Yuan Jiansi pitched forward, and the sharp weeds scratched his face and hands, leaving them burning with pain.
He was just about to shout when something suddenly covered his mouth.
He finally got a clear look.
Well, it was pitch-black at night, so he couldn’t really see clearly. All he could make out was the silhouette of someone slightly plump pinning him down.
“Mm! Mm! Mm!”
He struggled desperately, trying to call for help, but with his mouth covered, all that came out were muffled noises.
Luo Xi was wearing gloves. With one hand, she held an old, worn-out rag firmly over Yuan Jiansi’s mouth.
With the other, she swung a stick and slammed it down onto his head.
Bang!
Yuan Jiansi saw countless stars explode before his eyes, and the strength of his struggles immediately weakened.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
After several consecutive blows to the head, his entire body went limp, completely drained of strength to resist.
Whether it was because he was too terrified or because he had already been beaten senseless, he could barely feel the pain anymore. He simply hovered repeatedly between fainting and dying.
In the end, he couldn’t pass out, but he didn’t want to die either. So he opened his eyes as wide as he could, looking at the person beating him with sheer terror and silently begging for mercy.
Perhaps his eyes had adjusted to the darkness.
Or perhaps the whites of Yuan Jiansi’s eyes were simply too white.
Even though everything around them was pitch-black, Luo Xi could somehow see the whites of his eyes.
Remembering the way Yuan Jiansi had looked at her earlier, her anger flared all over again.
Between gouging his eyes out and digging them out, she chose the less bloody option.
A punch slammed into Yuan Jiansi’s left eye.
He instinctively shut his eyes. Although his nerves were already somewhat numb, the pain around his eye still made his body tremble, and muffled “mm-mm” sounds escaped from his mouth.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Then came a punch to his right eye.
Left, right. Right, left. Left-left-right-right. Right-right-left-left.
From a distance, Chu Yan really wanted to sigh.
Who exactly had told him that she was a sweet and shy girl?
Was this what they called sweet and shy?!
Luo Xi finally grew tired and stopped, panting for breath.
By then, Yuan Jiansi was half-conscious. He felt the person pinning him down finally stand up, and the thing covering his mouth was removed as well.
His terror, which had already reached its limit, somehow intensified even further.
Was she leaving?
Or was she going to kill him?
No! Help! Someone, help!
He screamed frantically for help, but all that came out were meaningless “mm-mm-mm” and “uh-uh” sounds. His voice was so faint that he could barely hear it himself.
Luo Xi shook her tired right hand and was about to leave when she suddenly smelled something strange.
She frowned.
This man really couldn’t take a beating.
He had actually been scared into wetting himself!
Looking at the blurry figure lying there like a dead dog, Luo Xi wondered whether she should cripple one of his legs or arms.
Half a second later, she decided against it.
If he became disabled, he wouldn’t be able to do farm work anymore.
She didn’t want to cause trouble for the brigade.
Satisfied that she had done a good deed, Luo Xi happily went home.
Another beautiful day.
She hummed a song she had made up herself as she changed clothes and washed her hands.
Dark, dark night, the moon is strange,
A little rat comes into my house.
I grab my slipper and give chase,
Through the grass and through the breeze.
The grass shakes, the wild wind blows,
And sends that rat crashing down…
……
Yuan Jiansi had thought he was going to die.
But then… the person seemed to have left?
She left!
He was saved?!
A surge of joy flooded his heart.
He shouted loudly, “Mm! Help! Mm-mm…”
What he thought was a loud cry was so quiet that even he could barely hear it.
Finally, he gave up calling for help and struggled to open his eyes.
Unfortunately, no matter how hard he tried, he could only pry them open a tiny slit as thin as a needle.
There was grass all around him, but he couldn’t see anything.
The sound of crickets echoed beside his ears, sometimes near, sometimes far away.
He knew that if nobody came to save him, he might die here tonight.
Under the threat of death, his muddled memories gradually returned.
He remembered that he had only been knocked down beside the path.
If he could crawl out, perhaps someone would notice him.
His instinct to survive suddenly burst forth with astonishing strength.
One centimeter at a time, he crawled forward…
Finally.
Finally, after who knew how long, he managed to crawl onto the narrow path.
Through his blurry vision, he saw the lights of the educated youth compound in the distance.
He also knew that Qi Le’s room was diagonally across from there, while Luo Xi and Chu Yan’s houses were behind it.
Every house was clearly not that far away.
Yet he could only lie helplessly where he was and wait to die.
“Help… help…”
He desperately tried to call out, but his voice was still so faint that even he could barely hear it.
His vision suddenly went black.
At last, unwilling to accept his fate, he passed out.
Tonight was destined to be an eventful one.
Luo Xi’s ear-piercing, voice-cracking scream tore through the night sky.
Chu Yan, who had been preparing to go guard the water with her, silently took two steps backward.
Her voice was practically about to rupture his eardrums.
He really wanted to tell her:
There was no need to put so much effort into the performance. She was just wasting her energy.
Luo Xi, completely unaware that she was being judged, continued screaming at the top of her already-cracked voice.
Bang!
Qi Le came running out from nearby with a shoulder pole in his hands.
“What happened? What happened?!”
Almost at the same time, a whole string of people came rushing out of the educated youth compound.
It wasn’t until Guo Jiandang arrived with several people that Luo Xi finally ended her performance.
Her acting skills were truly impeccable—she switched it off as naturally as she had switched it on, then dutifully went off to guard the water.
Although…
She might have overdone it a little.
She would have to drink some chrysanthemum tea when she got home to soothe her throat.
The next day, when Luo Xi returned home after finishing her night watch, Yuan Jiansi’s incident had already spread throughout the entire brigade.
But she wasn’t particularly interested in the gossip.
After breakfast, she headed straight for the Wulian Mountain Range.
After more than two months and several failed attempts, she had finally succeeded in making a crossbow.
And not just an ordinary crossbow.
It was a repeating crossbow.
The repeating crossbow she made came with a “magazine.” Each magazine could hold twelve bolts.
She only made two magazines and thirty bolts in total. After filling both magazines, she still had a few bolts left as spares.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to make more.
The problem was that her resources were limited.
If it weren’t for her connection to the No. 201 Liuyue Alley black market, she wouldn’t have been able to make this crossbow at all.
After all, the bolt heads, crossbow mechanism, trigger, and other components were made from iron, copper, and other metals.
There was no way she could produce those things entirely on her own.
All the money she had earned from selling yellow books during this period had gone into making the crossbow.
What depressed her was that it still wasn’t enough.
She had even had to dip into some of her savings.
Her sixty-plus yuan had now dwindled to just over twenty.
Seriously.
The more money she made, the less money she had.
The harder she worked, the more heartbreaking it became.
Her wallet might have been nearly empty, but her courage had soared.
With the repeating crossbow in hand, she even dared to venture deeper into the Wulian Mountain Range.
Gradually, there were no more people around.
She finally found a secluded “auspicious spot” and began testing her crossbow.
She had made the repeating crossbow very compact.
It could easily fit inside her basket.
She had even specially made a crossbow case that both protected the weapon and made it convenient to carry.
First, she picked out a large tree about a hundred meters away.
She took aim and pulled the trigger.
The crossbow made almost no sound.
The bolt shot out like lightning.
In the blink of an eye—
Bang!
Wood chips flew everywhere. The tree shook, and quite a few leaves fell from its branches.
An hour later, she finally determined the crossbow’s effective range.
It could reach 280 meters, while its maximum range exceeded 500 meters.
Although she was somewhat dissatisfied, there was nothing she could do about it.
After all, this wasn’t something manufactured for her by a dedicated military factory. Otherwise, it could have been made much more refined.
There were many materials she simply couldn’t obtain at the moment, so she had to use substitutes.
Her forging techniques weren’t exactly professional either.
A little lacking here, a little lacking there.
Naturally, the final result suffered.
But for Luo Xi, it was more than enough for now.
She had only made it for self-defense.
Well…
She could also use it for hunting.
Since she was already here, why not?
However, when she went to retrieve the bolts, she encountered a problem.
The repeating crossbow was extremely powerful, and the bolts had almost completely buried themselves inside the tree.
Digging them out took another hour.
She was only willing to do it because she was poor.
Otherwise, she would have simply abandoned them.
With the repeating crossbow in hand, Luo Xi felt like she could practically take flight.
She almost wished a wild boar would appear so she could have an ultimate showdown with it.
Unfortunately, her luck wasn’t that good.
She didn’t encounter a single wild boar.
She only found two wild pheasants.
Both were taken down with a single bolt straight to the head.
When she finally returned home, she could see from a distance that quite a few people had gathered around last night’s “crime scene.”