An extraordinary life journey through old Beijing courtyard houses

How could he miss such a lively event? He had to see it with his own eyes, so Jiang Baobin hurriedly went inside.

Good heavens, the outer room is already packed with people, mostly women, all there to see what's going on.

There were very few people in the inner room, only Yi Zhonghai, Liu Haizhong, Yan Bugui, and He Daqing.

Of course, Jia Zhangshi is also included.

Right now, she was lying on the bed with a cloth wrapped around her head, and she looked terrible.

But his expression revealed a resolute determination!

Yi Zhonghai tried to explain to her, "Sister-in-law, it's not what you think. Brother Jia is because..."

Jia Zhangshi interrupted domineeringly: "I don't want to hear it, I don't want to hear it, anyway you're all in cahoots."

"Now that you're both fine, only the child's father is gone, so you have to take full responsibility!"

"Why don't you go find the robbers, get to the bottom of this, and then avenge Old Jia?"

"Then I'm not saying anything more, otherwise none of you will get away with this!"

Then he started wailing again: "Oh! Old Jia, you died so unjustly!"

"You didn't even realize you'd been tricked! How could you be so stupid! You heartless bastard!"

Yi Zhonghai was speechless for a moment - If I had the ability to take revenge, I would have dealt with them on the spot. Why would I have waited until now to be scolded by you?

Liu Haizhong was furious: "How can you be so unreasonable? We've told you so many times!"

"Old Jia got stabbed in the back because he was the only one who hid the money."

"Even if they encounter someone who has severed their path, they will be bewitched and refuse to hand it over."

"That's when they got angry and attacked Lao Jia. It has nothing to do with us."

"Besides, your Dongxu was right there watching. How can you say we made Lao Jia take the blame?"

"Isn't this slanderous and defamatory?"

When she spoke of the beginning, Jia Zhangshi was still a little weak.

But as soon as Jia Dongxu was mentioned, she immediately perked up:

"Don't even mention our Dongxu, how old is he? Can he outmaneuver you old catfish?"

"You're all ganging up on my husband, Lao Jia. You'll get all the good things."

"If the bearded man robs you, you'll have to take the fall."

Then he resorted to his usual shameless tactics: "Old Jia! You're such a simpleton, why don't you use your brain more?"

"Heartless! There are bad people here! They're harming us, a widow and her orphans! Oh God..."

After remaining silent for a while, Yan Bugui suddenly said coldly, "Well, they're determined to extort us."

With a roll of her triangular eyes, Jia Zhangshi immediately turned to him: "You surnamed Yan! I haven't settled accounts with you yet!"

"I'm asking you, wasn't it because they were waiting for you yesterday that they were late getting home?"

"Tell me, did you conspire with those bastards to deliberately frame and swindle my husband, Lao Jia?"

Yan Bugui was startled and quickly said, "Dongxu's mom, you can eat whatever you want, but you can't say whatever you want!"

"When did I collude with bad guys? Besides, I just finished my work, and I was only less than ten minutes late..."

Madam Jia immediately interrupted, "Isn't ten minutes enough? You're doing this on purpose. If you had come out earlier, our Old Jia could have..."

At this point, Jia Zhangshi was overcome with grief and slapped her thigh, crying out:

"Old Jia! You died unjustly! You spent your whole life thinking of others, but who thought of you?"

"We were just harmed like this, without any explanation, and in the end, no one even thanked us!"

"On the contrary, everyone's laughing at you, laughing at you for being such a fool, taking the fall for someone else..."

Yan Bugui's face was very ugly, but he still tried to defend himself, saying, "Look, look, Lao Yi, Lao Liu, and Lao He."

"You all saw it, didn't you? Is this how you slander an innocent person?"

"Yesterday we all agreed to go home together and look out for each other."

"I had to pack my things before leaving, how did that become intentional?"

"Forget it, forget it, let's not argue with him anymore, let's go find the village head."

"I refuse to believe there's no place in this world where reason prevails!"

Liu Haizhong chimed in, "Yes, go find the village head; he'll surely be able to explain things clearly."

Unexpectedly, Jia Zhangshi became even more excited and sat up abruptly:

"Go ahead and look for me! You think I'm afraid of you? Don't even mention the village head, I'll go after the district head or the mayor, I'll go with you!"

"You're all fine now, but my man died under mysterious circumstances. What do you think happened?"

"We've come this far, why would I be afraid of going to the authorities? The more things escalate, the better!"

"Let all the people of Beiping judge for themselves who is right and who is wrong!"

"Go! Go now! Anyone who doesn't leave is a traitor! Move along! Why isn't anyone moving?"

Although Jia Zhangshi called out loudly, she herself didn't move an inch.

The same applies to Yi Zhonghai and others.

Everyone knew perfectly well that going to the village head would only add to the expenses (providing him with good cigarettes, tea, and wine) and was utterly useless.

Because death is a serious matter, no matter who comes, they will ultimately try to smooth things over.

The problem still falls on your own shoulders to solve, so why bother?

After Jia Zhangshi made a fuss, the room suddenly became very quiet.

Among the parties involved, Yan Bugui and Liu Haizhong were both frowning and thinking about how to extricate themselves from the situation.

On the contrary, Yi Zhonghai's expression was the most composed.

Sure enough, after a long silence, he finally coughed...

At this moment, he seemed to have made up his mind, and asked succinctly:

"Sister-in-law Jia, what are you really thinking? Tell me everything."

Madam Jia showed no restraint whatsoever, demanding an exorbitant sum:

"Since my husband, Lao Jia, died because of you, you have to take full responsibility!"

"The money for the coffin, the money for the funeral, all belong to you..."

Upon hearing this, Yan Bugui jumped up on the spot: "Are you out of your mind? What gives you the right?"

Jia Zhangshi said domineeringly, "Just because you all colluded and left, everyone else is fine, but my old Jia is gone."

"He risked his life to protect you from disaster, so what's wrong with you contributing a little money?"

"How about we switch? Who wants to die? Let's bring back our old Jia..."

The group looked at each other, wondering if this could even be replaced.

Madam Jia then used her trump card: "Waaah... Old Jia, how could you be so foolish?"

"Everyone else is fine, how come you're the only one who died? You old fool!"

"They tell you to come forward, so you just go forward? Don't you know how to back off?"

"You're gone. How are we, a widow and her orphan, supposed to survive? Waaah..."

Jia Zhangshi was truly moved, or perhaps she felt hopeless about the future, and for a moment she cried her heart out.

The women in the outer room, especially several older women, were originally very dissatisfied with Jia Zhangshi because it involved their own interests.

However, out of consideration for their feelings, I had no choice but to step forward and offer my condolences.

Yi Zhonghai and his group exchanged glances, then got up and walked outside.

Seeing this, Jiang Baobin quickly retreated.

After that, I listened at a distance, keeping an eye out, to hear how they discussed things.

Yan Bugui rushed to the small mourning tent first.

He gave Jia Dongxu, who was dressed in mourning clothes and had a blank expression, a long lecture...