Chapter 224: Cutting the Gordian knot [4200]

"A country is easy to change, but a person's temperament is hard to change."

This line of lyrics is a warning from Feng Menglong, a poet from Suzhou in the Ming Dynasty and the owner of Pingping Pavilion.

It means: It is more difficult to change human nature than to change the country!

Lu Youli interpreted this phrase very well.

Being stingy, selfish, and vindictive, he only sees small gains and forgets the greater good. He will take advantage whenever he can, but if he doesn't, he will feel more miserable than killing himself.

His father is dead.

He came back to fulfill his filial duties and keep vigil.

There are only two purposes in itself.

1: Restore a damaged reputation.

Because he was in a hurry to get married, he stole all the money of his family, and then was driven out. He was also forced to write it in black and white in the family division agreement, which made him give up the inheritance rights of the house and land of the old house.

This is a great shame and humiliation.

Naturally, he kept it secret and dared not tell anyone, but the village was so small that he could not hide it from anyone who was interested, and it eventually became known to everyone. Even though he no longer lived in Shanghuai Village but in Xiahuai Village, he still could not avoid being pointed at by others.

I heard that dad died.

His wife advised him to seize this opportunity to go back and show filial piety. As long as he showed proper filial respect in the mourning hall, who would dare to say that he was not a member of the Lu family and was an unfilial abandoned son who was driven out?
Lu Youli thought about it and realized that what his wife said was absolutely right.

Although he is a pragmatic person and doesn't care much about what others say about him, it would certainly be better if he could be an upright person.

Besides, now that my father is dead, the debt should be settled.

If I could return to the Lu family, I could divide the house, land and fields again. Even if the third and sixth brothers tried to stop me, at worst I would just return the money I had stolen from them.

Just a few hundred dollars.

Thanks to that cousin, I used the money I stole in the past six months to buy a sewing machine with the remaining money after I got married, and borrowed another sewing machine from my father-in-law's house. There were two sewing machines in my house. My wife and I worked day and night from morning to night, and we made a lot of money.

Now he dares to say that in the entire Xiahuai Village, there is no family that can earn more than him and his wife combined.

Now let’s talk about the second purpose.

The second purpose is even simpler. By returning to the Lu family, he can restore blood ties and influence this cousin through family ties, and finally achieve the goal of clinging to the other party.

After all, my wife and I work hard day and night making clothes, but we can only earn about 300 yuan a month at most.

This is quite a lot though.

In the past, without this cousin, investing in a garment factory in Shangxiahuai Village was something that people would not even dare to think about.

But people are like this. They are most afraid of comparison. They are not worried about the lack of wealth, but the inequality of wealth. They are cousins ​​and work in the same factory, but why are some managers, some supervisors, and some truck fleet captains, while he does not even qualify as a formal worker and can only be a non-staff member?

The salary is incomparable.

Even if the couple works hard together, they can't earn as much as others who only need to talk. Don't you feel angry?

snort!
It's just that you're good at flattering.

But I was too upright and refused to bow to my cousins. I didn't flatter them well, so I was not welcomed.

Yes, that's for sure.

Lu Youli figured it out, and he decided to go back and give it a try. Isn’t it just licking?
He dared to guarantee that he would feel more comfortable licking than the eldest or the third one.

As for Lao Liu, that kid is very sharp-tongued and even more shameless than himself.

I can’t compare, but that doesn’t matter.

If you can't be the manager of the factory, then you can be a supervisor like the third brother, or be the captain of a team of ten like the eldest brother. That should be okay, right?
Lu Youli had a nice idea.

He discussed it with his pregnant wife and decided not to waste any more time, so they packed up and returned to Shanghuai Village overnight.

They made the right bet.

Just like what the couple had agreed before, even though they had fallen out with their family and were kicked out, the bloodline was still there and the bloodline could not be severed. As a son who had just lost his father, no one had any reason to stop a son who had lost his father from showing filial piety in front of the coffin and paying tribute to his father.

The first person to soften his heart and be persuaded was Lu Yang's aunt.

She loved her son very much, but the things Lu Youli had done before were really unhuman and offended everyone in the family.

Even if she was reluctant, she had to harden her heart.

Now, the old man is dead, but the son is back and can still show filial piety to the old man in front of his coffin, and let bygones be bygones. She thinks this is good enough, which shows that her son is filial and that it was not in vain that she raised him.

You have to know that the one who decided to drive this son away and not allow him to inherit the Lu family's old house and land was the old man himself who died just a few days ago.

The son has put aside the past and returned to show filial piety in front of the coffin, waving banners and mourning tears, and bowing on the road to see him off. What else is there to say?
She has forgiven him anyway.

She will be angry with anyone who doesn't forgive her, which will make her son feel cold. What if her son doesn't come back to mourn for her when she dies in the future?
Doesn't that mean she will lose to the old man?
When I go to the underworld in the future, I will probably be ridiculed by the old man.

Lu Yang's aunt is a little stubborn and easily gets into trouble. When her uncle is around, she can be controlled. But when he is gone, once she starts to get into trouble and throw a tantrum, there are really few people who can control her.

At first, I was happy about this fifth brother returning home.

Whether it is Lu Yang’s eldest cousin Lu Youren, or his third cousin Lu Youyi, both brothers adhere to the principle that if you want to come, then come; if you want to be filial, then do it.

We just pretended not to see it.

Anyway, it was written in black and white that this bastard fifth brother would have no share in the ancestral house, the front and back of the house, the mountains and paddy fields.

Just think of it as comforting my parents. My father-in-law died, and my parents are all alone and helpless, which is quite pitiful. In the past, my fifth brother was the one I loved the most. Since my fifth brother is willing to come back and fulfill his filial duties again, I would like to ask him to take care of my parents more.

They don't have to have nothing to do with this fifth brother who has a long history of bad deeds until they die, provided that he can really reform himself.

But that’s where the problem ends.

Seeing that his first step of the plan was accomplished, Lu Youli returned to the Lu family easily. He was secretly delighted and suddenly forgot what he really wanted after returning.

In itself, if it only came to this, seeing that he came back to fulfill his filial piety, even Lu Yang, although he might still be unfriendly to him, would not stand up and oppose anything in this matter.

Of course, it is impossible to promote him as he imagined.

That was purely daydreaming. At least in the short term, Lu Yang would not consider it unless he could thoroughly re-understand his character and observe whether he had truly reformed.

In the short term, the garment factory will have the sixth cousin in charge of external affairs, the third cousin in charge of internal affairs, and the eldest cousin in charge of logistics, sales, production, and transportation. There will be no shortage of any of the three, and there will be more than enough manpower.

But Lu Youli had already become arrogant.

He couldn't wait even a day. He had just coaxed his parents and became the most filial son in the eyes of his aunt Lu Yang. He immediately started to beat around the bush and inquire about the family affairs.

For example, the income of several older brothers and younger brothers.

Unfortunately, ever since what happened last time, neither the third brother nor the sixth brother keeps their money with us anymore.

Otherwise, with the current salaries of these guys, I heard that after becoming managers, they have been raised to more than 500. And they don’t have wives to manage the money, so all the money will have to be kept by their parents.

Tut tut...

It hurts him whenever he thinks of it.

Otherwise, given his temper, if he really found out that his parents had secretly saved up several thousand dollars for his brothers and sisters, it is possible that he would not be able to control his hands and take them all away without anyone noticing.

But it’s okay.

He got another piece of news from his parents.

He thought this news was promising and he might be able to make a fortune from it.

You don't have to fall out with your family.

What's the news?

It turned out that Tianya Laozi had an accident and died on the curb of the main road outside. He was first discovered by a small cadre from the county, who rode his bicycle to the village to report the news.

That's okay.

This young cadre is suspicious!
What? Innocent? Just a passerby? Out of kindness, helping out, reporting a message?
nonsense.

It must be complete bullshit.

We must investigate and make this small cadre pay compensation. It was not your fault, so what are you reporting?
At first, Lu Yang's aunt was skeptical. After all, he was a leading cadre in the county, so it was not good to wrongly accuse him. Besides, her eldest son had already determined the nature of the matter. He said that after the villagers were called over, they found that the old man had been dead for a long time, and even the body was stiff. It was impossible for someone to hit him. The old man must have fallen down by himself, and no one found him. He died of thirst, sunburn, heatstroke, suffocation, all kinds of possibilities were possible...

But we cannot wrongly accuse Officer Jiang, who came to the village to report the news with good intentions.

But what's the use?
Lu Youli knew his parents very well. With just one sentence, he made them completely change their minds.

"Mom, you have to think it through. It's easy to give up compensation, but it will be hard to have such an opportunity again. The cause of our father's death is not important. To be honest, what's important is whether we can put the blame on the other party. As long as we can put the blame on this person, he will have to pay compensation. This person is a city dweller, and a small cadre in the city. The compensation will be enough for you and me to use for our retirement. When the time comes, you can spend it however you want, without having to look at anyone's face."

These words really touched the heart of Lu Yang's aunt.

Now that her old man is gone, isn’t her biggest concern now her own retirement?
Besides, having money in your own hands is more comfortable than asking your son and daughter-in-law for money or living under someone else's roof, right?

As for whether a good person would be wrongly accused, ha, is that a problem?

That's not a problem.

So, they hit it off and she immediately agreed to the plan, and started to be even more active than Lu Youli himself.

The matter was reported to the village committee that day.

The reason is simple!

The old village party secretary who has worked in the village committee for 20 to 30 years is the father-in-law of Mr. Li, the official from the county who is suspected of harming his own boss. Do you think he should also be held responsible?

This matter just became a matter of truth.

Lu Yang's eldest cousin was also caught off guard, and he couldn't do anything to his mother. No matter how he explained, it was no use saying that the matter was none of other people's business, his mother just wanted to make a fuss. What's even more hateful is that there was someone fanning the flames.

He now hated the fifth brother so much that he instigated his mother to cause trouble and brought shame to the Lu family.

Otherwise, he would not have asked his apprentice driver to pick up his cousin Lu Yang and his younger brother Lao Liu, and specifically instructed them to remember to remind them not to be impulsive.

It was because he knew too well that his cousin Lu Yang would definitely not want to do such a thing and lose the face of the Lu family for a little bit of profit. The sixth brother Lu Youzhi was even more impulsive. If he knew that all these troubles were caused by the fifth brother after he came back, he would be furious and might even start a fight in the mourning hall.

Look, he had predicted everything.

But Lu Youli is unaware of this and is even secretly complacent.

I didn't count on my family.

I just schemed against an outsider. You guys can't find fault with me, right?

Until he was hit in the eye by his own brother, and screamed in pain.

He realized the seriousness of the matter and that it might get worse.

Why is this so?
"I am right."

"I didn't do anything."

"Why are you doing this to me? Is it wrong to have reasonable suspicion?"

"Yes, I told my parents that it was possible that the city dweller who reported the incident was just crying thief, and that he was the one who hit our father and killed him. Isn't that illogical at all? My parents also thought it made sense. She wanted to make a scene, but it wasn't my order. Why are you all looking at me like that?"

When the whole family was called into a room and the doors and windows were locked, there were outsiders present. Facing everyone's suspicion, Lu Youli tried his best to defend himself.

But I still feel guilty.

"Well, I have a way to prove whether this Li was the murderer who hit Uncle. We just need to determine when he left the county. If it was within half an hour of notifying the villagers, then it proves that he was not lying, because it takes exactly that much time to ride a bicycle from the county to our Shanghuai Village. And I heard that when Uncle was found, his body was already stiff. If he had just died, how could his body be stiff?"

Lu Yang took out the mobile phone from his waist, waved it in front of everyone, and in front of everyone, he called Du Lingling, the director of the county investment promotion office.

"Hello, is this Director Du?"

"I'm Lu Yang."

"I want to ask you something. When did Li Weimin, the officer in your county's investment promotion office, leave on June 6? Did he register? If not, did any of his colleagues see him leave that day?"

"Okay, thank you Director Du for your help. I'll wait for your news."

Because in front of the whole family with the surname Lu, Lu Yang couldn't call her Director Du by the name of "sister".

But even so.

After the call was hung up, everyone was still shocked. They didn't expect that Lu Yang's power had become so great without them realizing it that he could even make a phone call and find a high-ranking official in the county to check the whereabouts of a cadre.

"Okay, the results will be out soon."

Lu Yang stared at his aunt and Lu Youli, and said, "If it can be proven that Officer Li is innocent, I hope this will be the end of it. Do you understand?"

In this case, it would be most appropriate to cut the Gordian knot.

(End of this chapter)