The Old Lady's Shakedown

If Wei Donglai had known his dad was this stubborn after drinking, he would have helped fend off some of the drinks from the start.

Father and son ambled along, one behind the other.

As Wei Donglai looked at the countryside around him, Wei Guoqing seemed to accidentally bump into someone up ahead.

The person he bumped into was an old lady of about sixty.

The old lady seemed to have a bit of a temper. After the collision, she opened her mouth and cursed.

"Don't you have eyes in your head?"

Wei Guoqing still seemed a little tipsy, and his reactions were sluggish.

Wei Donglai hurried over. "Ma'am, I'm sorry. My dad had a little to drink, so he might not have been paying attention just now."

The old lady seemed determined to press her advantage. "If he's been drinking, he shouldn't be wandering around! My Buddha statue broke when it fell, so pay me for it!"

Wei Donglai looked down and saw a jade Buddha statue on the ground. One of its hands had broken off.

His heart skipped a beat. Surely it wasn't some kind of treasure that had broken?

He picked it up and examined it carefully.

The carving was rather crude, and the statue as a whole did not look obviously authentic. It was also made of fairly ordinary white marble.

The heart hanging in his chest settled back down. He had been afraid it was something he couldn't afford to pay for, but now it seemed fairly ordinary.

Hearing her demand compensation, Wei Guoqing sobered up considerably.

Although he had been a little muddled just now, he vaguely remembered that the other person had been looking down, walking straight toward him without watching where she was going.

His own steps had been unsteady, and he hadn't dodged in time. That was how the old woman had bumped into him.

He muttered quietly, "You were clearly the one who bumped into me. I'd been drinking, so I couldn't get out of the way."

The old lady might have been sixty, but her ears were sharp.

Even though Wei Guoqing had spoken quietly enough, she still heard him. In an instant, she was like a cat with its fur standing on end, baring her teeth and claws.

"You were the one who bumped into me, and you still dare to argue? I'm not blind. The road's this wide-couldn't I see it?"

"A man who's been drinking has the nerve to say I bumped into him? You've got no conscience! Do you think I'm easy to bully because I'm an old woman?"

Wei Donglai frowned, feeling a headache coming on. Wanting to turn a big matter into a small one and a small matter into nothing, he softened his tone.

"Ma'am, let's not argue over who bumped into whom. Since the Buddha statue was damaged, we'll take responsibility. Name a price, and I'll pay you."

"All right, since you're willing to pay, that makes things easy. This Buddha statue was passed down from my ancestors. I've always enshrined it as a family heirloom. I won't ask for much; just pay me 100 yuan."

"How much? 100 yuan? Have you gone crazy wanting money?"

It was Wei Guoqing who said it, but Wei Donglai thought the same thing.

100 yuan. The old lady really had some nerve.

In her, Wei Donglai seemed to see a shadow of the origins of the accident-scam gangs of later years.

"Ma'am, if you're going to try to extort us like this, that's not right."

"Who's extorting you? I told you, this is a family heirloom passed down from my ancestors. I won't take a cent less than 100 yuan."

"This is just ordinary white marble, all right? The carving is nothing special either. It may be a few years old, but what kind of family heirloom is this?"

"If I say it is, it is."

"Aren't you just being unreasonable?"

While the two argued, quite a few villagers gathered around.

A young man of about thirty squeezed through. "Auntie, what happened? Why are you arguing with someone here?"

"A Peng, you came just in time. Hurry and fetch Brother Fu. Tell him someone's bullying his mother."

The corner of A Peng's mouth twitched. He really wanted to ask who in the village could possibly bully his aunt.

But out of consideration for their family ties, he turned and went to let Brother Fu know.

A kindhearted villager then warned Wei Donglai.

"Young man, Old Madam Liu's son is not someone to mess with. If you really did break her property, just pay her."

Wei Donglai explained to the villagers around him, "Folks, it's not that I'm being unreasonable. Leaving aside who bumped into whom, the Buddha statue did fall to the ground and break. I'll take responsibility for that."

"I sincerely wanted to pay this lady some money, but the moment she opened her mouth, she asked for 100 yuan. How am I supposed to pay that?"

"How much? 100 yuan? She's really got the nerve to ask."

"Isn't that just made of ordinary white marble? Is it really that expensive?"

"She's flat-out extorting them."

The surrounding villagers buzzed with discussion. Hearing them, the old lady's face suddenly darkened. "Who was spewing shit out of their mouth just now? Who said I was extorting them? If you've got the guts, step forward and let me see you!"

The villagers all knew how formidable the old lady was, and for a moment, it was so quiet not even a sparrow made a sound.

One villager really couldn't stand watching any longer and quietly tried to reason with her. "Aunt Juhua, this young man seems honest enough to me. Asking for 100 yuan right off the bat is a bit much. Why don't you name a fair price and let him pay you?"

The old lady immediately turned and glared at him. "Did I ask your family for money? If you can't speak properly, shut up. What are you doing here, pretending to be a good person? This is a family heirloom. Even 100 yuan is less than I could have asked for. If you're so kindhearted, why don't you pay me for him?"

The villager's expression soured at her retort, but cowed by the old lady's ferocity, he said no more.

Wei Donglai was getting annoyed by the old lady's shamelessness, and his face turned cold.

"I'm not paying 100 yuan. If you want it, I'll pay you 10 yuan. If you don't, you won't get a single cent."

"10 yuan? Do you take me for a beggar you can just send away with scraps?"

After saying that, the old lady's expression changed, and she spat viciously. "You little bastard, you're paying that 100 yuan today whether you like it or not. Otherwise, don't even think about leaving this village."

Wei Donglai was so angry at her words that he laughed. "Fine, you old thing. Let's see how you stop me from leaving this village."

The old lady was incredulous. "What did you call me?"

"Old thing. Did you hear me clearly this time?"

The old lady immediately shouted to everyone around her, "You all heard him! This little bastard just called me an old thing! I'm over sixty years old, and I still have to put up with people insulting me. Is there no justice left in this world?"

The villagers were all a little speechless. Hadn't she been the one to call him a little bastard first?

"Who dares bully my mother?!"

At the shout, the crowd immediately opened a gap. A potbellied man in his thirties squeezed through, leading three young men in their twenties.

The old lady perked up the moment she saw her son. Pointing at Wei Donglai, she said, "That little bastard bullied me! Not only did he break my Buddha statue, he just called me an old thing..."

After the man listened to the old lady recount what had happened, he looked up in Wei Donglai's direction. Wei Donglai took one look at him and was immediately amused.

Well, isn't this Hong Dafu, my prison mate from my previous life?

An old acquaintance!

In his previous life, it was Hong Dafu who had given him his first lesson in prison.

The result, however, hadn't quite gone as intended. The one who wanted to teach someone a lesson got taught one himself, and the rules he wanted to lay down became Wei Donglai's rules.