“On what grounds are you hitting me?” Mrs. Chen could not accept being hit with one hundred cane strikes, let alone being hit by Yin Weiyue.
On what grounds? Good question.
Yin Weiyue said: “You poisoned my husband, not only forcing him to miss the palace examination, but almost making grandmother, father-in-law, and mother-in-law suffer the pain of the elderly burying the young. With me giving you only one hundred cane strikes, you’re the one getting a bargain, Third Aunt.”
“You are just a niece-in-law, you have no qualification to hit me! Mother, you cannot be so heartless! Kai’er, save me!” Disregarding her composure, Mrs. Chen was still making a final struggle.
“I am Huo Anzong’s legally wedded main wife. Even if my crime is to be punished, the ancestral hall should be opened and the family law invoked according to ancestral rules, presided over by Huo Anzong! How can you be allowed to carry out lynching?”
Hearing this, the Old Lady sneered: “Unfilial and disrespectful even toward me, your living mother-in-law—what face do you have left to bother the ancestors? Nor is there any need to trouble my useless son; he won’t be able to smooth things over today.”
Supported by Mrs. Feng, the Old Lady sat on the steps of the flower wall, no longer looking at Mrs. Chen at all. The words of plea at the tip of Huo Kai’s tongue could not be uttered; after all, it was true that his mother had poisoned Seventh Brother.
At this moment, Huo Wanying stepped forward: “Although the one hitting you is Seventh Sister-in-law, the one punishing you is the Old Lady. Seventh Sister-in-law is merely carrying out the beating on her behalf. If Third Aunt refuses to submit, that is an added offense! Seventh Sister-in-law, I’ll help you hold her down!”
Yin Weiyue felt a surge of relief, looking at this sister-in-law with the eyes of someone admiring her “own daughter.” She truly was just as written in the book: gentle, dignified, yet possessing strength within her softness.
Yin Weiyue smiled at her and said in a tender tone: “Seventh Sister-in-law can handle a small matter like this alone. Later, if blood spatters on you and soils your clothes, how bad would that be? You just stand to the side and keep count for me.”
Huo Jun was somewhat surprised by the 180-degree shift in Yin Weiyue’s tone toward Huo Wanying. Hearing these words, Huo Kai frowned in worry, while Mrs. Chen grew even more anxious: “Yin, you little bitch—”
Before Mrs. Chen could finish the rest of her words, Yin Weiyue quickly moved behind her, knocking her flat with a side kick, then raised the walking cane and brought it down heavily.
Daring to call her a bitch, and having pushed Huo Wanying so that she fell on her tailbone, Yin Weiyue naturally would not show any mercy.
“One!” Following the muffled thud of the cane coming down, Huo Wanying kept count with precision.
“Ouch, I’m going to kill you!” The next second, Mrs. Chen’s scream sounded out. Arching her body, she was about to go wild and tear into Yin Weiyue, but was stepped on the back by the latter.
Instantly, she became like a tortoise whose shell was stepped on, with only her head and limbs flailing about, unable to turn over or move an inch.
Yin Weiyue’s cane strikes came down one after another, and Huo Wanying reported the count cleanly and decisively.
“Two”
“Three”
“Thirty-six”
“Seventy-eight…”
Mrs. Feng’s eyes were blood-red as she stared straight ahead without blinking, fearing her daughter might count wrong and spare Mrs. Chen a strike. Though today could not compare to the time Huo Jun’s life hung in the balance, at least this toxic woman was punished, releasing a breath of resentment.
Yin Weiyue avoided the more vulnerable areas, striking fast, precise, steady, and ruthless on the exact same spot on the buttocks every single time—inflicting sheer pain without crippling or killing her.
Although Mrs. Chen was at fault first, she was still the biological mother of the male lead after all. Living inside the book now, it was fine to have a small grudge with the Son of Destiny, but it would be bad if she formed a mortal grudge over killing his mother.
“Ninety-nine”
“One hundred!”
The count was sufficient, and Yin Weiyue stopped her hand.
“Mother!” Huo Kai immediately ran forward.
Mrs. Chen’s voice was already hoarse from crying, lying motionless on the ground. Huo Kai hastily went forward to carry her on his back, took his leave of the Old Lady, and was about to head back.
“Hold on.” Yin Weiyue raised her arm, blocking his path. “Since you came today, it’s better to speak some matters and words clearly and thoroughly, lest the Third Branch harbor resentment again in the future and come back to harm our First Branch.”
Huo Kai had always been filial. Although he knew Mrs. Chen indeed deserved punishment, seeing her clothes below her buttocks soaked in bright red blood, his emotions had long since spiraled out of control.
His icy gaze pierced directly toward Yin Weiyue. What people usually called “eye daggers” was probably like this; if Yin Weiyue were a salmon, she would probably have been turned into sashimi right now.
But again, as the saying goes, Yin Weiyue had even witnessed zombies in her past life. The male lead’s gaze was just a light snack to her; she treated it as if she saw nothing.
“Huo Kai, looking at your expression, you seem to have a big problem with this. It doesn’t look like your mother was punished for taking a human life, but rather as if our First Branch united to bully your mother.”
“Step aside! Mother has suffered both scolding and beating today. I will take her back first to apply medicine, and will naturally come before grandmother later to plead guilty. At that time, whether you want to beat me or kill me, do as you please!”
Unsure if the male lead was eager to save his mother or if it was because he was still young right now, his current reaction lacked the wisdom and decisiveness a male lead ought to have. Instead, it fit the traits of a hot-headed youth—ignorant of flexibility, only knowing how to charge blindly.
Yin Weiyue carefully recalled the original work. The book used a flashback technique, opening with the female lead, Zhang Yulin, being killed by Huo Jun and then reborn. The author’s primary ink was all on the female lead; essential decisions were basically made by her, while in the early stage, the male lead basically functioned as a camera.
In the content of the first ten chapters, it basically expressed that the female lead had a career-oriented mind while the male lead had a love-oriented mind. The female lead was responsible for making money to support the family, while the male lead was responsible for spoiling his wife and being mushy. Every time the male lead appeared, it was under a domineering wife-protecting persona, which was why Yin Weiyue used to ship them as a couple.
Looking at it this way, when the male lead was young, like the vast majority of young lads, he was actually just a chuunibyou youth. It was only because the female lead was beside him to stop him that no out-of-bounds incidents occurred. Only when he grew older later and experienced more things did his mind gradually mature.
Well then, having analyzed this point, Yin Weiyue had even less to fear. What she was best at was curing chuunibyou.
“A small injury like Third Aunt’s won’t kill her anytime soon, but my Seventh Young Master hovered on the line between life and death for three days! Now, our First Branch can only eat one meal a day, yet your Third Branch can still stockpile medicine. It seems spending other people’s money truly doesn’t hurt.”
His mother had been beaten like this, yet Yin Weiyue was making an issue out of applying medicine and refusing to let go of the Third Branch. Huo Kai was beyond his limits of endurance.
Sure enough, in the next second, a line that a normal person couldn’t say even after drinking two jin of Laobaijiu blurted right out of the male lead’s mouth: “If you want to seek death, I’ll fulfill your wish!”
Mrs. Chen on his back finally caught an opportunity. Enduring the pain, she added fuel to the fire: “Kai’er, you must properly teach this toxic woman a lesson! Everything she did today was to avenge your refusal to marry her! You must vent this foul air for your mother and slap that foul mouth of hers to pieces!”
Mrs. Chen was driven mad with rage. She only wanted blood for blood, completely forgetting that Yin Weiyue was the legitimate daughter of a Cabinet Minister. Right now, she was single-mindedly waiting to see Yin Weiyue get slapped in the face until her ears and nose bled, sprawling out and crying loudly for mercy in a miserable state.
“Step aside! I don’t have any rule against not hitting women,” Huo Kai warned again with a somber face.
“I won’t. If you have the ability, go ahead and hit me.” She raised her chin, refusing to believe that the male lead crafted in the book could actually raise a hand to hit a woman.
Huo Kai’s anger level had reached its peak. Spurred by Yin Weiyue, he freed a hand, raised his palm, and chopped directly toward Yin Weiyue’s shoulder.
This move was fierce; if it hit the shoulder blade, injury was guaranteed.
Feeling the sharp wind of the palm strike, Yin Weiyue never expected that the male lead in this book actually fucking hit women.
In the content she hadn’t read, Huo Kai was just like this, not understanding how to cherish beauty at all. Before he fell in love with Zhang Yulin, women and men were no different; after he fell in love with Zhang Yulin, women were divided into two kinds: one was Zhang Yulin, and the other was not Zhang Yulin.
He was completely submissive and obedient to Zhang Yulin in every way, but for other women who provoked him, there was only one word—”hit,” whether they lived or died depended entirely on the other party’s luck.
Yin Weiyue didn’t expect that right after transmigrating into the book, she would end up fighting the male lead of the couple she once shipped. This feeling wasn’t very great.
When reading the book, she truly liked Huo Kai, but now she couldn’t say he was bad either. It was just a difference in stance; as a former reader, she now stood on the opposing side of the male lead.
In short, it was still that line her eldest sister often said: There are no born good or bad people in this world; it’s merely that current events shape fate, and the trend of the times shapes human hearts.
In the fifteen years of hiding in the deep mountains during her past life, besides sparring with her eldest sister, Yin Weiyue had only fought wild boars and wolf packs in the mountain forests. This was her first time fighting a man.
She was a bit excited.
“Be careful!” But the people around didn’t have Yin Weiyue’s calm mindset. Even “Prairie Brother” Huo Jun nervously ran forward wanting to pull Yin Weiyue away. After all, she had vented frustration for the First Branch today and was the number one hero.
The Huo family was a family of martial nobility. Huo Jun was forced to pursue literature due to his frail health since childhood; however, although Huo Kai also pursued literature, his martial arts skills were extremely good, able to last ten moves under Second Brother Huo Jian at a young age.
Huo Jun looked at Yin Weiyue’s delicate body; if this palm strike landed on her, her bones might shatter.
Who knew that several people present shared the exact same thought as Huo Jun—especially Huo Wanying, Mrs. He, and Mrs. Su. Although Yin Weiyue hadn’t acted like a human for two years, she had genuinely helped the First Branch today, so they also nervously ran forward.
The scene instantly fell into chaos.
Squeezed among the three women, Huo Jun was tripped by someone’s foot. With a “thud,” the tall man over 1.8 meters fell flat on the ground. At the same time, Yin Weiyue felt a sharp pain all over her body.
The pain spread from her face to her chest, then to her abdomen, all the way down to her knees and ankles. Turning her head, she saw Huo Jun lying flat on the ground, instantly comprehending the true meaning of the eight words describing him at the very beginning of the book: “feeble, emaciated, and physically frail.”
“Holy fucking shit!” Before the fight even began, she suffered battle damage. She had never seen such a weakling of a man! A surge of irritation rose in Yin Weiyue’s heart, and she unconsciously blurted out a piece of “national essence” profanity.
Unsure if it was because the novel’s author was a modern person, Huo Kai actually understood these words, even mistakenly thinking that the “national essence” profanity Yin Weiyue used was meant to insult him. As a result, the palm strike he launched gained two more parts of fierceness.