Alone, Beautifully – Chapter 102
by Little PandaMy Wife (14)
“Shh.”
Anger slowly began to permeate after realization.
Not only was the nominal younger brother splashed with soup, but even Xu Dashu, who was smoking outside and preparing to walk into the room, was stunned by this unexpected event. The father and son’s anger seemed contagious, spreading between them, moment to moment—
Younger brother Xu Jiayao raised his hand and overturned the dinner table without any interest in rummaging through Xu Jiao’s schoolbag, casually throwing that broken bag into the corner of the wall. He stepped forward two steps, intending to grab Xu Jiao’s collar.
“You dare treat me like this? Are you crazy?”
Xu Dashu placed his cigarette stick on a nearby chair in the corner, shrugged his shoulders, causing the blue coat draped over them to fall to the ground. He casually grabbed the fire tongs used for clamping coal from the room’s corner, eyes wide open, and with full vigor, said to Xu Jiao:
“I see you’ve really learned bad things outside, and your courage has grown. If I don’t teach you a lesson today, you’ll try to climb over your father’s head!”
In the kitchen, Mother Xu heard the huge noise of the table flipping, holding a vegetable knife, she walked out a few steps, nagging, “What happened, what happened?” When she discovered it was Xu Jiao who angered the father and son, she turned back her gaze and just wanted to continue with her own tasks. However, in that moment of distraction, she noticed the sticky trace of seaweed egg flower on Xu Jiayao’s head.
The woman with broad shoulders and wide waist held the knife with a hand that bore the shine of years of oil that couldn’t be cleaned, but the knife handle did not slip in her hand. She rushed over directly, her voice booming with the force of an angry river:
“You worthless thing deserving a thousand cuts! You actually dare treat my son like this!”
They’ve all been working for years, and except for Xu Jiayao, whose large build is more for show than use, the couple are actually skilled in double fights. If Xu Jiao were truly as weak as the original owner, with no strength or means to resist, today’s trip likely wouldn’t be a return home but a step into the gates of hell.
Usually, when the original owner saw them like this, she could only maintain a stubborn facade and then run as far as possible to avoid being caught. Otherwise, being whipped with a bamboo pole or belt was the least of it. These terrible parents, who regarded beating children as a matter of course, wouldn’t feel a trace of guilt even if they killed the children they deemed useless.
But Xu Jiao isn’t someone who will indulge these people like a soft persimmon.
Since some people can’t be reasoned with, then use the way they’re most adept at to beat them into submission before speaking—
Before Mother Xu could rush over, Xu Jiao first kicked Xu Jiayao out of the battle and dodged Xu Dashu’s head-on smash with the iron tongs. The whooshing wind sound brushed past her ears. Her skills, though not as powerful as in the first world, in that cultivation world, she learned more than just moves that relied on spiritual energy.
Hundreds of years of day-by-day, year-by-year practice of moves easily surfaced in her mind, even if she hadn’t recalled them for a long time. Cultivators first cultivate the body, then the mind. In that world, even the weakest pill cultivators were far superior in constitution to ordinary people, let alone a Kunlun disciple.
Despite Xu Jiao not having reviewed much now, and this body not having much strength, it didn’t hinder her from using leverage to strike with strength. Relying on her slender body and speed, she dodged the terrifying coal fire tongs coming towards her face from Xu Dashu.
And she also took the time to grab fallen dry firewood branches from the hall beside her and whipped his face twice.
All this happened in a very short time.
Mother Xu rushed out from the kitchen with red eyes. She originally planned to put down the vegetable knife and change to other things when she got closer, as she also hated causing death and being caught by the police. But seeing Xu Jiao attempting to climb the house and uncover tiles, hitting her son and again hitting the father, she could no longer endure and planned to clean up the house today.
But somehow, just when she was about to run in front of Xu Jiao, she suddenly did a big fall right there. Her fat body fell to the ground with a “thud,” followed by a pig-slaughtering-like “ouch” sound.
“Murder! The unfilial daughter is committing murder! This heartless thing, is there no justice? Is there no one to take charge?”
The vegetable knife fell to the ground, accompanied by the woman’s wailing cries. Very soon, the neighbors on the left and right could no longer pretend to be deaf and dumb. They came one after another to the Xu family’s yard to peek, and those with more courage raised their voices to ask:
“Old Xu, what’s happening in your family?”
Xu Jiao looked at Xu Dashu, who was now leaning against the wall, using the fire tongs as a crutch, gasping from the previous wide movements and unable to stand steadily. Then she looked at Xu Jiayao, rolling on the ground holding his stomach and groaning, and then at Mother Xu, who sat on the ground starting her moral blackmail. Calmly, she casually pulled a long bench behind her to sit down.
With her arms crossed, she seemed as though the family martial arts show earlier wasn’t even enough of a warm-up. Her face showed a leisurely expression as she watched the farce, as if she wasn’t one of the involved parties at all.
Xu Dashu, looking at her appearance, thought about just now, when several times in a row, his actions clearly aimed at her yet hit nothing. Not knowing what he thought of, his eyes flashed with some disgust and fear.
He did not continue to take action.
Instead, he raised his voice and said to the people outside, “Nothing’s the matter, the stinky woman cut her hand while chopping meat, it’s all fine, you all go back.”
People in the village always rush to where there is excitement.
Although when Xu Jiao was being beaten, they would not come out to intervene, instead, they would smile, indifferent, and say sarcastic remarks like either Old Xu raised a thankless wolf, or don’t hit, if it causes death, the police will come. In short, they found watching the excitement very satisfying.
Relatively, if they saw Xu Jiao take action against Xu Dashu, it would be the same principle. As long as no one was killed, they would at most say a couple of sentences about Xu Jiao having no conscience and being immature, and that Old Xu couldn’t teach his child, while ignoring everything else.
They might even use this matter as a topic of conversation, throwing Xu Dashu’s dignity to the neighboring village.
Xu Dashu, knowing the nature of the village people well, did not want to be watched at his age for excitement. After driving everyone away, he looked down at his wife sitting on the ground crying, and shouted loudly:
“Enough!”
“Isn’t losing face enough for you? You want the whole village to see that we raised a thankless wolf, and now she’s bitten back!”
Xu Jiao raised her eyebrows, almost wanting to praise aloud: Not bad, you actually understand the word “repercussion,” Old Xu’s cultural level isn’t low.
Mother Xu cursed angrily at him, shouting, “What’s enough! You useless waste, you can’t even beat a girl, what do I need you for? Since marrying you, I’ve done so many things for you, and you! A few years ago, you were entangled with that widow from the neighboring village, making me unable to raise my head before the in-laws. Now it’s good, the whole village knows you can’t even control a girl, making me and my son suffer grievances with you!”
This unexpected tirade left Xu Jiao completely unprepared. Her bored gaze swept over these two people, then looked at Xu Jiayao, who started wailing on the side, and she slowly shook her head, inserting a sentence:
“Don’t want to continue fighting, do you?”
“Then I’ll say two things. First, please don’t go to the school to find trouble with me, or else I’ll beat you in front of the teachers, and dropping out to retake the exam again is quite troublesome. Second, I won’t agree to marry into any messed-up ghost marriage, so stop considering me for that.”
“That’s it, I’m going back to my room to rest.”
Finished speaking, Xu Jiao, as if no one else was present, walked towards her backpack. While Xu Jiayao was crying and trying to lift his foot to kick her, she quickly stepped on his ankle and twisted it hard, then lifted the curtain without looking back and walked to another room outside.
Behind her was Xu Jiayao’s cry of pain—
“Mom! Mom, my foot hurts so much, did she break it by stepping on it! Mom! I want to kill her! What’s wrong with you and dad, how can you not even beat Xu Jiao!”
Faintly, there were still Mother Xu’s comforting words: “Don’t fear, don’t fear, mom will take you to see, we’ll now go find the county’s doctor. If she dares to hurt you, I’ll definitely make her pay!”
Xu Jiao actually didn’t have a separate room in this house.
From a young age, she slept in Xu Jiayao’s room. When this younger brother was still a baby, their irresponsible parents would hand the child over to her at night, letting her get up at midnight to make milk powder, change diapers, and coax him to sleep. Occasionally, when the baby’s crying was louder, the original owner would be beaten by the bad-tempered parents who were woken up at midnight.
Later, when Xu Jiayao slowly started going to school, she would get up to make breakfast for her younger brother and send him to school. During primary school, it was still okay, but later the original owner went to middle school, and the two schools weren’t close. Xu Jiao became a habitual latecomer at school, punished every day by the teacher to stand at the class door, listening to the morning classes from outside the wall.
After nine years of compulsory education, the Xu family didn’t allow her to study further and urged her to go out to work to earn money for her younger brother’s studies. Xu Jiao wasn’t willing. Fortunately, at that time, the high school saw her good grades, pitied her, and waived her tuition. She stubbornly relied on doing farming work for neighbors during busy agricultural times to exchange money for her usual living expenses.
Even so, Mother Xu would often take advantage of her inattention to take all her money, nicely naming it because girls shouldn’t have too much money in their hands, as having too much money would lead them astray.
Later, the university exams were also stumbling, and if it wasn’t for Xu Jiao having a good relationship with the local postal worker, hiding the university admission letter in an iron box under a stone behind the mountain stack in her village and taking it out to look at every day while cutting firewood, she might not have been able to attend this school.
Now, opening the room and looking, Xu Jiao indeed saw that the entire room was filled with Xu Jiayao’s things. Mother Xu had tidied everything neatly, and there was even a wooden desk that looked quite stable and suitable for studying. It’s just unclear if the rather ugly younger brother’s mind had been specially enlightened.
If not, this desk would mostly be useless.
Following the original owner’s memory, she familiarly opened the cabinet and indeed found a brand new quilt. At the same time, she opened the door and threw all the messy-looking things outside.
Inside the hall.
Xu Jiayao, like a big-headed doll, was held in Mother Xu’s bosom and coaxed for a while before he stopped crying, though his attitude was still unyielding: “She’s so arrogant, can’t you control her? Now she dares to treat me like this, and when you’re not around, won’t she hit me like a sandbag? Whether she’s in a bad mood or a good mood, she hits me. Just thinking about it scares me—she might even steal my money and spend it.”
“Father, Mother, think of a way! I don’t want to be bullied by her!”
Mother Xu wiped his head with a cloth, still feeling it wasn’t clean, and wanted to pull him up to wash his hair. Hearing these words, she couldn’t help but exchange a glance with Xu Dashu, the couple not knowing what they were thinking, but they remained silent.
After a long time, Xu Dashu picked up the smoking pipe again, placing the charcoal tongs at his feet, and took big puffs. In the lingering smoke, he squinted his eyes and casually said:
“Wait.”
“Wait for the master to come, then everything will be good.”
Xu Jiayao didn’t hear clearly for a moment, with tears hanging at the corner of his eyes, he looked at Mother Xu: “Mom, what did Dad just say? What will be good?”
Mother Xu gently patted his back, her expression showing a bit of fear, and only said: “Children shouldn’t ask so much, get up, Mom will help you wash your hair.”
Xu Jiayao blankly replied with an “oh,” and got up with her, then walked in the direction outside. As a result, he immediately saw that the light in his room was on, and outside on the ground was a mat covered with many clothes.
He looked closely and saw that the topmost ones were exactly the new clothes he and a friend had bought two days ago when they went into the city.
Xu Jiayao immediately rushed over, saw Xu Jiao inside the room raising her eyes to look over, then nonchalantly continued to throw his clothes outside. At the instant their eyes met, he thought of the kick from earlier, and his stomach faintly ached again, causing him to subconsciously step back.
Then, he pointed in the direction of his own room and loudly said to Mother Xu:
“Mom! She threw my clothes out! She threw all my things out! She wants to rebel!”
Mother Xu, recalling how she inexplicably fell over when rushing toward Xu Jiao earlier, felt a headache from Xu Jiayao’s instigation and couldn’t help but shout: “Enough! If they’re thrown out, then they’re thrown out! Would you dare to sleep in the same room with her at night? Aren’t you afraid she’d beat you to death?”
Following these words, Xu Jiayao, not knowing what terrible scene he imagined, immediately shut his mouth tightly and stopped making noise.
Mother Xu said again: “Come wash your hair, don’t look, I’ll help you tidy up in a while, and tonight you can come to my room and squeeze in with your dad.”
Xu Jiayao thought of the bed in his parents’ room that creaks as soon as you lie down, and his face showed a bit of annoyance. He couldn’t help but quietly protest: “I don’t want to sleep with you and Dad; he always snores, and your room stinks. I don’t want to go.”
Mother Xu had filled half the hot water and rolled her eyes at him, “Then you go to the hall outside and make a floor bed. I’ll arrange bedding for you. You haven’t even supported us yet, and you’re already starting to dislike it. Later, who knows what you’ll pick.”
Xu Jiayao thought about how he and his friend had agreed to go to the county to stay overnight at an internet cafe in a couple of days, but he had no money. Immediately, he showed a smile, obediently going over to Mother Xu, and quietly said:
“Mom, what are you saying!”
“When you and Dad are old, I will definitely have earned a lot of money. I’ll hire a nanny to serve you every day at your bedside, bringing fruit right to you, and personally feeding you.”
Mother Xu was coaxed into laughter by him, her movements gentle as she washed and scrubbed his head, muttering, “You still have a conscience; Mom didn’t love you in vain.”
Xu Jiao heard the mother-son filial conversation outside and unexpectedly found a small bottle of perfume that Qian Ai had given her at some unknown time in her bag. She finally used the faint floral scent to remove the annoying smell in the room, then sprayed perfume toward the corner, yawning as her face showed a bit of tiredness.
After the door closed, Zheng Zhiyu came out from her shadow, dressed in red clothes, standing in the old earthen house. The old colors in the room contrasted with her bright appearance, catching people’s eyes. It’s unclear whether she realized this, but anyway, Xu Jiao only saw her standing there motionless, staring in the direction of the door.
Also unclear what idea she was thinking of.
Xu Jiao changed the bedding such as the quilt again, sat on the bed’s edge, yawned, and said to Zheng Zhiyu: “Thank you for what you did just now, good night.”
She knew that during the earlier fight with the family, Zheng Zhiyu had secretly helped her, for example, swinging away Xu Dashu’s tongs and tripping Mother Xu to make her fall.
If not for this, who knows when this family martial fight would have ended.
Xu Jiao reflected on the fact that she usually didn’t exercise enough, pulled open the embroidered big red quilt, and lay down in the direction of the bed, but her stomach grumbled at that moment.
She remembered that she hadn’t eaten dinner.
Zheng Zhiyu’s dark eyes stared at her, and in an eerie voice, she said: “They treat you this way, they simply don’t deserve to be parents, better not…”
Xu Jiao interrupted her thought: “No need, there won’t be any relationship in the future. I just came back to warn them. I’ll rest tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow, I’ll return to school.”
Zheng Zhiyu looked at her, her tone somewhat resentful: “But they didn’t even give you a meal…”
Xu Jiao thought for a moment: “I brought money, tomorrow I can go to the village’s shop to buy some instant noodles and bread, it’s not a big problem.”
Zheng Zhiyu didn’t seem convinced by her, and in front of Xu Jiao, she directly passed through the door. Xu Jiao waited for a long time, but didn’t see her return, and there were no fearful sounds coming from next door, so she didn’t think much of it and calmly covered herself with the quilt and went to sleep.
Midnight.
Xu Jiao had already fallen asleep when she suddenly heard a very loud scream. She groggily opened her eyes, first seeing Zheng Zhiyu in red standing in front of her, then smelling the aroma of meat.
Zheng Zhiyu pointed at the plate of hand-pulled chicken in her hand, with a small bowl of sauce on the plate’s edge. Xu Jiao’s gaze fixed on the tender, smooth chicken and she distractedly asked:
“How did this come? What’s the noise next door?”
Zheng Zhiyu just pushed the plate in her hand toward her: “Just eat, asking so much—how would I know what the noise next door is, maybe they just had a nightmare.”
Xu Jiao looked at her skeptically.
This scream was obviously Xu Jiayao’s, and screaming so miserably was mostly because he was scared by something. Combined with Zheng Zhiyu’s identity, if Xu Jiayao’s situation wasn’t related to her, Xu Jiao could unscrew her own head and kick it like a ball.
She and Zheng Zhiyu stared at each other for a few seconds, ultimately unable to resist the temptation of the plate of chicken. She raised her hand to pull out a wet tissue from her bag, tore open the package, wiped her hands, and then picked up chopsticks to eat the meat. This chicken wasn’t cut neatly with a knife; instead, it appeared to be casually torn. But because of this, it gave people a sense of joy from eating meat heartily.
Xu Jiao tasted with her tongue; this meat was either steamed or boiled with soup, and it was taken off the pot at just the right time when it was cooked, so the skin and meat were very fresh and delicious. The chicken should be a free-range local chicken from this rural area, so the meat texture was firm.
In one word, satisfying!
While eating, she searched her memory to see if Mother Xu had ever made such a dish, but whether looking at tonight’s dining table or searching the original owner’s memory, Mother Xu mostly made slop-like one-pot boils, and chicken and duck meat were often used for dry frying. There was absolutely no such method, so she couldn’t help but guess:
“Where did you find this dish?”
Zheng Zhiyu held the plate, crouched down, looked up at her, and didn’t answer the question, only asked: “Is it delicious?”
Xu Jiao nodded seriously.
Probably because she was too hungry, this plate of chicken tasted like the most delicious thing she had ever eaten.
Zheng Zhiyu squinted her eyes and muttered, “Then it’s fine, their chicken is considered to be raised quite well.”
Xu Jiao, with sharp ears, heard this sentence in the quiet house, and couldn’t help but raise her eyebrows, thinking of the closed chicken coop she saw when entering. She couldn’t help but ask:
“Did you make this?”
Zheng Zhiyu curled her lips: “Why, can’t I do it?”
Xu Jiao remained silent.
Compared to the warm atmosphere in this house, next door, Xu Jiayao was filled with shock and fear, thinking of the red-clothed female ghost he saw when he went out to relieve himself at midnight. He hugged Mother Xu, trembling:
“Really! Mom! There’s really a ghost!”
“Help, mom!”
Mother Xu slapped him on the head, this time with real force: “Ghost, what ghost! I’m here, I want to see what ghost dares to come! You quickly go to sleep for your old mother!”
Xu Jiayao didn’t listen, only cried, but perhaps his parents gave him an immense sense of security, so near dawn, he also fell asleep.
After he slept, the two parents didn’t fall asleep.
Mother Xu spoke first: “Old man…”
Xu Dashu responded with a “hmm,” still saying the same thing: “It’s sinful. Wait for the master to come, when he comes, everything will be fine. You don’t fear, none of you should fear, she doesn’t dare to do anything.”
He muttered like this, and when dawn came, he got up early and went out the door, not seen for the entire day.
On the second day, Xu Jiao was quite happy in the countryside.
She didn’t need to do housework again, nor be bound by terrible people. Even eating instant noodles felt extremely delicious. She didn’t stay at home all day, carrying her bag on her back, and went for a spring outing on the village’s mountain.
In the evening, she returned to the house as usual.
However, as soon as she pushed the door open, she stepped back, and at the same time, Zheng Zhiyu came out from her shadow and asked: “What happened?”
Xu Jiao said: “This house really hides smells too well, just cleaned yesterday, went out for a day today, and it’s stinky again.”
Zheng Zhiyu said helplessly to her: “I’ll come help you clean.”
Xu Jiao shook her head, seeing the Xu family couple were not present, pulled Zheng Zhiyu to walk inside: “Actually, no need, I can just—”
Before she finished her sentence.
Her vision suddenly went dark.
When she woke up again.
Xu Jiao found that in front of her was still darkness.
As she reached out, she could touch something smooth. She knocked and heard the sound of wood. Her hands and feet both tried to reach, only then did she realize…
This seemed to be inside a rectangular wooden box.
Wait.
This kind of thing, if not a wardrobe, is a coffin.
Xu Jiao raised her hand forcefully to remove the darkness above her head. At the same time, the slightly cool area beneath her suddenly had an icy cold spread, then, a hand grasped her wrist and gently made a sound to her:
“Shh.”
Xu Jiao: “!”
It’s Zheng Zhiyu!
What is going on?
Why are both of them in this space? What are the Xu family couple doing again?
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