Xiaowang was still asleep in the west room, but Maisui’s ears picked up on the sound from the kang in the east room. She got up to watch the scene play out, gloating at Sanwang’s misfortune.
Lin Lan came over with a small notebook, intending to make a record, “Take this seriously.”
“My brother…” Sanwang hesitated, as if he was weighing the consequences of admitting the truth.
Now that he was fully awake, he understood the situation before him.
Lin Lan glared at him, “Think about this properly— you’ll either get a good serving of meat or you’re going to copy a lot more texts because of your dishonesty!”
Sanwang gritted his teeth, eldest brother, I’m sorry but our parents are too cunning. They already figured out what was going on before I could even say anything, so if I don’t tell them, I might be tortured to death.
“He…he…went…” Sanwang rolled his eyes and kept an ear out for any noises coming from the outside.
“Speak!” Lin Lan pretended to grin evilly, “I can’t help you if you don’t tell me the entire truth!”
Sanwang was so frightened that he plastered himself against the wall in a very straightened posture.
Lin Lan gestured at him with a pencil, “You won’t be able to climb the wall even if you become a lizard! I’ll nail you to the Pillar of Shame!”
“He’d gone to play poker!” Sanwang said in one breath and quickly closed his eyes.
Lin Lan frowned, “He played poker?”
Sanwang nodded and squinted at her, “Yeah.”
“If he’s playing poker, he can just do so; why were you that afraid to tell me?” Lin Lan wondered.
The custom of the local countryside was playing poker. Generally, most of the community didn’t make it a habit to play mahjong.
Those who lived in rural areas and villages didn’t have much entertainment. During the slack season, men like to get together and play poker at home, and even women also play poker.
However, in the past few years, the poker sets in the village were burned and they were not allowed to play anymore. To be fair, it was due to the fact that there were men who addicted themselves to the game instead of work like they were supposed to. Plus, they even started to make bets along with the game.
Gambling all night and practically slacking off during the day made Han Yongfang so angry to the point where he led a group of people to catch them on several occasions. Besides, he burned the poker sets he found and arrested the men. parading them through the streets. After that, he arranged for patrol shifts to make nightly rounds as well in order to make sure that whoever they caught was punished.
After numerous rounds of being punished and being caught, the people in the village didn’t play anymore.
Though, in some other brigades, gambling was a rampant activity, especially during the winter slack season.
Although everyone was still poor and had little money, they were in slightly better situations after getting the crops from the autumn harvests. They weren’t going to bet with insane amounts anyways— at most, it was just a couple of cents or dimes.
But sometimes, the hunger of humanity was insatiable to some. In the end, there were often those who ended up putting more than a few Yuan on the line, some even leading to bankruptcy.
For the current standard of living, even a few bucks was considered a lot of money, so Han Yongfang didn’t permit bets to be held even with a single cent.