The New Story of the Farmer and the Snake

  The second to last Monday before school started, Jiang Zhihan arrived at the library on time as usual. However, he didn't eat bread that noon, and Ming Ti called him out to have lunch with Xian Xian at a small restaurant outside, where they ordered three dishes and one soup. Ming Ti said that after school starts, there won't be much time to come over this way. What interested Ming Ti the most was still the topic of investment.

  Professionals often focus on other things, so when talking to Jiang Zihan, it's like having a drink with someone who understands you, and the conversation is endless. I'm currently researching the 1970s energy crisis and the two stock market crashes in the US in the late 1980s. This research is much more systematic than what Jiang Zihan is doing now, after all, my theoretical foundation is much broader and more solid. However, Jiang Zihan's insight is quite good, he can pinpoint the key issues, although sometimes a bit immature, but it also inspires me.

  The two of them chatted enthusiastically, and the meal lasted for over two hours. Xiang Xiang had taken half a day off to accompany Ming Mo in the afternoon, so she sat with them the whole time. After this meal, Jiang Zhi Han's good impression of Xiang Xiang greatly increased. She was clearly not interested in this type of topic and didn't quite understand, but she accompanied her boyfriend very obediently, without showing any impatience. Before leaving, Ming Mo patted Jiang Zhi Han on the shoulder and said: "If you need help with anything, you can find our Xiang Xiang, she has a great network, knows a lot of people like doctors, journalists, police officers." Xiang Xiang glared at him and said: "Don't listen to his nonsense. But if you have any trouble, feel free to come find me, I might be able to help you come up with some ideas." Jiang Zhi Han then followed suit and called her "Xiang Xiang Jie, take care". Xiang Xiang was delighted and said to Ming Mo: "I've taken in a talented younger brother, let's see if someone will still dare to boast about their talent in the future." She said this because Ming Mo had given Jiang Zhi Han the nickname "Talented High School Sophomore".

  After saying goodbye to the two, he stayed in the reading room until closing time. Jiang Zhihan then packed up his things and headed home. It was raining today, so he didn't ride his bike. Walking along the main road to the first intersection's bus stop, he saw a crowd of people, about forty or fifty, gathered around looking at something. Usually, Jiang Zhihan wasn't one to enjoy watching commotions, but since he had to wait for the bus anyway, he took a peek and saw an old lady lying on the ground.

  Jiang Zihan waited for a while and found that everyone was just discussing, but no one came forward. Jiang Zihan then asked the person next to him what was going on, and someone replied: "The old lady got off the bus, don't know if she was hit by someone or had a seizure, sat down on the ground, and then slowly lay down."

  Jiang Zihan asked: "Why doesn't anyone help?" Someone replied: "Someone should have called the police already."

  Jiang Zihan stood by, waiting for another seven or eight minutes, but there was no sign of any police cars or ambulances. The crowd grew larger, but no one stepped forward. Someone in the crowd said, "The emergency center is just a five-minute drive away, who can help stop a car?" But it was just talk. Jiang Zihan thought for a moment, then pushed through the crowd and walked up to the old woman. He squatted down, reached out to check her breathing, and found that she was clearly still alive. He called out to her again, and the old woman seemed to respond weakly. Jiang Zihan felt relieved and shouted, "Who can help me hail a taxi?" After a while, a kind-hearted person hailed a taxi, and another person helped Jiang Zihan lift the old woman into the car. The driver saw that it was an injured elderly person and they were going to a nearby place, so he was somewhat reluctant. Many people in the crowd jeered, saying, "Master, accumulate good deeds, saving a life is better than building a seven-story pagoda!" The driver reluctantly agreed. Jiang Zihan took out 5 yuan from his pocket and said, "Driver, please take her to the emergency center." The driver said, "I'll take you to the emergency center, but who will help get her down? This won't work, at least one of you needs to get in the car." Helpless, Jiang Zihan got into the car.

  A few minutes later, they arrived at the emergency center. Jiang Zhihan asked the driver to help get the old lady out of the car and ran inside to call a nurse. After getting the old lady into the emergency room, the person in charge of registration asked Jiang Zhihan to pay the fee. Jiang Zhihan said he was just a passerby who helped, but the staff member replied that at least 10 yuan for the emergency registration fee had to be paid first, as it was procedure. Jiang Zhihan had brought 30 yuan with him today, which was meant to treat Ming and others to dinner, but ended up being used to pay the bill instead. After a while, someone came out to ask how to contact the old lady's relatives, saying that surgery might be needed due to a hip fracture. Jiang Zhihan repeated himself: "I don't know her, I'm just a passerby who helped. You can rummage through her bag, but I won't do it myself." A few minutes later, the staff member came out and said that they had contacted the old lady's relatives, asking Jiang Zhihan to leave his name and address so that when the relatives arrived, they could repay him for the registration fee and taxi fare. After a tumultuous half hour, Jiang Zhihan finally left and returned home to explain everything to his mother.

  The next evening, Jiang Zhihan returned home and had just walked to the bottom of the building when he heard his mother's angry quarrel. He quickly ran up the stairs in three strides. The door was ajar, and he pushed it open to see two police officers sitting on the sofa.

  "Is the river cold?" asked one of them who was thin.

  "I am."

  "Let's get to the bottom of what happened with the old lady who was knocked down yesterday."

  Jiang Zihan briefly explained what had happened.

  The thin policeman, who claimed his surname was Zhang, said: "That's right, the old lady's children say you knocked her down, so you need to take care of her medical expenses."

  "What? They weren't even there at the time, what evidence do they have?"

  Officer Zhang said: "Do you have any witnesses to prove it wasn't you who knocked him down?"

  Jiang Zhihan said: "At that time there were 50 or 60 people around, but no one was with me."

  Officer Zhang said: "So you don't have an alibi now."

  Jiang Zhihan was already somewhat angry: "So you're saying that helping others for fun is also wrong?"

  Officer Zhang said: "Don't get angry. Now the old lady's three children are accusing you of hitting her. They say, if you weren't the one who caused the accident, why would you be kind enough to send her to the hospital?"

  Jiang Zhihan is about to go crazy: "What kind of logic is this? We were educated by Uncle Lei Feng since childhood, educated to help others with joy."

  Officer Zhang said, "Arguing with us is useless. We are here to understand the situation and mediate. If both parties say completely different things, there's no way to mediate, and it may ultimately require a civil court to make a judgment."

  The two of them stood up and left, leaving behind a frantic Jiang Zihan.

  It was clear that Jiang Zhihan had returned before, and Li Rongrong had already quarreled with the two policemen. She couldn't help but complain to her son: "Who told you to be so honest? In this era, being a good person can also bring trouble." Neither of them had an appetite for dinner, and they hastily ate a few mouthfuls, not knowing if they were full or hungry. Li Rongrong said: "These people are so unreasonable, yet they still come to make trouble, saying things like going to civil litigation. Most likely, they're from the public security or court system, and when the time comes, they'll randomly sentence you to something, and even if you have a good reason, you won't be able to explain it clearly."

  It turned out that Lai Rongrong's guess was unfortunately correct. The old lady, Zheng Yurong, is 75 years old this year. Her husband, who worked in the judicial system, passed away five years ago. Because her husband was an official in the judicial system, he managed to get their two sons, one daughter, and a son-in-law all into the public security and judicial systems - two in the Public Security Bureau, one in the court, and one in the procuratorate. After her husband's death, none of the three children were willing to take their mother in to live with them, so the old lady still lives alone in the original house, fortunately she can barely take care of herself.

  After the accident, the first to receive the phone call were the eldest son and his wife. Rushing to the hospital, they saw that the injury was not light. The hospital required a photo examination to check for cerebral hemorrhage, and also needed to perform hip fracture surgery. The daughter-in-law was extremely stingy and didn't care about her mother-in-law's condition, pulling her husband aside and saying: "Your mom retired decades ago and has been taking care of your dad at home. Her unit is a collective unit that's almost bankrupt now. If she's hospitalized, maybe 70% can be reimbursed. What about the remaining 30%? This surgery might also affect her brain, where will we get the money from? The remaining 30% is thousands or even more, what to do?" The eldest son said: "What can we do? It's not like we can let mom use her own savings and split the rest among the three families." The daughter-in-law angrily said: "Are you out of your mind? Your stingy younger sister will share with you? In a couple of years, won't that money be yours? You're not heartbroken about using it?" The eldest son asked: "Then what do we do?" The daughter-in-law said: "I heard someone sent her to the hospital. I think 90% it was his fault. Is there still a Lei Feng in this era who does good deeds for no reason?" The eldest son said: "But we don't have evidence that he hit her." His wife said: "Does he have evidence that he didn't hit her? If not, our reasoning is more logical. Besides, if both parties are at odds, we can sue. Your younger brother is in the procuratorate of this district, and your younger sister's husband is in the court of this district. We're not afraid of losing the lawsuit." By evening, the three siblings had arrived, and the eldest son and his wife shared their idea. The six selfish and greedy people didn't want to bear the medical expenses, usually looking down on each other and quarreling, but at this moment they were in harmony, immediately agreeing with each other.

  And then there was this farce.

  Here is the translation:

  As for Jiang Zhihan, he forced himself to calm down and think. Then he said goodbye to his mom and went to Shi Lin's house. He roughly told them what happened, and both father and daughter were very indignant. Jiang Zhihan came over to use their phone. First, he called Lin Suo and explained the situation. Lin Suo thought for a moment and told him: "For you, the key is that at least one witness can prove that you arrived later. If there is, everything will be easy to handle. You know our law here doesn't follow the assumption of innocence. So if neither of you has a witness, it's more difficult to deal with, because the other party dares to make such a fuss, probably because they have some connections in court. The fact that two police officers went to your house so quickly is probably just to feel out the situation and intimidate you. This kind of trivial matter can't even be filed as a case, why did the police go to mediate and ask questions overnight?" He added: "See if you can think of a way to issue something like a missing person notice, try your best to find witnesses who were present at the scene. If it really doesn't work out, and we have to go to court, I think we should try our best to find people to make the trial as fair as possible."

  Jiang Zhihan returned home somewhat disheartened, lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling thinking of a solution, and slowly fell asleep in a daze.

  I don't know how long I slept, a ray of light crept in through the curtains, Jiang Zhihan rubbed his eyes and opened them, let out a sigh, still unable to think of a good solution. Lying on the bed, Jiang Zhihan's eyes wandered aimlessly between the ceiling and the wall, unintentionally scanning the newspaper on the bedside table that his mother had placed there, the Zhongzhou Evening News. Picking up the newspaper, the first page was the supplement section, with one page titled "Caring about social issues, insight into social hotspots". Jiang Zhihan suddenly had an epiphany and excitedly jumped up.

  Early in the morning, Jiang Zhihan arrived at the entrance of the city library. Before work hours, he sat on the stone steps waiting. At 7:45, Xiang Xiang had just walked to the entrance when she saw Jiang Zhihan get up from the stone steps and walk over. "Were you waiting for me?" Xiang Xiang was a bit surprised. Jiang Zhihan briefly told her about what happened yesterday. Xiang Xiang naturally felt some sympathy and asked, "Is there anything I can help with?" Jiang Zhihan said, "I want to find a journalist to write an article, do you know anyone?" He had also heard Mingying say this yesterday, and today he came to find Xiang Xiang with the attitude of trying to make the best of a bad situation. Xiang Xiang said, "I have a good friend who is an intern reporter on the social news section of the evening paper, but his father seems to have some influence in the editorial department." Jiang Zhihan was overjoyed and said, "That's exactly what I'm looking for - a social news reporter!" So Xiang Xiang went to make a phone call and finally arranged to meet up for dinner that night.

  That day, Jiang Zihan was restless in the reading room and couldn't concentrate on his book. Although he repeatedly reminded himself to have a general's demeanor, being calm and composed, it was difficult for him to do so with his youthful temperament when faced with such an event. He forced himself to calm down and wrote a detailed account of what had happened, including every detail and every conversation that he could remember.

  It wasn't until evening that Xiang Xiang and Jiang Zhan finally went to the restaurant to meet her friend, a female journalist named Xiao Qin. Before long, Xiao Qin arrived punctually. This girl had very short hair, even shorter than some boys'. Her features were delicate, but her facial outline was slightly hard.

  Jiang Zihan was urging the two ladies to order. Although he was very anxious, he had to hold back his temper and eat first. Xianxian brought up a few topics, but they were all suppressed by Xiaoqing, who talked about shopping and reunions with old classmates. This meal was really hard for Jiang Zihan to get through, but he still maintained a smile, occasionally interjecting a sentence or two, after all, he had something to ask of them.

  After dinner, Xiao Qing said to Shan Shan: "Is this friend of yours still in high school? You're really calm." Turning to Jiang Zhihan, she asked directly: "What do you need me to do? But first, I must say that I'm not sure if I can do it." Jiang Zhihan didn't speak either, handing over the things he wrote in the afternoon with both hands. Xiao Qing took them and looked at them, her eyebrows jumping slightly as she was surprised by the thoroughness of the material. After finishing reading, she read it again from the beginning, then turned to ask Shan Shan: "Can your friend's words be trusted?" Shan Shan smiled and said: "I guarantee that my younger brother is absolutely trustworthy." Jiang Zhihan's heart warmed up, and he couldn't help but cast a grateful glance at Shan Shan.

  Jiang Zhen said: "I don't ask you to write only one-sided words about me. Who is right and who is wrong can be an open question. I just hope that those present will see this report and come out to tell the truth."

  Xiao Qing said: "You also don't have to be polite, since you call me Shanshan sister, I am your sister too. Honestly, we do report on such civil disputes, but I'm not sure if there's a better angle to convince the editor? I need to think carefully. Since it's Shanshan's first time asking me for help, I will definitely try my best."

  Jiang Zhan said: "Xiao Qin, when those two police officers were talking to me, they mentioned a statement from the other party that I think is worth discussing. According to them, the child on the other side said that it's unreasonable for someone who doesn't know you to help you out of kindness, so I must be the one who caused the trouble. Think about it, since we were young, our education has always been about helping others and doing good deeds without seeking fame. Has today's society really become so cold-blooded? Is helping others out of kindness seen as an act that goes against social norms? If this continues, I dare not imagine what kind of society we will evolve into?"

  Xiao Qing smiled and said, "You're quite good at making connections. I think this angle is great, it has a lot of educational significance. Let's do it this way. I'll try to get your story published within a week."

  After finishing this matter, Jiang Zhihan bid farewell to the two of them. Xiao Qing teased Jiang Zhihan saying: "You're like Lei Feng, the key to getting into trouble is leaving your name." Jiang Zhihan smiled wryly and said: "I'm not heartbroken about that 10 yuan registration fee and 5 yuan transportation fee?"

  On Thursday evening, Shi Lin rushed over to knock on the door and told Jiang Zihan that the article would be published tomorrow. In order to contact in time, Jiang Zihan left Shi Lin's name and her home phone number for relevant people.

  By Friday, Jiang Zhihan no longer had the heart to go to the library and stayed at home to practice his skills. At two o'clock in the afternoon, he got the first evening newspaper and hastily found the social section of the supplement, where a striking article title read:

  "A rare injury compensation dispute"

  Is helping others an irrational behavior?

  Jiang Zihan quickly scanned through it and saw that the article had left behind a hotline phone number for the newspaper and the police station's phone number, calling on informed citizens to come forward and clarify the truth. Jiang Zihan let out a sigh of relief, having done all he could, and now it was up to fate.

  This Saturday was long and unbearable. At 7 o'clock in the evening, with a knock on the door, Jiang Zhan suddenly sprang up from the sofa like a spring. Opening the door, he saw Shi Lin's smiling face, and his heart knew it was over. Jiang Zhan let out a long sigh, and the big stone that had been weighing him down all week finally fell to the ground.

  Jiang Zihan and his mother, Shi Lin, were sitting in the living room chatting happily when there was another knock at the door. Jiang Zihan opened it to find Chen Yimeng, Qu Yingmei, and a pretty girl with an oval face whom he didn't recognize. Jiang Zihan was slightly surprised but still politely invited them in and introduced them to his mother and Shi Lin.

  Qu Yingmei smiled and said: "I've called the newspaper office and the police station."

  Jiang Zhihan was somewhat dazed.

  Qu Yingmei said: "That day, Xiaoxue and I were both at the scene, we arrived before you. Sorry, but we didn't have your noble behavior. When you squeezed in, I saw you, and later even called out to you, but you didn't hear me, and then got into a taxi and left. It was Xiaoxue who saw the article in yesterday's evening paper and told me this afternoon, as soon as I heard about it, I immediately made a phone call."

  "Wow, the world is really small," he exclaimed, clasping his hands together in gratitude and saying sincerely, "Thank you so much this time."

  After sitting for a while, the three of them stood up to bid farewell. Jiang Zhihan expressed his gratitude again, and Qu Yingmei said: "You helped me once, this time we're even. But remember, you owe Xueer a favor, pay it back slowly later." With that, she pulled her good friend and walked away smiling.

  The weekend is here, and it seems that both clicks and recommendations are a bit miserable. If it's still okay to look at, please give more support. Thanks.