Father 06

He reached out and grabbed Liu Wenxia by the hair: "Spit it out, did you give the money to your maiden family!"

He used to beat Liu Wenxia like this in the past, but back then she was frail and weak. Things were different now. Standing there, Liu Wenxia looked like a dark whirlwind. Just as Fang Mingshan grabbed her hair, her palm smacked right across his face.

Throughout the whole ordeal, Old Man Fang stood to the side, anxiously watching while holding onto his precious eldest grandson.

In the distance, Fang Zhiyi craned his neck, watching with great relish.

As soon as the Fang family started making a scene, the nearby neighbors all gathered to watch the drama. Some even brought sunflower seeds, and Fang Zhiyi didn't stand on ceremony, reaching out to grab a handful.

"This Fang family really never rests. It used to be the young ones beating the young ones, and now they are beating the old ones?"

"Exactly, exactly."

"To be fair, Liu Wenxia used to be quite pitiful. She was given a hard time by that old woman Fang as soon as she married into the family. It's only been better these past few years."

"Exactly, exactly."

"With her build, Old Lady Fang wouldn't dare hit her now. Even Fang Mingshan is having a tough time."

"Exactly, exactly."

The person speaking turned around and glanced at the guy eating his sunflower seeds and agreeing with a mouth full of food, and his expression instantly soured.

"Fang Zhiyi, are you just going to watch your family make a scene like this? And you're eating my sunflower seeds?"

Fang Zhiyi frowned. "Don't be so stingy. We're all neighbors, what's wrong with eating a few?"

"No, is this about the sunflower seeds?"

"Then what is it about? Their family is fighting, do I have to step in and help? That's my younger brother and my sister-in-law, who am I supposed to help?"

"Help... uh... logically speaking, you definitely should help your brother."

"Huang Gou, what nonsense are you spouting? Two grown men beating a woman, aren't you ashamed?" an auntie chimed in.

"Exactly!"

"Then, help Liu Wenxia?"

"Helping your brother's wife beat your own brother sounds even worse when word gets out!" an old man said.

Fang Zhiyi watched the fight over there with great interest while listening to the villagers' discussions around him.

Finally, someone said something sensible: "Fang Zhiyi, you can go break up the fight!"

"Right, right, right." The crowd finally realized there was a third option.

Fang Zhiyi shook his head repeatedly. "I wouldn't dare."

"Why not?"

"Did you all forget how I was kicked out in the first place?" After Fang Zhiyi said this, many villagers suddenly understood.

Back then, it was also because Old Lady Fang was tormenting her daughter-in-law. Fang Zhiyi had said a few extra words to defend his wife, and as a result, he was beaten up by his own father and brother. They eventually kicked him out of the house. Even the small courtyard he lived in now was built with money borrowed from his wife's maiden family.

"That may be so, but he is your brother after all..." the old man from before continued to persuade him.

Fang Zhiyi threw away the sunflower seed shells. "I'm not helping, I'm not a judge." Saying that, he turned and walked away.

The villagers looked at each other in dismay. Fortunately, the Fang family's relatives arrived and separated the two red-eyed fighters.

"None of you with the surname Fang are good people! Pah!" Liu Wenxia was still cursing, a large bruise around her eye. Fang Mingshan was panting heavily: "Who do you think you are? You bitch!"

With the Fang family relatives presiding, Old Lady Fang cried to the heavens as she recounted what happened, the main point being exactly how much money Liu Wenxia had taken. Liu Wenxia also threw caution to the wind, went back into the room, and found the twenty-five thousand yuan she had hidden. "This is it. What's wrong with me keeping a little private stash?"

Old Lady Fang took one look and became agitated again. "Bullshit! The eldest said he gave you a hundred and twenty thousand!"

"There was no hundred and twenty thousand, just a hundred thousand!"

An elder of the Fang family frowned. "A hundred thousand? Then this five thousand..."

Liu Wenxia gritted her teeth. "It was a red envelope he gave me!"

"He gave you a red envelope? Do you think we don't know what kind of character the eldest is? He values the money left by his dead wife more than his own life, and he would voluntarily give you extra?" Fang Mingshan cursed. "It's obvious that you took a hundred and twenty thousand, turned around and subsidized your family with fifteen thousand, and you're still pretending!" Saying this, he directly kicked Liu Wenxia to the ground.

Caught off guard, Liu Wenxia fell straight to the ground. When she sat up, her eyes were bloodshot. "Fine, fine! You Fang family just bully me, right? You bullied me before, and you still bully me now! I'll hack you to death!" She rushed into the kitchen and brought out a kitchen knife. Now Fang Mingshan chickened out. Looking at Liu Wenxia wielding two knives, he turned and ran.

Ultimately, the crowd never figured out exactly how much money Fang Zhiyi had given. Someone went to look for Fang Zhiyi, but he wasn't home. Only Fang Qingci was at home doing homework.

"So you gave her the money just to frame her?" Little Hei understood.

"To deal with this kind of person, you have to be willing to use bait... otherwise, with nothing to do all day, they could annoy a person to death." Fang Zhiyi lay on the hillside, leisurely looking up at the starry sky.

"How did you know they would fight?"

"Isn't it obvious? Someone like Liu Wenxia who favors boys over girls must have received the same treatment in the past, only she went straight from being a victim to a perpetrator... Their family used to be peaceful because they had a common punching bag. Now that Fang Qingci is no longer in their house, they need another excuse to vent, don't they?"

"You are really wicked."

"This is nothing yet." Fang Zhiyi sat up and rubbed his stomach. "I'm hungry, let's go home."

He was right. From that day on, the atmosphere in the Fang family became extremely tense. Fang Tianqi didn't understand why his family members had suddenly completely changed. His parents argued at the drop of a hat, and his grandmother even spoke ill of his mother in front of him. In such an environment, his presence was significantly diminished.

Fang Zhiyi continued doing things that seemed completely meaningless to Little Hei, until someone suddenly offered to pay Fang Zhiyi to help haul away a batch of renovation garbage. Little Hei suddenly understood Fang Zhiyi's goal.

"Some conditions in this small town are not mature enough... ultimately, it's just too early an era... If it were twenty years later, I'd probably really be reduced to begging," Fang Zhiyi said.

Little Hei laughed, "With your brain, I'm afraid you won't suffer any losses even when you go back in the future."

"You don't understand our world... as long as it's a profitable industry, there are people in it. Every trade and profession has long been overcrowded."

"It can't be that exaggerated."

Fang Zhiyi's business gradually took shape, and he built up quite a network of contacts in town. He even received news faster than anyone else whenever there was the slightest rustle of leaves in the wind. According to Little Hei, from one end of the town to the other, Fang Zhiyi smiled so much when greeting people that his face almost cramped.

It wasn't that no one came looking for trouble with Fang Zhiyi, but these local ruffians soon discovered that Fang Zhiyi was more of a ruffian than they were, and the things he did were simply hair-raising. Little Hei repeatedly marveled at Fang Zhiyi's extraordinary ability to gather a gang.

It was on this afternoon that Fang Zhiyi came to pick up Fang Qingci from school as usual.

Because he arrived a little early, Fang Zhiyi saw a somewhat depressing scene through the school gates. Fang Qingci didn't come out immediately; instead, she hugged her schoolbag and trotted into the restroom. Only under Fang Zhiyi's urging did Little Hei reluctantly enter the girls' restroom.

"Um, that daughter of yours is in the restroom washing her schoolbag."