As it turned out...
"There are a lot of people talking about your younger brother..."
The woman hesitated, looking troubled.
"What are they saying about him?"
The woodcutter furrowed his brow.
From the look on her face, it clearly wasn't anything good.
But he couldn't understand.
What bad rumors...
Could there possibly be about his younger brother?
"They're all saying that your younger brother..."
The woman lowered her voice. "He's gone crazy from studying."
"They say he talks to thin air."
The woodcutter's expression darkened.
"Utter nonsense!"
The woman's heart skipped a beat.
She immediately said, "Of course it's utter nonsense!"
"I was thinking..."
"Isn't this exactly what Auntie said before?"
"She must have told someone else..."
"And then it spread from one person to ten, from ten to a hundred..."
"Until everyone was talking about it."
"Do you know what's the most infuriating part?"
The woman knitted her brows.
"What?"
The woodcutter asked instinctively.
"They'd rather believe baseless rumors like that than believe me..."
Even now, thinking about it still made the woman angry.
No matter how she tried to explain, everyone just gave her that look that said, "I understand, I get it."
She'd nearly ground her teeth to dust.
What did they know?
What did they understand?
Why couldn't they just believe her?!
The person they were gossiping about was her husband's younger brother.
She was his sister-in-law.
Shouldn't her word be far more credible?
But no one believed her.
She felt utterly helpless, as if she couldn't convince anyone no matter what she said.
The woodcutter clenched his fists.
Suddenly, he punched the beam beside him.
"This is too much!"
That auntie had decided after a single meeting that something was wrong with his younger brother's studies.
She