of the car no matter what.

"Old Li, what happened?" Sitting in the passenger seat, Tao Yangdong sensed that the situation was serious. The sudden braking had given him a headache, and he was seeing stars. He was only slightly better now.

"How would I know? These people are probably mountain folk; they suddenly stopped us..." Li Tinggui said.

"I'll go down and talk to them..." Tao Yangdong was quite bold. He immediately pushed open the car door and got out of the car. Li Tinggui didn't even have a chance to stop him.

"Hurry up and confess your crimes, and we won't use our weapons on you. Otherwise, we'll beat you until your brains splatter..." The first young man to jump out seemed to be the leader. He pointed a stick at Tao Yangdong and said fiercely.

"Hey, young man, let's talk this out. Don't be violent. We're not bad people..." Tao Yangdong waved his hands repeatedly. He was dizzy just looking at that stick. If such a thick stick hit someone, wouldn't it break their bones and tendons?

"Bad guys always say they're not bad, Yong-ge, let's beat them up and then send them to the police station..." one of the young men said to the leader.

"No, no, please don't! Even young people can't withstand this kind of torment, let alone our old bones..." Tao Yangdong wasn't particularly afraid. The key was that he'd seen a lot of things; he'd seen everything during his trips to the countryside. "We're just here for tourism, we're really not bad people..."

"If you're not a bad person, why are you following their car? You dare to argue? I think you really deserve a beating..." the young man in charge said angrily.

Tao Yangdong finally understood why he had been robbed. It turned out he had followed the group too closely, making them think he was a bad guy. He quickly explained, "We were traveling to Zhengjia Village, but we didn't know the way. When we asked for directions at the station, we overheard that girl say she knew where Zhengjia Village was, so we followed her car. We were afraid of getting lost, that's why we followed so closely. We really didn't mean anything by it. Besides, the car was full of our families..."

"Really?" The young man in charge was skeptical.

"Of course, besides me and the driver, the rest of the passengers are women..." Tao Yangdong nodded repeatedly.

"Brother Yong, could they be human traffickers who abduct women and children? I've seen it on TV; most human traffickers are women..." said the young man who had just suggested taking them to the police station.

"Young man, you can't make false accusations..." Tao Yangdong quickly waved his hand and said.

"What slander? You chased after a woman's car relentlessly, and you think you're in the right?" The young man in the lead pointed a stick at Tao Yangdong and said.

"No, no, we had no choice. We didn't know Zhengjia Village. At the station, we heard that girl say she was taking her family of three to Zhengjia Village, so we followed her. We're really not bad people..." Tao Yangdong quickly explained again.

"We all saw it. Your car was relentlessly chasing after them. What's with this talk of good guys and bad guys? You were a hundred or two meters away from them. How could you lose such a big car? The words 'bad guys' are practically written all over your foreheads." The young man in charge waved his hand. "Guys, let's give these bastards a good beating today..."

"Well, if someone like that lived in this world, who knows how many people would suffer..."

"Why bother with all that nonsense? Let's beat them so badly they can't even take care of themselves, then we can talk about anything else..."

"Just beat him to death..."

A group of young men were excited and brandished their weapons, ready to beat up Tao Yangdong. Li Tinggui, sitting in the driver's seat, was very uneasy. He had thought of all possible scenarios beforehand, but he never expected that he would be mistaken for a bad guy by the mountain people and be beaten up. The women in the car were terrified and huddled together, their faces full of fear.

"Stop, stop, stop... I know people from your village, Yang Ming, I know Yang Ming, and his wife Wei Qingqing..." Tao Yangdong was really frightened this time. He didn't expect the mountain people to be so unreasonable, attacking without warning. He quickly shouted.

Sure enough, when these young men heard Tao Yangdong call out the names of Yang Ming and Wei Qingqing, they all stopped, but they remained vigilant, ready to enter battle mode, display their prowess, and beat this old guy to death.

"You said you know Brother Yang and Sister-in-law Wei?" the young man in the lead asked cautiously.

"Of course, we even gave them a wedding gift when they got married..." Tao Yangdong said hurriedly.

"You should have said so earlier! How would we have known if you hadn't told us?" the young man in the lead said with a sigh of relief.

"Brother Yong, we can't just listen to what they say. We need to get Brother Yang to recognize them. Only if Brother Yang knows them can we release them. If he doesn't, we'll tie them up and throw them into the mountains to feed the wolves..." The young man who had reminded the leader twice earlier reminded him for the third time.

"Of course, but this place is quite far from the village. We can't expect Brother Yang and his wife to come all the way here to identify him..." The young man in charge waved his hand, "Let him get in the car, we'll get in too, and escort them..."

"Okay, okay, no problem..." Tao Yangdong was really sweating this time. He didn't expect these young men to be so barbaric, even offering wolves an extra dish? But a wise man doesn't fight a losing battle, so he quickly opened the car door. "Let's get in the car. Yang Ming and the others will definitely recognize me then."

"Let's go..." The young man who was in charge led his group of brothers into the car, and Tao Yangdong also got into the passenger seat.

"Don't worry, we won't bully women. Even if you really are human traffickers, we won't beat you up. We'll just throw you in the police station and let you rot in jail..." the young man in charge said, looking at the three terrified women in the car.

The women in the car visibly breathed a sigh of relief.

"Hey, young man, what about that oil rope up ahead?" Tao Yangdong turned his head and asked.

"I forgot... Fifth Brother, go down and collect the oil rope, then take the carriage back by yourself..." The young man in charge patted one of the young men next to him and said.

"Okay..." The young man called Lao Wu quickly got off the car, took the oil rope, coiled it up, and carried it to the woods by the roadside. When they first came to rob people, they were driving a donkey cart, which was still hidden in the woods. It was really a wonder that they were able to get here so quickly. You can imagine that the donkey cart must have been flying.

The ten-person sedan chair started again, slowly moving forward along the gravel road, and soon entered Zhengjia Village.

"Brother Yang's house is at the very back, so hurry up and drive the car in..." the young man in charge said.

"No problem, we haven't seen Yang Ming and the others for quite some time, and we really miss them..." Tao Yangdong chuckled, but there was always a slight tremor in his voice.

The car arrived at the gate of Yang Ming's house. Zhang Fenghuang's BMW was also parked there, but the people inside had already gotten out.

The young man who was leading the group got out of the car and called out from outside the gate, "Brother Yang, are you home?"

"Dayong, stop calling, your brother Yang isn't home..." Aunt Liu's voice came from inside the house. It turned out that Aunt Liu was working at Yang Ming's house.

The young man leading the group is Zheng Dayong.

"Sister-in-law, is my sister-in-law Wei at home?" Zheng Dayong called out again.

"No, she went to the market with Aunt Da Bao and the tourists..." Aunt Liu said.

"Oh..." Zheng Dayong responded, "Sister-in-law, Sister Liu just told us that someone was following Sister Zhang and the others. We caught these people who were following them. They said they knew Brother Yang and Sister-in-law Wei, so we brought them here."

"What?" Aunt Liu shuffled out of the house in her slippers. "What happened...?"

"Here's what happened. Just now, Sister Liu, who lives in your house, came to the greenhouse looking for us for help. She said that Sister Zhang was being followed and asked us to rescue them. So we quickly hitched up our car and went to rescue them. We saw this ten-person sedan chair chasing after Sister Zhang's car. We pulled a rope halfway there and intercepted the sedan chair... They said they were tourists visiting our village and that they knew Brother Yang and Sister-in-law Wei. They even gave a wedding gift when Brother Yang and Sister-in-law Wei got married. So we brought them back with us..." Zheng Dayong explained.

"Sister, we're not bad people. We came to the village for tourism, but your village is so remote that we don't know the way. So at the station, we heard a girl and an older woman say that she lived in Zhengjia Village, so we followed them. Who knew they would misunderstand us..." Tao Yangdong quickly got off the bus and explained to Aunt Liu.

"You said you know Yang Ming and Wei Qingqing?" Aunt Liu looked Tao Yangdong up and down.

"Let's get to know each other..." Tao Yangdong nodded quickly.

"How did you meet? When?" Aunt Liu asked.

"Back then...ah...back then we weren't..." Tao Yangdong recalled the scene when he first met Yang Ming in Majia Gou'er, and then he remembered who the woman in front of him was. At that time, this woman was with Yang Ming and the others.

However, Tao Yangdong doesn't want people to know that he's from the countryside, as this would hinder their efforts to find bargains in antique solid wood furniture.

"Have we met before?" Actually, Aunt Liu also felt that the person in front of her looked somewhat familiar. However, in the vast sea of ​​people, who would remember someone they had only met once and who didn't leave a deep impression?

"Ah! I think you look quite friendly..." Tao Yangdong chuckled.

"You said you gave Yang Ming a wedding gift, tell me, when did they get married?" Aunt Liu asked again.

"October 1st..." Tao Yangdong said.

"What were they wearing that day?" Aunt Liu asked again.

"A twelve-chapter robe, paired with a few pieces of mutton-fat jade..." Tao Yangdong said.

"Oh? You're quite close to Yang Ming and the others, aren't you?" Aunt Liu raised an eyebrow. If Tao Yangdong had only mentioned the Twelve Chapters Robe, she might have let him pass directly. But he also mentioned mutton fat jade, which was hard to say. How big is that mutton fat jade? And he was able to notice it after wearing it. What does that mean?

That mutton fat jade isn't cheap.

"We're not that close, we've met twice..." Tao Yangdong replied truthfully.

"I think you should wait for Yang Ming or Wei Qingqing to come back and let them recognize them in person..." said Aunt Liu.

"Huh? Big sister, can you arrange a place for us to stay? You can't just leave us here waiting like this, can you?" Tao Yangdong smiled wryly.

"There's nothing we can do. We can't be sure of your identities, and we don't feel comfortable leaving you with anyone else, so we can only keep you waiting..." Aunt Liu said apologetically.

"How about we take them into the greenhouse? There's a place for them to rest there, and we can keep an eye on them while we work..." Zheng Dayong said.

Inside the greenhouse, there are several heated brick beds, which are where the workers usually rest. At night, when the temperature inside the greenhouse drops, they can light fires to keep it warm. The smoke escapes directly through the heated brick beds, leaving the warmth inside the greenhouse.

"Take them to rest, and when your brother Yang comes back, let him recognize them..." said Aunt Liu.

"Yes..." Zheng Dayong quickly responded and called his brothers to escort them to the greenhouse.

"Let's go, let's go..." A group of young men pushed and shoved each other, but they didn't touch the women. Although young people these days are quite impetuous, this definitely doesn't include people from the mountains.

Tao Yangdong smiled wryly. It would have been better not to bring up the topic of resting at all, so he could have rested in his own car.

"Where have I seen him before?" Aunt Liu stared at Tao Yangdong's retreating figure, racking her brains, but she couldn't remember. Finally, her head started to ache from thinking, so she shook her head and went back to her work.

The TV in the room was on, and the program playing was quite childish, the legendary "Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf". Normally, Aunt Liu would never watch this cartoon. Of course, it wasn't that she didn't like watching it, but she didn't want her daughter to know that she liked watching it. That way, her daughter would have a legitimate reason to watch TV. "Mom likes to watch it, so why can't I watch it?"

Various fruits and fresh milk were laid out on the kang (a heated brick bed), and next to it was a large plate for fruit peels and pits. Aunt Liu entered the room, sat cross-legged on the kang, grabbed a large melon, took a bite, put it in the fruit plate, and then picked up her work.

Aunt Liu would do some chores, eat a melon, or have an apple and drink some milk, or watch TV for a while, living a very leisurely life. But Tao Yangdong and the others were not so leisurely.

"Brother, are you just going to let us rest here?" Tao Yangdong looked at the kang (heated brick bed) and saw that there was nothing there except a tattered straw mat, and he couldn't help but feel dissatisfied.

Men can endure it, after all, they often come to the countryside, sometimes in the middle of nowhere, and have even stayed in caves. But what about the women? They are all pampered. Whether it's Tao Yangdong's wife Zhou Yun, or Li Tinggui's wife Zhao Yu, and their daughter Li Yuting, none of them have ever suffered.

"Well, let's leave it at that for now. If you really know Brother Yang, and that proves you're telling the truth, I'll kowtow to you and apologize. But if you're lying to us, letting you rest here is already too good for you. In our village, we deal with bad guys by just tying them up in the cowshed and then calling the police to handle it..." Zheng Dayong rolled up his sleeves, ready to get to work in the fields.

The other four had already gone to work.

"Okay, okay..." Tao Yangdong felt like he couldn't communicate with the people in the mountains.

"Okay! You guys rest here and don't wander off. I'm going to work..." Zheng Dayong said, and went to work in the field.

"Have a seat first..." Tao Yangdong invited everyone to sit on the kang (a heated brick bed).

"Old Tao, we miscalculated this time. We wanted to sneak into the village, but who would have thought..." Li Tinggui shook his head and smiled bitterly, feeling that fate was truly playing tricks on him. The more you try to sneak around, the more exciting things become.

"A miscalculation, a miscalculation..." Tao Yangdong shook his head.

"Old Tao, do you know that girl from earlier?" Zhou Yun asked.

"We met once, but my memory of it is hazy..." Tao Yangdong said.

"Then you should talk to her and ask her to vouch for us..." Zhou Yun said.

"This absolutely cannot prove anything. If she remembers me, she will definitely remember what I do. At that time, our chance to make a fortune will slip away..." Tao Yangdong said.

"So Yang Ming knows you too..." Zhou Yun now realized that there was a key figure named Yang Ming.

"That's different. Yang Ming isn't from this village. He's from Yangjia Village, so he might not tell the villagers..." Tao Yangdong said, clinging to a sliver of hope.

"Mom..." Li Yuting nestled in her mother's arms, feeling quite aggrieved.

This trip was supposed to help her relax. Her boyfriend of three years had suddenly dumped her, a fact that had left her depressed and almost sick. So her mother, Zhao Yu, chose a quiet farmhouse inn for her daughter to unwind. Little did she expect…

Seeing her daughter's aggrieved expression, Zhao Yu felt unhappy, but she didn't say anything to Tao Yangdong. Instead, she looked at Li Tinggui and said, "Old Li, look at what you did today. What kind of mess is this? This is a classic case of overdoing it. You even scared my daughter..." Thinking about how she almost used a stick earlier, Zhao Yu was still a little scared, let alone Li Yuting, who had just been hurt in a relationship.

"Heh...hehe..." Li Tinggui laughed awkwardly, not daring to say anything more, after all, she had done a bit foolishly today.

"Hehe..." Tao Yangdong was also quite embarrassed.

"Mom...I want to go home..." Li Yuting's voice was choked with sobs as she buried her head in her mother's arms and sobbed softly.

"Oh... baby, let's wait a little longer. Once Yang Ming comes back, we can go out..." Zhao Yu gently patted her daughter's back, comforting her softly.

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(End of this chapter)