Chen Xiaoying held back the tears in her eyes, her pitiful little face filled with grievance.
Dongzi wanted to speak up and give Chen Xiaoying a way out, but Qiangzi shot him a fierce glare, making him swallow his words.
Although Qiangzi was rough and domineering, he was also upright and had a strong sense of right and wrong.
This matter was clearly Chen Xiaoying’s fault, and the silly girl’s scolding was actually quite mild.
Chen Xiaoying said coldly, “I was only trying to help you. Since you don’t appreciate it, don’t come crying to me when something goes wrong.”
Han Jiaojiao looked her up and down, then let out a heavy sigh.
She didn’t say anything, yet it felt like she had said everything.
Chen Xiaoying felt even more unsettled inside.
“Who brought him in?”
The head nurse hurried out from inside, and Han Jiaojiao pushed Qiangzi forward: “It was him. The patient fainted on the roadside, and the two of them helped bring him over.”
“Alright, just leave your names and contact information and you can head back. We’ll let you know later. Xiaoying, why are you standing there? Bed 3 is already overdue for their dressing change.”
Chen Xiaoying, scolded by her supervisor, suddenly remembered she had neglected her duties and hurried inside to change the dressing for Bed 3.
Dongzi said nervously, “Is it okay for us to leave our address? What if the guy dies and they blame us?”
Qiangzi clicked his tongue and said, “If they were going to blame us, they wouldn’t let us leave now, right? Right, silly… no, that…”
“My name is Han Jiaojiao.”
“Oh, got it, Sister Jiaojiao!”
Sister Jiaojiao?
Han Jiaojiao now took a closer look at the two of them, and the corresponding information immediately popped into her head.
Qiangzi and Dongzi, whose real names were Qin Qiang and Ao Dong, were notorious troublemakers in this area, having been little terrors since childhood.
Relying on their families’ decent circumstances and their old men’s good connections, they’d been given two cushy, lucrative jobs, and they walked around with their noses in the air.
Being called “Sister” by the two of them felt rather unpleasant.
Seeing that it was getting late, she turned and headed out, and the two immediately followed.
“Sister Jiaojiao, where are you going? We’ll go with you. We know this area like the back of our hands.”
“Sister Jiaojiao, you’re amazing! That’s the first time I’ve seen someone save a life by stabbing someone in the neck. Incredible!”
Han Jiaojiao stopped in her tracks, turned around, and glared at them fiercely.
The two big men felt a chill run down their spines under her gaze.
She said seriously, “The ones who saved him were you two. Remember that well! If you go around spouting nonsense, watch out—I’ll beat you up!”
A fool suddenly turning into a brilliant intellectual? No one would believe that.
Even though spirits aren’t allowed to cultivate after the founding of the nation, that didn’t guarantee the county folks wouldn’t treat her like some kind of monster.
Han Jiaojiao shook her fist, putting on her fiercest expression to warn them.
But to the two of them, the little girl looked cute even when angry—pretty, adorable, and modest, yet clearly someone formidable.
“Got it, boss. We understand.” Qiangzi said with a grin.
How did it become “boss” now…
Han Jiaojiao’s head ached.
She walked out quickly, and Qiangzi and Dongzi still followed, chattering nonstop behind her the whole way.
On the diagonal across the street, in a jeep, Shen Junshan had been watching her the entire time.
Even after she disappeared around the street corner with the two young men, his expression remained hard.
Although he hadn’t seen Han Jiaojiao save the person, their argument earlier had been loud enough that he’d heard every word clearly from inside the car.
Shen Junshan was curious—when had Jiaojiao become so logical when arguing?
And judging by those two boys’ reactions, it was highly likely that Jiaojiao had saved them.
He knew Han Jiaojiao well; her nature wasn’t truly bad—otherwise, she wouldn’t have done what she did back then…
But she didn’t have the ability to administer first aid—Shen Junshan was well aware of that too.
He watched the direction Han Jiaojiao had gone and murmured to himself, “Jiaojiao… something’s off about her.”
“She’s always been a bit scatterbrained—last time she even splashed hot soup on your leg and left a big red burn! Why haven’t you…”
Zhong Shun’s “divorced her” never made it out of his mouth before being met with a cold glare from Shen Junshan.
Zhong Shun knew he was stubborn—once he’d set his heart on Han Jiaojiao, he’d never look back no matter what.
Even though the two of them had come from the same military unit and shared a closer bond than most, he still didn’t dare speak ill of the little fool in front of Shen Junshan.
He could only change the subject and say, “Those two boys are still following her. Want me to go chase them off?”
“No need—they won’t hurt Jiaojiao. Drive. There’s a meeting this afternoon.”
The jeep sped off.
A little while later, Han Jiaojiao also arrived at the courtyard.
After shaking off the two tagalongs, she’d been sorting through the knowledge of this world all along.
This afternoon, she’d familiarized herself with the area around her home and gotten a rough sense of the prices.
A penny could buy two candies, five cents could buy two fried dough sticks, a dime could buy a small bunch of greens, and a pound of meat ration stamps was a treasure—every household saved them up for the New Year.
Han Jiaojiao lifted the slab of pork belly in her hand and smiled. “Might as well treat this as celebrating the first day of my new life.”
Just as she was pondering whether to make the red-braised pork with a Sichuan-style kick or a sweet flavor, the sounds of boys scuffling came from the courtyard.
A boy of eleven or twelve rolled up his sleeves, revealing a pair of gaudy tattoo-like arm sleeves, and struck a gorilla pose, shoving a smaller boy out of the water-drawing line.
He barked fiercely, “What I say goes, that’s the rule! Get the hell back to the countryside and farm, or I’ll beat you every time I see you!”
“I live right here in the county town—none of your business!”
The smaller boy shoved back, but being too skinny and weak, he not only failed to push the tattoo-armed boy aside but bounced himself backward, drawing laughter from the other boys.
The tattoo-armed boy grew bolder and snarled, “That idiot sister of yours keeps clinging to Shen Junshan like a dog in the manger—she’s a damn nuisance! If she doesn’t get lost, I’ll beat her too.”
The boy laughed arrogantly, when suddenly a slab of pork belly came flying down from above, smacking straight into his face.
“Who dares hit me? You—you idiot?”
Maybe it was because today’s Han Jiaojiao looked too good, or maybe because the tattoo-armed boy never expected her to throw a punch.
For a moment, his eyes actually turned red.
“Qin Mu?”
She knew this boy—he was Chen Amin’s cousin, and they both lived in the tower block across the way.
Though they were called cousins, the two weren’t close at all; they fought like bitter rivals, constantly bickering. Today, though, this pair of siblings had come together in rare harmony.
Both of them had come to make her life difficult.
Han Jiaojiao dragged the boy over to the water tap and scrubbed him furiously under the running water.
Qin Mu yelped under the scrubbing, “Ow, ow, ow… you crazy woman, let go of me!”
Han Jiaojiao smacked him on the back of the head and scolded, “Who are you calling a crazy woman? You think you’re playing gangster with me here? Those two tattoo sleeves must have taken a lot of card paper—saved up for a year or two? And you didn’t exactly skimp on stealing money from home to buy bubble gum, did you?”
Qin Mu was both humiliated and furious, and threw a punch straight at her stomach.
Han Jiaojiao instantly grabbed his fist and, as if tossing a chick, flung him squarely and forcefully onto the group of young boys.
She then lifted Qin Mu up from the ground and raised an eyebrow coldly, saying, “Don’t think just because you’re young, I wouldn’t dare hit you. If you don’t learn to behave, I’ll beat you every time I see you!”
Qin Mu: “…”
Han Jiaojiao: “Also, go back and tell your cousin—if she ever comes to my house trying to seduce my man again, I’ll beat her every time I see her! I’ll make sure her own mother wouldn’t recognize her! Now get lost!”