Chapter 637: Do what you think is right
" You all…" Second Aunt Fu was very furious when she saw that the villagers were actually agreeing with what Yu Dong said and they were even willing to sell their rice bran to her.
Second Aunt Yu and Yu Dong were relatives and of course, the competition between the two of them was very high. Second Aunt Yu has always thought that she was better than Yu Dong, after all, she was the one who was earning two to three taels in the town and even had many connections in the town and she was educated as well even though she snatched this opportunity of getting educated from Yu Dong, Second Aunt Yu did not feel any guilt nor did she feel that she should be grateful to her dead sister.
After all, she was the one who was talented and skilled and passed the academy with flying colours, in her heart Yu Dong was not as good as she was which was why she has always felt superior to Yu Dong who was like a weed in the flower field, she clearly did not have much worth!
But bit by bit the weed who was supposed to stay worthless till the end started to turn more and more brilliant now it was so rich and affluent that it was even giving complex to the sunflower that was growing in the same field.
Second Aunt Yu was used to being praised, she was clearly the only one who was praised by the villagers and that was how it was supposed to stay!
She was the only one who was treated with respect and reverence, just a few months ago she was treated like she was the best of all! But in just a few months, she was suddenly left behind by Yu Dong who did not have any skills in comparison to her.
And soon Yu Dong who was always talked contemptuously about was being treated with the same respect as her and then the villagers were treating her with the same respect as they treated her, if that was all then Second Aunt Yu would not have said anything, she might have even ignored it.
Though she felt stifled by the idea of being compared to Yu Dong, she was willing to turn a blind eye to it. After all, she was still in the same position as she was before but then …she was actually overshadowed by Yu Dong!
This was something that Second Aunt Yu could not withstand at all! In the past, everyone would often compare her with Yu Dong and ask her how can she and Yu Dong belong to the same family.
Back then she enjoyed it a lot and told them with a regretful face that she was also having a hard time trying to bring Yu Dong back on the right track, the villagers would then show their sympathy towards her before they dragged Yu Dong even more.
Now, the content of their conversation was the same. She and Yu Dong were still being compared but instead of Yu Dong getting dragged in the mud it was here who was being looked down on by the villagers!
They all were praising Yu Dong saying that they knew that there was no way her elder sister who was like a brave tigress will give birth to a bitch and would often say that it was her who could not match up to the Yu family's genes given that her mother once beat an ox with her bare hands, while Yu Dong's mother went to the mountain to hunt tigers and bears, while Yu Dong would bring boars down the mountains every once in a while.
Even though the villagers did not talk about her as openly as they talked badly about Yu Dong, she who knew what kind of persons the villagers were had a very good idea about what they were saying about her.
Second Aunt Yu was already feeling a sense of crisis after being left behind by Yu Dong, but when she heard the village head Gu say that Yu Dong could actually extract oil and that too an oil that would be better than the one that Qiao was selling in the market of the town, she got even more flustered.
Yu Dong was already being treated as the saviour of the big river village while her name was on the ground because of what happened between her daddy and her mother. They all looked at her like she was the scum of the village and she often heard the word 'unfilial' being used for her.
Even though the villagers used hushed voices when they were talking about her and it should not bother her that much but still! Second Aunt Yu knew that she could not allow Yu Dong to overshadow her anymore!
If Yu Dong really extracted oil something that she could not do then what will happen to her? She will be embarrassed to the point where she has to lower her head and not look into the eyes of the villagers!
She wanted to say something to rile the villagers up even more but before she could say anything, village head Gu shouted, " All right, I am not going to ask you all to agree to these terms that Yu Dong has put forward, if you want to sell her your rice bran then you can go ahead and sell it and if you don't want to sell it then you don't."
" The decision is, in the end, yours to take but I am telling you now that once you sell the rice bran then you won't get any shares and if you don't sell the rice bran then you will get nothing. Do not come to me in the future and ask me to find trouble with Yu Dong because I will not be agreeing to it!"
"Just so you know that if you all hand over your rice bran without asking for money, you will get a total of two taels each month as a share as long as you hand over twenty big bags of rice bran each month."
When everyone heard this, they started to chatter again.
Many villagers were a bit hesitant when they heard that they could earn two taels instead of a few copper coins, after all, rice bran was clearly useless. If they could twenty bags of rice husk for two taels they will be willing to do so but some thought that Yu Dong was only cooking imaginary castles.
The rice husk was too dry there was nothing in it that could be used to extract oil and what was more they all were in a troublesome situation already, the rice husk can be used as a secondary food resource. Mixing it with rice and eating it can at least keep them full and energetic throughout this entire situation gets over.
In such situations when they were already having enough trouble buying rations to fill their stomach Yu Dong was asking them to hand over their extra reserve of food and too for no money. If this was before they would have thought about it, after all, rice bran cost nothing to them.
But now times were different, they needed anything and everything that can be used as food to fill their bellies.
In the end, a few villagers came to the conclusion that Yu Dong was only willing to ask them to take the risk while not taking any by herself!
" Yu Dong, what will you put forth in this scenario? We all saw you carrying big bags of ration while we got nothing,if we sell you the rice bran then what are we going to do? You don't need to worry about anything since you purchased the rice but we need to care about it!"
Before Yu Dong could say anything village head Gu immediately said in a gloomy voice, " Who are you to ask such questions? Yu Dong does not have any responsibilities towards you and your family now that we are speaking about this, she is kind enough to help you all and you still think that you can question her? As you said Yu Dong already purchased her ration why does it matter to her whether you starve?"
"She is clearly doing this because she does not watch to watch our village getting bullied, we are all honest farmers. We cannot go against those who are powerful but the least we can do is to protect our village and not get bullied, or is that you all want to continue getting bullied by the Qiao woman?"
" Of course, we don't want to get bullied!" Everyone in the village shouted.
" That's right, we don't want to be bullied," Village head Gu nodded and then continued speaking, " And like I said Yu Dong is willing to pay you money for the rice bran according to the price of rapeseeds being sold in the market… as for whether or not you are willing to hand your rice bran for free to her to get shares in her mill, that will be up to you. In the end, chose what you think is right for your family!"
This content is taken from fr(e)ewebn(o)vel.𝓬𝓸𝓶