TATLC Chapter 37 — Reputation Gets Worse Again

There were plenty of guesses in the village about how Chen Xiaomi had gotten rich so quickly, with the most popular theory being that he had stumbled upon some kind of treasure in the mountains.

This rumor eventually reached Grandma Chen’s ears, and it made her heart itch with greed.

“If Chen Xiaomi can find treasure in the mountains, can’t other people do it too!” she suddenly brought up during dinner one day.

Chen Shouxin’s heart jumped. His second brother had died in those mountains, so the old woman better not get any ideas about him! “Mom! Those deep mountains aren’t easy to go into. That Chen Xiaomi guy is just a freak, even several grown men can’t beat him.”

Grandma Chen dismissed this. “He’s just a Shuang’er.”

“Mom! Even if there is treasure, it probably all ended up in Chen Xiaomi’s hands already,” Chen Laosan also got nervous.

Chen Laosan and Chen Laoda didn’t get along well, but they agreed completely when it came to going into the mountains.

“Who knows, maybe he missed some.”

When Old Man Chen heard what the old woman said, he got annoyed. “Haven’t you had enough? Isn’t Laoer’s death enough?”

He still carried some guilt over his second son’s death, though, truth be told, it wasn’t much. After all, he had been the one to agree to send him into the deep forest in the first place.

When Grandma Chen saw her husband getting angry, she felt a bit guilty inside, but her resentment toward Chen Xiaomi grew even stronger.

She silently complained that Chen Xiaomi was just a hunter, while her eldest grandson was highly educated. She couldn’t understand why Chen Xiaomi was the one making money. If her grandson had gotten the mountain treasure, he definitely could have made more money than Chen Xiaomi.

The incident of Chen Shouxin coming to make trouble spread throughout the village thanks to the Chen family’s efforts.

Chen Xiaomi’s reputation, which had just improved a little, got worse again.

Grandma Chen went around telling everyone that Chen Xiaomi was unfilial, didn’t care if his grandfather lived or died, only cared about his own happiness, and when he made money, he just wasted it! Buying people and buying cloth! What a sin!

Some villagers who were jealous couldn’t stand seeing Chen Xiaomi get rich, so they joined in saying Chen Xiaomi was unfilial, making so much money but still being stingy when his grandfather was sick.

Chen Xiaomi didn’t really care about his reputation getting worse.

Actually, when his reputation improved a bit recently, some people started talking to Chen Xiaomi.

At first, he thought it was pretty interesting. After all, ever since he had separated from the Chen family, most villagers had avoided him like the plague.

But after it happened more often, he realized that people who came to chat would quickly turn the conversation to things he didn’t know how to explain, like how he thought of the kang, whether he was supplying wine to restaurants, how he made the wine, how he thought of the gloves.

Lu Lin was afraid the Lu family would latch onto them, so he put all the credit on Chen Xiaomi’s head. But actually, Chen Xiaomi couldn’t explain where these things came from, so he could only keep a straight face and tell people it was none of their business. Luckily those people just thought he was being stingy.

Lu Lin knew about Grandma Chen’s behavior and looked down on her in his heart, but there wasn’t much he could do. In this place where filial piety ruled everything, being unfilial was still a very serious charge.

“Your uncle is really annoying!” Lu Lin grumbled.

Chen Xiaomi narrowed his eyes. “That’s right, that guy just wants to take advantage.”

He was making good money now and would probably make even more in the future, so he absolutely couldn’t give them an opening. Once he gave in here, it wouldn’t be easy to get rid of those bloodsuckers from the Chen family.

Lu Lin frowned. “This time we drove that guy away, but letting him know you’re rich means he probably won’t give up easily.”

Chen Xiaomi said fiercely, “I don’t care about him. I’ll beat him up every time he comes.”

Chen Xiaomi used to worry that having a bad reputation would make it hard for his brother to find a wife, but now he was more relaxed about it. As long as he had money, why worry about no one wanting to marry into their family? If it came to that, he could just buy someone.

Some things in this world are like that. If you care about them and keep arguing with people, those troublemakers will get more excited. If you don’t take it seriously, others will gradually lose interest too.

The drama between Chen Xiaomi and the Chen family had happened several times already, so the villagers were used to it.

After making a fuss for a while, when everyone saw Chen Xiaomi had no reaction, they suddenly found it boring.

Chen Laoda saw that the village gossip didn’t affect Chen Xiaomi at all and felt pretty disappointed.

After a while, people started talking about how Chen Laoda saw Chen Xiaomi making money, so he went and bought fox fur at high prices to make gloves, but couldn’t sell them and got stuck with them, then wanted to go to Chen Xiaomi to make up for his losses.

After this story came out, it caused quite a stir among the villagers.

Good news doesn’t travel far, but bad news spreads everywhere. Everyone wants to make money, but they’re also afraid of taking risks. When they hear someone else made money, they feel a bit sour about it. When they hear someone else lost money, they can’t help feeling a little gloating.

After Chen Laoda’s money-losing story spread, the villagers all thought he was just trying to be clever, but compared to Chen Xiaomi, he was way behind.

When Chen Laoda heard that recently the villagers stopped talking about Chen Xiaomi being unfilial and only talked about him being incompetent, he nearly choked on his rage.