Great Qi, Moon Bay Village.
“You wretched girl, did you deliberately bring Jinbao to the river, intending to drown him? He is the one who carries on the Wen family’s bloodline! You wretched girl, you truly have a vicious heart!”
Lying facedown on the ground, Wenxi had already been beaten until her head was split and bloodied by Madam Liu. Supporting herself with both hands against the earth, she trembled incessantly and defended herself in a faint whisper. “Grandma, I didn’t.”
“You still dare to argue! If someone hadn’t rescued Jinbao in time, you would have drowned him in the river!” Madam Liu shouted harshly, raising her hand and delivering another vicious slap.
“Smack!”
The tremendous force knocked Wenxi to the ground again, and her cheek burned with pain.
Her younger cousin, Wen Jinzhu, stood to the side with her arms folded, schadenfreude hidden in her eyes as she kept adding fuel to the fire. “Grandma, it’s true. I saw her push Jinbao into the river with my own eyes.”
“I didn’t… I didn’t…” Wenxi lay on the muddy ground, her breath weak and her life hanging by a thread. She stubbornly shook her head, refusing no matter what to accept the blame.
Inside the house, Li Cuihua, paralyzed and bedridden, heard the sounds of beating and scolding from the courtyard. She called out for a long while, but not a single person paid her any attention.
When she thought of her daughter being beaten again, anxiety burned through her. Throwing caution to the wind, she rolled off the bed and crawled out of the room, using both her hands and feet. “Mother! Don’t hit Xiaoxi, don’t hit her! Whatever she did wrong, I’ll atone for it in her place!”
She had no idea what trouble her daughter had caused. She only thought that if she lowered her head and admitted fault first, her daughter might suffer a little less physical pain.
A great many villagers had seen Wen Jinbao being pulled from the water at the riverbank earlier. They all knew Wenxi would certainly be subjected to a vicious beating when she returned, and by now quite a few people had gathered at the courtyard gate to watch the spectacle.
Seeing the girl beaten until she was covered in blood, the villagers felt some measure of pity and began urging Madam Liu to stop. “She’s already been beaten this badly. Surely she’s been taught her lesson. Show some mercy.”
Madam Liu was in the grip of her anger. Hearing outsiders meddling in her affairs only made her temper flare hotter. She waved her hand and shouted, “I’m disciplining my own granddaughter. Who do you outsiders think you are to interfere?”
Her brutish words left the people at the gate speechless. They could only stand there and sigh.
After much difficulty, Li Cuihua crawled into the courtyard. She saw her daughter covered in wounds and barely clinging to life, but before she could get close, Second Aunt – Madam Zhang rushed out of the room after finally soothing Wen Jinbao. She planted one foot viciously on the back of Li Cuihua’s hand and spoke nastily.
“Elder Sister-in-Law, it wasn’t your Xiao’an who was nearly drowned. Don’t think that simply admitting fault will make this matter go away!”
Her fingertips were crushed beneath the sole of the shoe, and excruciating pain shot through her. Unable to fight back, Li Cuihua endured the agony and pleaded in a low voice.
“Her Second Aunt, Xiaoxi truly didn’t do it on purpose. Please forgive her this once. From now on, she’ll be careful in everything she does.”
“Mother, don’t beg her! I didn’t push Jinbao into the river. He slipped and fell in by himself!” Seeing her mother’s hand being brutally trampled, Wenxi panicked. Gritting her teeth, she braced herself against the ground and tried to crawl over.
She had only gone to the river to wash clothes. Wen Jinbao had been playing in the water by himself when his foot slipped, and he had fallen in.
Simply because she had failed to keep an eye on him, all the blame had been pinned on her.
“You still dare to argue at a time like this!”
Seeing that Wenxi refused to submit, Madam Liu’s anger, which had only just been suppressed, surged up again. She picked up the carrying pole she had used to beat Wenxi moments earlier and swung it down viciously onto her back.
“Thud!”
The carrying pole came down heavily again and again. One blow struck Wenxi squarely on the head.
Agonizing pain exploded through her. Wenxi let out a scream, and her vision suddenly went black as she fainted away.
Only when Zhang-shi [1]Madam Zhang- In Chinese names, 氏 (shì) can be added after a woman’s surname to identify her as a married woman, especially in historical or period settings. jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3450989_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3450989_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], }); saw the girl lying unconscious on the ground did she finally feel satisfied. Her precious son had nearly died. For this wretched girl to get off with merely a beating was far too lenient.
“Xiaoxi! Xiaoxi!”
Li Cuihua used all her strength to yank her hand out from beneath Zhang-shi’s foot. The skin on the back of her hand had already been scraped raw, but she ignored the pain and crawled to her daughter’s side, gathering the unconscious Wenxi into her arms.
The girl’s cheek was swollen high, and blood kept flowing from her temple. Li Cuihua’s hand trembled; she did not dare touch her daughter’s wounds. Large tears rolled continuously down her face.
“Tsk, tsk…” The villagers gathered at the gate began discussing the matter again.
“Can she really be considered the girl’s grandmother? She’s beating her as though she means to kill her.”
“Exactly. Wen Jinbao only choked on a few mouthfuls of water. He wasn’t seriously injured at all.”
“What kind of heartless things are you saying?” Zhang-shi put her hands on her hips and charged to the courtyard gate, then opened her mouth and cursed loudly. “If it had been your own sons who nearly drowned, I’d like to see whether you could still say such things!”
Wen’an, who had gone to the foot of the mountain to gather firewood, had returned.
When the watching villagers saw him, they took the initiative to make way.
Someone in the crowd muttered under their breath, “That little idiot is back.”
“Mother! Sister!”
The moment Wen’an stepped through the courtyard gate, his eyes instantly reddened at the sight of his sister, covered in blood and unconscious.
He reached out and took Li Cuihua’s scraped, bleeding hand. His voice trembled. “Mother, who hit you? And Sister…”
“It’s all right, Xiao’an. We’re all right.” Li Cuihua forcibly suppressed her sobs and held his hand. “Help Mother carry your sister back into the room, all right?”
At fourteen, Wen’an was already nearly as tall and strong as a young man
It was just that when Li Cuihua had suffered a difficult labor giving birth to him, he had been deprived of oxygen for too long during the difficult delivery, leaving him with permanent brain damage. His mind had remained forever at the level of a five-year-old child.
He was not entirely incapable of distinguishing right from wrong. At that moment, he glared fixedly at Madam Liu, his teeth grinding loudly, before suddenly roaring, “You old witch! You hit Mother and Sister again! I’ll bite you to death!”
He charged forward and sank his teeth into Madam Liu’s arm.
“Hiss! You little beast, how dare you run wild!”
Madam Liu sucked in a breath from the pain and swung her hand back, slapping him. Wen’an lost his balance, his head lurching to the side as he fell onto the muddy ground.
“Xiao’an!” Li Cuihua reached out, trying to help her son up.
Madam Liu’s second slap immediately landed on Li Cuihua’s face, leaving her dizzy and seeing stars.
“You useless thing! You’re the one who incited this idiot to forget his place, aren’t you? I’ve raised your entire family of ungrateful wolves for nothing!”
“Mother, I didn’t.” Li Cuihua covered her burning cheek. She did not dare argue, and could only softly admit her fault while desperately shielding her son and daughter in her arms.
Seeing the tooth marks on her arm oozing blood, Madam Liu’s fury shot straight to the top of her head. She grabbed Wen’an and dragged him up from the ground, then raised the carrying pole and began beating him.
“You idiot, if I beat you to death today, I’ll save a mouthful of grain! How dare you bite someone!”
Li Cuihua tried to crawl over and stop her, but Zhang-shi had returned and pinned her arm down so tightly that she could not move.
Zhang-shi sneered. “Elder Sister-in-Law, Xiao’an is far too ignorant of the rules. He dares insult his elders and even attack someone. If he isn’t properly taught a lesson, he’ll become utterly lawless in the future.”
Wen Jinzhu glanced at Wenxi, who lay unconscious on the ground, a secret smile curling at the corners of her lips. She continued fanning the flames from the side. “That’s right, Grandma! Yesterday I even heard Xiao’an secretly calling Grandfather an old thing. You must teach him a proper lesson!”
“I didn’t… I didn’t!”
Wen’an’s attempts to defend himself were completely drowned out by the dull thuds of the carrying pole striking his body.
Madam Liu showed no mercy. After only a few blows, the boy collapsed limply to the ground, but the carrying pole in her hands still did not stop.
Li Cuihua watched helplessly as her son was beaten. Despairing, she prostrated herself on the ground and kowtowed repeatedly. “Mother, stop hitting him! Stop! It’s all my fault. I’m the one who failed to raise the children properly. If someone must be punished, punish me instead!”
The villagers at the courtyard gate grew increasingly agitated as they watched.
“I think the old woman is doing it deliberately. She despises Wen’an for being an idiot and is using this as an excuse to beat him to death, so there’ll be one less mouth to feed.”
“That’s right. She’s already so old, yet she’s still picking a fight with a child.”
Every word reached Madam Liu’s ears, but not only did she fail to stop, she struck even harder.
The others were right. If an idiot were beaten to death, the family could save quite a bit of grain.
At that moment, Wenxi, lying in the mud, suddenly moved her fingertips slightly.
A violent headache swept through her entire body. The noisy sounds of beating, scolding, crying, and discussion around her left her head spinning and aching.
With great effort, she lifted her heavy eyelids. What entered her eyes was a group of villagers dressed in coarse cloth clothes covered in patches, along with a dilapidated rural courtyard.
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