"This is something most people in the village know about. You kids shouldn't go around spreading it," Lian Shouxin said to Lian Manman when he saw how shocked she was.
"Oh," Lian Manman uttered, realizing that 'beards' referred to bandits in their local dialect. Old Jin had once been a bandit; no wonder he dared to charge such high interest rates, Lian Manman thought.
"It's absolutely true, your grandmother also mentioned it," Lady Zhang nodded and said, "It seems when he was very young, his family was killed by their enemies, leaving only him alive. He then became a bandit and killed the entire family of his enemies. Later, after he married a wife, he quit being a bandit, settled in our village, bought property, and started lending money with the surplus he had."
The few sentences spoken by Lady Zhang in her somewhat flat tone were nonetheless thrilling.
