The moment the words left her mouth, Ye Zhaozhao and Jiang Shiyan both let go of each other in fright.
In these times, indecent behavior was a serious crime.
Handled badly, it could earn you a bullet.
With a hat this big pressed down on them, who could hold up under it?
Jiang Shiyan panicked at once and deliberately lowered his voice. “Shen Jiaqi, shut your mouth! You hate me, so aim at me alone. This has nothing to do with Zhaozhao! Don’t slander her.”
“Slander…” Shen Jiaqi’s brow lifted slightly, her eyes rolling back and forth between the two of them.
“If there’s nothing between you two, why are you hanging all over each other? And if I remember right, she’s engaged, isn’t she!”
At that, Ye Zhaozhao stepped forward and explained anxiously, “Girl Shen, you’ve misunderstood. Brother Shiyan and I really aren’t what you think…”
Shen Jiaqi rolled her eyes hugely, and before she could say anything Jiang Shiyan played the hero and shielded Ye Zhaozhao in front of him.
“We’re perfectly clean and don’t need to explain ourselves to you. If you dare talk nonsense again, I won’t be polite.” Jiang Shiyan glared at her threateningly.
Before Shen Jiaqi could open her mouth, the uncles and aunties nearby couldn’t stand it any longer.
“Indecent behavior right in the street, and daring to threaten a young girl. Truly shameless!”
“That’s right, and saying she’s talking nonsense, where’s the nonsense? I saw those two holding hands with my own eyes just now…”
“This old man saw it too. They were whispering in each other’s ears as well. Truly shameless.”
“This young lady is right. If you’re not sweethearts or a married couple, then it’s indecent behavior, and you can wait for a bullet!”
The people around all spoke up. They’d been watching the show for a while and had long since taken a dislike to those two.
That pretty girl clearly had no wish to bother with them, and they’d come pushing forward to be cursed.
The auntie selling sweet potatoes beside her reached out and patted Shen Jiaqi’s shoulder. “Little girl, don’t be afraid. If they dare bully you, Auntie will back you up.”
The old uncle selling cabbage on the other side spoke up protectively too. “I, old Wang, can’t stand that look on your faces! Today, with me here, let’s see who dares raise a hand.”
Everyone spoke up for Shen Jiaqi and took her side, and the quiet alley was suddenly lively.
Jiang Shiyan and Ye Zhaozhao had never seen a lineup like this, and huddled together in fright.
“It’s not like that, everyone has misunderstood, it isn’t like that…”
“That’s right, we’re only friends… it isn’t what you think.”
Jiang Shiyan was sweating with agitation, and shouted at Shen Jiaqi in a commanding tone, “Shen Jiaqi, hurry and explain it clearly for us!”
Shen Jiaqi gave him the look one gives a fool. “Who are you? Why should I explain for you?”
“Because I…” Jiang Shiyan gritted his teeth, his expression turning impatient. “If you still won’t explain, see if I don’t really stop speaking to you!”
In the past, every time he said that, Shen Jiaqi would lower herself and beg him, and today would surely be no exception.
Confident of victory, he cast Ye Zhaozhao a reassuring glance.
The smile hadn’t even reached his eyes when he heard a snort of laughter.
“Then you’d better keep your word… absolutely don’t speak to me. Whoever breaks their word is a… dog!”
“Shen Jiaqi!” He was beside himself. Could it be that Shen Jiaqi really didn’t care about him anymore?
Jiang Shiyan felt an inexplicable flutter of panic, this feeling of losing control left his heart hollow.
Then, looking at those aggressive eyes of hers, he hardened his heart. If that was how it was, she couldn’t blame him for not being polite!
“Fine… you won’t let me off easy, and I won’t let you off easy either. You can wait for me to report you for speculation and profiteering…”
Threatening her?
Shen Jiaqi’s expression turned cold in an instant. She’d known Jiang Shiyan was shameless, but she didn’t expect this shameless.
“Fine, you wait…”
Shen Jiaqi’s gaze shifted, and she bit down hard on the tip of her tongue until it broke. A stabbing pain spread through her, and the pain made her tears flow.
“Uncles and aunties, brothers and sisters, this scumbag is a sent-down educated youth. He’d normally slack off and not go out to the fields, and when he was about to starve to death he came to me of his own accord to sign an engagement and become a live-in son-in-law, and had me support him for several years.”
“All these years, my brothers each gave him half their work points, and I sent him rice and grain and coupons and money. About the only thing I didn’t do was pick the stars out of the sky for him!”
“I was full of joy waiting for him to marry me, and then he turned around and latched onto another woman and forced the engagement to be broken off, driving me to jump into the river.”
“Fortunately it wasn’t my fate to die, and someone pulled me out. I still have a cold… Because of him my family can’t lift the lid off the pot, so I could only come here to sell a bit of mountain produce, and in the end… in the end they still won’t let me be.”
“You all heard him. He just threatened me, said he’d report me for speculation and profiteering… he’s driving me to my death…”
The more Shen Jiaqi spoke the more upset she became. It started as fake crying, but by the end an unprecedented sense of injustice made her nose sting, and she sprawled against the auntie and wailed out loud.
These weren’t her own true feelings, they must be the original owner’s lingering emotions…
The original owner had given Jiang Shiyan her heart and guts, done plenty of evil for him, and cheated her own family.
And in the end she lost both the man and the money. Who wouldn’t feel wronged?
Today, she could count it as venting a bad breath on the original owner’s behalf!
“Good heavens, isn’t this a modern-day Chen Shimei?”
The auntie rolled up her sleeves in anger, wishing she could take a mallet to that pretty boy.
The old uncle was quicker. He raised his walking stick and swung it over, and one blow to the back of Jiang Shiyan’s knee nearly knocked him flat.
“Bah! You useless thing…”
“Shamelessly letting a girl support you for years, a dog would be better worth keeping! Ungrateful wolf!”
“Exactly, and that woman beside him is no good article either. Engaged and still stealing another woman’s man. Utterly shameless!”
They all gnashed their teeth in hatred, a fist here and a kick there, and gave Jiang Shiyan a beating.
Ye Zhaozhao took a fair number of blows and kicks along with him, and her face was nearly ruined.
They were all shouting about hauling them to the public security bureau and having them sentenced for hooliganism.
Perhaps because the commotion here was too loud, it drew the attention of the market inspectors.
Someone shouted, no one knew who, “Run, the people who make arrests are coming…”
Everything around fell into chaos at once.
Nobody had attention to spare for anything else, they hoisted their goods in a scramble and took to their heels.
Shen Jiaqi looked at the two of them in disarray on the ground. Could this be the lucky-koi halo the leads carried?
At the critical moment, the plot would trigger and resolve the crisis?
Taking advantage of the confusion, Jiang Shiyan scrambled up and, pulling Ye Zhaozhao along, ran off with the crowd.
As he ran, he looked back and glared viciously at Shen Jiaqi.
Shen Jiaqi had made them lose all face today, and gotten them beaten as well. This business couldn’t be left at that!
“Aiya, little girl, stop watching, run now…”
The auntie had a big bundle on her back, running as if fleeing a famine, her two legs moving fast.
Shen Jiaqi nodded gratefully, mustered all her strength and heaved the sack upward, and nearly threw out her back.
The sack didn’t budge an inch…
Seeing that the people around had already run far off, and even Jiang Shiyan was running while struggling to hold Ye Zhaozhao up, and no one seemed to be watching her, Shen Jiaqi was about to use the space when the sack in her hand was lifted easily by someone.
The familiar clean scent of soapberry filled her nose, and washed-out work-clothes cloth wrapped around bulging lines of muscle.
Shen Jiaqi’s eyes lit up and her lips parted slightly. “Lu Zheng…”
How had he come?
When had he come?
Shen Jiaqi’s face was full of question marks, and by the time she came to herself a rough big hand was gripping her sleeve tightly and running forward with her.
There were many alleys around the black market, the terrain complicated and tangled, and with market inspectors and security men chasing behind, everyone was turning about like headless flies.
Lu Zheng, though, knew the way well. He led her left and right and finally hid in an abandoned courtyard, tucked into the crack between two walls.
“Don’t move!” Lu Zheng spread his arms and leaned down over her.
That tall figure was like a wall of bronze and iron, shielding her completely.
Shen Jiaqi held her breath, pressed against his broad chest.
The man’s vigorous, powerful heartbeat came through the thin cloth, making her scalp tingle and her own heart pound wildly.
In that narrow space there were heartbeats rising and falling everywhere, and the air around them gradually grew warmer.
Just as it was getting awkward, footsteps suddenly sounded outside the wall, and someone poked their head into the courtyard to look around.
Shen Jiaqi had never experienced this kind of thrill. Her whole body went taut at once, and both her hands gripped his waist.