Today Niu Dali was not the only one moving in; more workers would be moving here in the days to follow. It was simply Niu Dali's bad luck that he was assigned the rooms right next to Madame Jia.
In the middle courtyard, the Jia Family had a wing room on the northern side of the west wing, while Niu Dali's rooms were the southern wing room and the adjoining side room. Over the past two years, Jia Dongxu had gradually grown up, making it increasingly inconvenient for mother and son to share a single room. However, with no source of income, the family relied entirely on Madame Jia making cloth shoes by hand, supplemented by occasional relief from Yi Zhonghai, to barely scrape by. Madame Jia had been racking her brains to find another room for her son, and now that Niu Dali had practically walked right into her trap, who else was she going to extort if not him?
Madame Jia's ritual summoning of the departed spirits was still underway. In this day and age, there was no protection to be found against feudal superstitions; when dealing with a shrew like this, physical force was the only solution. Yet this particular family consisted entirely of honest folk. Even though Niu Dali was hopping mad with rage, he still managed to restrain himself and refrained from striking her. Niu Dali's wife, holding their young son, looked at her husband in anxious desperation, completely at a loss as to what to do. The other newcomers in the vicinity, adopting a mindset of avoiding conflict with the…
Chapter 51