“What?”
Upon hearing Tu Laoda’s words, Officer Ge and Skinny Wu reacted strongly.
Drunk? Who’s drunk?
The two of them immediately set aside their doubts about whether Yu Li was human and hurriedly moved closer, boldly staring at her face.
During the journey, out of respect and awe for Yu Li, they had not dared to look directly at her.
Because of this, they hadn’t noticed anything unusual about her.
When they saw the flush on her face, it was especially noticeable against her pale complexion, a red so conspicuous that it seemed anything but normal.
Could it be that she was sick?
But if she were sick, how could she still carry them around everywhere, even single-handedly wipe out an entire bandit stronghold? That’s way too incredible, right? Then again, a drunk person managing to wipe out so many bandits doesn’t seem normal either.
In any case, only someone drunk could behave so irrationally.
For example, instead of using the city gate, she had carried them over the city wall during a festival, forcing them to come here and eradicate the bandits…
So, aside from being drunk, there was no other explanation.
Understanding this, the two of them felt deeply conflicted.
Was this what you’d call drunken madness? When other people get drunk and act out, at most they might trouble a few friends or family members. When she gets drunk, she wipes out an entire bandit stronghold.
Terrifying!
Tu Laoda, unaware of what was going through their minds, saw them edging closer to Yu Li and waved his fan-like hands to push them aside, preventing them from getting near.
“What are you doing? Stay away from her.”
Although the two constantly addressed Yu Li as “Boss Li,” Tu Laoda still felt these two didn’t look like good people. Now that Yu Li was drunk, he was worried she might be taken advantage of by some men. One must be cautious.
Officer Ge and Skinny Wu, still feeling distressed, didn’t dare do anything when they were pushed aside.
This group’s identities were clearly not ordinary. Not to mention someone like Skinny Wu, even Officer Ge, who was a law enforcement officer, wouldn’t dare act out in front of them.
They still harbored some resentment about being dragged along by a drunk Yu Li to eradicate bandits.
But when they looked at the group of injured bandits lying on the ground, they suddenly felt it wasn’t such a big deal after all.
Compared to these bandits who had been severely beaten, the two of them were still intact, with all their limbs in place and no body parts missing. It seemed Boss Li had been quite merciful to them.
In that moment, Officer Ge and Skinny Wu couldn’t help but feel a sense of gratitude toward Yu Li.
Gratitude for her leniency.
Tu Laoda, keeping the two away, turned to the stunned young man not far away and said, “Young Master Xuan, have someone tie up these bandits first.”
Although the bandits were all injured, to be safe, it was better to restrain them.
Xuan Huaiqing, still in shock, absentmindedly responded and then turned to instruct the guards to do the task.
He then looked at Yu Li, standing there, finding it truly hard to believe.
With a face full of disbelief, he asked, “Uncle Tu, is she really Miss Yu?” The Yu Li he remembered didn’t look like this—he even wondered if there was something wrong with his eyes.
Tu Laoda nodded affirmatively and said, “Young Master Xuan, she is indeed Li Niang.” Seeing his continued disbelief, he actually understood and explained, “Didn’t I tell you last month about her falling ill? The doctor said her body was severely depleted and prescribed medicine for her to recover. She’s been taking care of herself for over a month and has become like this.”
Xuan Huaiqing froze for a moment.
He did recall Tu Laoda mentioning it. At that time, he had even expressed concern and considered bringing a skilled doctor from the provincial city to Shanping County to examine her.
Yu Li had once saved his life, and he was naturally grateful to her and concerned about her well-being.
Earlier, he had been recovering from his injuries in the provincial city, and the spies from Nanzhao had been troublesome, leaving him no time to visit. He could only entrust Tu Laoda to take care of her.
When Tu Laoda occasionally visited the provincial city, he would mention Yu Li’s situation in passing. However, since Yu Li was a married woman, and Tu Laoda was a man with a sense of propriety, he didn’t go into too much detail, nor did he mention her current transformation.
Xuan Huaiqing had never imagined that in just a few months, Yu Li could change so drastically.
When he first met her, she had been a thin, almost misshapen young woman, not at all attractive—in fact, she could be described as rather ugly.
But now, standing under the moonlight, this girl with glowing white skin and delicate features bore no resemblance to that first impression—though upon closer inspection, her face was still the same. Her facial features hadn’t changed; it was just that she must have originally looked like this, but her extreme thinness had made her appear unattractive before.
“So, is her body fully recovered now?” Xuan Huaiqing asked uncertainly.
Tu Laoda said, “From what she said, her body is almost healed, and she’ll soon no longer need to take the medicine.”
Xuan Huaiqing felt relieved and glanced again at Yu Li, who was obediently standing there. He still wasn’t used to her current appearance and couldn’t help but ask again, “Why… why did she come here?”
When he learned that this person was Yu Li, his mind had completely blanked out.
She was the “Boss Li” those two men had been referring to? He just couldn’t associate Yu Li with something like eliminating bandits, which explained his earlier shock and lack of response.
As they spoke, Yu Li turned her head to look at him.
Xuan Huaiqing met her gaze and suddenly felt his face redden. He wasn’t quite able to adapt to this version of Yu Li and asked, “Miss Yu, do you still remember me?”
Yu Li looked at him expressionlessly and said, “I remember. You’re Xuan Huaiqing.”
Xuan Huaiqing was delighted and asked, “Why are you here?”
“Eradicating bandits,” Yu Li answered politely.
Xuan Huaiqing asked in confusion, “Why would you want to eradicate bandits?”
Her expression was serious. “Because they threaten the normal survival of humans and must be dealt with.”
Hearing this, both Xuan Huaiqing and Tu Laoda were a bit dumbfounded.
Did she mean that these bandits threatened the normal lives of the common people?
That interpretation wasn’t wrong.
It was precisely for this reason that they had chosen to take action today, to eliminate the bandits of Qingya Mountain, sparing the people of this area from further harm. Many merchant caravans had fallen victim to the bandits here and no longer dared to take this route.
“Miss Yu, thank you so much!” Xuan Huaiqing said sincerely, feeling that she was truly a good person. “The people will be grateful to you.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Xuan Huaiqing noticed the collapsed mountainside and couldn’t help but ask, “By the way, do you know what caused that sudden collapse over there? Earlier, we were at the foot of the mountain when we heard the commotion and rushed over.”
At the time, they had thought it was a landslide—and it turned out to be true.
Luckily, the scope of the landslide was very small, causing no real danger. It was limited to the valley and didn’t affect the people living near Qingya Mountain.
Yu Li blinked once and slowly said, “I did it.”
Xuan Huaiqing: “…”
Tu Laoda: “…”
Skinny Wu and Officer Ge on the side: “…”
The four of them stared at her in disbelief, thinking they must have misheard.
She did it?
What did she do? How could she have caused part of the mountain to collapse?
Yu Li didn’t offer much explanation. She bent down, picked up a seemingly solid rock from the ground, and, right in front of their eyes, crushed it in her hand.
The powdered remains slipped from her palm, carried away by the night wind, dispersing into the air.
After finishing, she said, “I’m strong.”
The scene was strikingly straightforward. The rock in her hand was like a clump of powder, disintegrating with just a light squeeze.
Everyone stared blankly at her hand, even doubting for a moment if what she had picked up was really a rock and not just a handful of powder to begin with.
Xuan Huaiqing instinctively used his foot to press down on a rock on the ground. It was solid, and his foot couldn’t crush it at all.
So her strength was genuinely immense—so immense that she could even collapse a mountainside?
That must be it, right?
Even Tu Laoda, who prided himself on having seen a lot in life, couldn’t help but swallow nervously.
With some unintentional caution, he asked, “Li Niang, why did you make it collapse?”
“To force them out of the houses,” Yu Li pointed at the group of bandits on the ground. “I didn’t feel like calling them out one by one, so I made them come out on their own.”
So, things were exactly as they had guessed.
The sudden collapse of the mountainside—which, to the uninformed, might have seemed like an earthquake—had scared even the heaviest sleepers into fleeing their houses in panic, only to be captured outside by Yu Li in one fell swoop.
There was no need to search house by house.
Skinny Wu and Officer Ge had already gone numb.
They had long known how terrifying Boss Li was, but this moment gave them a whole new, vivid understanding.
Now, they could finally give up any thoughts of resistance. From this point on, if she told them to go east, they wouldn’t dare to go west. If she told them to sleep, they wouldn’t dare open their eyes.
Tu Laoda and Xuan Huaiqing quickly calmed down.
While her strength might be ridiculously excessive, the world wasn’t lacking in extraordinary people. One more Yu Li with absurd strength didn’t seem too out of place.
Moreover, since Yu Li had once saved Xuan Huaiqing’s life, the two of them accepted the situation naturally.
Xuan Huaiqing even exclaimed in admiration, “Miss Yu, your strength is truly remarkable!”
“Not really,” Yu Li tilted her head to look at him and gave an example for comparison. “As long as I can beat the wild beasts in the mountains, that’s enough.”
Everyone: “…..” Do you have some misunderstanding about the strength of the wild beasts in the mountains? With that kind of strength, even the fiercest beasts would tuck their tails and run away, right?
Over there, the guards had found some ropes in the houses and were tying up the bandits on the ground.
This was the smoothest bandit eradication operation they had ever experienced, and it felt almost unbelievable. They couldn’t help but glance repeatedly in Yu Li’s direction, curious about her identity.
When they realized that Young Master Xuan seemed to know her, they quickly put away their curiosity and refrained from prying further.
Skinny Wu and Officer Ge were also called over to help.
Since there weren’t enough ropes in the bandit stronghold, the two of them began stripping the bandits of their clothes, tearing them into strips and twisting them into makeshift ropes to tie the bandits up.
This method was something Officer Ge had learned from Yu Li. The first time he saw it was when Yu Li had torn his clothes to bind his hands and feet.
Tu Laoda glanced at the two of them. When he had first encountered them at the foot of the mountain, he hadn’t given it much thought. But now that he knew the “Boss Li” they spoke of was Yu Li, he couldn’t help but find it strange.
He asked, “Li Niang, how do you know them? And why do they call you ‘Boss Li’?”
Nearby, Skinny Wu and Officer Ge froze in place.
Yu Li was very straightforward: “Because I beat them into submission, so they started calling me that.”
Tu Laoda: “…”
Xuan Huaiqing, on the other hand, widened his eyes in surprise, glancing back and forth between her and the two men.
Tu Laoda, ever sharp, asked, “What did they do?”
Otherwise, why would she beat them in the first place?
Xuan Huaiqing also realized something was off. He looked at Skinny Wu and Officer Ge with displeasure. Though he wasn’t very familiar with Yu Li, the fact that even when drunk she had still focused on eradicating bandits—and had already succeeded—showed that she was a kind-hearted girl with a strong sense of justice. She definitely wouldn’t beat people for no reason.