Being stared at like that made Niu Da shudder. His voice trembled as he answered, “N-No… Killing someone is against the law. I wouldn’t dare do something like that.”
“She only told me to take you deep into the mountains and give you to some mountain family as a wife.”
After saying this, Niu Da lowered his head, not daring to look at Yu Huan’s expression.
Niu Lanhua was hiding behind him, barely daring to breathe.
Yu Huan’s expression turned completely cold.
“Even though we’re from the same village, how could you help a newcomer, an educated youth who just arrived, harm me? Aren’t you afraid I’ll tell my father?”
“I had no choice! That Educated Youth Lin threatened me. She said that if I didn’t do what she told me, she would report me. If that happened, my entire family would be finished!”
“What did she threaten you with?”
Niu Da and Niu Lanhua simultaneously lowered their heads in embarrassment, unable to say anything.
The matter was simply too shameful to talk about.
Seeing that they remained silent with their heads lowered, Yu Huan waited for a while before speaking again.
“If you refuse to tell me, does that mean you want me to report everything to my father and have the Public Security Bureau arrest you?”
Hearing this, Niu Da decided to throw caution to the wind. No matter what happened, the outcome would probably be the same.
He turned around and tightly clasped Niu Lanhua’s hand, their fingers intertwining.
“He discovered that Lanhua and I were having an affair.”
It was like a bolt of thunder striking out of nowhere.
Yu Huan was so shocked that she nearly lost control of her normally icy expression.
What?!
Her entire worldview had shattered.
The cave fell completely silent.
For a moment, Yu Huan had no idea what expression she should wear or what words she should use to communicate with these two people.
After quite a while, Niu Lanhua finally mumbled softly, “He’s not my biological brother.”
Yu Huan didn’t feel like arguing over such a pointless detail. Nor did she want to hear about the complicated, long-standing affairs of the Niu family.
Her voice turned cold.
“You don’t need to tell me about your personal affairs.”
“I can choose not to report you, and I can also choose not to pursue what you tried to do to me.”
Niu Da wasn’t stupid. He knew there had to be another condition.
Sure enough, Yu Huan continued.
“But whatever she planned to do to me, you two will do the exact same thing to her.”
Niu Da and Niu Lanhua exchanged glances. They had no other choice, so they could only nod in agreement.
Yu Huan struck each of them once with the edge of her hand, knocking them unconscious. Then, carrying one in each hand, she tossed them back at Widow Niu’s house.
As for the shock Niu Da and Niu Lanhua experienced when they woke up and discovered that they had somehow returned home again, that was another matter entirely.
Meanwhile, early the next morning, Yu Huan’s parents once again put on their authoritative parental faces and forbade her from going into the mountains.
The previous day’s incident had genuinely frightened them.
Yu Huan repeatedly promised that she wouldn’t go into the mountains again, and only then did her parents finally feel reassured.
Soon afterward, the courtyard gate became lively.
A group of young men escorted Uncle Zheng, the village’s only butcher, into the courtyard.
When it came to eating meat, even though nobody had to work that day, many villagers had still gotten up early and rushed over to the Yu family’s house to watch the pig being slaughtered.
The courtyard quickly became bustling with activity. Quite a few brave children squeezed into the crowd to watch as well.
Before long, a group of older women and aunties also came over to help.
Yu Huan wasn’t particularly interested in such a lively scene. She remembered that Ling Yuan and the others had come to collect the watermelons yesterday but had ended up delaying their plans because they had to look for her.
After thinking about it, she took a large bamboo basket and put six watermelons inside. She then stored the basket in her space and openly walked out through the crowd.
Only after reaching an unoccupied area did she take the basket back out and carry it on her back.
She headed toward the educated youths’ residence at the entrance of the village.
When she arrived, most of the educated youths were still resting.
Lin Zhiyu, however, had spent the entire night tossing and turning because she had something weighing on her mind. Her already pale face was now accompanied by dark circles beneath her eyes.
She seemed to be preparing to go out. When she encountered Yu Huan at the courtyard gate, her eyes flickered, but she said nothing.
Yu Huan, however, smiled with an innocent expression.
“Comrade Zhiyu, where are you going?”
Lin Zhiyu almost lost control of her expression again.
“It’s none of your business.”
She replied coldly and then carefully observed Yu Huan’s expression.
Seeing that Yu Huan appeared completely unaware of anything, Lin Zhiyu felt slightly relieved.
She probably still didn’t know that she had been the one behind the scheme.
The plan had clearly been arranged, yet something had gone wrong. Right now, Lin Zhiyu only wanted to find Niu Da as quickly as possible and ask him what had happened.
Lin Zhiyu hurried past Yu Huan, brushing close enough that the breeze from her movement stirred a loose strand of hair beside Yu Huan’s cheek.
Watching Lin Zhiyu hurry away, Yu Huan thought to herself:
Although she had already instructed Niu Da and the others to retaliate, she figured there was nothing wrong with giving Lin Zhiyu a little taste of trouble first.
She took out a Misfortune Talisman she had just drawn and secretly stuck it onto Lin Zhiyu.
She wondered how its effects would compare with the talismans already stored in her space. This was a perfect opportunity to test it.
Yu Huan withdrew her gaze and walked into the educated youths’ courtyard.
Su Qing was hanging clothes in the courtyard. When she saw Yu Huan, her eyes brightened, and she greeted her with a sweet smile.
“Comrade Yu, are you here to see Educated Youth Ling?”
Yu Huan felt a little embarrassed by the question, which was rather unusual for her.
“No, I’m here to bring you all some watermelons.”
“How could we let you carry them over yourself? We could have asked one of the male educated youths to come and collect them later. You…”
She was about to say that carrying such a heavy basket all this way must have been exhausting.
But then she suddenly remembered what Song Yujie had said the previous evening about Yu Huan being incredibly strong.
She swallowed the rest of her sentence.
“You… Why don’t you put the basket down first?”
Yu Huan was just about to take the basket off her back and place it on the ground when Zhao Liye came out of his room to help.
“Let me take that.”
Without thinking, Zhao Liye took the basket from her hands. It was rather heavy, but he was a man, after all.
He carried the watermelons into the kitchen. Afterward, he returned with the empty basket and approached Yu Huan.
Since they had agreed that he would buy the watermelons, he took out the money and ration coupons he had prepared and was about to hand them to her.
Yu Huan refused.
After all, he had kindly helped search for her the previous evening.
“These are gifts for all of you. Thank you for helping me last night. Especially you, Educated Youth Zhao. I never properly thanked you for your help last time either.”
Seeing how serious and sincere Yu Huan looked, Zhao Liye didn’t insist.
“Then I guess I’m getting quite a bargain!”
Yu Huan noticed that Ling Yuan still hadn’t come out, and even Song Yujie was nowhere to be seen.
She had no choice but to say, “Then I’ll be leaving now.”
Zhao Liye noticed the slight disappointment in her expression, but he didn’t say anything about it.
“I’ll walk you out.”
However, when they reached the entrance, Yu Huan stopped him and told him he didn’t need to go any farther.
After watching Yu Huan walk away, Zhao Liye turned around and found himself meeting Su Qing’s curious, probing gaze.
He immediately responded with a charming, carefree smile.
Su Qing’s face turned bright red.
By now, the sun was already high in the sky. A thin layer of sweat had begun to form on Yu Huan’s body.
As she walked along the country path, she thought about how chaotic things at home might still be. She decided to find somewhere to spend some time first.
As she walked, she followed the shade of the trees until she reached a pool of water near the back mountain.
Her ears twitched slightly.
Acting on instinct, she immediately leaped into the tree in front of her.
Parting the branches and leaves that blocked her view, she looked down toward a spot about ten meters ahead.
In the emerald-green pool, a well-built man’s upper body slowly emerged from the water.
His skin was pale and cool-toned, his back broad, his waist narrow and firm, with two sexy dimples above his hips.
Her gaze traveled downward, but the rest of his body was hidden beneath the water.
In the village, men were often seen walking around bare-chested during the summer. From young men to elderly villagers, they all had sun-darkened skin covering either muscular or thin bodies.
She had never seen a man’s body so beautiful before.
Yes, beautiful!
Because at that very moment, the man seemed to sense her gaze and turned around.
A perfectly proportioned eight-pack of abdominal muscles, along with the faintly visible, sexy lines of his V-shaped lower abdomen, came into view.
Yu Huan suddenly felt a little tickle in her nose.
She was just about to raise her hand and rub it when her eyes met Ling Yuan’s deep, mysterious gaze.