When she saw the retainers at the Wang family’s gate, she had already guessed that the person might be that Young Master Liu Jiu who had taken a liking to Wang Yin’er. Fearing that Wang Yin’er and her mother would suffer losses, she had rushed in with Jiang Liu.
But who would have thought that Wang Yin’er didn’t suffer, and instead it was she who ended up the unlucky one.
Now that things had come to this, she didn’t regret meddling where she shouldn’t have — after all, people don’t have eyes on the back of their heads, how could there be so many “if only I had known”?
If we’re really talking about “if only,” then if she had known earlier, she wouldn’t have gone out that day to have a big meal — that way she wouldn’t have been hit and killed by a drunk-driving truck, and she wouldn’t have transmigrated into the novel she had written herself.
Getting tangled up in all this nonsense was meaningless. What mattered was finding a way to resolve the issue.
Jiang Chun certainly wouldn’t sit and wait for death. Today was already too late — at this time her uncle had already gone into the county to deliver goods. She decided that early tomorrow she would go into town to find her uncle Zheng Yi and ask him to help her come up with a plan.
The Zheng family, though also butchers, did not sell meat at a street stall like Jiang Chun and her father. They only did business with wealthy households and restaurants.
Because of that, Zheng Yi was acquainted with quite a few high-ranking and noble people, and had a lot of sway in Hongye Town and even Hongye County.
According to her father, her uncle had a pretty good relationship with the county magistrate’s brother-in-law.
If Liu Qitan really was thinking of making a move on her, she could have her uncle ask the county magistrate’s brother-in-law to put in a word with the county magistrate. If the county magistrate would step forward, then things would be much easier to handle.
After all, Hongye County was the ancestral land of the Liu clan. The county magistrate was the parental official of Hongye County. Even if Liu Qitan didn’t give him face, the Liu family’s Old Master would suppress Liu Qitan into giving him face.
Only, in doing so, the huanghuali circle-back chair and golden hairpin in her storeroom probably couldn’t be kept safe, and might even have to throw in those spices and medicinal herbs as well.
All would become the thank-you gifts to the county magistrate’s brother-in-law.
Forget it. Consider it as money spent to ward off disaster.
- ••
Jiang Chun had planned quite well, but man proposes, Heaven disposes. [plans cannot keep up with the changes of fate]
The next morning, while it was still dark, she pushed her wheelbarrow and headed toward the town.
The plan was to first leave the cart at Granny Liu’s house, then go to her maternal uncle’s home to discuss matters. After coming out from her uncle’s place, she would set up her stall to sell pork.
But halfway along the road, she ran into robbers.
Jiang Chun sneered coldly in her heart.
Daliushu Village was the village closest to Hongye Town. It took just two kè [~30 minutes] on foot to get there. It wasn’t some remote, uninhabited mountain area — what kind of bandits would be so brazen as to come here and rob?
And they didn’t pick the night to rob, but deliberately chose early morning. Wait a while and the sky would be fully bright. Were they afraid the people being robbed wouldn’t clearly see their faces and builds?
Clearly, these people had come specifically for her, and had long since figured out her daily schedule, knowing she would appear on this road every morning.
Jiang Chun set down the wheelbarrow and slowly pulled out a machete over two chi [two feet] long from the basket that held the scale and money box.
No matter how strong the original host’s body was, she was ultimately a young woman. If she ever ran into another uncouth scoundrel like the one in Qingyan Town who didn’t know what’s good for him and tried to flirt with her, two fists could hardly beat four hands — she might very well suffer a loss.
So Jiang He had spent a large sum of money to buy a machete, wrapped it in old hemp cloth, and hid it in the miscellaneous goods basket, as a self-defense weapon for his daughter.
Only, her reputation was so well known that normally no one dared to provoke her, so the machete had never seen use.
Today, it was just right for Jiang Chun, this impostor, to use it.
The “bandits” saw that Miss Jiang was holding a large machete in her hand. One of them laughed and said, “Little lady, I advise you to drop the knife. Knives and swords have no eyes — don’t end up not hurting us but instead hurting yourself.”
The voice was extremely familiar — it was clearly the same square-faced retainer who had guarded the door yesterday, and later went inside to report for her and Jiang Liu.
Jiang Chun curled her lips. Sure enough, it was Liu Qitan, that bastard, playing tricks. She had already guessed — aside from him, no one else would be so blind as to come rob her.
She coldly snorted: “I advise you all to get lost right now. Knives and swords have no eyes — be careful or I might accidentally chop off one of your arms or a leg!”
“Hahahaha…” The group laughed loudly as if they had heard some big joke.
No wonder they were like this — Liu Qitan didn’t want to be nagged by the Liu Old Master and Old Madam, so he hadn’t used the Liu residence’s official servants, and instead sent his own people to Hongye Town to investigate Jiang Chun’s situation.
The townsfolk of Hongye, afraid that Jiang Chun might come back later for revenge, spoke very ambiguously — basically saying her father butchered pigs, she sold pork at a stall, and their household had taken in a sickly live-in son-in-law, and the like.
Liu Qitan, upon hearing this report, casually sent six of his own retainers to kidnap her. Afraid they might hurt Jiang Chun, he even forbade them from bringing knives.
So these six blockheads each carried a wooden club and came to stake out the spot.
Jiang Chun’s body was already extremely strong, and now with a large machete in hand — though she didn’t know martial arts — dealing with six retainers who only knew some half-baked skills was more than enough.
Very quickly, she knocked them all to the ground.
“Ah… it hurts, it hurts, it hurts…”
“Ah… my leg, my leg hurts so bad…”
“My shoulder is broken… it hurts to death… ah…”
“Ah… my hand… my hand hurts so much…”
“Ah… ah… my leg… ah…”
“Ah… my arm…”
A few of the “bandits” were clutching their legs, some clutching their arms, rolling around on the ground, howling in pain like their hearts were being torn apart.
Jiang Chun, afraid someone might actually die, had flipped the machete over and used the blunt side to beat them, and she had also held back her strength as much as she could.
Even so, it was still more than enough for these retainers to suffer.
Looking at their reactions, they had most likely been beaten into bone fractures. Not crushed fractures, but at least cracks in the bone.
Jiang Chun didn’t feel the least bit guilty. These people had brought it upon themselves. If the one they tried to rob hadn’t been her, but some other weak little lady without the strength to even truss a chicken, they would’ve probably succeeded.
If she fell into the hands of a dog like Liu Qitan, who knew what kind of torment she would have ended up in!
Jiang Chun used the old hemp cloth to rewrap the machete and stuffed it back into the bottom of the basket. Then she bent down, pushed the wheelbarrow, and hurried toward the town.
She didn’t even have time to go to Granny Liu’s house to store the wheelbarrow and instead went straight to her uncle’s home.
Seeing his niece standing at the door, Zheng Yi was startled. While inviting her in, he asked anxiously, “Chun-niang, how come you’ve come over so early? Is something urgent?”
If there weren’t anything wrong, at this hour she should be at the morning market selling meat, and wouldn’t have come here.
Jiang Chun tugged on his sleeve and said softly, “Let’s talk inside.”
Seeing this, Zheng Yi’s expression darkened, and he quickly led her inside the house.
Once inside, Jiang Chun immediately told him the whole story from start to finish.
When she finished, she handed him a bundle of herbs and spices she had prepared ahead of time, along with a golden hairpin, and said, “This is the down payment. Uncle, please speak to Zhao-langjun for me. Once it’s done, I’ll thank him with one huanghuali circle-back chair and twenty taels of silver.”
Zhao-langjun was the county magistrate’s brother-in-law.
Jiang Chun sighed inwardly. Looks like her family wouldn’t be buying a donkey cart anytime soon.
Since the matter was urgent, Zheng Yi didn’t ask where she got those items. He went into his bedroom, opened the money box, and took out two five-tael silver ingots, stuffed them into the bundle, picked it up, and went out the door.
As he walked, he said, “Don’t go sell meat today. Just stay here at my place.”
Jiang Chun was also afraid that Liu Qitan wouldn’t give up and would send more retainers to her meat stall to cause trouble, so she listened to Zheng Yi’s arrangement.
She was also worried that if Liu Qitan’s men couldn’t find her, they might go to Daliushu Village and harass Jiang He and Song Shi’an, so she asked her cousin Zheng Peng to go to her home and tell her father and husband to go hide.
An hour later, Zheng Peng returned and told Jiang Chun: “The two of them went to hide at the clan leader’s house. Uncle told you not to worry about them, just stay hidden at our house and definitely don’t run around.”
Hearing this, Jiang Chun finally let out a sigh of relief.
But the situation was still grim. Zheng Yi was out the entire day, and didn’t return until dusk, looking thoroughly exhausted.
Facing Jiang Chun’s hopeful gaze, he shook his head and said with difficulty, “Zhao-langjun said the Liu family is too powerful. And you’ve beaten Liu-gongzi’s people so severely — Liu-gongzi definitely won’t let this go. He doesn’t dare help, or else he’ll get scolded to death by the county magistrate.”
He handed the bundle Jiang Chun had given him back to her, sighing: “He didn’t accept the things. I tried to force it into his hands, and he still wouldn’t take them. That man is normally as greedy for money as for his life. Now that even he doesn’t dare accept our things, it seems he really doesn’t dare provoke the Liu family.”
Jiang Chun pressed her lips together.
Well, yes — the county magistrate was a seventh-rank official, but Liu Qitan’s grandfather was a proper fourth-rank prefectural magistrate. One rank higher could crush a person to death, not to mention the Liu family didn’t only have him in officialdom.
Could it be that she had to take Jiang He and Song Shi’an and start living a fugitive’s life?
She and her father both had strong, robust bodies and also had the skill of slaughtering pigs — wherever they ran, they could make a living.
But Song Shi’an had a frail body — a gust of wind could blow him over — how could he withstand such a tossing around?
Looks like before she fled, she would have to first divorce her husband?
Tch, she’d been too conservative before. If she’d known there would be a day like this, she would’ve taken more advantage of him. Truly a huge loss!