Chapter 291 Another Compound Meeting

After Jia Dongxu's 57th day of death, Yan Bugui came to Jia's house again.

Jia Zhang and Qin Huairu both knew the purpose of Yan Bugui's visit. Therefore, Jia Zhang did not give Yan Bugui a good face.

Yan Bugui smiled and greeted Jia Zhang: "Old sister-in-law, have you eaten?"

Jia Zhang didn't raise her head or open her eyes, and hummed from her nose: "Well, you're here?" and there was no further words.

Yan Bugui felt embarrassed and had to turn to look at Qin Huairu. Qin Huairu smiled at him awkwardly and asked, "Uncle, have you eaten too?"

"If you have nothing to eat, just have a bite at our house! Alas, it's a pity that we only have steamed corn bread at home, and nothing good to treat you. It's really..." As she spoke, she began to complain.

Yan Bugui frowned as he listened to Qin Huairu complaining, thinking to himself, "What does this mean? I haven't even asked for money yet, and you're already crying poor?"

"It's a spoiled dish. Are they trying to default on their debt?"

So he quickly waved his hand and said, "Huai Ru, I came here after dinner, so you don't have to bother with anything. I'll just say a few words and then leave."

Qin Huairu saw that Yan Bugui was not buying it, so she gave up her pretense and pretended to be confused and said, "Hey! Third uncle, you are here, what's the matter?"

Yan Bugui's heart skipped a beat when he heard this. He thought, "Qin Huairu pretends to be ignorant even though she knows the truth. Is she trying to get away with it?"

He had no choice but to bite the bullet and speak directly: "Sister-in-law, I heard that the factory has paid for Dongxu's funeral expenses and pension. What do you think? Should we pay back the previous loans to the neighbors first?"

When she heard that she was asked to pay back the money, Jia Zhang immediately turned hostile and said, "Yan Laoxi, have you lost your conscience? Our family is in such a difficult situation, and you are still forcing us to pay back the money. Do you want to drive our family to death?"

Yan Bugui blushed upon hearing this and retorted, "Sister-in-law, what are you talking about? It is only natural to pay back debts. It would be fine if your family didn't have money, but now that you have money, you still don't pay it back. How can this be justified?"

"At the beginning, your family was in financial difficulty and had no money to arrange for Dongxu's funeral. It was Qin Huairu who came to ask me to find a way to help you."

"I feel sorry for your family, so I took the lead in organizing everyone to collect money for your family, and promised to pay it back after reimbursement."

"Now, what? Do you want to turn your back on me?"

Jia Zhang was speechless for a moment, but soon she regained her thick-skinned look and said with her neck stiff, "Who said we want to default on the debt? We will definitely pay it back when we have more money in the future."

Yan Bugui was immediately furious. He had seen people with thick skins before, but he had never seen anyone as thick-skinned as Jia Zhang. "Sister-in-law, aren't you lying with your eyes open? Your family is rich now, with more than a thousand yuan. Who else can have so much money as you?"

Jia Zhang is not someone you want to mess with.

She jumped down from the kang, pointed at Yan Bugui's nose and cursed: "Great! You are a manager, but I didn't expect you to have such a bad character. You even want a dead man's money..."

Then, she started to act like a spoiled child, wanting the neighbors to hear her, "Come on, come and take a look at this sanctimonious old man..."

"You want to force us to do this while there is no man in our family..."

Yan Bugui was stunned. Jia Zhang's move really made him unable to cope. It was not advisable for him to stay here for a long time. What if the neighbors who were unaware of the situation misunderstood him?

"Well...well, you bitch, you are so disgraceful. I won't argue with you for now. Just wait, we are not done with this matter yet."

"Hmph..." With that, he walked away with his sleeves draped over his shoulders.

After leaving the Jia family, he happened to run into Sha Zhu who was coming out to check out the situation.

Sha Zhu pointed at him and asked curiously, "Uncle, what's going on?"

Yan Bugui shook his head dejectedly, secretly wondering how to deal with this difficult matter.

If it's just the one or two dollars they have, I'll just bear with it.

However, he borrowed the money personally from everyone, totaling more than one hundred yuan.

This was not a small amount of money for him. He couldn't just accept it so easily.

So he wanted to find someone to talk to and see if there was any better way to solve the problem.

Yan Bugui glanced at the enthusiastic Sha Zhu and said, wow, isn’t this a good candidate?

"Zhu Zi, let's talk inside!"

After entering Sha Zhu's house, Yan Bugui told Sha Zhu and his wife everything.

"It's like this... like this..." He then began to sigh, "Oh! My kindness was taken for granted. I didn't get a single kind word from you and was bullied..."

After listening to Yan Bugui's story, Sha Zhu and Wang Qiuju were also filled with indignation. "This Aunt Jia, what she did is really a bastard, isn't it?"

"Isn't this obviously an attempt to shirk one's debt?" Wang Qiuju also said.

Yan Bugui was also in a lot of trouble. Jia Zhang was determined to default on her debt, and he really had no way to deal with it. He couldn't just go to their house and rob them, right? What kind of person would that make him, a "Zhou Paopi" from the old society?
Everyone knows that Jia Zhang is not a easy person to deal with; once the money is in her pocket, it is simply wishful thinking to want it to get out again.

Arrived a little late.

Sha Zhu suddenly said, "Otherwise, let's just forget about it. Their family is not doing well either, so let's just consider it as helping the needy."

Yan Bugui said frankly: "Zhu Zi, you are kind-hearted and don't want to argue with them, but they don't think so..."

"As the saying goes, a kind person will be bullied, and a kind horse will be ridden. If we don't bother with her, she will only become more aggressive."

Wang Qiuju is also a sensible person, unlike Sha Zhu who is a pushover; she knows how to show kindness at the right time, and also knows how to refuse when necessary.

She retorted to Sha Zhu: "Zhu Zi, what you said is wrong. If you don't want the money, that's your business, but what about others? They still have to ask the third uncle for money."

"More than a hundred yuan, that's his three months' salary," she added, with a hint of helplessness in her tone.

"Besides, this isn't the way to be kind. If their family is really in trouble, as neighbors, it makes sense to help them."

"But is their family in financial difficulty now? 1,200 yuan in cash, plus the money given as gifts by everyone, who can be as rich as them? Do we have 200 yuan in savings?"

Yan Bugui nodded in agreement. Even with his careful budgeting, his family had not saved much money, which was nothing compared to the cash the Jia family had now.

It was only thanks to Yan Jiecheng's success and becoming the head of the department that the family gradually began to have savings.

Even so, the He family, the Yan family, and the Yi family are all considered wealthy families in the compound.

Liu Haizhong, who had just passed the seventh-level worker exam, was from a family that could barely be considered wealthy. His three sons were all young boys who had bankrupted their father.

The other twenty or so families lived a tight life, and their living standards were far worse than those of the old Jia family when Jia Dongxu was alive.

The situation is even more incomparable now. The Jia family has more than 1,300 yuan in cash on hand, which is enough to rank as the third richest family in the compound after Liu Zhiye's family and Xu Damao's family.

Moreover, her family can receive a pension of 18 yuan per month. If they spend it frugally, it will be enough for their family of five to live on.

Who said we should pity them? This is simply a joke. We don’t even know who should pity whom!
After Yan Bugui and Sha Zhu pondered over this, they discovered that the Jia family was actually much better off than they had imagined. They were just deceived by the appearance of an orphan and a widow.

"I think we should hold a meeting and explain it to the neighbors. If they agree, then we can just leave it alone."

"Otherwise, then..."

Yan Bugui thought this was a good idea, and he thought it would be a good idea to let the neighbors know what happened, so that he would not be in trouble. So he decided to do it.

After seeing Yan Bugui off, Sha Zhu shook his head and secretly cursed himself for being stupid.

"Hey! More than 1,300 yuan. I've been a cook for so many years, but I haven't saved that much money!" Sha Zhu sighed, and then asked Wang Qiuju: "Wife, how much savings do we have?"

Wang Qiuju rolled her eyes at him and said, "Don't you know how much money you have? I'm telling you, you have to spend it frugally. Things are different now. We have five people in our family. I'm afraid your salary is not enough to support our family."

"Well, when He Qiu is older, let Brother Liu find me a job. He is such a high-ranking official, I don't think this will be a problem for him."

Sha Zhu laughed and said, "Don't worry, I will be a level 7 chef soon, and my salary will go up."

"When Yushui graduates next year, she will get a salary, and our family will be much more relaxed."

Wang Qiuju turned her face away and looked at Sha Zhu with disdain: "Well, I also want to go out to work. I don't want to be like Lou Xiao'e and Qin Huairu, staying at home all day and doing only trivial things." Her words revealed a strong sense of independence and enterprising spirit.

Sha Zhu blinked, "This... is not impossible. Have you decided what to do?"

Seeing that Sha Zhu supported her to go out to work, Wang Qiuju asked excitedly, "Do you think I can become a police officer?"

"What?" Sha Zhu was stunned for a moment, then started laughing: "Hahaha...you want to be a policeman, will people want you?" Wang Qiuju was so angry that she slapped Sha Zhu hard, causing him to grit his teeth and clench his lips in pain.

"Hiss! Oh my, please be gentle!"

"Well, you know what? With your brute force, you are qualified."

Wang Qiuju smiled proudly and said, "Hehe, now you know how powerful I am, right?"

"To be honest, dealing with three or five grown men like you is a piece of cake for me."

"Don't underestimate those police officers. If we really fight, ordinary people may not be my match."

Sha Zhu looked at her in disbelief, with the corners of his mouth slightly raised, and chuckled, "Just brag, you beat me two or three times, I can still believe it, but you insist that you are more powerful than the police? I don't believe it, what are you trying to do?"

Wang Qiuju said angrily: "I didn't say this myself, Brother Liu said it himself."

"I fought him before. Although I didn't last more than a few rounds, I was still a brave man despite the defeat."

"He said that I was very skilled and there weren't many people as skilled as me in their security team."

When Sha Zhu saw her expression, he was stunned. He didn't think it was fake. He said with some fear, "Wow! You are so skilled! It seems that when we fought before, you were just joking and never really did anything?"

Sha Zhu had seen how powerful Liu Zhiye was. Even though he was known as the "Siheyuan God of War", he could not last even a single round against Liu Zhiye.

And the fact that Wang Qiuju was able to fight with Liu Zhiye for several rounds shows how strong her skills are, which is truly amazing.

Seeing Sha Zhu's expression as if he had seen a ghost, Wang Qiuju first laughed "Puchi!", then covered her mouth and laughed: "Silly! Now you know how powerful I am, right? Do you dare to fight me again in the future?"

Sha Zhu shook his head in a daze and said stupidly, "I don't dare, I don't dare, only a fool would fight with you!"

"However, you are quite skilled. But if you want to be a police officer, it is not enough to just be skilled. In addition to skills, you also need to have other qualities and abilities."

"With your cultural level, you still have..."

Wang Qiuju frowned, "Sister Gan Ning said that even though I didn't graduate from junior high school, I'm only 20 years old this year, so I can go to night school."

"According to what you said, it is really possible to become a police officer!" Sha Zhu thought and felt that with Liu Zhiye's relationship, she really had a chance.

Liu Zhiye and his wife treated Wang Qiuju much better than he did, and they really didn't treat her as an outsider.

"Hehe! If Qiu Ju really becomes a police officer, let's see if Xu Damao still dares to challenge me." Sha Zhu was already fantasizing about his grandson Xu Damao, and how he would be humble in front of him in the future.

"Hahaha..." Sha Zhu pinched his waist and laughed.

"Oh!"

"Ouch! It hurts!" said Sha Zhu, rubbing his head hard.

Wang Qiuju's eyes widened as she looked at him and said, "Are you possessed? What are you grinning at?"

………………

After breakfast, Deng Ru said to Liu Zhiye: "Zhiye, can you come back earlier tonight?"

Liu Zhiye was stunned for a moment, then thought for a moment and said, "It depends on the situation. I'm not sure."

"Mom, what's up?"

Deng Ru smoothed her hair and said calmly, "There will be another meeting in the compound. If you are free, please try to attend."

When Liu Zhiye heard that another meeting was going to be held, he immediately felt irritated. He often attended meetings on weekdays, but that was for work needs, so that was fine.

But he is also restless when he gets home, and he always holds meetings, which is really annoying.

When he saw this kind of thing, he would try to avoid it. If he couldn't avoid it, he would let his parents or Gan Ning participate. Anyway, he would not play house with these people.

Liu Zhiye said helplessly: "What is the purpose of this meeting?"

Deng Ru frowned and said, "What else could it be for? It's because of the old Jia family's business!"

Liu Zhiye frowned and asked, "What happened to their family? What's going on again?"

Deng Ru said, "I heard from your third aunt that Jia Zhang is a real piece of shit. Let me tell you..." So she told her son the whole story.

"Ah? Is she so shameless?"

"Before, I didn't notice her and thought she had been transformed..." Gan Ning widened her eyes in surprise and covered her mouth.

Deng Ru looked at her second daughter-in-law and said, "Hey! How long have you been in contact with her?"

"I'm telling you, she can do things more serious than this."

"Mom, I won't participate. You guys can do it for me!" When Liu Zhiye heard that it was about Jia Zhang's matter, he didn't want to participate even more.

If Liu Zhiye had just been reborn in the compound, facing someone like Jia Zhang, he would definitely be filled with righteous indignation and would want to give her a good beating.

At that time, his mentality had not yet changed, and he was still handling things with the mentality of an ordinary person.

Now, he has adapted to his current identity and environment, and with his social status constantly improving, he no longer cares about these ordinary people. It's nothing else, he just feels ashamed.

Seeing that Liu Zhiye was not going, Gan Ning immediately said, "Mom, I can't attend either. I'll have to trouble you to represent our family!"

"Okay! We know you two are busy, and everyone will understand." Deng Ru nodded. Gan Ning had just taken over a new job recently and was indeed very busy.

Speaking of which, Gan Ning's career was quite smooth. Not long after she resumed work, she was promoted to secretary of the Youth League Committee of the Street Office, and her rank was adjusted to the section level.

She is only 27 years old this year and is a top student in the Chinese Department of Peking University, a top domestic university. If everything goes well, she will at best retire at the department or bureau level in a few decades, so her future is limitless.

----

Seven o'clock in the evening, in the courtyard of No. 95 Nanluoguo Lane.

It was mid-April and the weather was moderate during the day, neither cold nor hot, but it was a bit chilly at night.

Because there hasn't been a full-school meeting for some time, everyone was surprisingly excited to attend.

There were quite a lot of people present, including Xu Damao and his wife, Sha Zhu's family, Liu Haizhong's family, Yan Bugui's family, Liu Jingzhai and his wife, Yi Zhonghai's family, the Jia family... Even the deaf old lady in the backyard who usually didn't go out came out.

Xu Damao sat with Sha Zhu and Yan Jiecheng, "Zhu Zi, do you know what's going on?"

Of course Sha Zhu knew, but he didn't want to say it in advance, and he didn't want to argue with Xu Damao, "You ask me, who should I ask? I don't know!"

Xu Damao immediately became angry, "Hey! What's your attitude? I was talking to you in a nice way, and you're treating me like this?"

Sha Zhu stared and said: "I..."

Yan Bugui slammed the table seriously, interrupting Sha Zhu's next words.

"uh-huh!"

"Is everyone here? If not, we won't wait any longer."

"Now, let's start the meeting!"

Yan Bugui glanced coldly at the Jia family's mother-in-law and daughter-in-law who both looked unhappy, and said in a deep voice: "I called everyone to a meeting today just for one thing." Although his voice was not loud, it carried a hint of majesty, making everyone present feel a sense of solemnity.

Sha Zhu made a joke: "What is the matter with the Third Uncle? Is it necessary to mobilize so many troops?"

Yan Bugui sneered and said, "What's the matter? Let me tell you slowly."

"I think everyone still remembers that after Jia Dongxu passed away, we held a meeting to raise money for his funeral, right?"

Xu Damao said proudly: "How could you not remember? Our family also contributed two pieces!" Then he pointed two fingers to everyone.

(End of this chapter)