Zhao Daiqin walked over to Xiao’an with a broad smile.
“Take out that silk flower you normally can’t bear to wear. Mother will do your hair and dress you up.”
She wanted to make Xiao’an look beautiful so she could send her over to Liu the Great Benefactor’s house.
After seeing Xiao’an the previous day, Liu the Great Benefactor had taken a fancy to her. With a few clever words, he had managed to find out that Xiao’an was a girl from Linshi Village.
As soon as Xiao’an left, he sent his steward to Linshi Village to summon the matchmaker, Zhou Dalan.
Zhou Dalan and Huang Guixia were both matchmakers. Their job was to arrange marriages, and they would usually receive some benefits in return.
Unlike Huang Guixia, Zhou Dalan cared very much about how much she would gain from making a match.
As long as the reward was generous enough, she was willing to arrange even the most unsuitable match.
Liu the Great Benefactor wasn’t actually a kind man. His good reputation was something he had created and promoted himself.
He told Zhou Dalan that he had taken a liking to a girl from Linshi Village and wanted to buy her as a concubine.
From Liu the Great Benefactor’s description, Zhou Dalan immediately thought of Xiao’an.
She knew Xiao’an’s circumstances very well. She knew that her grandparents had both died, that she had sold her house, and that she had broken off her engagement.
How could she tell such a thing directly to a young girl?
Instead, she went to Huaihua Village, where Xiao’an’s parents lived.
She told them that Liu the Great Benefactor had taken a fancy to Xiao’an and wanted to buy her as his second wife, offering ten taels of silver.
As soon as Zhao Daiqin heard this, she laughed delightedly.
“I was wondering why a magpie had been chirping at me all day yesterday. It turns out good fortune really was coming my way! Hurry, let’s go to Linshi Village!”
Xiao’an’s father, Su Shun, poured cold water on her excitement.
“Don’t forget that Xiao’an is already engaged. If you want her to marry Liu the Great Benefactor, will the Kang family agree?”
Zhou Dalan laughed.
“Engaged? I heard from the villagers that the Kang family’s son wants to take two wives. Xiao’an refused, so the engagement was broken off.
“She even sold her house to return the betrothal gift. You two didn’t know?”
Zhao Daiqin’s eyes lit up.
“Oh, that’s wonderful! It’s a good thing that engagement was broken. You know, Xiao’an really is a lucky child.”
Su Shun was also delighted. He stood up and said,
“Don’t waste any more time. Let’s go.”
The couple’s attention was completely focused on the ten taels of silver Liu the Great Benefactor was willing to pay.
When they arrived in Linshi Village, they first went to Zhu Cui’s house and asked where Xiao’an was living.
Seeing Zhou Dalan with them, Zhu Cui immediately knew that they couldn’t be up to anything good.
Her heart sank.
“I don’t know.”
She deliberately refused to tell them where Xiao’an was living.
But this kind of thing couldn’t be kept secret.
Many villagers knew that Xiao’an was living in the bamboo house halfway up the mountain.
So the three of them hurried over.
Xiao’an shoved Zhao Daiqin.
She put quite a bit of strength into it, causing Zhao Daiqin to stagger backward.
If Su Shun hadn’t caught her, she wouldn’t have been able to stay on her feet and would have tumbled all the way down the mountain.
Xiao’an looked at Zhao Daiqin, whose face had turned bright red.
“Poverty really does bring out people’s schemes.
“It’s a famine, times are difficult, and now you’re thinking about selling me?
“I’ve been without food for days and was practically starving to death. Why didn’t any of you come check on me then?
“Go home. Get back into bed and sleep. Everything you want is probably available in your dreams.”
Zhao Daiqin pointed at Xiao’an.
“But you’re obviously alive and well! Where did you starve to death?
“If you really had no food, how could you possibly have this much strength?”
Xiao’an ignored Zhao Daiqin and turned her gaze toward Zhou Dalan.
“You chose matchmaking as your profession. You should do it properly and accumulate some virtue for yourself and your descendants.
“Don’t go around doing things that hurt people. Isn’t every person’s life precious?
“When you push someone into a pit of fire, doesn’t your conscience hurt when you lie awake at night?”
Zhou Dalan immediately became angry.
“Hey, Xiao’an! I’m doing this for your own good. How can you be so ungrateful?”
“For my own good?”
Xiao’an stared coldly at Zhou Dalan.
“Don’t think I can’t see through you.
“Liu the Great Benefactor simply wants to buy a concubine to keep him company in his lonely old age by spending someone else’s youth.
“All that talk about managing the household and being in charge—you can fool other young girls with that, but you can’t fool me, Su Xiao’an.
“Besides, even if I really could become the head of the household after marrying him, I still wouldn’t agree.
“You have a daughter too. Why don’t you send your own daughter to warm that fifty-something-year-old ‘Lingli Chong’s’ bed?”
Zhao Daiqin was confused.
“Lingli Chong? What Lingli Chong? Girl, why do you talk so strangely? Did living alone halfway up the mountain scare you silly?”
Zhou Dalan began shouting dramatically.
“Fine, fine! Clearly, I was blind. I was the first person to think of you for such a wonderful marriage, and yet you accuse me of pushing you into a pit of fire.
“Forget it. I won’t commit such a sin. I’m leaving.”
She pretended to walk away.
Zhao Daiqin hurriedly stopped her.
“Oh, Dalan, please don’t take it personally. Xiao’an is young. Why bother arguing with her?”
After calming the matchmaker down, Zhao Daiqin glared angrily at Xiao’an.
“Not only do you have no sense of right and wrong, but you also speak without restraint.
“Your dead grandparents spoiled you rotten.
“A man marrying when he’s grown and a woman marrying when she’s grown—that’s been the rule since ancient times.
“I’m your mother. I have the authority to decide your marriage.
“Hurry up, clean yourself up, change into a decent dress, and let Auntie Zhou take you there.
“If you dare argue again, your father and I will beat you.”
Xiao’an snorted.
“Beat me? Go ahead and try.
“Dare to lay a finger on me, and I’ll make sure you crawl back down this mountain.”
“You little rebel!”
Su Shun had been sitting on a rock listening to their argument.
Xiao’an’s words enraged him so much that he suddenly stood up.
He looked around, spotted a wooden stick as thick as an adult’s arm, and picked it up.
Pointing the stick at Xiao’an, Su Shun shouted,
“You disrespectful brat! How dare you talk back to your own mother? I’ll beat you to death!”
“I’m disrespectful?”
Su Xiao’an had all of the original owner’s memories in her mind.
“Ten years ago, the harvest was poor too. You two came to this very courtyard and asked my grandparents for food.
“When they refused, you not only argued with my grandmother, you even picked up a wooden stick and tried to hit them.
“I was six years old then. I saw everything with my own eyes.
“Tell me, weren’t you talking back to your own mother then?
“My grandmother died less than two years later.
“During those two years, I fainted from hunger several times. Why didn’t my own mother come to ask whether I was all right even once?
“And now that you want to sell me, you have the nerve to call yourself my mother?
“Aren’t you ashamed?
“Don’t come here pretending to be some powerful figure in front of me. You can’t fool me. I know exactly what kind of people you are.
“If you make me angry, I’ll beat you with this stick.”
Having his past exposed, Su Shun’s anger surged.
He raised the stick and swung it toward Xiao’an’s head.
Zhao Daiqin hurriedly grabbed his arm, causing him to miss.
She shoved him.
“Are you stupid? Liu the Great Benefactor took a liking to her, which is why he sent Dalan here.
“If you injure her head, do you think Liu the Great Benefactor will still want her?”
Zhou Dalan was frightened too.
If Xiao’an were injured, the two taels of matchmaking money she was expecting would be gone.
“Su Shun, why is your temper so bad? You’re so careless! Can’t you be more careful?”
Xiao’an sneered.
“Let him do whatever he wants. It’s not as if he can actually hit me.”
Su Shun swung the wooden stick horizontally toward Xiao’an’s waist.
“You little animal! You still dare to talk back!”
Xiao’an didn’t even move.
She simply reached out, and the wooden stick was suddenly in her hand.
Without hesitation, she swung it horizontally at Su Shun’s buttocks.
Xiao’an felt no reason to hold back.
She and Su Shun weren’t related by blood. He wasn’t her real father.
Why should she show him any mercy?
Su Shun screamed in agony.
The sound was so horrible that it barely sounded human.
He fell to the ground.
When he turned around and was about to curse at her, he saw Xiao’an raising the stick to strike again.
Su Shun didn’t dare to do anything else.
Using both his hands and feet, he crawled down the narrow mountain path.
Xiao’an pointed the stick at Zhao Daiqin and the matchmaker.
“Get out. Both of you.
“If you dare come back, I’ll beat you every time you come—and I’ll make each beating worse than the last.”
The two women hurried down the mountain with tiny, frantic steps.
The silk flower in the matchmaker’s hair fell onto the ground, but she didn’t even dare to bend down and pick it up.