CHAPTER 52: CHAPTER 52: THE CRIME OF GENDER 52

But this meat can’t just be given away freely. Qin Shuangshuang thought about it, and decided to keep a few bags of jerky and dried mushrooms and wild vegetables for her family, while moving the rest to the ancestral hall. Her house was close to the hall, allowing her to move these items discreetly.

When the time comes, she would have the village chief and a few respected elders supervise making one pot of meat soup daily, then gather the villagers and give each person a bowl—adults with big bowls, children with small ones. This method would be fairer than distributing the meat directly.

Having made up her mind, Qin Shuangshuang moved the meat into the ancestral hall. The hall had three rooms in succession; the innermost was for placing ancestral tablets, which she couldn’t enter, but she could access the first two rooms. Qin Shuangshuang stacked the meat and dried mushrooms and wild vegetables so high in the second room that it was completely filled!

The village chief had aged significantly during this time, and along with not getting enough to eat, he was gaunt and almost unrecognizable, even walking with a tremor, his once spirited demeanor gone.

However, upon seeing the sacks of jerky piled up by Qin Shuangshuang nearly filling the entire room, a spark of hope instantly lit up in the village chief’s lifeless eyes!

Tears welled up in his eyes, and his throat moved with emotion as he said hoarsely to Qin Shuangshuang, "Shuangshuang girl, you are the savior of our whole village. If we can get through this hardship, no one in our village will ever forget your life-saving grace!"

"Don’t mention grace and all that. When my mother and I were struggling, wasn’t it also thanks to you and the good-hearted folks in the village that we managed to survive? These are the things I hunted and preserved when I went into the mountains.

Last year, the drought affected everyone’s harvests, and I worried that the food everyone gathered might not last until this year’s harvest, so I kept this jerky aside, who would have thought it would turn out to be life-saving now with this year’s drought again!"

The village chief, excited, rubbed his hands together, saying "good" repeatedly, then hurried out and personally rang the big bell at the entrance of the ancestral hall.

He gathered the villagers and let everyone see the jerky-filled room and several bags of dried mushrooms and wild vegetables. Faces that had been dejected suddenly lit up with vitality as the villagers arrived.

Euphorically, everyone shed tears of joy, relieved at last from the fear of starvation. Then came a series of thank-yous to Qin Shuangshuang, especially from the elderly, who had previously met secretly numerous times, planning mutual fasting to avoid burdening the younger generations in their families.

After praising Qin Shuangshuang, the villagers praised Mrs. Bai, saying she raised a great daughter, understanding gratitude and righteousness, with far-sightedness. Both Qin Shuangshuang and Mrs. Bai blushed at the compliments, feeling a bit embarrassed!

Finally, the village chief waved his arm and ordered a pot to be set up in front of the ancestral hall to cook meat soup. No longer afraid of starving, everyone’s spirits lifted—some fetched water, some chopped meat—no instructions needed; despite the abundance of meat, everyone took as little as possible when grabbing meat.

Meat, unlike grain, wouldn’t starve you if you only ate a bowl of thin porridge without eating anything else for a day, whereas eating just a bowl of meat stew would sustain you for the day.

Several sturdy men in the village joined forces, chopping the jerky into powder; whole dried wild chickens and rabbits were similarly ground along with their bones. Mushrooms and black fungus were also powdered. Dried wild vegetables, being fewer, were added sparingly and ground into powder.

The three large pots were all set to work, with a basin of meat, mushroom, and wild vegetable powder separately poured into each. Initially, they thought it would just be broth with some meat flavor, but those dry foods that Qin Shuangshuang had sun-dried and powdered turned into three large pots of thick meat stew!

The villagers were delighted yet heartbroken; glad that the stew would help them last longer, possibly until God decides to send rain, but heartbroken that consuming such rich stew seemed lavish, urging them to use less meat.

Several clan elders muttered endlessly about the waste. The village chief had to have two more pots fetched and the broth diluted, yet it remained thick. No further dividing was done; everyone’s hunger was unbearable, and the village chief directly announced it was time to eat.

The village chief personally supervised the distribution; adults received two ladles of stew, filling a full bowl, while the children’s smaller appetites were satisfied with one ladle. Despite Qin the Third’s family’s eager approach, they didn’t appear starved for long, causing the village chief to frown.

Everyone knew about the Qin family’s grain selling, that they stopped selling later and stored a lot of grain at home.

When everyone was starving to death and couldn’t buy food, they had no choice but to spend a lot of money to buy it from Mr. Qin’s family. Even when the Qin family insisted they had no more grain, no one forced them to share it. But now when their family that isn’t lacking grain comes for a share of meat, it’s really improper.

The village chief waved them off, not allowing Mr. Qin’s family to receive any stew, saying coldly, "Your family can’t have any of this meat!"

"Why not? Are you saying our family isn’t part of Qin, or is it someone discriminating against us not allowing us to share?" Burst Old Chen, waiting behind Mr. Qin for stew, with a sharp, pointed glance at Qin Shuangshuang.

The village chief highly disliked this mean, selfish, and vicious Old Chen, ignoring her, and directly said to Mr. Qin, "Whether your family lacks grain or not, everyone knows. You refused to sell when we were starving to death, we didn’t force you, but this meat, don’t even think about getting a share. If you don’t like it, you not being part of Qin is no issue."

The village chief said this very sternly; no one in the village objected, everyone agreed. The Qin family’s previous behavior could be called turning a blind eye to others’ plight. No loss to the clan without them!

With Old Chen’s fierce domestic demeanor, she dared to retort against the village chief thinking Qin Shuangshuang had a hand in it. Seeing the entire village glaring angrily at them, Old Chen shrank back and dared not speak up.

Seeing everyone unwelcoming, Mr. Qin had no choice but to lead his family home; as the village chief said, they weren’t lacking grain, their greed for meat aside, and didn’t want others to know about it.

Once the Qin family returned home, they felt frustrated; the stew smelled so good, and they really craved it. Old Chen’s face was somber as she viciously eyed Qin Lao Er, grumbling irritably.

"We should never have kept Mrs. Bai back then! If we went with my idea, buying and quietly selling her at a good price, we could have made a profit. But no, you this useless had to fancy that lowly *****’s flirtatious looks, insisting on keeping them. And what happened? She didn’t even bear a son for you, only a nemesis, especially vexing our family!"

Old Chen referred to selling Mrs. Bai at a good price as selling her to a brothel, where buying people is always lavish as long as they’re pretty. Mrs. Bai’s looks, judged by her ordinary-looking father Qin Lao Er, and if a brothel madam covets Qin Shuangshuang, then of course she must be stunning!

Qin the Third sat there, his eyes darting around, seeing how angry his mother Old Chen was, he smiled and said, "Mother, no need to be so upset. I’ve thought of a good plan, just right to vent your frustrations and teach those who gave our family a hard time today a good lesson!"