Chapter 22: Regretting the Sale of the Fat Sheep

At that moment, she whispered to her husband, "Manfu, call out to them! We can catch them in the act tonight and make them lose face in front of the entire village."

Though Qiu Manfu was an honest man, he was also a prudent one. He quickly reached out to cover Tian Guifang’s mouth and said, "Absolutely not. Let’s go, let’s go. There’s no need to stir up trouble or harbor grudges."

This struck a chord with Tian Guifang’s sense of reason, as she felt the same way deep down.

They headed home together. As they passed Cai Zhongsheng’s house, Tian Guifang said to her husband, "Manfu, I’m still not satisfied that we didn't teach that fellow Qiu Decai a lesson!"

Qiu Manfu replied, "If we target Qiu Decai, we’ll inevitably drag Cai Zhongsheng into it, and both of them will be ruined."

Tian Guifang countered, "So what if we drag her in? If that vixen Cai Zhongsheng hadn't bewitched Qiu Decai, would he have ignored his own bull even when it slipped its tether, just to seek pleasure with her? I think the fact that our rice crop was eaten by their bull is less of a problem with Qiu Decai and more of a problem with Cai Zhongsheng. If you trace the root of it, she cannot escape responsibility."

As she spoke, she patted her husband’s shoulder. "Manfu, do you have any way to deal with them? If we do it, let’s go after both."

"Dealing with them is easy," Qiu Manfu replied, lifting his chin dismissively. He refused to reveal his plan, merely teasing her, and no matter how much she pressed, he stayed silent.

When she insisted, he finally said, "In time, you will see the shameful end that awaits Qiu Decai and Cai Zhongsheng."

Wu Zidan had been back in Willow Tree Village for over a month. He naturally missed Cai Zhongsheng and her daughter and often thought of going home to visit.

He pondered: even if his fate was considered "hard," surely a brief visit after so long wouldn't cause his child, Wu Ying, to fall ill again? The mere thought of Wu Ying’s illness made him shudder.

Fortunately, his daily routine at home consisted of herding sheep. The flock moved quietly across the hillside like drifting white clouds.

The herding life was peaceful enough; the mountain air was fresh, and were it not for the responsibility of watching the flock, it would have been as carefree as the life of an immortal.

Wu Zidan often lay on his back in the grassy shade, smelling the surrounding wildflowers and listening to the birds in the trees. Only when the flock wandered too far would he climb up to follow them and find another shady spot to lie down—partly to keep watch, and partly for the sake of comfort.

One day, his father, Wu Jiaguang, came from the village fields to the hillside where the sheep were grazing and called out to him.

Wu Zidan scrambled up from the grass and looked toward his father, who was standing before a ram. "Dad, I’m here."

Wu Jiaguang said, "Zidan, the rice paddies need fertilizer, but we don't have the money to buy it. I plan to take a sheep to town to sell, and with the money, I'll buy a bag of urea."

"Dad, let me take the sheep to sell. I guarantee I’ll bring back a bag of urea. You can watch the sheep for me." As he spoke, Wu Zidan crossed a thorny mountain path and circled around to his father. Wu Jiaguang agreed, shook out the rope he was holding, formed a loop, and slipped it over the neck of a large, fat ram, handing the trailing end to his son.

"You can go sell the sheep," he said. "Once you buy the fertilizer, leave it in the main room. Come back this afternoon to take over for me, and I’ll go down to spread the fertilizer."

Wu Zidan nodded repeatedly, gripped the rope tightly, and led the ram down the mountainside.

The ram seemed to sense a bad omen and followed with great reluctance, but it was no match for a man. Whenever it refused to move, Wu Zidan would pick up a stick, circle behind it, and prod it along. Terrified, the ram scrambled down the slope and stepped onto the wide road leading to the town.

After about fifteen minutes, they arrived in town. Wu Zidan led the fat ram through the streets, shouting, "Sheep for sale!" But almost no one paid him any mind.

He decided to target a man carrying a slab of pork. "Do you like mutton?"

The man looked at him, then at the prisoner-like fat ram, and replied, "I certainly like mutton, but I can’t take a whole live sheep. Why don't you take it to the city to sell?"

"If someone in town wanted it, why would I go all the way to the city? It’s such a long way," Wu Zidan said.

The man had an idea and pointed toward a row of meat stalls on the north street. "Since the sheep will be slaughtered whether it’s in the city or the countryside, why not just sell it to a butcher?"

Wu Zidan nodded repeatedly, thinking it a good plan. Indeed, he found a butcher and sold the fat ram for the price of pork, receiving 1,500 yuan.

Just as he walked away from the stall, another butcher followed him and tapped him on the shoulder. Before Wu Zidan could ask what he wanted, the butcher spoke first: "Hey, do you have any more sheep for sale?"

Wu Zidan thought that while their family had nearly a hundred, it wasn't his place to decide; his father had the final say. "I have more, but they aren't for sale right now."

"You lost money on that fat ram you just sold," the butcher remarked.

Wu Zidan asked how, and the butcher explained, "You didn't sell it at the price of mutton; you sold it at the price of pork. Mutton costs half as much again as pork."

"Can I back out now?" Wu Zidan asked.

"That’s hard to say," the butcher replied. "He already gave you the money, and you agreed to it. You aren't a three-year-old child. Since your family has so many sheep, why not slaughter them at home and sell the meat, or wholesale the mutton? You’d make more money that way."

"Thank you for the advice," Wu Zidan said. "I still want to go back and talk to that butcher. He made me lose too much. Even if I have no grounds to back out, I want to make the logic clear."

The butcher leaned close to his ear and whispered, "Whatever you do, don't tell him I said anything. He’ll hate me—butchers are natural rivals."

Wu Zidan promised not to gossip, and the butcher left.

Wu Zidan wandered around the agricultural supply company on the south side of town. He didn't buy the bag of urea immediately; instead, he felt deeply uncomfortable and still wanted to find the butcher who had profited so much to set the record straight, lest he be treated like a fool.

When he returned, the fat ram had already been laid down, its four legs kicking feebly in its final moments. The butcher had just pulled a long-handled knife from its throat, and the spurting blood was being collected in a ceramic bowl.

Once the blood stopped flowing, the ram went still, but its large, round, terror-filled eyes remained wide open, frozen in an expression of unwilling death.

As the butcher knelt down to skin the animal, he heard someone say, "It’s not worth it; I sold this sheep at a loss." He realized what was happening, stopped his work, and looked up at Wu Zidan. "You want to back out? No way! The sheep is already slaughtered. You should have said something before that."

Seeing that Wu Zidan didn't answer, he added defiantly, "If you want to back out, you can carry this dead sheep back, return my cash, and pay me 1,000 yuan for the slaughtering fee."