Chapter 136: Not for Sale

Elder Mo is actually younger than Third Grandpa, but he calls Third Grandpa "Brother Gu" and acts like the elder one, which is really annoying.

Third Grandpa knows Elder Mo’s temperament and doesn’t want to argue with him, he just nods and says, "Oh, it’s the Mo brothers! What brings you here today? We’re quite busy at the moment."

The implication of his words was: We’re busy, so if you have no business here, please leave.

Elder Mo caught the hint and was not pleased. He said to his sons, "Da Li, Da Kui, Dayong, didn’t you hear what Third Uncle Gu said about being busy? Go and help out immediately."

"Dad, we’re on it," replied the three brothers Mo Dali as they rolled up their sleeves, ran to the middle of the courtyard, and squeezed He Wanli, who was weighing tofu.

The youngest, Mo Dayong, snatched the ledger and brush from Jin’an’s hands, smiling, "Good Brother An, Uncle knows how to handle this task, you go and rest a bit."

However, Mo Dayong barely recognized any characters and couldn’t understand a thing written in the ledger.

Jin’an was supposed to go to class in the late morning, and it was just shortly after dawn. He hadn’t gone to school yet and was helping out at home. Seeing that Mo Dayong had snatched his ledger, he was displeased but did not get angry. He only said, "Uncle Dayong, the ledger records the accounts of the He family’s tofu purchases and involves Silver Coin. If you write one character wrong or damage it, the accounts will be incorrect, and your family will have to compensate our families with Silver Coin."

"What?" Mo Dayong was frightened, and hurriedly returned the ledger to Jin’an, "You keep it, I didn’t touch anything."

Jin’an received the ledger back with a smile, and continued to handle the registration at one side.

Elder Mo was quite angry, glaring at Mo Dayong. That fool, why did he return the ledger back to Jin’an? Jin’an was just scaring him with his words.

Gu Dashan was anxious when he saw the Mo Family People arrived and straight away started taking over everyone’s tasks.

Gu Jinli was not worried at all; if the Mo Family People tried to mess things up, someone would surely take care of them.

Sure enough, Village Chief He looked at Elder Mo disapprovingly: "Old Mo, what is the meaning of this? Is this your house? Allowing you to take over tasks at will, that’s unacceptable!"

The three brothers from the Mo family were afraid of Village Chief He. Hearing these remarks, Mo Dali, who was carrying a large scale to weigh tofu, quickly glanced towards his father, wondering whether to continue with the task or not.

They were not here at Gu Family to work anyway, they were here to talk tofu business.

Elder Mo gestured to Mo Dali and the others to come back and said to Village Chief He, "Village Chief, our Mo Family and Gu Family ran away from famine together. We have good relations. We just thought of helping out since they were busy, nothing more."

Gu Jinli laughed and said to Village Chief He, "Village Chief, Elder Mo is right. Our families got to know each other when we changed our household registrations at the county government."

Upon hearing this, Village Chief He couldn’t help but laugh and added, "That means you’ve known each other for almost three months now, almost as long as we have known each other."

Elder Mo felt really embarrassed as they exchanged these words.

Kui Zi arrived, overhearing them, his face turned red, and he came up to pull Elder Mo aside, saying, "Uncle, our fallow land is still not ready; let’s hurry back before it gets too late and we miss the morning’s work."

Farmers usually start working in their fields before dawn and return home for breakfast after a few hours.

Elder Mo shook off Kui Zi’s hand, not putting up a facade anymore, and addressed Third Grandpa directly, "Brother Gu, my visit today is to talk about the tofu business."

"Your family produces so much tofu every day, you definitely can’t sell it all. Our Mo Family is a hardworking and honest family; we thought about helping you transport some tofu to other places to sell, allowing your family to sell more tofu each day."

"Elder Mo doesn’t ask for much, just 500 jin of tofu from you each day," Elder Mo said selfishly, before laughing and asking, "Brother Gu, what do you think?"

Third Grandpa burst into an angry laugh and flatly refused, "Our family doesn’t have that much tofu, and we will not sell it to the Mo Family."

Elder Mo became anxious and pointing at Third Grandpa’s face, angrily said, "Brother Gu, what do you mean by that? Our Mo Family is helping you—"

Help my ass!

Gu Jinli had had enough of Elder Mo, and seeing him pointing and cursing at Third Grandpa, she directly pulled out a dagger and slashed towards the hand Elder Mo was pointing with.

"Ah~" Elder Mo was frightened, and quickly withdrew his hand before the dagger could strike.

Everyone present was shocked, not expecting Gu Jinli to suddenly lash out with a knife.

Elder Mo trembled with anger, pointing at Gu Jinli and said, "Rebellious, just rebellious! A junior dares to draw a knife on his elder, this, this..."

Gu Jinli sneered coldly, "You have the surname Mo, I have the surname Gu, how are you my elder?"

She pointed at the three Mo brothers and said, "You came first thing in the morning with your sons demanding tofu, is the tofu yours? Our Gu Family’s tofu, we’ll give it to whoever we want, what business is it of yours?"

"I’ll lay it out here today, we can give the tofu to anyone, even feed it to pigs, just not to your family." She smiled maliciously, "Heard that clearly? Not to your family, but I didn’t say not to Uncle Kui Zi’s family."

Upon hearing this, Elder Mo felt even more humiliated than if he had been slapped twice in the face, and immediately glared furiously at Mo Kui, "Get lost, you treacherous fool."

Everyone present was shocked, and even Mo Kui looked astonished at Elder Mo.

Gu Jinli secretly smiled, never expecting Elder Mo to be so senseless.

Mo Kui, being a cousin to the family, had actually helped them a lot along the way, doing more work than his three useless sons; Elder Mo not only didn’t appreciate it, but in his anger blurted out such words—what did he take Mo Kui for?

Back in his hometown, because of the abundant land his family owned, Elder Mo had a good life and held some status in his village, making him rather arrogant.

But he knew that Mo Kui had helped their family a lot, and seeing Mo Kui’s unhappy expression, his heart skipped, fearing that he might lose this free labor, and hastily said to Mo Kui, "Kui Zi, uncle didn’t mean it."

Mo Kui gave a bitter smile and said, "Uncle, let’s go back first."

Since the Gu Family had already said they wouldn’t sell tofu to them, staying further would only cause more embarrassment.

But Elder Mo was not willing to let it go, deep down he felt that the Gu Family was nothing impressive, just refugees; why should the Mo Family fear the Gu Family.

Eager to save face, Elder Mo once again asked Third Grandpa, "Brother Gu, will your family give the tofu or not?"

"Third Uncle Gu, what’s going on with your family? Is there some blind troublemaker causing a scene?" Liang Zhuzi arrived at the Gu Family with six Lianghe Village villagers, and after hearing Elder Mo’s words, their expression turned very ugly.

Tofu was a scarce commodity, and they didn’t get much of it every day; if the Mo Family started demanding a share too, they’d get even less.

And since the Gu Family had provided them a livelihood, now that someone was causing trouble at the Gu Family, they wouldn’t agree to it and felt obligated to help.