After rebirth, I still experienced a mess

3. Stepping back is actually moving forward

In a daze, Xiao Wei heard many people praising him and he was very happy.

"She's quite a pretty girl. There aren't many prettier girls in the village than Xiao Wei."

The person who said this was Carpenter Li, whose craftsmanship was well-known in the area and he was said to have trained sixteen apprentices.

Carpenter Li has many rules. For example, when he helps people make wooden furniture, he never allows women to sit at the table. When he is putting the finished wooden furniture together, he also does not allow women to be around. In his eyes, women are bad luck.

He is also recognized as a man who has killed three wives so far, and is said to be preparing to marry his fourth.

In this area, Carpenter Li's judgment is quite authoritative. To get his affirmation, even if it is just the word "delicate", is enough to show that Xiaowei is indeed well-born. What's more, Xiaowei is only sixteen years old and has not yet fully grown, so it is even more rare to be called delicate.

"Xiao Wei has a good temper, she's a very gentle girl, she smiles when she sees people, ah——"

The one who sighed was Carpenter Li's apprentice Datou. He was also the nephew of Carpenter Li's ex-wife and the dumbest of the apprentices. He had been learning for eight years but still hadn't become a master.

Big Head is of course not his real name. His real name is little known. He got this name because his head is a shell bigger than that of an average person. It is obviously unreasonable for him to have a big head but be stupid. So there was a rumor that Big Head was not stupid originally, but was deliberately beaten stupid by Carpenter Li.

It was normal for the master to beat his apprentices, and Datou was the one who got beaten the most, almost every day.

If you do something wrong or not well, you will inevitably be beaten, but at least half of it is not because of Datou. For example, when cutting wood in the morning, perhaps because of the tight time and heavy task, the wood was all freshly sawed off the tree. A piece of coffin lid material was one foot short, so Carpenter Li drew the sawing line. Datou and a young apprentice who had just learned for a few days immediately pulled up the big saw, huffing and puffing, and sawed it off in no time. When they put them together for comparison, they found that it was too short.

Without saying a word, Carpenter Li grabbed the ruler and slapped Datou all over the face. His reason was simple: "You sawed without even looking. Do you have eyes in your pants?"

Big Head screamed loudly and admitted that he didn't see clearly.

When Grandpa Xiaowei saw that Big Head’s head was about to grow bigger again, he hurriedly stopped it with his walking stick and said that there were two trees behind the house that could be sawed down and used.

Carpenter Li stopped reluctantly and cursed for a long time, saying that there was no one in the world dumber than Datou and that he would never be able to become a master in his life. If it weren't for his ex-wife's kindness, Datou would have starved to death.

In a word, Big Head is the biggest burden to Carpenter Li.

Then it escalated into personal attacks, saying that a big head is no match for a small brain, and that a person with brute force will never be able to become a master in his life, let alone get a wife.

Everyone knew that Datou was wronged, but no one exposed it.

Only a fool would seek justice for a fool. Everyone present was smart and would not do such a stupid thing, including Xiao Wei's grandfather. As a result, the field soon returned to a harmonious scene.

Big Head had been painted with oil a long time ago, and the marks on his face and hands had not faded, but he was still talking and laughing as usual, as if nothing had happened, and was working hard at his work.

The other five brothers were also busy with their own work, with clanging sounds, clattering sounds, axes, planes, saws and chisels all working at the same time, in a messy yet orderly manner.

The reason why Datou was beaten every day was not just because he was stupid. It was because Carpenter Li's ex-wife was still alive at that time. Beating Datou was to establish his authority in front of his brother-in-law and make his ex-wife behave herself.

I heard that his original wife was a rare beauty in this area. She lived in a town about ten miles to the north. She had a herbal medicine shop that had been passed down for generations. She also had more than 100 acres of land on the edge of the town and her family was relatively well-off.

Rumor has it that Carpenter Li had just graduated and was working in the town. He used unspeakable means to force his ex-wife to marry him.

In the winter of the third year of their marriage, one night, the whole family of the first wife was killed by bandits, even the six-year-old girl was not spared, and all the money was looted. The first wife's eldest brother and his family lived in a farm in the suburbs and escaped.

Fortunately, the original wife followed Carpenter Li and survived the disaster. Unfortunately, she still died of childbirth in the spring of the following year.

Even though Datou was extremely stupid, he had been working for many families for eight years and had seen a lot of the world. He spoke differently from ordinary people and his comments about Xiaowei were always so pertinent.

Xiao Wei was very relieved to hear this, and felt that Datou was not as terrible as the legend said.

The topic has been extended to debt collectors and the fight over coffin making.

Xiao Wei then learned a common sense: those who died before the age of 33 are all debt collectors.

Recently, there have been three debt collectors in this area, all of whom were Carpenter Li and his apprentices who were trying to steal wood.

It is said that the carpenter’s favorite thing to do is to grab materials, because he can get double wages, which is one dollar a day.

It is said that the drowned ghosts in Beizhuang were the easiest to steal. The boy was only eight years old and had a small box, so six people finished the work in half a day.

The people who said that the most difficult thing to do were a mother and daughter from Dongzhuang. The daughter was the same age as Xiaowei, and the mother was 32 years old. They could not bear the beatings and scoldings from her husband for years, so they hanged themselves together.

Ten carpenters worked on two coffins from morning till night, then lit candles and oil lamps and worked until after midnight. Finally, they could not work any more and the light was not good enough to close the coffins, so they lay down on the coffin boards and took a nap.

When her family got the news, they rushed over overnight. They vaguely saw coffin boards spread out on the threshing floor with people sleeping on each long board. They thought it was the ghost of an innocent dead person causing trouble, so they screamed one after another. An old woman in her family fainted from fright.

Carpenter Li and his apprentice both treated it as a joke, and did not feel that the mother and daughter died unjustly. They believed that it was normal for a woman to be beaten and scolded by her husband because she only gave birth to a money-losing child and could not have any more children. They could not blame their husbands for their own inability to get over it.

After a lot of laughter about this commonplace incident, the topic turned to Xiao Wei. It was indeed a bit unfair to say that the mother and daughter debt collectors died unjustly. It was forbidden to have several relatives present at the funeral of a wrongly deceased ghost. Unfortunately, Xiao Wei didn't know this and just watched the fun without knowing what was going on.

"Xiao Wei is so honest, how come I didn't notice it?"

Carpenter Li's meaning was very clear. Even though Xiao Wei was delicate, gentle and honest, she was not very smart and should not have joined in the fun. She came back with a high fever for several days and eventually died. It was purely her own fault.

You will suffer the consequences if you do evil. This is a good topic, but no one has delved into it. Instead, everyone started to praise Xiao Wei.

Xiao Wei is a little bit dull, but she is really hardworking. She is busy all day long and never cheats. She is a rare good girl in the village.

Grandpa Xiaowei was so silent that he puffed on his pipe.

Xiao Wei's face was covered with a stack of yellow paper, and he was lying on the ground next to the partition wall of the main room, with only a tattered straw mat under him. He listened quietly for a long time, and was very pleased with the praise. He trembled a few times, struggled to sit up, breathed heavily, stood up against the wall, tried to get to the door, leaned against the door frame, covered his chest with his left hand, and coughed softly.

Reborn again, everything is different. The faces full of hatred have become tender and warm. Even the four sheep grazing in the hay shed beside the drying field have handsome features.

There are so many good people and good things around me. Why didn’t I notice it before?