Pay for the broken glass at full price. Old Feng's eldest nephew seemed fairly reasonable, but Li Zhongfa said blandly, "Old Feng, I can't help you with this. You should take the boy to turn himself in!"
"Brother Li, I'll take the boy to surrender right away. I hope you'll be lenient, considering this is his first offense."
Old Feng agreed to Li Zhongfa's suggestion with a bitter expression. In his view, the fact that he could rely on his old face to enter Li Zhongfa's home today proved that Li Zhongfa still remembered a trace of their old friendship.
Even if matters of principle could not be bent, there was surely room to maneuver between the upper and lower limits when it came time for sentencing.
But Old Feng's eldest nephew did not understand any of those twists and turns. The moment he heard that he was being told to surrender, he sprang up with a jerk.
"Second Uncle, look at this! I told you long ago not to come begging them. Your Brother Li stopped being the brother who gnawed corn bread with you ages ago. They're rich folk now—why would they still care about that little old friendship of yours?
"We poor people have our own way of living. Back when Li Zhongfa was poor and went off to join the army, didn't he rob other people too? How did those landlords and rich old men die?
"Besides, we didn't even rob anything this time. Even if we get caught and thrown in, we won't squat there for more than a few days. We're begging people so humbly—do we poor folks have any backbone left at all?"
Old Feng's heart turned ice-cold when he heard his eldest nephew's shocking words.
What did he mean, they had