008 — A Changed Man
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Qu Zhan Yi saw through their thoughts at a glance and, lowering her voice, added, “Qiongshou Mountain is said to be the burial ground of quite a few wronged ghosts.”
The women could not help turning their eyes toward Liu Jianhua.
Seeing her wretched state, drenched to the marrow in an icy chill as though she had been splashed with water from a ten-thousand-year-old glacier, they became convinced that Xu Xinyou really had been possessed by a ghost.
For the moment, they could no longer spare a thought for Liu Jianhua, who lay on the ground howling in pain. They scrambled toward the courtyard gate, only to find several men coming in and blocking the entrance.
After shoving and jostling one another, they finally managed to escape with tremendous effort.
“You damned Huang Jincai! How dare you grope your aunt’s backside!”
Once Zhang Cuilan had put some distance between herself and the courtyard, she stood beneath the noonday sun and, no longer afraid of ghosts, craned her neck and hurled abuse at him.
With every rise and fall of her heaving chest, her tightly stretched clothes seemed liable to burst open at any moment.
The eye-catching sight made the men gathered nearby to watch blink several times less than usual.
“You dog-born bastard, Zhang Wanqing! Even with your manhood gone, you still dare to run wild and commit evil!”
Huang Jincai, the man she had named and cursed, charged into the courtyard shouting loudly, but found no sign of Zhang Wanqing.
His gaze swept back and forth before suddenly meeting Qu Zhan Yi’s. Still young and untouched by love, he became inexplicably awkward.
A faint blush crept across his dark face...
The men who entered after him seized the opportunity to pepper him with questions.
“What happened in there?”
“Who was crying just now?”
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Huang Jincai awkwardly withdrew his gaze and said stiffly, “How the hell should I know?”
The moment he finished speaking, Liu Jianhua, lying not far away, immediately opened her throat and began wailing in agony.
“Ow, I’m dying!”
“Ow, that murderous wretch has killed someone!”
Huang Jincai took several large strides to her side.
The others hurried over as well, lending a hand as they helped him pull Liu Jianhua to her feet.
Seeing her face swollen like a steamed bun, mottled with red and purple, they anxiously asked, “Auntie Liu, how did your face get hurt this badly?”
Liu Jianhua moaned incessantly, clutching her chest and looking as though she might breathe her last at any moment.
“That little short-lived wretch Xu Xinyou did this to me.”
“Oh, merciful heavens! Thank goodness you came in time. Otherwise, she would have beaten me to death!”
Huang Jincai turned in astonishment toward the unusually quiet girl standing beneath the willow tree.
When his eyes met Qu Zhan Yi’s calm, unreadable gaze once more, his already restless heart became even harder to restrain, as though it wanted to leap straight out of his chest.
His limited vocabulary offered him no way to describe the stirring in his heart.
He only knew instinctively that Xu Xinyou had changed.
Whenever she saw him before, the girl would lower her head, greet him obediently, then flee in panic, as though he were some man-eating beast.
But now Xu Xinyou had not only failed to run—she was staring straight at him.
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There was not the slightest trace of fear in those eyes. Instead, they held only composure, confidence, and an air of indifference toward everything.
This was nothing like the appearance a poverty-stricken mountain girl ought to have.
“Jincai, Youcai, you must help your aunt decide who’s in the right!”
Liu Jianhua’s tearful complaint pulled Huang Jincai’s wandering thoughts back.
“Auntie Liu, what exactly happened?”
Huang Jincai did not blindly accept Liu Jianhua’s one-sided account. He decided to find out what had really happened first.
After all, everyone in the village knew what kind of person Liu Jianhua was.
It was only out of consideration for appearances that people did their best not to quarrel with her.
When it came to throwing tantrums and making a scene, Liu Jianhua had yet to meet her match in Yanjiao Village. Even Zhang Wanqing had to give way to her.
“You can all see that I’m covered in injuries. Xu Xinyou must compensate me at least twenty or thirty thousand!”
Calculation gleamed in Liu Jianhua’s eyes.
Huang Jincai scratched his head. Her face certainly looked frightening, but the rest of her appeared completely unharmed.
He said awkwardly, “But how could Xu Xinyou have beaten you? She’s such a thin, tiny girl. Auntie, you could knock her down with one finger.”