Chapter 80 Poultry Problem

Mr. Kang was one of the councilmen of a village from Fengrun District. His mother was in hysteria over the disappearance of his neighbor's chicken. A simple matter of a missing chicken would not have a councilman traveled so far for help; but the owner of the chicken was a shrew, a termagant with an intolerable streak of temper that would embitter anyone who would dare commit the folly of antagonizing her. She was known to everyone in the village to sit and pout at the gates of anyone who had offended her, wearing the person down until apologies were tendered and disdainfully accepted by her. As it turned out, she woke up one day and found her chicken missing. But she had not even the slightest inkling of who to look for, sitting outside her house and began grumbling that her chicken must have been poached by weasels. Coincidentally, her angered complaints were heard by Mr. Kang's mother, who succumbed into fits of rage and anger herself. The old lady took to the streets, storming to her son's office as she began muttering as she limped step by step, "I must speak to the village committee! How dare them! Blaming me for the disappearance of their chicken! It was the urchin of the Zhang family who had taken her chicken..." The old lady caused quite a ruckus that news of what she said reached the ears of her shrew of a neighbor. Now that the true perpetrator was known to her, the ill-tempered crone marched to the home of the Zhang family. With each step, she seethed with rage until she came to the house of the young urchin, who was living at his new house. He was enjoying a binge of liquor with a couple of his friends after an entire night-out at the nearby Internet café. The house was a shambles, the bones and the rest of what was left of the chicken were still strewn around, with feathers and blood still scattered around the compound outside. The shrew reached the new dwelling of the young urchin and caught him red-handed, recognizing the blood and feathers were that of her own chicken's. She fell to a squat outside the house and began wailing, howling her plight to whomever who would listen. Well acquainted to the termagant's notoriety, the young rascal Zhang and his friends immediately put on their clothes and fled away. The parents of the young truant heard of the shrew causing a brouhaha just outside their son's new home and came immediately. With the help of the neighbors and fellow villagers, the parents did their best to console the clamorous hag, finally resolving the matter after the mother of the boy rushed home and grabbed her fattest chicken and offered it to her. "The boy's only fifteen or sixteen! Please do not mind his ill manners and mischiefs! There's no need to fret with things which value we can easily measure!" They pleaded and begged her. With as much effort as moving mountains, the women was finally assuaged and only left when she felt she was duly decompensated.